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Recess: You Deserve A Break Today!

At this point, you've been very physically active and mentally engaged. Trust me. I know. So now is the perfect time to leave the premises, hit the streets and go shopping. I find it very hard to break away at this particular moment and have to literally force myself to leave the building. I wanna stay in the trenches and continue to tweak and bang away at it. However, I've learned from a lot of experience that it's actually essential to give your eye a rest so you can return to the process with a fresh perspective. The best way I found to do this is to literally pick yourself up and go out into the world. Once you're out here are a few basic suggestions, take a breath, look around, relax. There's a whole world out there, go someplace local, sit down, grab a bite and refuel if it's a beautiful day, sit outside and take in the change of scenery. Don't underestimate the power of nature to revive your spirits when you feel a bit refreshed, take stock of the things that you'll need for you...

r room. Make a list. Here are some of the quickest and least expensive ways to perk up a room. There's nothing like a pair of pillows to reenergize a sofa and help to reinforce your color scheme. A throw for the sofa or a cloak chair adds color texture and or pattern. This is another way to incorporate color into your scheme and something that comes in very handy at nap time or on a movie night. Accessories for the cocktail table are a must if you're in need of some pieces to create greater visual interest. I recommend the following items, hurricanes or candlesticks in pairs, create height, light, elegance and romance. Depending on what you choose. They can also incorporate color. Decorative boxes are another great way to add height, color texture pattern and offer a very practical solution for storing TV, remotes, cocktail napkins, coasters matches et cetera scented candles. I have a one cent per room rule. So why not splurge and buy one outstanding candle in a beautiful container? And if said container just happens to match a color in your scheme. Well, then all the better one of my signature trademarks is to select a scent that I feel best suits the mood of the room. Apparently. Now this is being referred to as scent styling trying to figure out what mood your room is conveying and select a scent that supports that feeling ie fig amber or F Dubois might be good choices for a warmer scheme. Whereas Verbena lavender or Moroccan mint would pair nicely with a lighter feeling, sculptural objects, add height and create a focal point on a cocktail table. It could be a bust or something abstract made of metal or something more organic like wood sculpture adds movement artistry and relief from the status quo. The look and feel of something made by an artist. Hand can add a layer of sophistication and elegance. I love neoclassical busts and abstract sculptures. But what do you like? Incorporate that coffee table books serve many purposes. They create levels, add color and most importantly, telegraph the interests of the owner, many of my clients have books about the artist whose art is hanging on their walls. Others have books that reflect their primary interests, buy beautiful books that draw you in and reveal your personality. They'll add a personal dimension that will make your home feel more special and don't be afraid to place objects on top of those books to add more levels of interest. There's nothing like fresh flowers and or plants and trees to add color and texture to a room. In my opinion, a room doesn't really feel truly alive until there's something living in it besides its inhabitants. Flowers on an entry console, a cocktail table in a small jewel of cup on an end table or in a vase on a piano, always look good and bring more life to the room. There are many additional benefits of having flowers, plants, and trees in a room. For example, flowers are an easy way to import color topi are a very chic addition to any table top and add geometry, a large container filled with leafy or flowering branches can add in height and drama. The same can be said for an over scale tree in a beautiful basket. Kent of palms are low maintenance and add a touch of tropical drama. Whereas fiddly fig trees have large sculptural leaves that add great scale. If you have the abundance of light for it, I'm never timid about bringing huge bundles of flowers back to project because I know there will always be places for them to go. My personal preference is to use one species of flower per container which creates a cleaner and more modern look, making the arrangement full will give you maximal impact now that you've had a chance to recharge your batteries and take stock of what you need. Target an area very close to your home that's dense in resources. Ideally, it's best if all of those spots happen to be right next to each other. If you're in a big city, locate a three or four block radius that's close to home. If you're in the country, find a local strip mall with a large home decor store, a supermarket with a large flower selection and a great hardware store, you should be able to pick up just about everything you need from these three spots. What big picture pieces are still conspicuously missing from the room. Do you need a rug? Do you need more lighting? Are you low on decorative objects? It's time to go shopping. We're here at Hudson Grace, a phenomenal home goods store and I'm looking for some completer pieces, some accessories from my friend's home. I happen to be very lucky because she has an amazing assortment of accessories, but there's still some things that are missing, specifically things that I might be able to put on her cocktail table. I need some hurricanes that are gonna help give me a little bit of architecture and I happen to see exactly what I'm looking for right over here. OK. So let's