This fabulous

antique side table seen here, giving y'all FULL LIFE is part of a pair scored off...say it with me y'all, CRAIGSLIST...for $180 just-the-F*CK-YOU dollas!!!

And sometimes fabulous has to be purchased & picked-up in Westport, Connecticut, then driven back to NYC to clients' house by ME in a Zipcar:

'Cause that's the kind of decorator I am. I LUV my clients & scour the tri-state area for style value! Stay tuned to see how these ladies look as nighstands in the new bedroom! I'm thinking HAWTNESS, y'all!

My IT Director-- My HERO!

Y'all, gotta give a huge style shout-out to my IT Director, hubby and very own, 'Heavy Metal Lover'-- Dylan!

He WERKED out my new interiors section on my company website, Alchemy Eclectic:

Be sure to check out the new and improved section here to get your hawt interiors by PJ fix on, y'all!!! And YES, he's available for IT HIRE here! Get IT!

Wallpaper LIFE...

Has been completely SERVED today with this:

Remember y'all, she started like this:

And behold how AMAZING she looks now:

And...

Obvi, there's still A LOT that has to go down with this bedroom still, but this is huge progress and it makes me sooooo happy, I just had to share!!!

Light 'em up, Cowboy!

These vintage sconces were a total score for my clients at the flea market recently:

To keep them from going too kitsch, I chose those black paper drum shades, which are just insanely chic!!! Those were purchased at Just Shades. It's one of my favorite lampshade sources, btw...by pairing a modern shade with such a cra cra lamp, it becomes more artful. A western style shade would've been too theme-y and same same. Contrast is always interesting!

Here's where the lights ended up:

I MEAN!!!???

Yes, that's a vintage velvet NYC skyline painting that is just slaying us ALL, but how amazing do these bad boys look in place?!? Note the cord covers are painted out to match the wall color. That's a quick/cheap trick that makes such a huge difference-- no one likes looking at cord dangles, esp. when you've got such cuties lighting up your wall!!! Those are available at places like Home Depot, Lowe's, etc...make sure you get the 'paintable' variety...

So, the next time y'all are on the lookout for some lighting, think about choosing something unexpected and fun. Maybe even quirky!?! Lighting is a great way to make a strong style statement that can really reflect who you are! Plus, if you ever grow tired of the look, it's an easy change...unexpected, fun and easy...just the kind of decorating that makes me happy!!!

Get yer COLOR BLOCK on!

So how DO you get your walls and ceilings to look like this?

It's actually quite simple, y'all. Here's what you'll need to make your color block dreams come true:

-painters tape in whatever width you want (I used 2") -paint in two different colors (I opted for two tones that came right out of the area rug) in whatever finish you prefer -rollers, brushes, foam brushes or whatever combo of tools you prefer to paint with

And that's IT! YES!!!

Start by painting all the edges of each wall in one of your colors. Mine was the lighter raspberry/pink. Paint in deeper than the width of your painters tape. Mine was 2", so I painted in at least 3"-4" around all of my wall edges. Like this:

And since we were working on the wall edges already in the lighter tone, we went ahead and tackled the aluminum supports on the drop ceiling:

For the first coat, we chose to carefully lift each ceiling tile and turned it clockwise, resting it atop the backsides of the supports. Or maybe it was counter-clockwise? Whateve's, y'all just want to clear the front sides of supports of all tiles, so get them up and out of the way. And actually, after this first coat on the supports-- and we were moving on to painting in our other color-- we discovered it was almost impossible to get enough paint onto a ceiling tile approaching it from below, so we just went ahead and removed the tiles from the ceiling altogether to paint them. That was a big undertaking, but painting the tiles goes so much faster when you can lay them out. But more on that later.

So, once these coats have dried, start taping all the edges of your walls. You want to tape from the absolute furthest edge of your wall and follow that edge all the way from top to bottom, left to right. You're creating a box, or frame, around the edges of each of your walls with the paint tape. So, walls that are right next to one another will have corners that are basically taped out where they meet...make sense? Sounds odd, but trust it turns out fabulous! As you tape, be sure to push out any air bubbles and run your fingers along all the sides of tape in order to be sure it's 'locked' in place. Then paint the wall in your other color. In my case, it was the darker raspberry. Like this:

Be sure to tape around any significant architectural features, like doors and windows...

