It's Out!!!

The December issue of Better Homes & Gardens magazine featuring our home is out on newstands!!!  I was also chosen as the blogger of the month and am on one of the earlier pages for that.   I fell in love with the other homes featured in it and they all have a fresh, natural feeling that I love. Thank you so much to everyone at BHG, especially, Joanna Lingberg, Jessica Thomas, Helen Norman, F.J. Hughes and Shelley Caldwell.  This has been a dream of mine & I can't thank you enough for making it such a fun & meaningful experience. 

When December arrives, I'll share some of the cool behind-the-scenes/ how-to's from the shoot. 



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Garden Corner

{where plants go to die...  my house}

I love the fun little "garden corner" vignette that photographer Helen Norman & I did during our photo shoot.  We thought it would be fun to show how you can take a simple corner in your living room and turn it into a little plant haven.  The "ball" you see is actually a little pot of baby's tears turned in its side.  (you know how I love balls.)

Helen & her assistant, FJ Hughes, are amazing and I cannot thank them enough for the day.  I abosolutely loooooove plants & especially fresh green ones like ferns and the baby's tears & pearl somethings I found that we used this past week.  I am trying so desperately to keep them alive and would love any tips.  I've been misting daily.  Like a misting freak.  So this better do it.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend and have a beautiful one!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

*photo by Helen Norman

What it's like on a photo shoot

Well, yesterday's over and we did it!!!  We hauled booty and got in all of the shots I needed.  I really can't believe it. 

{not a professional photo..  will get them in a couple of days}

The first time I had some work professionally photographed- about 3 years ago- I was shocked by the amount of photographs shot in a day.  I think we ended up with maybe 7-10 shots??  That number seemed incredibly low to me.  I'd expected lots of angles and multiple options for rooms-  a smorgasboard!!  It's not like that... Every time you change angles, everything changes- lighting, sharpness, accessories need to be moved & tweaked, etc.  Had I been more prepared for what to expect, I'm sure we could have gotten in a few more, but taking even one photo is a long process. 

Some of you left comments about doing different arrangements and having the photographers take multiple arrangements because I was having trouble deciding how to style my house.  This would be so awesome if time weren't limited, but the reality is, that when you hire a photographer (which costs in the thousands) you need to take advantage of every single minute and every rearrangement for a shot is time you could be spending on another photo of another area of the home.  A typical shot can take an hour to an hour and a half... some take as little as 30 minutes- and then there are those magic 50 mm shots that can take 5 seconds.  You know how you typically see 12-20 photos in a magazine spread?  These come from 1-2 full days of shooting and sometimes more. 

Since Helen & FJ had been to my house for the Better Homes & Gardens shoot back in February, we were able to move quickly.  They remembered lighting & angles & important details.  I also take a ton of photographs of my house for this blog & so have tried just about every angle and knew what I liked & wanted. 

I took scouting shots of all of the angles I wanted & put them in a document to show to Helen & FJ.  We were definitely ambitious with the number of shots I needed and with daylight savings time, we fought the light.  We did the whole upstairs of my house (leaving out my uggghhh-still-green-70s bathrooms!) and I was able to get 2 alternate shots ( in the dining room I first set it up for eating and then we set it up for reading which is how we often use it.  We also made a pretty little garden corner in my living room for a nice vignette. )

On a photoshoot where you are paying for a full day, you want to be ready to take your first picture as soon as the light allows to maximize daylight.  You should have a list of all the shots you want to get.  You should know how the light will move about your house.  (Is it bright in the afternoon? morning?  When can you shoot a room?  What time can't you?  If the light is streaming in it strongly through a window it can create "hot" spots in photographs and it's really tough to shoot the room.)  You should have a general gameplan of the order of shots you will be taking and which rooms you'll be shooting at what times of day.  The light is king and it's the one thing you have no control over so let it guide your order of rooms and shots.

It's nice to have extra accessories & arrangements on hand to play with and you should have it all set up the day before.  You can rearrange and tweak once you're looking through the photographer's lense. You move things around for photos...  accessories, furniture, lamps, etc.  Things look really different on camera than they do in real life and the goal is to  make it look on camera as it does in real life.  This takes a lot of tweaking, which takes a lot of time. 

