/INSPIRATION
On the Power of Restraint
One of ELLE Decor's last covers was titled “The Power Of Restraint: When To Change Everything Or Nothing At All”. It is not often a designer gets hired to accomplish the latter, but here I was, on the « île enchantée », an island that has remained untouched and...
Kelly Wearstler has gone and done it again
Kelly Wearstler has gone and done it again. The just opened Proper Hotel Santa Monica has all the markings of an instant iconic hotel. Kelly’s proficiency and fluidity in the language of texture has reached new levels. The best kept secret I have for any design geek...
I was the only person in color
I was the only person in color at Restoration Hardware. Until our new home is built I will be wearing our home’s colors. Yes I am going to the dark side and doing beige...but really, did you not get the safari memo? Touches of burnt mud, Masai ochre, Gobi sands, cream...
Hundred years of alterations means one hundred years of layering
Wouldn’t you know that one hundred years of alterations means one hundred years of layering. It takes guts to filet a heritage house. To find the delicate bones beneath the aggregated flesh. Yet this is where the beauty is oft hidden away. There may have been a trying...
My mood boards for the “Paper-mill Safari” concept
My mood boards for the “Paper-mill Safari” concept are shaping up. I give you two of these for illustration. Words of encouragement much appreciated. Building permits are being submitted after being approved by heritage and now it is really down to spatial...
See? You only need to ask once
The Clarendon’s “Moules Frites and Makeout” snug pub where last night some very tired parents (Ottawa euphemism for hungover) had a smorgasbord of meatballs, braised beef, lamb skewers and trout, mushroom demi poutine, fried cauliflower, scotch egg, tomato flatbread...
For all those who think design does not matter in the grand scheme of things.
For all those who think design does not matter in the grand scheme of things: I present Exhibit A. This exuberantly youthful morsel of skittle kitsch served up at Miami’s Airport was just the sunny saccharine pop I needed before a lengthy white knuckle flight home.
The family room off the kitchen is the crown jewel of “The Gingerbread House”.
The family room off the kitchen is the crown jewel of “The Gingerbread House”. If you look at the before picture with puzzlement it is because there is no longer a window where there once was. There are pitfalls to a house that was built before any other on the block...
To me my bathroom has become a sanctuary.
Bathrooms are the unsung heroes of our homes and no matter the level of our own vanity we are in them several times a day for various lengths of time. To me my bathroom has become a sanctuary. It is the room where I regain serenity and solace in solitude. A small...
How to Hustle 101
Part of any business is the hustle. I believe great MBA schools should all have « How To Hustle » 101 all the way to 401. I believe some believe a hustler is born not bred. I believe our children have a leg up on us already. I believe in exploding the square and...
The Bliving Room
Every corner is important in a home. Those who have four are lucky. Those who have more are blessed. Those who have none are deserved of some. I am in the business of making these lost spaces count. Cherish them. Comfort them. Create them. This particular corner has...
How to Cuckhold Covid
How do I start this post. I love writing because I love words. I possibly love words because as a child I was told “children are to be seen but not to be heard”. The written word is still silent. Unless you read out loud. This humbling but warmly coated paternal...
On the Power of Restraint
One of ELLE Decor's last covers was titled “The Power Of Restraint: When To Change Everything Or Nothing At All”. It is not often a designer gets hired to accomplish the latter, but here I was, on the « île enchantée », an island that has remained untouched and...
Like a Pig in Mud With a Long Life Ahead
Little did I know, while sitting pretty at the Ludlow in Lower East Side NYC last autumn, how many things I was taking for granted in this captured moment. The freedom of flying and ease of entering a foreign country, the comfort of an avocado toast served in a...
Be a Scribe to Your Time
Early on in the pandemic (how’s that for a fairytale starting sentence) a spectacular emerging artist from the U.K. who I follow, wrote that artists who didn’t acknowledge this earth shattering shift would be denying or ignoring the completeness and truth of their...
An Unfinished Vignette
Since you have shown love for my unfinished vignettes, here is another one. Curtains are not up, chandelier is in flux, and my bespoke coffee table of my design from a sculptural piece of cedar driftwood I picked out from my lake, has yet to replace these lovely ones...
From Me to We
My bliving room is still not done, and now, only God knows if and when it ever will be, and when or if that will ever matter to me again. Self Isolation is really an eye opening exercise. It is as if Mother Nature put us in timeout to think about what we have done,...
An arch is an arch is an arch
An arch is an arch is an arch said no one to someone in particular. And yet arches have inundated our thirsty souls and spaces with their feminine shape and mystic form. In French one would say arches inspire « le Recueil ». A gathering of meditative and peaceful...
Seeing this picture come to life
I will not be able to adequately express the emotion I had seeing this picture come to life. While a muted morning sun slanted through tall windows, I was sitting in the lobby corner wiling my time away waiting for my son with a hot cup of java at the ready. I had...