This month's Architectural Digest has a fascinating piece about the Metropolitan Museum of Art's newly renovated Wrightsman Galleries. The piece focuses on their recreation of an embroidered fabric - embroidery by Marie Antoinette herself - that once graced a suite of furniture by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené for use by the Queen at the Chateau de Saint-Cloud, a 17th century palace that Louis XVI purchased for Marie in 1784. The Chateau was burned, but amazingly, some of the furniture still exists, as does a sample of the original embroidery.

The Met owns a berger chair, a daybed and a fire screen. They contracted with Chelsea Textiles in London to recreate the original floral embroidered pattern as upholstery fabric.

One of their big decisions was whether to use a white ground fabric or an "aged" color to match better with the 200+ year old patina of the furniture. Ultimately, they decided to go with a fresh white, which will naturally age over time.


These scans don't do the AD images justice, so head on over to the newstand if you want to see them in fine detail!

Photography for Architectural Digest by Billy Cunningham.

My fiancé’s dear friend Nancy moved to Joshua Tree, California, several years ago with her long-time love, sculptor and furniture maker Alma Allen. We visited the couple, in their newly built, nearly finished home, this past Christmas, and I immediately fell in love with their modern, bio-regionally designed, green home, which was built to suit the harsh, gorgeous desert climate. Nancy and Alma built the home together over the course of a couple years, with minimal outside help. Here, Nancy tells us about the trials, tribulations, and rewards of living, working, and building with your true love, and how their home has inspired their design sensibilities, future project ideas, and new, rural lifestyle.

Elka: Tell me a little about the process of designing your home.

Nancy: Alma had always wanted to build his own house and thought about the design for years. Joshua Tree provided a perfect climate to incorporate a large courtyard, which had always interested him. The protected outdoor area provides shelter from the wind and creates an area for plants that would be devoured by the local wildlife outside the walls. The design of the house continues to be a work in progress. The layout was changed from the original drawings in many ways while we actually built and we continue to explore possibilities.

E: What were your biggest challenges?
N: Living in a Streamline trailer for two and a half years as we built. The trailer is the polar opposite of the passive solar construction of our house. The trailer is hot when it?s hot and cold when it?s cold. Dealing with the Building Department and local water and power companies for new construction was also challenging. Building codes do not encourage or even allow some aspects of green building. Although you have to pick your battles, we learned to not take no for an answer from the power and water companies, who often give false information.

E: Now that your house is nearly finished, what are you especially pleased with?

N: We are especially pleased with the passive-solar construction of the house. With the large south facing windows (which face directly to Joshua Tree National Park) and more minimal east/west exposure, as well as the thick cement floors with radiant floor heating/cooling and a geo-thermal loop, the house stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We?re also delighted with the homemade solar water heater which heats 250 gallons up to 140 degrees in the day and is currently maintaining a temperature of 115 overnight. (If we run the heating all night the temperature does go down as the tank is drained.)

E: Why Joshua Tree?

N: We had a shop for a few years in Los Angeles but grew tired of the daily commute and paying rent for Alma’s studio in downtown LA, our apartment in Silverlake, and our retail space in Venice. Alma and I are both originally from Utah and love the red rock desert. We considered moving to Southern Utah outside of Zion?s National Park, but Las Vegas would be the closest big city and we like our beer and wine. In Joshua Tree we are now only two hours away from Los Angeles, so we can easily have continuity with our work in LA, such as studio visits with Alma?s collectors.

E: What sort of interior features did you consider from both an aesthetic and practical point of view?

N: The fir tongue and groove ceiling. More work in some ways and less in others because it doesn’t require drywall and paint. Once it?s installed it?s done. It also breathes. Due to our very steep driveway, we were required to put in fire sprinklers, which have proven to be very practical for hanging lights!

E: Can you describe your interior design style?
N: Chunky minimal

E: What are your favorite objects in the house?
N: Alma’s sculpture. Fritz & Clara [the dogs]!

E: How about favorite furniture?
N: Alma’s furniture made from salvaged wood! I also love some of the vintage George Nelson cabinets.

E: What’s the hardest part about living here? The most rewarding?
N: The hardest part about living in Joshua Tree is the lack of good food. We miss abundant farmer?s markets and great restaurants, especially sushi…although we have more time and motivation to cook and recently I made my own kimchi! The most rewarding parts are the open spaces, wildlife sightings and the night skies. A giant tortoise tried to walk into our living room this week.