On a photoshoot every second counts so you scarf down lunch and barely remember to go to the bathroom.  It's one of those crazy days where you just plop down at the end and go "'phew."  We had a blast and I can't wait to get the new photos up!!

On another note, I know some of you have emailed with questions & I'm falling really behind on my emails and I apologize.  Work & kids and life are crazy right now and sometimes it feels as if I just can't keep up.  If I don't write you back, please don't think I don't care or am upset, it's just that there are so many balls in the air right now that sometime's it's really hard to manage a blog.  If there's something you haven't heard back about, please email me again.  I hope you can understand!!

Enjoy your day!!




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Carved in stone

{The mantle... playing around with some arrangements.  Don't worry, I'll repot the plants out of plastic}

I'm in the middle of styling my house for a photo shoot taking place tomorrow.  I'm having it done by photographer Helen Norman so my portfolio will look a little better to prospective clients.  There's just something about professional photography that makes a room look so much better than any picture you can take yourself.  (well. myself anyway.)

What's SCARY about this is we're doing one shoot on one day in time and as you can imagine, my house doesn't looks the same for very long.  So how do I decide how I want it??!!  It will be forever immortalized on my website (ok, or for as long as I have a website) and I want it to look its best.  Sort of like a bride on her wedding day.  I want it to be the epitome of my style.  (which is ever-changing, hence, the difficulty here.)  How do I decide??!!! 

It's go-time so I have to run but I'll share pics when I can!!!



ps- Don't worry, I'll wipe the baby's fingerprints off the mirror!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Thanks "Better Homes Ladies"

If you've been reading for a while, you might remember that we had our house photographed in February for this year's Better Homes & Gardens Magazine December/ Holiday 2010 issue.  It will be coming out sometime this month and I can't wait!! 

{an old issue}

I've refused to get silly-pumped for it yet and have really tried not to think too much about it because I'd drive myself crazy with anticipation, but last week as I walked past a magazine newstand , I got tingly-butterflies knowing that in a couple of weeks our house will be featured in those newstands.  I truly have that kid-on-Christmas-Eve feeling. 

The week of the photoshoot (and I really mean week; Better Homes Editor & Writer Joanna Linberg & stylist Jessica Thomas arrived on a Monday and left on that Friday) was so much fun.  Despite having a newborn & running on fumes, I was on Cloud 9.  The photographer, Helen Norman, and her assistant, FJ Hughes, did such a beautiful job and I drool over their work.  (Love it so much that they're coming back this week to take photos of our house for my portfolio, which right now is full of my blurry unprofessional photography.)

{My laundry room stocked with flowers for the shoot}

And, although I know you've seen it before, our kitchen's being featured on the Better Homes & Gardens website right now -along with paint colors & details- so if you'd like to see it you can click here.  Thanks so much to Joanna and the "Better Homes Ladies" (which is what Christian called them when they visited...  my apologies to any males there ;)  --- you truly made my year. 

ps- I'll be posting as soon as the issue come out!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Happy Fall...

I'm loving the vintage quilts I found recently at Vagabond Vintage.  (Their High Point showroom had some of the most beautiful one-of-a-kinds and I took a few home with me for the online store...  hahaha again, issues letting go.)  I couldn't resist a little photo session with my boys.  (any excuse, right?)

{The red maple leaves hit the sidewalks in our neighborhood last week}

{Love shuffling through the leaves.. even as an adult}

{Happy guy}

{The hydrangeas have their reddish tinge}

{The tricycle from Traci-  I'm pushing for it but kids do love them some plastic!}

This is one of the last weekends before "the holidays" so I'm going to attempt a chill one.  I'm headed to New York via train for the day tomorrow with a group from the Washington Design Center.  We're taking a tour of the Kips Bay Showhouse which will feature work by some of my absolute favorite designers.  We get home around 7 something and then the weekend starts...

{This guy tired of the "photoshoot" long before I did }

Enjoy yours and take it all in.


If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

What would you do?

Check out Cristin's beautiful blog Simplified Bee to see what I & some of my favorite bloggers would do with this gorgeous console table:

We were asked to create a design using 4 items.  Cristin's new series is so much fun and I loved seeing everyone's take on the same piece!  Thanks so much to Cristin for inviting me over!!

To see the post, click here.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.