Y'all will also notice that lots of the ceiling tiles are already painted here. We did remove most of the tiles from the ceiling and laid them out in order to be able to roll them with paint. It's not impossible to paint them in place, but ceiling tiles are almost like giant sponges in that they're pitted and super-duper absorbent. Lovely! It actually takes a lot of pressure to get the paint inside all the holes AND get an even coat. Witness:

Also, some of your tiles won't be able to come out easily b/c they've got sprinklers, or vents, custom cut through them, so trust that you're gonna get your chance to put your back into it and paint some tiles in place...

But, applying all that pressure from upside down, wasn't working for me, so we laid them all out to paint (apologies for the insanely DARK images below, remember, all this painting was happening inside a nightclub, where the office is...I LOVE my job!):

We ended doing about two-three coats on our walls and probably four-five coats on the ceiling tiles. Then I went back in on a ladder, once we re-installed tiles, to do detail work and any missed spots.

Once everything is dried thoroughly, carefully remove all your tape. A great trick is to pull tape slowly at a 90 degree angle as you remove it, this way if any paint seeped through, etc., the angled direction will usually keep your line rather than pulling paint up. Here's a great shot of where tape is being removed from two walls that meet and both of them have the 2" lighter toned border:

Here's more 'liscious:

I love that b/c drop ceilings are usually hung in a grid, this paint technique was that much more successful b/c it really highlights that graphic quality. By treating the walls in the same way it becomes a huge style statement for the entire room, giving it both pattern AND color. I'm absolutely SLAIN! And if any of y'all try this technique at home or wherever, please share your pics!!! Happy painting!

An artful equation...

YUMMY!

Love me some drop ceilings, y'all

One of my recent projects was the office of a club owner. The existing space came with a drop ceiling featuring amazing overheard flourescent lighting, which is ALWAYS so desirable. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit 'what the FU&K am I gonna do with this shiot?!':

Ripping it out completely wasn't an option. So, how do you make something so atrocious become so awesome? You seek inspiration from master designers who have gone before and TURNED IT OUT. That's how. Enter David Hicks, stage right. David Hicks was an English interior decorator and designer who is legendary for his bold use of color & pattern as well as mixing vintage & modern furnishings. He was a genius and is one of my favorite designers. His son Ashley Hicks and daughter, India Hicks, clearly inherited his genes of design genius, both having their own prolific careers in the interior industry as well. That whole family was style-slapped by the universe! In fact, they're actually royalty in the UK?! I mean...

So, David Hicks & his iconic use of color was a major inspiration for my dropped ceiling dilemma:

COLOR BLOCKING!

Instead of trying to hide all that drop, I decided to feature it. Damn! And here's what I ended up with:

As y'all can see, the walls and ceilings got color blocked with two tones of this 'liscious raspberry color, taken right out of our new rugs:

I decided to highlight the graphic grid in the drop ceiling caused by the supports, by painting it out a contrast color. Then repeated that on the walls. Yummy!

And you can't really see it well here, but look very closely on the far left side of image and you can just make out the pink line on the wall:

How HAWT is this office, y'all? Thanks to the fab Kelly Marshall for the incredible pics (& Carnivale and crew at the club who made this paint treatment happen)! And this post was supposed to be about how to color block, but then I just got cra and had to share all the AFTER shots to help illustrate what a bold, interesting paint technique can do to a room, even WITH some janky drop ceiling! But, check back soon for the actual how-to on this paint treatment. Happy Friday!

This fabulous...

vintage wallpaper is giving me LIFE!!! And soon, my clients' new bedroom wall will be giving them even more LIFE when it's hung!

Just SHUT THE FU&K YOU ALREADY!!!

Just another day at...

the office, y'all...

When your office just so happens to be in a major NYC nightclub! This holla hawt screen shot is the photo shoot of an office design project that I completed at end of June (being shot by the fab, Kelly Marshall!) Can y'all even handle all this shiot?!? Stay tuned for more gratuitous REVEALS!!!

The M has landed!

6' x 6' lucite neon sign realness up in this Soho ad agency office, biotch!!! And, yes, that's six feet by six feet! i mean

See, y'all, my client, Mekanism, asked me for something, "dramatic" for their entryway. Their logo is a block-style M with hits of white and blue.

And

And obvi, they have an amazing sense of humor and aren't afraid of having FUN in BIG WAYS! Cra Cra!

Shout out to the amazing team at Let There Be Neon who hooked it UP!

Aside from the scale and the neon, I LOVE how it's see-thru sculpture in this open-layout loft. So, we're not blocking light with this full-sized gal...and everyone, no matter where they're seated, can enjoy this baby from all sides! 'Liscious!!!

If you only have 5 minutes per phone call...

