Kinfolk Magazine

I just got back from market, and I'm turning around to head out for the weekend! We are heading out to Wintergreen, VA with some friends for the weekend. We've rented a house with TWO fireplaces, and I'm looking forward to making some delicious meals, roasting s'mores and catching up with dear friends. They are calling for snow too, so we may take a snowy hike in the mountains! I will post about market once I get back next week and have my pictures uploaded.

I wanted to leave you with a fantastic online community and magazine that a dear friend passed my way. It's called Kinfolk Magazine, and it had me from the moment I clicked play on their opening video. This community of people are passionate about small gatherings around a table of food, a garden, tea time, etc. They desire to celebrate the beauty in simple gatherings and have successfully found a way to visually display this desire through their stunning website and magazine. The photographs and music are an aesthetic masterpiece. I literally want to jump into the screen and hang out with these people. Thankfully, I'll be doing a bit of this small gathering with my friends who appreciate simple gatherings. Enjoy!

(ps. the music is hauntingly beautiful too)

vol. 1 from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

Have a Stylish Weekend!

Hi Friends! I'm off to High Point, NC this morning for market. I'm excited to see what is new this fall and to discover some new vendors. I look forward to sharing photos and the new trends with you when I return late next week. I'm also looking forward to catching up with my dear friend, Anna Applegate, who is a designer in NC and meeting my dear friend Kelly's fiance for the first time! I love it when I can mix business and pleasure!

I leave you this weekend with a fantastic site I came across called The Glow. It documents stylish moms and their kids (you'll recognize some of the moms). I love how they did short interviews on the side that allows you a glimpse into their lives as moms and working women. It begs the question-do they have it all? I only hope to be as stylish as these moms when we have our five kids! Maybe I should just keep my expectations low, like at least have clean underwear on every day. TMI, sorry.

Cynthia Rowley -

PS. Check out her amazing dining room "homework spot" - I love everything about it!

Jenne Lombardo

Athena Calderone

Washington Post House Calls and Chat

Good morning, friends! Just a reminder if you'd like to join in on the live chat with me and Post writers, Terri Sapienza and Jura Koncius, grab a cup of coffee (or your second or third cup!) and click here at 11 am.

I'm also grateful for having the opportunity to provide a quick design solution in today's Post House Calls for a couple in their new home. You can check out the full article here.

Let's Chat!

Join me tomorrow (Thursday) from 11am -12pm as I join Washington Post staff writers, Terri Sapienza and Jura Koncius, to answer readers' questions about interior decorating and home improvements via a live chat. Thank you to the Post for asking me to be their guest!

Dating + Design

Dorothy Draper said it best, "Decorating is Fun!" And it should be a fun process for both client and designer.

The key to a successful interior design project is finding the right match between a client and their designer (and vice versa). When meeting with a potential client, I often refer to finding an interior designer is similar to dating. It's important to find someone who "gets" you - where there is a natural chemistry and someone who is going to make the project fun! There are a lot of details, time and money that go into a project, however, I believe that the client should enjoy the process. A designer that makes you feel comfortable, allowing you to trust them is a pretty good indicator that there is a spark!

When meeting with new clients, I do my best to explain the full process of hiring an interior designer and how a room is completed from start to finish. Many of my clients have never worked with a designer before, and educating the client about how the industry works and how you, personally, run your design business is foundational to getting the relationship off on the right foot.

Of course, once you think you've "met the one," it still takes time getting to know each other and fully articulating the vision you have/or don't have for your project. As a designer, I always encourage my clients to flip through magazines and pull out pages that have jumped out at them. It may not be a complete room they've fallen in love with, but maybe it's a small element such as a mantle design or a specific chair. Interior designers, unfortunately, are not mind readers, so any feedback and information we can pull from the client helps us to efficiently and accurately design your space. In turn, my job is to listen intently and then relay back to my client what I heard them say to make sure we are on the same page. Trust me, I've had some bad hair cuts even after I've shown a picture to my hair dresser what I want, but then have walked out with a horrible cut knowing that they didn't hear a lick of what I said! Which then costs me more money to find someone else to fix it!

I recently came across a great article explaining the beauty of finding an interior designer you've fallen in love with. It can be a beautiful thing both figuratively and literally!