Sweet Dreams

Lately we’ve been chatting amongst ourselves about bedrooms: what makes them fabulous; is there a nice bench or small-scale sofa at the foot of the bed;  what’s on the bedside table; what kind of headboard are we coveting – all those sorts of questions.  It didn’t take us long to start daydreaming about our perfect bedrooms.

Ahhh. So soft, serene and pretty. Gorgeous elements from The Tracery.

We love the pretty lines of the little French-style chair.  What else do you put at the end of the bed? We think two of these would be sweet: a curvy and gilt-y burlap-covered bench with sexy Louis legs.

 

A pair of these would be adorable at the end of the a bed.  From Huff Harrington Home. $550.00.

 

Atlanta’s own Kay Douglass did two oversized chairs at the end of bed.

A cute little furry friend looks right at home here (from Georgica Pond)

Blackberry Farm always gets it right. We saw this first from our adorable friends at Gramercy Linens…

This is so Huff Harrington…we’re crazy about the neutrals, the antiques and the very crunchiness of it.

And then there’s the issue of the bedside table.  Small and stylish? Functional but pretty?  Are you stashing magazines, books, iPads, phones and goodness knows what else next to the bed?

This nightstand is so pretty and just the right size. Love the wall of paintings behind it. From Little Green Notebook.

 

Nothing’s chic-er than LV trunks stacked on top of one another….(from House Beautiful)

 What about the simple and clean lines of a Swedish-style painted bedside table?

We sell these at the store and they simply fly off the floor. $675.00 at Huff Harrington Home.

Suzanne Rheinstein puts mismatched nightstands on either side of the bed for a nice, collected look.  And skillfully hung art above the bed adds a lot of oomph.

 Here’s another pretty option:

The girls at Gramercy love Greek key…and so do we. So chic and clean. Love this.

And what if the ceiling slopes and the room is just big enough for a set of twins? Do you sacrifice style for size? Absolutely not!  Voila…

Here’s how to handle twins. From Greige Designs.

A couple of us are obsessed with headboards – and that’s another long story that we’ll fill you in on some other time.  But just feast your eyes on this explosion of happy color:

This just gets your mouth watering. It’s so fresh and happy, perfect for a beach house. From Coastal Living.

 Here’s another nice idea for a headboard: old crusty French shutters:

Old shutters painted sky blue are lovely. From House Beautiful.  We happen to have lots of crusty shutters at the store…and they’d make great headboards!

 And lest you worry that your bedroom decor is getting the better of you, take a peek at these: sassy cotton pjs that will send you happily off to dreamland…

Adorable cotton pjs that just get softer and softer. $117.00 at Huff Harrington Home.

 And a cute robe to go with them:

Cotton and terry. What else do you need? From Huff Harrington Home.

We wish you sweet summer dreams! Ta ta.

When a Huffington Sells Her Home

It's that time again!

When this Huffington’s home goes on the market, there is inevitably the same four-step pattern that goes something like this:

1: Huff and Puff;

2: Get rid of stuff;

3: Fluff

4:  Enough! (i.e. I may just want to stay!)

It’s happened before and it happened again:  One of us had the itch to move  – not far, mind you, just a few  floors  up in our favorite condo building.  But the timing couldn’t have been worse, with one daughter home from college, depositing a year’s worth of laundry, another daughter graduating from college with a year’s worth of belongings, a husband out of town, a Huffington headed to France, and a realtor telling us all to clean it up, fast!

First, there was a lot of huffing and puffing, from all the family members who were instructed to pack everything up and clean out their closets.  Then the huff and puffers were told they’d be losing half of their bedroom furniture, because our home would show better without it.  Finally, there was the Huffington fluff, which is the fun part – and really the subject of this blog.

You see, all of us Huffingtons are really one big family, and when it comes to fluffing our homes, we pull in the family experts:  Sam, Colleen and in this case, Emily, who saved the day.  Among her many marketing talents, which include delightful creative writing, marketing and social media, Emily has a secret talent of being the best organizer we’ve ever met.  There isn’t a closet messy enough to scare our wonderful, multi-talented Emily.

                                                                                                                                 Emily, in her element (when she's not writing copy, tweeting, facebooking and marketing for Huff Harrinton)

So, with that in mind, and secure in the knowledge that although my own huff-and-puffers were still steamingly mad, my Huffington family would swoop in and fix everything, I hopped on a plane and left my worries … and a few very messy rooms … behind. See how it unfolded:

                                                                                  Before (in all fairness, this daughter is usually very neat; but she had just gotten home from college!) the fluff..

                                                          And after!

See the wonderful paintings by Melissa Payne Baker and Laura Lacambra Shubert, from Huff Harrington Fine Art.

                                                       Before... with the accumulation of four year's of college...

                                                          And after! Minus a little furniture...

                                                        Before (please tell me you've seen rooms like this)

                                                          And after! Thank you to Christina Doelling for loaning me this painting for the photoshoot. If anyone is interested in it, it is now back at the gallery (and looks great there too!)

                                                           The living room, as it looked when we first moved in (and we featured in the AJC's style section... that's another story!)

