Confined Bachelor

Lately my Pisces Drifter soul has had an itch to pick up and leave this Lacquer Cave. It's a tiny, flawed apartment in a great neighborhood but I'm trying to think practically ... oh, who am I kidding? I just want a new decorating project. So over the weekend I searched and searched and finally set my heart on a kooky, late Victorian pile of bricks originally built as "bachelor flats" for Manhattan's "professional men of means." Each two-room suite came equipped with a bathroom but no kitchen ... sort of perfect for a decorator who's lived without a working stove for almost four years? There's just one hitch: NO VACANCY.

But it got me thinking about one of the all-time great bachelor pads in modern cinema, the Central Park West penthouse of architect Peter Mitchell (Tom Selleck) in 1987's 3 Men and a Baby.

The thumping strains of Miami Sound Machine in the opening credits all but force to me forget that architects generally don't live in penthouses; nor do they let their roommates paint haute-80s Cartoon Deco murals in their elevator vestibules:

Director Leonard Nimoy (no joke) takes us on a roller coaster ride filled with diapers, cocaine, Ted Danson's real hair, and doormen at The Presada who apparently don't call up when that deadbeat Nancy Travis has a baby to unload. (Do I sound like Stefon? Hope so.)

Anyway I'd rather talk about solarium kitchens with holophane lamps

Guttenberg's Kazumi-meets-Memphis bedroom moment

And these klieg lights on trusses:

I love the fantasy that an architect, actor, and cartoonist (who combined get more tail than the ASPCA) live in such a grand apartment with a few chic moments, yet it's still sort of a mess? I'm so over nth-degree TV and movie interiors: the Gossip Girl version of Park Avenue or Williamsburg. Barf! In a different vein everyone's favorite (confirmed?) bachelor George Clooney's house in The Descendants looked very done and appropriate, but that is all. His real estate lawyer character was supposed to count Queen Kahlualeekilani or whomever as his ancestor ...  can I get some vintage Hawaiian regalia up on the wall? I like it when spaces leave a little ambiguity -- did Selleck design or inherit those club chairs? Was that neon sign just for his birthday party? I guess that's the essence of a "pad" as opposed to a house or apartment. Perfect quarters for a design transient like me.

Shame On It

Or rather shame on me, because it took googling my own name + "kitchen" (in an aborted attempt to show Mrs. Meares some vintage love for her new fave color combo) to discover my pal Mary Kate Frank's amazing progress on her teensy studio apartment (before pic here):

Photos: Jessica Sokolowski for Time Out New York

 

She really went for it -- brava!!! Full story from back in October here.  Oh and promise I've got more up my bedroom sleeve than stripes, camp blankets, and jewel tones:

Photo: Jeff Hirsch for NY Social Diary

 

Remember those Brady Bunch spoof movies where Gary Cole as Mike Brady keeps proposing the same model of their split-level house for every project? Like a split-level gas station, fast food restaurant, and so on ... not the same sitchu here! MK and I are just kindred decorating spirits, and I will say she's the THIRD Scorpio gal I know to fall hard for that Schumacher monkey wallpaper.  What does it all mean?? I'll cross my eyes and stare at her Vasarely while pondering ...

West Elm: Start Fresh

Happy 2012, y'all! I got stuck in the work-holiday vortex but hope urrybody had a great Christmukkahzaa. Pa Olsen, who is given to rhyming New Year's mottos, announced "We'll get off the shelf in Two-thousand-twelfth." Got that? Good.

Speaking of shelves, I'm SO proud to be featured in West Elm's latest catalog and on their Front & Main blog talkin' all things Parsons: bookscases, tables, desks ...  I've honestly never met a Parsons thingerdoodle I didn't like. (In fact, the other day in the meadow we did build a snowman and we named him Parson Brown-Olsen.) And I love the pictures of my tiny little tenement -- "Shiny Walls Remix," says a pal -- which show off new treasures like that dude perched next to the TV. Plus my new/old sofa:

  A drippy glaze urn on this etagere (oh and I framed Sally's painting!):

And my lemon yellow Mottega lamp:

Thanks to West Elm's Aaron Able, Korin Thorig, Juan Carlos De La Acena, and photographer Philip Ficks for these great shots. I've loved W.E. forevs and evs and this was such a treat.