Then biotch, better make it count by taking your call in one of these babies:

YES! Gorg, right? These booths are just BEYOND sassy, with their new paint jobs...and look at the floors too:

These are painted in the company's logo colors using Benjamin Moore's Impervex latex enamel paint. It's water based, so the dry time is substantially less than oil based enamels, but it still took me about 4 days to WERK these two ladies out! Red being the absolute biotch of a color that she is to paint with, and b/c every surface in both of these booths was some kind of weird laminate-y horrid glossy surface, I had to use a primer. I used Benjamin Moore's Stix Waterborne Bonding Primer, which sounds like some sort of torture method. It too is water-based, so it was really easy to use and dried really quickly. Here's what that step looked like:

I hit both booths with two coats of primer. Then painted both out with at least two coats of paint each. The red lady was all kinds of finicky, as pointed out earlier, so of course she ended up getting like 4 coats. Honestly, I could of done even more, but she wasn't the only thing on the agenda for this office makeover, the selfish skank! The linoleum floors got some love by being scrubbed and then reconditioned with a generous coating of boiled linseed oil, which is just God's gift...that stuff works on ALL KINDS OF SURFACES...AMAZE!

Ring Ring!

This is happening:

This baby was scored off Craigslist! She's one of two vintage phone booths-- thanks New Jersey!!!-- that are being primarily repurposed as privacy booths in a new open loft office design project i'm doing! I mean, it's like CAKE, right?

I'm painting the interiors, gasp phone-booth-o-philes and eventually we're going to retrofit the light and even wire them with the company's phones! For now, employee peeps will just use their cellphones to make those delicate calls...like, to their drug dealers! AMAZE! Stay tuned for more process shots of wonder! And happy FRIDAY!!!

Today's Design*Sponge Sneak Peek? Our Apartment!!!

Ok, y'all, I've had a serious case of blog-haustion the past couple months, but I'm delighted to share that our apartment is being featured today as part of DesignSponge's Sneak Peek!!!! Holla! Check out the full story here, shot by the uber-talented, Bob Martus! Thanks also to Grace and Amy (and ALL) at Design*Sponge for the continued support and constant gorgeousness that they put out into the world!!!

Apartment Shoot

Y'all, I shot bits of our apartment back in April 2011 with the uber-talented, Bob Martus:

Catch the rest of those shots in my portfolio section...anyway, We always knew we weren't finished with the shoot-- we just didn't realize it would take damn near two years to make it happen!?! Well, here we are, getting back in the photo groove and finishin' what we started:

No, I'm not moving, y'all...

This is what goes down when you get a photographer and a prop stylist all up in yo grill-- in yo face with jumblin' up yo shiot like you was movin' but all your really doin' is takin' a picture of yo house! That's called GLAMOUR and consider yo-selves, schooled!!!

And here in NYC, we grab power WHEREVER we can scrounge it up...this one kitchen outlet is powering a photo shoot AND tonight's dinner, simmering in the slow cooker! YES! Y'all know I'm all about double-value in my house!

Even my poor dog was all wide-eyed and feelin' bamboozled, wandering from one mess to the next:

Cant' wait to share the fab pics soon!!! Patrician Court realness can't be denied! XXOOOO!

The birds have flown the coop in my bathroom...FINALLY!!!

Y'all, it's been since July, but my bathroom pattern repeat paint project is finished...prepare for HOT AFTER ACTION!!!:

I'm really happy with the way it turned out! I think it's an unexpected play on the scale of the existing print of the shower curtain, which looks like this:

And because the print is much more like a line drawing, I could get all cra cra and not worry too much about painting something that was a prefect replica of the original. Talk about not coloring in the lines...damn! Here's how I did it, y'all: 1. Start with a shot of your choice and then proceed with cold beers throughout...this helps your inner Picasso hurl forth! 2. Using interior latex paint in black & brown and a couple foam craft brushes, I picked a cage that inspired me and free-handed it onto the wall. If the cage has a brown base (see above pic), I started with that. To achieve a perfectly round circle for the one cage, I traced the lid of a pot. I typed POT. Hee hee... 3. Next I painted the black bars of cages and other black lines. This was the best part of process b/c I really couldn't make a mistake, since the lines in original print are so askew-- and I was beyond trashed at this point...

Here's a shot of my paint 'set-up'...yes, that IS a cat food can...don't hate, biotch! When cleaned out, they make the BEST paint cans for projects...or, go ahead y'all and leave chunks of food in the can to mix with your paint, the remnants will add texture to your paint treatment, resulting in stucco realness that your cat can eat right off the walls!!! YUMMY!

