Lake Sunapee Home

One of our latest designs is a Lake Sunapee home  for an older couple, their children, and grandchildren.  The cottage style home fits in nicely with the architecture around the lake.

Goals of the home are energy efficiency, one floor living for the parents, and well-designed common and private areas for each family.

The project is in the design development stage, where we determine spatial requirements and accurate dimensions for rooms and areas, as well as outdoor space for entertaining.  Broad material choices are being made in this stage of the home design.  One or more meetings will be dedicated solely to the kitchen design to choose appliances and their location, cabinets, flooring, counters, and special requirements for the owners.

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Accenting your Fall Tablesetting

Delightful Detail

Inscribe your guests' initials on a pretty leaf for an unusual place card. Use a metallic paint pen for a polished look.

Orange You Glad

For another nature-inspired touch on your table, stud oranges with cloves in guests' initials for fragrant placeholders.

Rich Textures

Combine a variety of materials for a sumptuous table. Here, glass, metallic, and iridescent finishes lend festive glimmer.


I loved these creative ideas I found on my homeideas. Adding these small touches can make a fall tablesetting so special and memorable.

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Fresh Drapery Treatments

Flowery Style

Floral patterns don't have to look outdated. Look for ones with a large print, like the black-and-white Roman shades designer Erinn Valencich uses in this modern bedroom.

Keep It Simple

Simple shades and panels in a modern geometric pattern frame the view of this stylish study. Designer Troy Beasley says, "Keep windows open and light. Don't dress up the windows with jabots, swags or other old-fashioned, fussy treatments."

Creative Treatments

Windows aren't the only place for beautiful draperies. Designer Tracy Morris fills a luxurious bathroom with soft pleated curtains hung along the walls to add warmth and to create different spaces.

Full of Frills

Unique window treatments complete a room. Designer Shelly Riehl David creates custom puff-top silk draperies for this romantic and feminine bedroom.

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Fresh Drapery Treatments

Modern Stripes

Simple panels are one of the easiest and most popular window-treatment options. To spice up the living room's neutral palette, designer Troy Beasley selects white-and-green-striped curtains. Choose wider stripes and contrasting hues for a more modern look.

Elegant Yet Simple

To match the scale of the formal dining room, designer Lori Dennis hangs heavy brocade curtains right below the tray ceiling. A simple ring heading is used to balance the luxurious fabric, while silk ties hold the draperies back to allow natural light into the space.

Curtain Combos

Valances provide a streamlined look by hiding drapery hardware. Designer Troy Beasley pairs a valance with cream panels trimmed in brown to add warmth to the bedroom while still letting in a little natural light.

Sleek and Blue

Designer Lori Dennis maintains the contemporary look of the living room with sleek panels hung close to the wall. Hidden hardware gives the window treatments a streamlined look.

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My Home/Inspiration

Bring Outdoors In

Instead of buying expensive flowers, try decorating with branches. Even bare branches that have fallen from trees can make a design impact and will last a long time.

Add Pillows

Pillows are an easy to way to add a pop of color or a new texture to a living room. Inexpensive options can be found at stores like Homegoods or Target.

Curtain Illusions

Windows look taller when draperies are mounted high on the wall. The eye will follow the line up, creating the illusion of a larger room.

Arrange by Color

Designer Kim Myles is always budget-minded and one element that didn't cost a thing in this family room is the bookshelf decorations.

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Oscar de la Renta Dress for Success

To celebrate the launch of his home fabric collection with Lee Jofa,
Oscar de la Renta created custom ball skirts using fabrics from his collection. The skirts, which were used in advertisements for Lee Jofa announcing the launch of the collection, will be auctioned off for charity. The fabric on the skirts is backed in organza and lined in silk, giving the skirts the weight and tactile quality of a timeless Oscar de la Renta piece.

All skirts are a women’s designer size four. There are nine skirts and one caftan, size small, made from various patterns from the collection, including exclusive designs on linen and silk, delicate beading and embroidery, and a luxurious velvet and linen stripe. Each item is exquisite and a one of a kind collector’s item. The Lee Jofa website has images and detailed information for each piece, as does the site where the auction is hosted, Bidding for Good. Bidding will be hosted online through November 30, 2010.

With Oscar’s home fabrics priced by the yard at several hundred dollars retail, the opening bid of $750 for each skirt means they will mostly receive tons of bids from designers and Oscar de la Renta collectors.

Proceeds of the auction will go to Casa del Niño, which is regarded as the most complete project of child assistance in the Dominican Republic. Each day at Casa del Niño, every child receives food, full dental and medical care, and vocational training for the age appropriate – all in hope of a better tomorrow for the youth of the community. Casa del Niño is considered to be a model in efficiency and quality care.

The collection itself, which is now available in Lee Jofa showrooms throughout the country, includes 25 designs in silk, linen, velvet and cotton. The tailoring and attention to detail that makes his clothing so special is evident in these rich saturated hues, ethnic-inspired prints and hand-knotted embroideries.

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Design Products/M Pillow

If you’re at this month’s 100% Design London and happen by the product launch of an Argentinean company called Grupo Bondi, be tempted neither by the ostensibly plush texture of the M Bench, nor the seemingly soft surface of the M Pillow, however inviting the surroundings, whatever the degree of bodily comfort promised.
For in spite of the Capitonné style, the exquisite embroidered embellishments, M is as hard as any hillside rock. Bondi explains, “bored out of its aristocratic life it turned into stone in order to endure the unmerciful weather, live outside, sleep under the stars and be connected to life.”

M is not constructed of foam or cotton batting, of touchable-textiles, but rather of concrete, pvc, and aluminum. Bondi makes the piece by forming it in their patented flexible moulds: “this technique allows us to achieve great finished surfaces, fluid shapes and back-flows, successfully enabled by going beyond traditional rigid-mould systems.” The technology is impressive but the particular attraction for me is the invented narrative, especially since the story smacks of great fables, compelling mythologies of castings-out and wanderings-hence.
In fact, I’m tempted to align M with grand tales of exile—Shakespeare’s Lear or Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Of course, these stories are sublimely tragic, rife with greater woes than pillows of rock or beds of scratchy straw. Perhaps more in the spirit are the Master’s lighter romps, epiphanic pastorals like A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It. These so called “Green Plays” parallel the journey forecast for M, as courtly types must endure life among the frivolous and fickle bounty of nature.

 But whereas Shakespeare’s characters typically return to their creature comforts, M’s alteration is permanent and irreversible, and that’s the coolest thing about it. Bondi has taken the complementary notions of relaxation, bodily ease, and the constructed environment and turned it out-of-doors, in the process creating an au natural adornment that not only challenges the senses but also parallels the permanence of the trees, the sun, the stars.

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