We are on a podcast + A Giveaway!

We are on the Decorating Tips & Tricks Podcast!

My friend Kelly Wilkniss of My Soulful Home has a podcast with her friend Anita Joyce of Cedar Hill Farmhouse. Sometimes they do solo episodes where they interview people and guess what? This week Kelly interviewed Cindy Hattersley, Mary Ann Pickett, and me about our hashtag The Collected Look and what it means to each of us.

Here’s a link to the podcast, but keep reading for a really fun giveaway!

First a little about Kelly – Kelly lives in Los Angeles, California with her family and three rescue pups. When they relocated to California from New York City, Kelly was not all that thrilled. She was leaving behind her career as a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, then practiced Civil Rights law for 14 years. 

Kelly had always loved renovating homes having renovated NYC apartments and a home in The Hamptons, so when the family moved to Los Angeles and started to settle in and enjoy the year-round sunshine, it wasn’t long before Kelly found a “project” – A Folk Victorian Farmhouse built-in 1886. While finishing this project that began in 2016, she was asked to write a book! She focused on her passion for floral design. Her book My Soulful Home ~ A Year in Flowers is about how to care for cut flowers, how to grow a cutting garden and the people that enjoy them.  I love this quote from her book.“Don’t wait for someone to send you flowers, make your own arrangements”

In 2017, Kelly began hosting and producing the podcast, Decorating Tips & Tricks. One might think, how does this work, talking about home decor without visuals, but it totally does. For this episode, it was all about the collected look in your home. With a little help from Cindy, Mary Ann and me, Kelly has put together a beautiful giveaway for one lucky listener. 

To enter to win the collection in the photo below, sign up here.

The Giveaway – A very collected look

Cindy, Mary Ann, and I are all going to answer a few questions about The Collected Look that we don’t think made it to the podcast. This gives you a little idea of what it means to us, what inspires us, and how you get the look if it’s something you would like in your home!

What does the collected look mean to me?

I love a home that has a collected over time feel. Not a house that is decorated with the latest trends, but instead I like to surround myself with things that remind me of our travels. Some of my favorite things in our home are souvenirs that we brought home from our travels, but mostly things like bottles from cafes, sand from all the beaches we’ve been to as a family, and rocks. I have an inordinate amount of rocks. I collect things on walks like seed pods or driftwood and bring it home for memory. Our home is all in shades of white, cream, black, brown, gray, so things from nature are all those colors. You can see our sand collection in this post!

Our Sand Collection in Clear Boxes

Favorite Small Shop –  Roman & Williams Guild

It’s hard to pick just one, but the first one that popped into my mind and the one I keep coming back to is Roman and Williams Guild in SoHo. It’s an exquisite shop and not at all small in terms of square footage. It is filled with inspiration. Everything in the shop speaks to the soul. Whatever time of year it is when you visit, you will know when you walk through and see the flowers that are displayed throughout the Guild and the cafe, La Mercerie. The founders, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch started their careers as movie-set designers. They share small snippets of their home and garden in Montauk, New York on their Instagram. It’s simple, but luxurious at the same time while being deeply connected to nature. You can read more about my visit to the Guild in this post. 

Roman and Williams Guild 

New York

Favorite Decorating Book – Travel Home by Caitlin Flemming & Julie Goebel

Travel Home is a beautiful book written by a mother and daughter team, so right there I love it! The book is filled with lovely images of homes and spaces inspired by travel. It’s divided into six chapters that you could almost use as your guide if you are thinking about adding this look to your home. The second chapter is about art & ephemera. Something that you can bring home in a suitcase. And if you can’t travel at the moment for the art that you could bring home in your suitcase, they give you ideas for sourcing and displaying art. “Art on the wall can transform your house into a home.” 

I think this photo of our coffee table at the moment sums up what the collected look means to me. I love having a book open on a coffee table. It’s nice to have a stack or stacks of books, but a lot of times no one will come in and pick one up. If you leave a book open, notice how someone will sit down, and within minutes they are turning the pages. An open book is like an invitation. This particular photo in the Travel Home book inspired me to go outside and clip an armful of hydrangeas for glass jars. The bowl is vintage pottery from my friend Diane Karmen and holds rocks that we found on our favorite beaches. The woven basket holds seed pods I picked up while on a walk. It’s simple and it changes a little almost daily. 

Mary Ann’s Coffee table

Cindy’s Coffee Table

Both Cindy and Mary Ann change their coffee tables often. They change the books, the objects, the flowers, the candles for whatever look they are going for that day, but on any day, they will always have The Collected Look! Make sure to enter the giveaway!

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