E: What are your needs, business-wise, for this space?
N: The space is comprised of two buildings separated by a large courtyard. The south area is living space and the north building is the wood workshop and sculpture gallery/office. Alma is also building a separate building with a steel frame for stone carving, which will house our solar panels as well as allow for cranes to move heavy materials. Separating the workspace from the living space will hopefully allow us to take advantage of increased tax incentives for solar-powered businesses.

E: What are your future building and renovation plans?
N: We?re going to build an outdoor shower using the solar water heater and the stone carving building.

E: Any advice to folks looking to build or renovate together?
N: Don?t do it… kidding! My advice would be to enjoy the endeavors that go wrong or not as planned as an unexpected opportunity for wabi-sabi - the beauty of imperfection and/or incompleteness. The epoxy that didn?t polish out of the cracks in the cement, the giant tub of permanent black dye that exploded… some of the things that caused tears while in the process turn out to be quite charming in the end.

today’s final before and after belongs to dutch d*s reader joanna and her husband marc-peter. joanna and marc-peter bought a house dating from 1820 in the center of amsterdam. not content with its current state- they decided to completely renovate it. joanna designed several of the pieces of furniture herself (the incredible wooden mirror and lamp) and then had them made locally by a trained craftsman. the rest is a mix of ikea and locally-sourced furniture and the result is a wonderfully airy space full of light and simple modern furnishings (those floors are to die for). thanks so much to joanna and marc-peter for sharing! [for larger, and additional, photos of their home click here and here]

[image above: living room “before”. top image above: living room “after”]

[image above: office “before”]

[image above: office “after”]

[image above: dining room/kitchen “before”]

[image above: dining room “after”]

[image above: bedroom “before”]

[image above: bedroom “after”]

Sorry this post is so late.  I had so much to tell you from the weekend break that I lost track of time today!  How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was mixed - on the sad news front, my iPod bit the dust. It is so outdated that it’s hard to even find on the website - it looks like an antique compared to all of the new ones!

•On happier notes, Sex and the City is worth the price of admission just for the fashion. What did you all think of

(SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ THE NEXT FEW PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET AND WANT IT ALL TO BE FRESH)

Carrie’s apartment makeover? It seemed like good Apartment Therapy philosophy to me - clearing out Aidan’s heavy chair (it was literally weighing down the room), getting some bright new color and prints (I loved the blue), getting rid of the wedding gifts, clearing out so many books and magazines (something I am completely unable to do), arranging all the artwork on the walls instead of leaning it up against the walls. I also enjoyed all of Patricia Fields’ color combos on the clothes - the raspberry pink and red; red and purple; taxicab yellow, black, and white, et. al.

OK SPOILER OVER!

•I’d like to thank my blogger pal Holly over at decor8 for inviting me to dish about design reality television shows. A few of them are gearing up to start this month, like Design Star and Top Design. Holly let me introduce myself to her readers by introducing my block in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood in the city of Atlanta. After journeying out to the ‘burbs for the flick last night, I appreciate my ‘hood all the more!

•Thanks to my neighbor Lily for inviting me over to see her amazing home. Lily saw the blog post I wrote and invited me to come see the inside. I cannot wait, and I’ll be sure to share the experience with you here as soon as I do!

•Thanks to commenter Charlie for giving me the heads up on another fire station renovation (the first post on this topic is here). Engine No. 44 Firehouse is completely renovated and available for the low-low price of $6,375,000. This was one of, if not the first, fire station renovations, originally bought and used in 1959 by an artist couple. Built in 1910, the firehouse included a stable for the horses that pulled their fire wagon. Check out all the photos of this remarkable property here.

• Thanks to Elle Decor magazine for all of the chic inspiration over the years.  I am so happy that I finally own So Chic: Glamorous Lives, Stylish Spaces. Now  I can throw out my copy of the magazine with SJP’s Hamptons house in it.  The magazines I save are starting to overtake my house.  This book deserves its own post, so I’ll try to tell you more about it later this week.

Images:

•Sex and the City image from sexandthecitymovie.com

•Firehouse 44 photos from Firehouse44.com.  Be sure to check out the rest of the renovation photos on their site!

•So Chic photo by William Waldron as seen on from Amazon.com,

Our friend Jennifer Leonard of Nifelle Design is singled out for special attention at Sunset Magazine's Fresh Dirt section By Jim McCausland.

Visiting Jennifer and Justin Leonard’s garden in Portland yesterday, it occurred to me that this renovated garden is so inviting partly because it offers so many delightful places to sit.

Here Jennifer is pictured with her dog:



Jennifer is an interior designer, who it, appears, doubles as an exterior designer. She can be reached at:

Jennifer Leonard
Nifelle Design
The Portland Division of Wall Street Interiors
503.730.7117

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery