Win $500 to One Kings Lane
Happy Daylight Savings Time Monday! I don't know about you, but I am already feeling the positive effects of the longer days....I hope I don't jinx it, but it is going to be 60 here, tomorrow, and we won't talk about the possibilities of snow on Thursday (say what?).
Today, is the beginning of my Polyvore feature for Project Decorate. You may have already seen it around... Polyvore features a blogger in front of their 20 million subscribers and everyone has a chance to win a $500 gift card to One Kings Lane. There will be 2 lucky winners. This contest ends next Sunday.
$500
Here is my Tropical Coastal look. I have been telling you about this look for quite some time. Remember when Chinoiserie Chic wrote about it? I want it....everywhere!
Coastal Tropical Chinoiserie Chic
There is one Blogger that makes me laugh more than anyone else. Fact. She is high maintenance, high style, and highly opinionated. And it works for her. I think Beth, from Chinoiserie Chic, and I are distantly related because we definitely laugh and fight like family.
The truth is, she will always give me her honest opinion. As you will see in her guest post below, she held nothing back. Any woman that has the moxie to write this post about a National Company, will always have a seat by me. I once asked her to write a post about Nantucket Chinoiserie, and to this day....people still love that post.
Please see what my on again/off again/Sister-Friend has to say about Tropical Coastal Chinoiserie:
Linda and her family will be relocating from New Jersey to Florida sometime this summer. With her upcoming move, Linda has announced that her new look and style is going to be "Coastal Tropical."
Linda's current home is what I would call Nantucket style, but she is excited about her blog and her new home having a more tropical and Floridian vibe. Will her blog, formerly known as "My Crafty Home Life," now named "Calling It Home," soon become "Calling It My Crafty Coastal Tropical Home?" We will have to wait and see.
As we know, Linda loves Chinoiserie, so she has turned to me for guidance on infusing her new lifestyle with Coastal Tropical Chinoiserie.
First, I think a new wardrobe is in order. This Greg Norman collection is called "Coastal Tropic" - what could be more perfect? These mix and match pieces will allow Linda to look like a complete dork whether she is playing golf, blogging, running errands, hanging with her kids, or wielding a circular saw - with safety goggles on, of course. Perfect for that casual, coastal, nerdy look, right?
Doesn't Linda look great in one of her new outfits from the Greg Norman Coastal Tropic Collection?
Now on to decorating her home. Linda loves driftwood furniture, but never felt it was quite right in her Northeast Nantucket style home. Not so in Florida - she can go completely adrift! And if she ever gets sick of her decor, she is one bonfire on the beach away from a fresh start.
Here are some rooms with driftwood that Linda posted about that she loves. She said that the first one below stopped her in her tracks.
Well Linda, I have found more driftwood for every room of your new home -
And Linda's Florida home at the holidays could look like this -
Oh my my my. I have the feeling I need to stage an intervention immediately or Linda's new home might become Restoration Hardware at the Beach also known as Coastal Dumpster Chic. I think we might be seeing this driftwood decor in the next Restoration Hardware catalog. Call me Gary and we can chat.
Or the next One Room Challenge could become the semi-annual One Hundred Rooms With Driftwood Challenge. Linda, just say no to driftwood. That's why I'm here. Friends don't let friends decorate with driftwood.
Now we will look at the correct way to do Coastal Tropical interior design. Did Linda call someone opinionated? I envision less of the navy and white preppy of Nantucket and less of the bright colors of Palm Beach. Instead -
*Tropical print wallpaper and fabrics like banana leaf, especially Martinique and Brazilliance.
*Rattan and unpainted wicker furniture
*Faux and real bamboo
*Potted palms
*Palm fronds in blue and white Chinese porcelain vases
*Oversized blue and white Chinese ginger jars
*The good news is that you can keep your brown wood furniture
*Ebonized wood is also perfect
*The color palette is that of nature - lots of greens and browns and blues
*Think British Colonial
I love this style myself and I can't wait to see what Linda does with her new home in Florida.
The Pink Pagoda created these graphic botanicals for Linda's One Room Challenge family room and they will be perfect!
Thanks so much Beth, can you email me a link to those clothes?
I wonder how she really feels?
Coastal Tropical
Is anyone else ready for the new year? I love change and the start of a fresh new year is a blank slate. I'll be starting the new year with some changes to my blog. Actually, the tweaking will begin next week, and go on for as long as it takes.
One of the things that I have been dying to change is my blog header. As you all know..... endlessly...by the end of Summer 2014, this will no longer be my home. Since I don't know what my next home will look like, I have decided to create (of course I mean to have other, far more talented, people create) my fantasy home. It's in the works now, and when it is done I will tell you all about it.
My fantasy home style is Coastal Tropical. I thought I was making up a name until I Googled it and found hundreds of images with that name. These are some of my favorites.
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| kouboo |
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| Marcelo Brito & Pedro Potaris |
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| Toby Leary Fine Woodworking |
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| John McDonald |
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| John McDonald |
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| Wettlig Architects |
Are you Coastal Tropical? What do you call your style?
Please excuse all the wonky (technical term) work that will be taking place on my blog over the next few weeks.