talk hurricanes. We have a huge assortment of things to choose from. You've got the papa bear, the mama bear and even the baby bear. But I think what I really want for her is something that I'll be able to use on the cocktail table to maybe flank a box or a piece of sculpture. And then if that doesn't work, I still have the option to be able to use it on her dining table. So I think this one right here is gonna be the one I go with. It's tall and slender. I can use a taper candle with it if it doesn't work on the cocktail table. For some reason I can put it on the dining room table, multi purpose, multi use. It's all good. So I could also use a couple of pillows for her living room and she's got greens and blues and pinks. I think these green linens are really gonna work great. They're a different hue than her chairs. They might look terrific on her sofa. I think these are coming with us. We're at Compo Farms and I'm here to get obviously flowers. It's where I go a little bit crazy. It kind of lose my mind because there's so much amazing stuff to get. And she's a flower girl. She loves all things, flower and garden. So let's see what we can find. What can I tell you? I love a branch for so many reasons. You get verticality, you get height, you get drama, you get fullness and you know when I see something like this, which is so affordable and so attractive. I think I need a lot of it. So I'm just gonna grab bunches and bunches. I don't know where this stuff is gonna go yet, but I know it's gonna go somewhere. This is a great way to create impact and drama. At a very low price point. You don't need to break the bank. Something like this beautifully placed in a large vessel is going to bring you so much happiness. It's gonna do so much for the room. So go for it. Roses. I mean you can't go wrong with a rose ever. In this particular case, she's got a lot of pinks and greens and creams. So I wanna try to pull some of the color out of the fabric. And I'm looking at this gorgeous hot pink, which I think would really be stunning either on the cocktail table or maybe on one of the side tables. So this is a keeper. Oh my God, I cannot believe what I just found. These are hella bores, which happened to be one of my personal favorite flowers. And I know because I know my friend that she would go crazy for these. So I'm going to pick up a few bundles of them. They're expensive. But you know, every once in a while you have to bite the bullet and get something that's really special and this is really special. So here we go. So hydran are one of my favorite flowers and I know that most people consider that more of a summer flower, but they're available year round and it's one of those things that just works. They have a lot of volume. They always look lush and luxurious and elegant. They are a little bit on the more expensive side. However, you only need maybe say 3 to 5 heads to really create some drama. So I know that she likes them. This friend of mine is a big garden person. She loves hydrangeas. She has them in her backyard. I'm gonna get a bunch of these right here because they have like a little tint of green which is going to be compatible with her club chairs. And they're also a little bit creamy, not quite so stark white. And here's what I'd like to say about buying flowers in general when you're at the store and you don't have to go to a fancy florist. You don't have to go to the best and most expensive place to buy them. Buy a lot, buy more than you think you're gonna need. Because at the end of the day, you will find places to put them. There are cocktail tables, there are end tables, there are dining tables, there are foyer tables. So think about all of those different locations where flowers would be appropriate and that's pretty much just about everywhere. So I'm here today because I'm looking for things that I need for this one day makeover and there are some very, very essential pieces I need to find here. I think this is gonna happen. So I'm trying to find an end table for her living room. I need a versatile piece, something that's gonna be able to accommodate a great big table lamp, something that I can put some accessories on. And I think I think I found something that's looks kind of amazing. This is a drop leaf table. It's got a green stamped leather top. I'm pretty sure this is a new table, but it looks just like an antique with beautiful veneer. Uh This one's coming home with me. This room is primarily devoted to soft seating, soft furnishing. So you have chairs, you have chairs and ottomans. You have benches slipper chairs. There are any number of different options from traditional to more contemporary styles. Uh like this chair, for instance. And what is this on this chair? I think this is coming with me. Now. We're in the third room of this amazing facility and it's all case goods. It's dining tables and chairs, miles of aisles of stuff to choose from. I need to find myself a coffee table and an end table for the room. So I think this is, this is where I'm gonna spend some more time. I've been trying to find a cocktail table that will fit in her living room. I need something that's got some scale, something that has good surface space, something like this. This is a nice big rectangle with two tiers. It's got distressed mirror. It's a little bit contemporary, which is great because most of what she has is very traditional. I think this could really work. Oh, wow. Another drop leaf table kind of a sucker for a drop leaf table. This one is beautiful. It has this satin wood inlay. I think this one has to come with us too. We are back from shopping and I'm very excited because we found some really fantastic things and we've got some holes to fill here. She doesn't have a cocktail table. So we definitely had to find that she's got a couple of things that we could use as end tables. I think we might be able to do better. It's time to finish things up.