If this year’s San Francisco Decorator Showcase is any indicator, color is making a comeback.  The hushed neutrals of the past have been replaced by sumptuous hues and bold graphics that feel fresh and invigorating.  For example, in Cecilie Starin’s black and white dining room the abstract murals by San Francisco street muralist Ian Ross along with inventive art pieces (see above) made from street artists’ spray paint cans embrace the unconventional.

Which is only fitting since this is a home that celebrates a famed woman architect’s progressive vision. Julia Morgan designed the house in 1917 for “Dried Fruit King” Abraham Rosenberg and his wife Alice specifying an unusual choice of material–concrete–for the Tudor style home. You can see some of Morgan’s own quotes lining the entrance stairway designed by Candace Barnes.

Upstairs on the press preview day, designer Will Wick hung one last piece of art on the moss green walls of his elegant master bedroom. The soothing but sophisticated wall color combined with cream accents sets off the art beautifully.

Next door, designer Tineke Triggs paired an emerald green chaise with graphic tile and Keith Haring-like art.  When pressed Triggs revealed that the large photo of the cat-eyed woman–inspired by a Vogue magazine cover from the 70s–was Triggs herself!

Adjacent dressing rooms feature neutral backdrops with subtle swaths of color. Hers is a soft cocoon of pastels while His features edgier grays and blacks.

Teen boy’s gear references the colors in the custom bed coverings made from fabric designed by Jean Paul Gautier and discovered in France by fabricator Susan Chastain.  Decorative painter Willem Racke’s lacquered ombre’ finish on the walls was inspired by rock striations along the California coast.

Two upper rooms showcase whimsical wallpaper.  The laundry room features bright butterflies on the walls and custom drying racks above the washer/dryer.

A smoochy wallpaper covers the walls in the upstairs bath and seals the whole showcase with a kiss.

The lip colors recall the palette of the glam living room by Philip Silver Design.

As well as the merlot colored walls of the game room. “We decided to embrace Pantone’s controversial color of the year,” says designer Jeff Schlarb. “It’s actually quite lovely to watch it change throughout the day.”

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, plan to tour this beautiful showcase house before it closes on May 25, Memorial Day.  Details can be found at DecoratorShowcase.org.

“Guilford Green,” Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year for 2015, would be a good candidate for Miss Congeniality in a paint color pageant.  Soft on the eye, with a sophisticated grey undertone, this green would be equally at home in a casual guesthouse or a formal salon.

Demure but playful, it’s the color of new growth or the shade of “white” poinsettia leaves.  Perfect for spring and wonderful in winter.

On this greenest of days–Happy St. Patrick’s Day!–feel free to mix your greens.

All photos from Benjamin Moore.

As summer draws to a close, the landscape here in rain-starved California is dominated by straw-colored hills dotted with silvery-green foliage.  It took me years to appreciate this dusty color palette having grown up in a place that was either bright with summer rain or starkly white under a layer of snow.  But now these mellow “Golden State” colors feel like home.  Perhaps that’s why I was so taken with San Francisco designer Benjamin Dhong’s design for a South Bay couple in the September “Color” issue of House Beautiful.

As he explains in his interview with Mimi Read, Dhong favors a mix of rustic and glamorous elements, like this green velvet ottomon paired with a distressed fireplace mantel.

He also knows his way around neutrals, as seen in the elegant white-on-white bedroom and East-West inspired living room with its sunny accessories.

After a few years awash in watery blues, it’s nice to see the sun shine in.

All photos by Lisa Romerein for House Beautiful.

I’m whupped from simultaneously managing the construction project and packing up to move, but so pleased with the results.  Yes, there are things missing—the refrigerator is on back order for a month!—and we didn’t make all the deadlines we were working towards, but we did accomplish so much.

Today I made my final run to Home Depot for some odds and ends—a temporary shower curtain rod for the guest bath, more red rosin paper to protect the floors during the move, and  parts to repair the garage door opener including some doorbell wire.  A friendly employee named Cassandra led me to the wire then pointed to the doorbell display above and said, “This is my favorite thing in the whole store.”

Then she showed me how the doorbell can be programmed to play different ring tones like “Silent Night” or “The Star Spangled Banner.”  She giggled as she turned the switch to Beethoven’s “5^th Symphony” for a little drama.  I laughed and asked to take a photo of her demonstrating the different rings.  Another customer jumped in at the last minute.  It was a silly shared moment that highlighted how much fun so much of this has been.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.  Catch you on the other side of the move.

On a not-so-blue-skies day last week I popped into Design San Francisco to catch Suzanne Tucker’s gracious presentation about her design practice illustrated with projects from her new book “The Romance of Design”. (Read more of what Tucker had to say in my BANG profile this weekend.) After she’d  finished, I took a closer look at the furnishings on the San Francisco Design Center stage and thought that though Pantone has declared Radiant Orchid the color of the year, I continue to see a sea of blue textiles and accessories.

Like these lovely cornflower blue fabrics from Tucker’s home line made into bed linens.

Some nautical navy sewn into cushions and pillows.

Watery turquoise resin molded into tabletops.

Bold graphic periwinkle rugs.

Slate-blue wall coverings.

And ethereal aqua art.