IFDA Rising Stars

This is sooner than you thought, right? So I'm thrilled to be named one of the IFDA's (International Furnishings and Design Association) Rising Stars of Interior Design, an honor I share with the super swank and talented Ron Marvin and the equally fabulous Suysel Cunningham and Anne Foster of Tilton Fenwick. Here are the deets for the event next Monday the 14th:

We'll be giving some PowerPoint prezzies on our work, we'll answer questions, and if the audience needs a boost the TF ladies have agreed to throw down with me on some Beyonce choreography. Ron will play the ukelele. (The guy has a gift). Seriously, I think it will be a super fun evening so come join us! Thanks to Brad Ford, Jamie Drake, Rose Hitt and the whole IFDA for this honor!!!   

Oh, Herro

I've been a bad blogger. Took a radical sabbatical. But if you want know about my daily routine over the past month or so, just ask my favorite chav-sportif woodland sprite, Cher Lloyd. I'll let Drake tell you about the ultimate goal.

What have I been up to? Specifics? Let's see ... I've been growing out my hair. I bought this HUGE Red Jackie to cover a wonky wall in the Lacquer Cave:

I also flew down to Raleigh for the GRAND GALA OPENING of the Lady Meares's FurbDeux, which really is a sight to behold. It's bigger and prettier than both of our weaves combined, but if you can't make it in person I'd buy this pillow from her online store in two shakes of a leopard's tail:

What else? Well, I married and divorced a Neanderthal named Kris with a "K" and didn't make one red dime from it. I bought some bookcases that look just like these (Mr. Hadley's) from Housing Works to store my fabric samples

And guess what the shelf label read? "Property of Bunny Williams, Inc." !!! It's the Circle of Life -- er, of Decorating I guess. Speaking of that I've just finished decorating a humongo apartment that I'm dying to show you!! Just not now. (Gypsy Rose Lee got nuthin' on me in the tease department.) Much more real news coming down the pike very soon, I promise. Stay tuned!

Stylelist Home

Did you know that the Huffington Post has a new decor-centric site called Stylelist Home? For their launch today I was happy to chat about all manner of very butch topics, including the bedskirt I just made:

Check out the interview here.  Thanks to Dickson Wong, formerly of Elle Decor -- oh, the hours we spent rounding up credits for Mugatu's projects. Anyhoo I'm excited to see what Arianna and Co. bring to the home-website table!

Under the Tuscan Son

Kudos, me: I finally have a working scanner ... and printer, and copier, and fax machine (yes, I fax CONSTANTLY). Two months ago a plaster shell bracket fell off the wall and onto my four-in-one Epson nightmare. Only two functions continued to function, not including the one I need daily (PRINT). So this afternoon I sucked it up and bought his replacement (a "Brother") ...  so banal I can barely type it out. Is anyone else paralyzed by tech maintenance? My lame, corporate BlackBerry freezes for six minutes at a time and after my single attempt to fix the sitchu I wanted to pull a full-on Kaczynski, or at least a Salinger.

ANYWAY.

  Architectural Digest, September 2011, photographed by Peter Estersohn

This scan takes me to a warm, sunny place.  Picture it, Tuscany, 2011: A place where colors don't have to coordinate yet headboards and Parsons tables wear matching grapefruit linen slipcovers. It's a bedroom in a villa belonging to Dede Pratesi, matriarch of the molto-luxe linens firm, plus her son Federico and his family. I'll cop to a certain ignorance when it comes to fancy sheet companies, though I'm partial to Schweitzer, they of the endless embroidery pattern selection and absolute refusal to rebrand with the times. So I had no idea that some Pratesi's look like the best of Mrs. Tillett? Also note how that twee frescoed ceiling actually works when paired with a bold tiled floor, modern art, small-scale plaid curtains and said gonzo multi-citrus/battleship gray/taupe color palette. (Whatever she says, DON'T negate it.) No disrespect to the Pratesis but this is where I picture secret Russkie Tilda having her second act in the sequel to I Am Love.