Imprinting on Prints

Single Fabric 8One of my favorite timeless design concepts: the print on print. While I like to mix and match fabrics with the best of them, there is something about a room where the fabric gets repeated – walls, drapery, upholstery – that I just love. I am thinking that the master bedroom at #barbothouse may need to get a serious print on print treatment. And definitely a canopy bed.

Single Fabric 9Print on print has been en vogue forever. It has never gone out of style, and forms the foundation of some of the most recognizable rooms – like Diana Vreeland’s “garden in hell.”

Single Fabric 4It can be bold, like in Valentino’s Roman apartment …

Single Fabric 5 … or subtle, as in Jeffrey Bilhuber’s New York apartment.

Single Fabric 3Stripes are often used – above by Anthony Hail, below by Lee Radizwill …

Single Fabric 12 … as are florals and toiles.

Single Fabric

Single Fabric 13Now I just have to select the fabric …

(Images via: Vogue, legacy.dianavreeland.com, Vogue, Bilhuber.com, Anthony Hail, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest New York InteriorsElle Decor)

More Interior Design

Happy New Year – Lacquered Life is back … and in Vogue

  • Life
  • January 6, 2016

IMG_1350Happy New Year Lacquered Lifers! I’m BACK! I want to start off the new year by apologizing to those of you who were disappointed by my blog neglect over the past few months. Business at Torrance Mitchell Designs has been booming (thankfully), and Lacquered Life fell by the wayside. Time management has never been one of my strengths. I am looking forward to being back over here at Lacquered Life in 2016, and based on this “best nine” on instagram it seems that most of you are looking forward to watching the progress of our renovation at the Barbot House here in Charleston. Follow along on instagram @lacqueredlife  #barbothouse as we begin the renovation this winter/spring 2016. However, I would like to ask all of you to let me know what you would like to see from Lacquered Life in 2016. What posts do you miss most? Preservation? Entertaining? Interiors? Products? Let me know – I want to cater the site to my loyal readers … many of you who have been with me since 2009 when this journey started. best-dining-rooms-in-vogue-09Also, in case visiting Lacquered Life and following along on instagram @lacqueredlife weren’t enough, you can find me writing for the Living section over at Vogue.com. Looking forward to bringing a little bit of lacquered lifestyle to Vogue readers. The photo above is from my first post, The Most Beautiful Dining Rooms in Vogue. Stay tuned – I promise to let you know here at Lacquered Life when the Vogue.com posts go live.

Again, thank you for following along these past seven years, regardless of my irregularity, means so much to have readers like you.

Cheers, Olivia

More Life

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a virtue. A saying long used by our elders in a vain effort to teach the younger generation that good things come to those who wait. I wonder if these sayings will continue to be used by my generation as we raise our children Wait? Why wait? Wait through the commercials to watch a whole television show? Order it on Apple TV. Wait for the newspaper? Go on Twitter. Slowly furnish a home over time to allow it to have that collected and curated look we all crave? Go online and order it all over the course of a weekend.

I know, I know, it’s hilarious that I say this as a blogger; but as a preservationist we are an inherently patient people. We respect time, and the passage of time, and the time it took for things to age and develop the patina and history that we obsess over and admire. So it has been with film director James Ivory and his c. 1805 home in NY’s Hudson Valley. IvoryThe 6,000 square foot c. 1805 home has twelve foot ceilings throughout, and was built on an octagonal plan, with two octagonal rooms on each side stacked on top of each other. Ivory purchased the home in the summer of 1975 … for $105,000.
Ivory 4Ivory 6
Ivory 5Ivory 3Ivory 2Ivory’s home, complete with stacks and stacks of books and miles of memorabilia and objets, looks as if it has been lived in, and loved, for forty years. And yet, the owner feels it is only 95% done. Patience, a virtue? In this case, I believe so. 

Photos via T Magazine

More Architecture