Maybe purple will eventually reign, but for now blue rules.

Hello!  I’m back from exploring a part of the world that is frankly otherworldly.  Peru was so much more colorful, noisy, beautiful and demanding than I expected.  I’ll share more over the next few weeks as I edit photos and compose my thoughts, but couldn’t wait to show you some of the gorgeous colors and textiles I saw there–starting with the clothing these children were wearing on the streets of Ollantaytambo. Aren’t they something?

Ever since I finished a ten-years-in-the-making quilt top on Tuesday, I’ve been happily plucking clipped loose threads off my furniture, clothing—even my hair brush. Now the top (and back) are off to be professionally quilted and I’m savoring the delicious pause between completed and new projects.

I’m also taking a little break from fiction writing because I finished the first draft of my first novel (!) on Monday.  Kind of a milestone week, I’d say.

“Now what?”  friends ask when they hear I actually typed the words THE END.  I tell them I’ll write it all over again–starting in a few weeks.  But right now I’m going to take a deep breath and marvel at how all those loose threads of characters and plot points and historical details that have been scattered around my brain for years got gathered into a big, messy ball of a story.

Ta da! And TA DA!

***

After I stopped making up stories and sewing small squares of fabric together this week, I discovered:

Marble madness is everywhere.

Fun facts about color.

Aidlin Darling Design–one of my favorite Bay Area design firms–received a National Design Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Some lovely ballads as well as sea shanties in Sting’s The Last Ship.

How novelist Claire Messud celebrated Thanksgiving abroad.

Performance artist Marina Abramovic–perhaps best known for her silent encounters at MOMA in 2010–actually has a lot to say.

Looking ahead—if you’re in the San Francisco area, check out the treasures and top-notch presenters starting Thursday at the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show.  You can read more about it in my BANG story here. Should be a fun, fabulous event!

Happy Weekend All!

Happy Birthday to my husband, M.J.  Well before Google was invented, he became the search engine in my world. Brilliant, clever, kind and decent–he’s provided the answers to so many questions in my life. Big and little.

Our children mock our geeky courtship–we met in our university’s honors program, competed on the same College Bowl team and got engaged amidst the stacks when he said “what will our children think when we tell them I asked you to marry me in the library?”

Thirty-three years later we know what they think.  They think we were nerdy nerd nerds. (Though I can’t imagine a more fitting and romantic place for two wannabe know-it-alls to commit to spend their lives together.)

When I tell the longer version of our story, I always say that M.J. was the most interesting guy I’d ever dated.  I knew I’d never be bored with him.  And I was right.

Happy Birthday, honey!

Here are a few other things that engaged me this week:

This elegant cast iron kitchenware.

Hand-dyed yarn inspired by duck hunting season.

Learning about the origins of one of my favorite colors—Vosey blue.

Some musings on Sunbonnet Sue and other sentimentalized quilt imagery.

Developing empathy through reading literary fiction.

And finally, painter Llius Lleo talks about becoming an artist.   Lleo on inspiration –”There’s not unlimited space in your brain. . .if you need to see more to do your work, maybe you should do something else.”

Off to make a birthday cake — Happy Weekend!

While congress squabbles, let’s consider some accoutrements of civility, shall we?

For my tea party/baby shower over the weekend I decided to look for table linens more in keeping with the wall colors in this house. Since the interior walls are painted in the beige/gray/greige shades of the revamped Restoration Hardware, I started there and found a simple gray linen table runner.  Laid across my white painted table and topped with a pink (baby girl) floral arrangement, I thought it would convey just the right amount of rustic gentility.

This particular RH happened to be next door to a Williams-Sonoma so I popped in and discovered that WS has also done a gray linen table runner this season.  The WS runner had a little more black to it (hard to tell in these photos) and more pronounced detailing on the hem.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a traditional jacquard tablecloth in a grey/cream colorway and purchased two lengths to test out alongside my dining room chairs.

The winner? The 108” version of the tablecloth—a little more formal, but oh so lovely.  And since we’re moving again next spring (lease up, owners ready to return) I may be stepping  away from the rustic simplicity I’ve cultivated in this woodsy modern home.  In any event this cloth works well with both my everyday and formal china as well as my white dining room furniture. And it made a beautiful backdrop for a baby girl bouquet.

Back to congress–as the black & white budget battle drags on, shouldn’t we all be considering at least some shades of gray?

On this week of the fall equinox I’ve been spending time getting ready to host a baby shower for a young friend.  Other friends are bringing the food which means I’ve been able to focus my party prep on my home and garden.  Early in the week, feeling very Mrs. Dalloway-esque, I headed to my local flower stand to see what kind of fall foliage was available.  Look at the beautiful hawthorn branches laden with orangey-red berries and wicked thorns I brought home! All week I’ve loved watching the way the light passes through the mottled leaves and the branches frame my living room art.  New season new living room.

Here are some other fresh ideas from the week:

Eight architects recommend their favorite black paint colors.

One woman’s quest to get the French to eat kale.

Join a bunch of other smart folks on Oct. 18 and throw a dinner party with a purpose.

Ruth Reichl has a faffer, shouldn’t you?

Ten years later, how The O.C. still influences teen drinking.

#hashtag much?

Happy Autumnal Equinox!