Two Faced: What to do when your back is your front

Your front entry that is. I know what I am doing is considered rather unique. Not the flipping part. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is a flipper these days. No disrespect to Tom, Dick or Harry and most certainly none intended to the Tomasia’s, Dorathea’s and/or Harriet’s that are forging their own path on the road to financial security – I salute you all. The point is, this is about me, the me that can’t seem to do anything normal, or easy, or in a way that I can just blend into the crowd. Sometimes blending is a welcome cloak against the condemnation that follows from the pitfalls of this business of being human – if you know what I mean.

Enough greenery can make anything look better.

When I selected No. 5 I didn’t give much thought to the fact that you enter through the back of the building. Not just because that’s the convenient way to get there, but because it’s the only actual way to get there, unless you want to crawl through the window. The window BTW is the intended exit route if there were a fire. It works, but nobody is worried about what they look like when the are escaping a fire…am I right?

This particular set of row houses (those intended for the servants) are pretty, in their simple, unfussy way. They certainly don’t look like the brownstones of the eight street district, or Beacon Hill, and the back of them – well, it’s the back. They are draped in wires, cables and cords. They are gated or fenced in from the street, but still can be viewed from the same. My gate is a thin barrier at best to the outside world, and yet, I am decidedly subconscious about the way it looks.

When you open the sage green gate (anyone that knows me well, knows that THAT color has to change), and are presented with a small wooden walk way leading to a few steps, a small outdoor deck and my back door. My back door is really a kitchen door. Three rows of divided lights sit atop two long vertical panels. It would be fine for a country home – even better if the top half opened to a grand back yard, and it were the fifties, but this is neither the country or that decade, and as for privacy, don’t think I haven’t noticed the next door neighbors, on floor two, peering down in at me. I’ve got my eyes on you too, and a stun gun, so beware. I also have a new front door sitting in my living room. I’ve always wanted my own front door. Condo living doesn’t really afford you a front door in the traditional, single family home sense of the word, and I have visions of a southern porch, inviting me down the boxwood bordered path on perfect pavers, to my glossy doored destination. If there is any solace in the selection of this soggy bottomed abode, it’s the back door – which of course I am going to turn into my very own front.

Wayfare . Metalic Galvanized Steel Coated Planter.

Due to the fact that a good deal of my entry is “common space”, for those of you that are unfamiliar, it’s like being married and having to negotiate with your partner for approval on purchases. Since the sale of the unit below is under negotiation, I can’t even being to hypnotize him into accepting that there is no other color in the world more perfect than gray. It’s a real drama for me, A. Because I am not married and don’t negotiate getting what I want with anyone, and B. I am totally impatient. So I just began painting. I painted everything that I “owned” and then started to slyly move down the corridor until I was made to stop. Well now it just looks silly, and will have to be painted, and since I never selected that detestable first color, I have no idea what it is. The logical thing to do of course is to continue on with my beautiful Benjamin Moore . Trout Gray.

I have a happy entry mat that says “HELLO” and I purchased some beautiful long, linear and tall black planters in which boxwood’s will be planted to hide the condenser, and the less then happy trellis that sits in front of it. I am going to trim the windows out in black, and hang large beautiful wreaths in them both. The piece de resistence? There is going to be a black and white striped canopy. I haven’t figured out how to do it just yet, but trust me when I tell you, when I am done with it all – my back is going to be the very best front you ever did see.

Happy Saturday.

One Kings Lane Lands

Fall Floral

It sounds so British, and yet it was founded by two women (if you are paying attention this little formula produces major results – think Soul Cycle, Glossier, The Wing, Chief and many more – they are all founded by female duos), are California girls. I hope Alison Pincus and Susan Feldman will forgive me for calling them girls. I mean it in the best youthful, have sass, and sparkle, and bright ideas mixed with ambition, kind of way. They’ve got chutzpah, and that chutzpah got them to start OKL in 2008 when all the world seemed to be falling apart. There flash sale model morphed, and morphed again, before it was sold to Bed Bath & Beyond – clearly making them look good, and I mean really good, for their ability to make smart decisions.

Art that represents the region.

The purchase of my very first home, coincided with their launch, and I lovely perused page after page of flash site offerings for inspiration. I have to admit that it wasn’t until much later that I purchased anything – I was broke. I had rubbed my two nickles together to make a dime, and hands opening in offering, asked if it was enough for the down payment. I think I can be forgiven, having just gotten into the game.

The ratan floor lamp is a little bit of south pacific happy – for just under $1k.

Now a gamer of sorts, I have traveled to NYC for their first in-house design advice session in their SOHO location on Houston – since relo’d and I got there just in time because they were selling everything in their “see it and touch it” studio, to avoid the hassle of having to move it. I left with an antique desk, two enormous Schumacher pillows, two gorgeous kelly green gourd lamps, and I am sure a few other items I couldn’t live without for No. 3.

Curation is their strong point – a mix of vintage and new – this is the exception to the rule, you are allowed to buy the whole vingette.

Last fall I visited their first real bricks and mortar store – also in SOHO, and walked away with a petite vintage Turkish Oushauk in sage green, gray and lavender – for a steal! It’s in the kitchen of No. 5.

Cognac leather stool – I can see my boyfriends living room taking shape 🙂

And now – drum roll, they have landed in Boston’s Seaport. One opening party, and a visit with my sister and I have already purchased a number of things that I didn’t need at all, and when I am supposed to be saving. I mean no disrespect to this venerable design store, with its sublime styling style, and its cosmic curation, but I have got to retire some day!

Diamond Studded Lobster’s .

I did just learn that they’ll be launching Hunter’s Alley soon. A little marketplace that I can sell to others like me, that just maybe bought one too many things they didn’t really need, and are looking to free up some space and recapture some cash. I hope it launches soon, it feels like I’m becoming a hoarder and I really have no patience or desire to tunnel my way through my tiny little home.

Setting the scene….

Check them out – 25 Thompson Place, Boston . MA.

Artistic Integrity: artwork that works with any other art

Bathing Beauty . 30.5″ x 38.5″ $510.

Honestly. If you love art, you might find a point in time, when you’ve bought yet another piece that spoke to you even though you had no place to place it. You know what I’m talking about – that overwhelming desire that washes over you – blocking out all reason, fogging your mind with a fever, which compels you to nearly knock an old lady over as you yank the painting off the wall. Come on, I can’t be the only one that’s done it….can I?

Well, even if you were far more composed than I, when you purchased your collection, you may find putting together disparate styles, colors, and genres, a real challenge. It can be, but I think I found some art that may be the answer. Hable Construction has an original art series by Soicher Marin that is monochromatic – Digital Art, already framed, in collages, watercolors, and pen + ink drawings. The collages appeal, in particular because they work with so many different of art. I simply adore them and think you will too.

Blue Swatch . $620.