                                                           And after, with a little help from Sam & Colleen (and Huff Harrington Home!)

                                                           The dining room when it was shot for the AJC

                                                          And now, after the fluff. The dining room table, which was only used twice last year, got bumped in favor of a piano. And we opened up the wall behind the piano to give the place a much freer flow (which I love).

                                                           The kitchen, shot by me before the AJC photo shoot.

                                                           And the power of photography! What a difference that makes! 

                                                           The bedroom, before our most recent switcheroo.

                                                          And after... Sam's brilliant idea, which enabled us to incorporate a huge closet along one wall (not shown).

So with the huff, puff, fluff and stuff out of the way, what’s with “Enough” you ask?

It could be that this Huffington is having second thoughts about selling her condo since the master fluffers have done their magic. Could it be that she doesn’t want to move after all? Maybe … but not without a couple of changes to her condo. Stay tuned!

Ta ta …

HH

PS The “after” photos are courtesy of Courtney Astor with Obeo. The listing is with a wonderful Buckhead agent, Kevin Grieco of Atlanta Fine Homes. Oh, and about that closet that Emily was working on in the beginning of the blog …

                                                                                                                   Ta da!

Gaga about Grisaille

Being the little Francophiles we all around here, it won’t come as a big surprise that one of our very favorite elements of French design is grisaille – that gorgeous monochromatic method of painting, usually done in a wide range of black, white and gray tones.

(First of all, how to pronounce this little tongue-twister.  Try this: “griz-eye”. It rhymes witih “Versailles”.)

What’s not to love about this centuries old style of painting?  The technique usually resembles sketching, relief or sculpture.  It was a technique favored by the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titan and Caravaggio – and we can all agree they certainly knew what they were doing.

Lately, we’ve been seeing grisaille everywhere in magazines and in the blogosphere and it’s making us so happy.  We’re just in love with the soft, romantic and barely-there effect that grisaille has.   In fact, we’re still all in awe of the March-April 2012 Veranda cover that had us swooning.    Proudly standing as a perfectly elegant backdrop were two amazing grisaille screens.  They quietly added their special presence while allowing the rest of the room to shine.

The March/April 2012 cover of Veranda is grisaille perfection.

That cover got us chatting and thinking about grisaille…and what a great fit it would be at Huff Harrington Home.  It always feels vaguely toile-y and very, very French to us and we thought it would be fun to incorporate it into our mix some day.

We could picture something like this at the store:

 

A beautiful grisaille screen that looks like it came from

some 17th century chateau. From Pinterest.

We found this lovely sketch from Editor-at-Large and think it perfectly sums up the idea of grisaille: fifty shades of gray!

A perfect interior done in grisaille watercolor.

And speaking of fifty perfect shades of gray:

Love this palette from Fleaing France.

We did a little research and spent an afternoon drooling over some images of grisaille in all its glory, like this from the Queen of Elegant, Suzanne Rheinstein:

 

No-one does classic elegance like Suzanne Rheinstein whom we’ve loved forever.

 

This interior, also by Suzanne, had us hooked at first glance. The grisaille on the back wall is just incredible.

More drop-dead gorgeous grisaille from Suzanne.

It turns out fellow bloggers have had opinions about grisaille…and most of them like ours. Everyone just loves it for its quiet beauty which just whispers at you.

This is a more dramatic rendering of grisaille from Splendid Sass.

And from another blogger we like a lot, Pure Home Style, we saw these lovely grisaille treatments:

 This was actually featured on Martha Stewart’s website, so we give the 

grisaille stairwell a thumbs-up.

 Also from Pure Style Home, a grisaille treatment in a dining room. 

We think we like the traditional grays better. What about you?

A pretty vignette where grisaille takes center stage.  

From Eclectic Revisited (which is no longer publishing.)

(We also just have to include this next image from the wonderful Cote de Texas which ran a great post on India Hicks and her designer husband, David Flint Wood. Mr. Flint Wood recently completed Brooke Shields’ NYC home which features…you got it…a gorgeous grisaille treatment in the dining room.  Feast your eyes:

 David Flint Wood used pretty grisaille wallpaper from Zuber in 

Brooke Shields’ NYC dining room.

Anyway…fast forward a few months to a chilly spring morning at the local Starbucks.  We run into an old art acquaintance who fills us in on her news. Yes, she’s still painting.   And she’s doing lots of different things, including these terrific panels in grisaille. She asked us if we were familiar with grisaille and we almost spilled our lattes.

So, it wasn’t long before our cute friend, the wonderfully talented and spunky Jane Ingols presented us with these stunning canvases that embody everything we adore about grisaille.  They’re oozing sophistication, elegantly simple yet technically intense.  And Jane’s incorporated the most authentic little touches, like adding faux nailheads along the sides of the canvas – perfectly rusty and aged.

 

 Our own grisaille artist and friend, Jane Ingols, did these panels for us…aren’t they fab?

 

18th century?  Mais non.  

Old rusty nails on the sides of the canvas are actually faux.

