Eye Candy from House Beautiful
Made By Girl posted some gorgeous House Beautiful rooms on her blog and the moment I saw her favorites it hit me that I've not yet turned to the HB website as a resource. Time to change that! Look at these spaces, aren't they fabulous? I want to sleep in this bedroom below, the one with the blue chandelier. I love seeing pink, blue, and yellow in a bedroom, don't you? And this room in no way screams teenage. It's very grown up. I think the window treatments really helped pull that room together, so pretty! And do you see what I see below? Kitchen perfection. Look at those tiles and the lemons in the bowl, everything sparkles. Makes me sick, sick, sick! But I still love to look.
Okay, so the HB site is loaded with great images, but aside from that, an abundance of links to terrific websites where you can find products for your home, from plates to sofas and beyond. And if you need color inspiration, HB has a tool that allows you to select a room according to style (cottage, modern, traditional, etc.), and then by color. And then, product round ups. We love us some of those.
I'm the queen of round ups, so I especially enjoy their quick snips, especially the spotlight on 101 great plates (with links!). I went bookmark nuts there.
My ultimate goal in life (besides world peace he he) is to own beautiful china, but not all of the same pattern. I want every single plate to be different, along with all the cups, teacups, and serving platters. As long as it is fine bone china and of the same color palette (pale blues, pinks, greens, yellows), then that would suit me fine. Anyone else have this desire? I know Rachel Ashwell does, because I got the idea from her in one of her books about 7 years ago and haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.
Did I tell you about the time I met her in L.A. at an event I attended there? (I feel chatty today, please forgive me and skip these bits if I'm boring you.)
This was back in '05. I was so star struck that I froze. My husband had to talk to her for me. Then I completely unfroze and turned into a ball of babble. But she liked me and agreed to have her photo taken with me and then, she ran off, returning with one of her books, and handed it to me. I looked inside and she had written a quick blurb about how lovely it was to meet me and all. For the record, all those that are hating on Rachel Ashwell, I happen to like her and the whole white furniture beach cottage look. I find it all very serene and pretty. When I spotted her huge leather Moroccan poufs dotted around her Melrose Ave. store, I fell in love with the laid back bohemian English rose style she is known for. I digress... Back to House Beautiful.
If you aren't already turning to House Beautiful online, hop to it! It's fun to surf through all the rooms and if you aren't already doing this, create a file on your desktop and call it "Inspired By" and start dumping images you find into the file. You can also give it sub folders "Rugs", "Wallpaper", "Lighting", etc. It's a really fun way to keep your inspiration near and dear to you. Of course, there are bookmarking websites and stuff for that as well, but I actually refer more to my Inspired By file because I like being able to collage the images I find onto a white canvas in Fireworks and move things around until they make sense to me, saving the digital inspiration board for future reference.
(images from house beautiful online)