Veranda

Knock knock, is anyone home? I know I've been awful at this whole blogging game (but sorta make up for it on Twitter and Instagram: @nickolsenstyle) ... J'apologize. Anyway I just HAD come back and shout about my biggest solo project to date, an apartment published in the July/August issue of Veranda:

MAJOR thanks to editor-in-chief Dara Caponigro for giving this space such prime real estate in her gorgeous magazine, stylist/producer Olga Naiman for setting the wheels in motion and arranging a mean peony, photographer Melanie Acevedo for these lush shots (trivia: she and Dara were also on hand for my big Domino cover moment back in '06 ... how time does fly), and Mimi Read for such a flattering story. And of course thanks to my clients for trusting me with their home, and for their unfailing sense of humor throughout the whole process.

If this didn't already sound like an Oscar acceptance speech I'll have to add my dear Mugatu, who's work is featured in Veranda AND Architectural Digest this month -- the latter a stunning spread in Greenwich, Connecticut. He never ceases to inspire.

Lastly I'm proud to say the dynasty continues with MRLLC alum Zach Motl, my friend (and Ralph Lauren window designer) whose crisp and airy 425-square foot studio graces House Beautiful's July/August Small Spaces issue.

Three cheers for print shelter media!!

(photo by Melanie Acevedo via Stacey at Quintessence -- thanks for the kudos!)

Design on a Dime 2012

It's me again, Margaret. So this week I've been running around like a crazy person, pulling together my vignette for this year's Housing Works: Design on a Dime event. It's one of my favorite organizations (and my weekly -- okay daily -- thrift store shopping haunt) and I'll admit I'm loving the results:

It stays at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan through Sunday and despite the opening night frenzy (Marisa practically whupped out the brass knuckles) there are still lots of goodies remaining! MAJOR thanks to the following folks/vendors whose generous donations made it all possible:
Circa Lighting
Metropolitan Carpet Gallery
De Gournay
Christopher Spitzmiller, Inc.
CQ Home Decor
Fine Arts Furniture
Luther Quintana Upholstery
Samuel & Sons Passementerie
Organic Modernism
David Haag
And my pals Sally King Benedict, Keehnan Konyha, Melissa Mittag and Rebecca Gabin.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my fave vignette of the night which of course belonged to the whirling decorating dervish known as Mugatu (Miles Redd to his family and the uninitiated). Ever the contrarian, Mr. Bold Color served total black and white realness with a side of Yves Klein blue torso:

I wanted the curvy black John Rosselli chair but have to admit that Restoration Hardware floor lamp and Venetian mirror look pretty dang good outside of their usual butch n' Belgian context. Bravo, Muugs, and Vive le Housing Works!

TRADHome: Top 10 New Trads

OH HI THERE WOOPS I HAVEN'T BLOGGED IN 2+ MONTHS WOOPS SORRY.

So I've been a little busy with a few projects (see next post) but I'm super pumped to share my feature in the latest issue of TRADHome (blurbed in the print version of May's Traditional Home).  My fabulous ladypals (and 2011 New Trads) Anne and Suysel of Tilton Fenwick passed the torch to moi and I couldn't be happier with the results! This particular project is one of my faves and a real mix of high-low -- maybe you've heard that expression a few million times in the past five years?! Huge thanks to photographer John Bessler, editor Jenny Bradley, editor-in-chief Ann Maine and publisher Beth Brenner for this honor and congrats to my nine New Trad compadres!!

 

I Will Always Blog You

I really dropped the self-promotion ball and forgot to mention Lady Meares predicted I'll be big in 2012 to ELLEDecor.com. Ain't that nice? I'm just hoping she'll remember our chip buffets and talks out loud when her Furbish empire gets Oprah-sized. You connect the dots but I also pimped my shiny red pad on The Nate Show's "House Proud" segment.  I had a blast filming this but watching it is about 50 times worse than hearing your own outgoing voicemail message. Think Alana might give me a few pointers on stage presence? (My personal go-go juice is Diet Dr. Pepper but I draw the line at showing my belly.) Anyhooboo, thanks Jamie and Nate.

On to the important stuff: my first record album (the vinyl kind) was Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits, featuring the original "I Will Always Love You," and my first compact disc was The Bodyguard soundtrack. In between there was a trip to Disney World's Fort Wilderness during which my sister and I wore out the "Whitney"cassette in a rented motor home. So, as my earplugged neighbors will tell you, I'm still going through it with this situation:

On the teevee I heard India.Arie quote Anita Baker as saying it takes three generations to produce one Whitney Houston. Which makes me grateful to have had her around for my first 29+ years but bored as hell thinking about the next 60 or so with just ... Aguilera? A miasma of melisma awaits us. 