And here's where this all started:

And let's savor one last look, y'all...this shiot was months in the making...

Meeeeooowww!

Mi Casa...Ankasa!

Y'all, the other night I was swillin' champagne at the swanky premiere/holiday party for Ankasa in Soho! Ankasa is an absolutely gorg luxury home brand with roots in high end fashion, created by Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia. Exquisite pillows, bedding, furniture, lighting and original artwork are in abundance and ready to slay y'all...

LOVING the white lacquered pipe and flange used for display...and y'all can't really tell from my '5-glasses in advanced champagne camera technique', but the paint colors used in this place are divine-- Who ARE these people?!?!

SERVE US!

More Festive Skulls!

Ankasa is just bubbling with all kinds of gorgeousness for the home, so it's well worth a visit to see it for y'all-selves! And for those out of towners, fret not: though Ankasa is in the process of updating it's online ordering system, they are more than happy to facilitate orders over the phone, click here for specifics. And festive skulls!

Stripped and LOVING IT!

Commence new bedframe backslappery:

Biotch took me task with this one...stripping off all that luxurious 'wood' grain took both my time & my brain cells (toxic paint stripper-realness), I'm not gonna lie...but whateve's, it's a small price to pay for all this metal/stainless steel luxury...here's a refresher of what she used to look like:

Here's more hot AFTER Action:

Let's see this lady without some of those pillows:

Those streaks on the headboard aren't my shoddy photography skills, y'all (sorry about moody lighting)...they're REAL...they came about from my scrubbing and are a bit unsightly, but I'm ok with them...when removing paint or other finish from metal, you often have to use an abrasive (sandpaper, steel wool, scrubber) as well as stripper, to get everything off...and depending upon what & how you use it (by hand vs. power tool), it will "scar" the metal. For instance, sandpaper will remove everything, but you'll be scratching your metal underneath in the removal process, so you have to be careful...some peeps use sandpaper or other abrasives & make it more of a deliberate design detail, creating a pattern or some such in the metal. I wanted the metal here to be more random and hand-finished, so it looked as natural as possible. Also, I can always re-sand if I want to tone down anything, etc. at a later time...b/c y'all know this shiot didn't take long enough in the first place...shut the FU&$ you I'm not touchin' that damn thing again!

Overall, I'm thrilled beyond belief at how my new bedframe turned out! From Thrift Whore score to sassy stainless seductress...consider y'all-selves taken there!

Y'all, Christopher Columbus has a nice a$$!!!

One of the greatest benefits to living in NYC is getting to experience some cool shiot-- from restaurants, museums, shops, shows, and tranny's. There's this amazing art exhibit happening right now presented by the Public Art Fund, Discovering Columbus by Tatzu Nishi.

If y'all can't tell what's going on here, it's basically a giant "living room" that's been built on a platform surrounding a pre-existing statue of Christopher Columbus in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. And it's WAY cool to be able to get so up close and personal to something that's normally 75 ft high! In this exhibit, Christopher "stands" atop a coffee table, (y'all know, where ALL of us keep our statues):

And shut the FU$& you, Christopher with this view:

There's armchairs, a sectional sofa, a bookcase with books, even a flatscreen tv (this IS America, y'all):

One of my fav decorative elements was this 'licious pop art toile wallpaper...

I also LOVED how we were encouraged to get all cozy in the living room as if it was our own...which naturally, Dyl and I took full advantage of...

For those who are able, get y'all-selves to this exhibit, which runs until Nov 18, 2012...for the rest of the folks who can't get some of this action in person, soak it up, there's a lot of HOT a$$ up under those skirts:

Repeat Progress Report

Earlier this week I'd posted about repetition of pattern and how I was going to apply this technique in my own bathroom, gettin' all kinds of D.I.Y.-dirty on y'all...here's the pattern I'm working from:

Here's what bathroom looked like:

Here's where it's at now:

And:

Obvi, I decided to play with scale here, so my bird cages are a lot LARGER. I also deliberately left the birds out for fear of it going way too juvenile and I think this really works. Plus, this makes it much more conceptual, overall, since me and Dyl are now the 'birds' in these larger than life cages...and who doesn't like to get some cage play once in a while?! Chirp! Chirp!

I'm doing all this painting by hand and though exhausting, it's also fun b/c the pattern has a real line drawn/illustrated quality about it, so I can't really make any mistakes...well, I can and have, but they're easily corrected. Basically, it doesn't have to look perfect...it's interpretive of the original and it's super-quirky! My plan is to paint the other three walls in the same way, so check back for more progress updates and more detailed how-to action!