 We’ve proudly got them hanging front and center in the store as soon as you walk in as a part of a super-Frenchy vignette we created. We love the softness of the panels married with a lustre of an 18th-century antique gold mirror from Paris, a chunky buffet with a gorgeous patina and two clean, contemporary armchairs.

 

These panels would be spectacular in a dining room, a foyer or just about anywhere you can imagine having a hand-painted nod to all things Frenchy and wonderful.

Here’s what we keep learning every day: take all the things you love, mix them all up, and a little surprise here and there, have fun…and you’ll end up with the most lovely ooh-la-la result that you could ever imagine.

Ta ta.

A Tribute to Two Plein Air Artists

 

Bill Davidson, painting en plein air, during his workshop in France.

While we were in France on a painting trip with Bill Davidson’s artist workshop, Bill got the news that his jewel of a painting, “Changes, 10 x 20″  had been selected for the Oil Painters of America show and in fact had already sold off the wall of the show. Bill, who along with Nancy Franke from our gallery, is a Signature member of OPA, was thrilled to hear this and we celebrated un peu with the artists from the workshop.

 Bill Davidson's OPA selection, "Changes" 10" x 20"

Bill loved this scene so much that he painted a larger version which we featured today in an email that went out to our Huff Harrington Home and Huff Harrington Fine Art clients as part of a father’s day email. Judging by the responses that are pouring in from the email, the OPA (and we) are not the only ones who love this painting. Congrats to Bill!

 

 Bill Davidson, Winter's Delight, 36 x 24. We don't sell a lot of

snow scenes in Atlanta, and what a pity that is! This is one of

Bill's masterpieces with beautiful composition and a great

balance of warms and cools, which is so hard to do with snow.

We’ve already talked about how much we love doing  the painting workshops in France and how inspirational it is to be with a group of committed plein-air artists, who are there to capture their scenes on canvas just as the light, shadows, wind and rain often swirl unpredictably around them.

By the time we bid our adieus, after a wonderful week together, I had “plein air” on my mind and an increased appetite for more.  So the  icing on the cake was a quick stop through Paris on the way home to attend the much acclaimed  Eugene Boudin retrospective at the Musee Jacquemart-Andre.

Eugene Boudin and I go way back.  In fact, ever since I saw my first Boudin painting at the National Gallery in Washington DC, I have been enamored with this artist, known as the precursor of Impressionism and the one who most influenced Monet, against his wishes, to get out of the studio and paint nature outside. I grew up with a Boudin print in my bedroom, and to this day, I think it’s my favorite painting ever.

Boudin, The Beach of Villerville (National Gallery Washington DC)

and the image I grew up with (although my memory of the print was that it was

softer in color). If this were painted by one of our artists, we'd probably tell them to 

tone it down (see what they have to put up with?!).

So all I could think of, coming from the plein-air workshop to this wonderful hidden little Paris museum, was what fun to see all the similarities between Eugene Boudin and the plein-airism espoused during Bill Davidson’s workshop.  As I walked through the museum, it also occurred to me that there were many similarities between the two painters, Bill Davidson and Eugene Boudin, which I’m sure they would both be delighted about!  Like, both Bill and Eugene started painting later in life, after successful careers in other fields. They both have loved to paint outdoors – and pretty much hate being in a studio. They both have embraced time to travel and feel that it is essential in the growth of their work. They’ve both been enamored with water scenes and have loved to play with the variations of light on water. And they’re  both known for their love of (and extraordinary rendition of) skies.

One of Boudin's early and very popular beach scenes, for which 

he became renowned and highly commissioned, much to his regret,

since he preferred being less "commercial" and painting in a 

looser and more spontaneous style. Courtesy, Musee Jacquemart-Andre.

 Ahh.. the Boudin we know and love. We would tell our artists "You nailed 

the palette on this one!" Courtesy of eugeneboudin.org.

 Another beauty from Boudin and the kind of painting he loved to

paint, outdoors. Look at all the fine nuances of color on the water 

and the play of water, smoke & sky. Courtesy Musee Jacquemart-Andre.

 

 I can imagine that Boudin loved painting this and that people were aghast. 

We, of course, think it is simply magical, and completely ahead of its time.

He loved to travel and was especially influenced by northern European 

scenery and light.

Eugene Boudin (1824-1898) was so ahead of his time, not only with his influence on Monet and Impressionism, but also in terms of the looseness that he aspired to in all of his paintings. It reminded me of Bill Davidson’s mantra to his students everyday: “Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!”

Isn’t it ironic that the most sophisticated paintings are often the simplest? We are often asked, at the gallery, how long an artist spent working on a painting, and our answer is usually: “About five minutes and 35 years.”  The greatest painters always make it look so easy.

Ta ta ..

HH

PS:  If you end up going to Paris before July 22nd, you must visit the magnificent exhibit (make sure to get the headphones).  The extra treat is the gorgeous building that houses the exhibit and the beautiful hardware on all the doors.  If you’ve been reading these blogs, you know that we are equally obsessed with beautiful skies and handsome hardware.  Hmmm… a new store in our future:  Huff Harrington Hardware?  What do you think?

One of the many door handles that had me gasping over the hardware 

at the Musee Jacquemart-Andre in Paris.