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road trip :: nyc edition

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Empire State BuildingView of the Empire State Building from my hotel room

This past week I spent some time in New York City for work. Stayed at the Element on West 39th between 8th and 9th, an “eco-chic” hotel with fabulous green design. Here’s how they describe their eco-chi-chi-ness:

Created to be an oasis of natural light, experience a new kind of NYC hotel with Element New York Times Square West.

With space to live your life, our eco-friendly New York City hotel is fully devoted to helping the environment.  Floors feature carpets made from 100% recycled content. Artwork is mounted on bases made from recycled tires.  Low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints improve indoor air quality for guests and team members.  In the bathroom guests can choose between a half or full flush and wash up in our low-flow sink faucet.

Not a bad place to stay, all in all, especially for New York.

NYC daylightView from my hotel during the day

Thought I’d share a couple of my fave design elements…

Elements sink

The sink! God, how I loved this sink! So simple, yet so cool! I completely and totally covet this sink! And so much nicer to use than a traditional oval basin – so wide and open. My only complaint would be that I would have liked more counter space, but I was in New York City after all, where space is a luxury.

I probably would have enjoyed the sink even more if the faucet were properly affixed, not leaving a space large enough for a giant sewer rat to climb up and kill me in the night…

Elements faucetRats are notorious for climbing through small spaces

Fortunately, I was neither wounded nor killed by any rodentia, but seriously? Affix the faucet properly, people!

The room, while small, did have a lovely little kitchenette…

Elements kitchenette

So cute and stylized! Very New York. Upon first look the tile looked awesome! Totally in and stylish. But by the end of my stay I had already grown bored with the look of the glass tiles.

Elements kitchenette tile

It’s an important thing to consider…how stylized and “in” do you want your more permanent fixtures to be? Seeing this kitchenette was a lesson in erring on the side of classic for me. Make your more stylized pieces the things that are easy to change. Unless you have a lot of money to make frequent updates or a husband who likes to replace tile annually. I have neither. Lol.

All in all, it was a great stay in New York. Made me appreciate all of the space I have at home. While I do feel like I could downsize and get rid of a lot of stuff and square footage, I don’t know that I’m quite ready to move into a studio apartment!

getting a fresh start

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on my decorating blog.

And a lot has changed, both in the world, and in my little corner of the world…

Most notably, the economy has changed dramatically, and many of us have felt the pinch.  For me, it manifested in going back to work full time – not in the field of design, but back to my previous career as an editor.  I was very fortunate to find a good job as an editor, since decorating jobs in a bad economy were getting more and more scarce.

Also, I’ve gone through a divorce, which has further tested my personal finances.

Why am I sharing all of this?

Well, to tell you where I’ve been, but also because many of these changes have influenced who I’ve become as a decorator.

I’ve always loved a bargain, I’ve always loved junk and dumpster diving for trashy treasures, and I’ve always loved found objects.

But now, with my personal finances very different than they were a couple of years ago, and with many people in the same boat as me financially, decorating with bargains and junk and found objects has a new meaning and has become even more inspiring than it used to be.

While all of this financial mess was unfolding, I was also becoming acutely aware of the problems of climate change and over-consumption, and realized that I can no longer advocate consumption in the way I used to as a decorator.  Simply put, I’ve gone green.

(I’ve even started blogging about learning to live small, both financially and ecologically.)

So, the color of this blog has changed to green as well, and I will be sharing fun decorating ideas that won’t take much (or anything at all) out of your pocketbook, and will take advantage of reusing and recycling and other clever decorating ideas.

Hope you’ll enjoy the fresh start!