Holiday Dinnerware

I cant help it, each year I have new ideas for a fun and different winter holiday table setting. If it were up to me, I would have hundreds of dinner sets to choose from in my cabinets each year. Unfortunately, the financial ramifications of such a dream are absurd. Not to mention the storage would be impossible! This is what makes our job so wonderful. I can live vicariously through all our clients. We are currently preparing a few different tablescapes and below are some of my favorite holiday dinnerware sets! For those of you like myself who cannot buy new plates each winter, I highly recommend the Anthropologie Monochrome Mosaic Dinnerware. You can use these every year but completely change the look of your table by the accessories you use. From top to bottom: Sacred Bird Dinnerware, Ralph Lauren Kilgour Plates, Monochrome Mosaic Dinnerware, Iittala's Taika featured in My Barn Owl Blog

Book Review: Katie Ridder, Rooms

After having this book in my possession, I can’t imagine that my design library would ever be complete without Katie Ridder’s Rooms, sitting on my shelf.

Since bringing this beauty home I have been engulfed in the design euphoria it provides and finding inspiration on every page. Heather Smith MacIsaac wonderfully explains Katie’s methods and design theories through her writing, and Eric Piasecki’s photographs are just as beautiful as the designs he captures. As you read through you feel like you are in each of these gorgeous rooms and speaking with the talented designer herself.

"Dining rooms typically come to life in the evening, when the lights are low ... During the day, they are rooms we mostly pass by or glimpse from another. For that very reason they can handle color-and lots of it."

"Family rooms should invite gathering and stand up to the accumulations that come with an active life."

Katie Ridder Interior Design and Decoration opened its doors in 1995 and has been creating rooms that are full of color, glamour, and real life ever since. Being a mom of three herself, Katie is focused on making rooms that are practical, sophisticated, and full of life. “No matter how lavish a project, no matter its style and degree of sophistication, it remains accessible, family friendly, absolutely inviting, and subtly practical.”

"Color begets color in Katie's studies and family rooms. For furnishings to hold their own against a backdrop of a strong hue, they must have strength in form, boldness of pattern, or some other mark of distinction."

"From cozy and colorful to spacious and bright, Katie's studies and family rooms are inviting yet always hard working spaces."

Before providing us all with the gift of her designs, Katie Ridder worked as an editor at House & Garden and House Beautiful. Her work as an editor must have helped her learn and explore her own design talents because she came out creating designs that are addictive to the eye. There are layers to each of Katie’s designs. The lively color and patterns, the blend of styles, and unique craftsmanship and details are all combined beautifully to create “rooms that are not only pretty and welcoming, they are comfortable and thoughtful.”

"... a bedroom should feel like a sanctuary, consistently comfortable and pleasurably restful. That doesn't mean that it should slip into design somnolence."

"A successful living room beckons you to explore, then invites you to stay awhile."

"Powder rooms, because they are stand-alone spaces hidden behind a door, are places to be a little extravagant, with decoration or material or both."

The book Rooms is not only inspiring and aesthetically pleasing, it is informative as well! Katie’s tidbits such as “Anatomy of a Full-Length Curtain,” “The Ideal Dining Chair,” and "What Every Entry Needs" are very helpful as are her chapters on details. It’s these pieces of advice and guidance that Katie Ridder provides that show off what a pro she really is.

"As much as color distinguishes Katie's work, it is the attention she lavishes on details that elevates her interiors to the level of couture."

Thank you, Katie Ridder, for inspiring me with everything you do! And everyone, I recommend you buy this book right away!

Until next time,

Ellenor