But when I close my peepers tonight everything -- people, rooms, skirt suits -- will look as beautiful and effortless as this performance:

 

Goodbye, Whitney. You really did almost have it all.

Confined Bachelor

Lately my Pisces Drifter soul has had an itch to pick up and leave this Lacquer Cave. It's a tiny, flawed apartment in a great neighborhood but I'm trying to think practically ... oh, who am I kidding? I just want a new decorating project. So over the weekend I searched and searched and finally set my heart on a kooky, late Victorian pile of bricks originally built as "bachelor flats" for Manhattan's "professional men of means." Each two-room suite came equipped with a bathroom but no kitchen ... sort of perfect for a decorator who's lived without a working stove for almost four years? There's just one hitch: NO VACANCY.

But it got me thinking about one of the all-time great bachelor pads in modern cinema, the Central Park West penthouse of architect Peter Mitchell (Tom Selleck) in 1987's 3 Men and a Baby.

The thumping strains of Miami Sound Machine in the opening credits all but force to me forget that architects generally don't live in penthouses; nor do they let their roommates paint haute-80s Cartoon Deco murals in their elevator vestibules:

Director Leonard Nimoy (no joke) takes us on a roller coaster ride filled with diapers, cocaine, Ted Danson's real hair, and doormen at The Presada who apparently don't call up when that deadbeat Nancy Travis has a baby to unload. (Do I sound like Stefon? Hope so.)

Anyway I'd rather talk about solarium kitchens with holophane lamps

Guttenberg's Kazumi-meets-Memphis bedroom moment

And these klieg lights on trusses:

I love the fantasy that an architect, actor, and cartoonist (who combined get more tail than the ASPCA) live in such a grand apartment with a few chic moments, yet it's still sort of a mess? I'm so over nth-degree TV and movie interiors: the Gossip Girl version of Park Avenue or Williamsburg. Barf! In a different vein everyone's favorite (confirmed?) bachelor George Clooney's house in The Descendants looked very done and appropriate, but that is all. His real estate lawyer character was supposed to count Queen Kahlualeekilani or whomever as his ancestor ...  can I get some vintage Hawaiian regalia up on the wall? I like it when spaces leave a little ambiguity -- did Selleck design or inherit those club chairs? Was that neon sign just for his birthday party? I guess that's the essence of a "pad" as opposed to a house or apartment. Perfect quarters for a design transient like me.

Shame On It

Or rather shame on me, because it took googling my own name + "kitchen" (in an aborted attempt to show Mrs. Meares some vintage love for her new fave color combo) to discover my pal Mary Kate Frank's amazing progress on her teensy studio apartment (before pic here):

Photos: Jessica Sokolowski for Time Out New York

 

She really went for it -- brava!!! Full story from back in October here.  Oh and promise I've got more up my bedroom sleeve than stripes, camp blankets, and jewel tones:

Photo: Jeff Hirsch for NY Social Diary

 

Remember those Brady Bunch spoof movies where Gary Cole as Mike Brady keeps proposing the same model of their split-level house for every project? Like a split-level gas station, fast food restaurant, and so on ... not the same sitchu here! MK and I are just kindred decorating spirits, and I will say she's the THIRD Scorpio gal I know to fall hard for that Schumacher monkey wallpaper.  What does it all mean?? I'll cross my eyes and stare at her Vasarely while pondering ...

West Elm: Start Fresh

Happy 2012, y'all! I got stuck in the work-holiday vortex but hope urrybody had a great Christmukkahzaa. Pa Olsen, who is given to rhyming New Year's mottos, announced "We'll get off the shelf in Two-thousand-twelfth." Got that? Good.

Speaking of shelves, I'm SO proud to be featured in West Elm's latest catalog and on their Front & Main blog talkin' all things Parsons: bookscases, tables, desks ...  I've honestly never met a Parsons thingerdoodle I didn't like. (In fact, the other day in the meadow we did build a snowman and we named him Parson Brown-Olsen.) And I love the pictures of my tiny little tenement -- "Shiny Walls Remix," says a pal -- which show off new treasures like that dude perched next to the TV. Plus my new/old sofa:

  A drippy glaze urn on this etagere (oh and I framed Sally's painting!):

And my lemon yellow Mottega lamp:

Thanks to West Elm's Aaron Able, Korin Thorig, Juan Carlos De La Acena, and photographer Philip Ficks for these great shots. I've loved W.E. forevs and evs and this was such a treat.