LupRocks Gossip

Online Design

When Michelle reached out to me to explore my love of all things design on the LupRocks blog, I was both excited and nervous. Excited because I am enormously passionate about interiors and housewares, and can't wait to share even a bit of what I discover on-and-offline every day. The nervous part comes in because it's a tad daunting to start blogging about a hobby when there are so many experts already out there. Having written about fine jewelry, watches and fashion for almost a decade (!), it's definitely time to dip my toe into the wide open seas of interior design. 

As Michelle has been dutifully blogging, I have recently had the pleasure of helping Lüp turn their cozy-but-cluttered office space into a cohesive, comfortable place to work. My main task was to come up with an overall plan and then source the furniture and accessories they would need to purchase to make my vision a reality. Luckily, I am a virtual encyclopedia of affordable furniture and housewares thanks to my favorite home-related blogs. That's why, for this first post, I thought I'd share my wealth of knowledge by passing on four of my favorite sites and explain why they are worth exploring.

#1 APARTMENT THERAPY

Working from the tagline "Saving the world, one room at a time," Apartment Therapy was founded by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan to facilitate a group that could help each other make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy. This site is really a catch-all that is moderated by editors in different cities around the world (meaning that if you have a question you'd like answered by locals, you can write directly to your closest branch). From member house-tours to new products to store reviews, Apartment Therapy is truly a community in the best sense of the word: It brings people together from all around the world in the name of good design.

#2 Design Sponge
Moderated by Brooklyn-based Grace Bonney, this blog was founded on the principal that the hip and handmade should have a place in the home. Grace regularly covers under-the-radar artists and students who strike a chord with her modern/craft aesthetic, and she employs contributors to cover subjects like recipes and do-it-yourself projects. (Check out her wonderful gift guides searchable by price, up now!) More than just a site, Design*Sponge has become a link to the real world. Grace founded Biz Ladies, a series founded in 2006 to connect local women running their own art and design-related businesses. She also runs a scholarship program created to assist art and design students in the pursuit of their dreams.

#3 DOMINO

Although this site is really the landing page for the magazine of the same name, there are daily updated features and links to a fabulous set of archives that will inspire even the most design-challenged among us. Searchable galleries range from the general (kitchens and bedrooms) to the specific (toile fabric, anyone?) Best of all, everything shown in the images is sourced with prices to make shopping easy. The site's newest feature is called My Deco File, and it allows users to upload or tag images from anywhere on the web and place them in sharable folders. I used this tool when preparing a presentation for Lüp's office redo, and it was both easy and fun.

#4 EDDIE ROSS

I discovered Eddie through Bravo's Top Design, a reality show in the vein of Top Chef and Project Runway. His day job is actually as the Senior Style Editor of Martha Stewart Living (after stints as a caterer and as an editor at House Beautiful), and his absolute excitement about all things design is contagious. He's really a Renaissance man: Eddie arranges flowers with gusto, reworks furniture found for pennies on the dollar, creates beautiful menus for entertaining and then places them all into a context that works for the average reader. I particularly love his little tips and tricks for decorating on a budget, and he even hosts flea market trips where he teaches a small group of shoppers how to find treasure among the trash. 

Hopefully you'll be amazed at all the inspiration that's out there for the taking. To me, decorating your home is just like getting dressed in the morning; it's a way to present yourself to your guests that says a bit about your personal style. A great painting can be like a beautiful pair of earrings: It dresses up a blank canvas with something special. 

Lup HQ Makeover, Step 1--Embarassing Confession

While we here at Lup HQ are confident in our good taste and eye for design and style, a couple of weeks ago, we finally had to admit that we weren't using these skills to the benefit of our office aesthetics.  Since we opened our doors nearly seven years ago, our business has grown exponentially, and yet beyond asking our building super to paint our walls a lovely lavender color, we've put absolutely no thought into creating a well appointed work space.  The furniture is functional at best--the folding tables we bought at Staples when we needed a couple of new "desk" areas, the shelving units that the building porters found and thought we might need, my old dining room table from that apartment I had that was big enough to hold a dining room table...you get the idea!  While we use the excuse that we're too busy coming up with great opportunities for designers and offering media fantastic designs, we finally broke down and embraced the idea of re-designing our office.  They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step so there, we admitted it. 

After making the admission, we decided to call in the big guns in the form of pint sized Randi Molofsky.  A talented and accomplished writer, Randi has an enviable flare for style and a discerning eye for interior design.  She helped me set up my current apartment, and her own apartment has been recognized by interior design blog Apartment Therapy for her elegant use of color.  She graciously accepted the proposed task--redesign our 420 square foot office space with a very limited budget.  We want it to be well-appointed, and to accommodate up to five people working at a time.   Who is this Randi person, you ask, Houdini?!  But with characteristic optimism and excitement about the task at hand, Randi assures us this is entirely possible. 

Our first job is to clean.  Our goal is to get anything unnecessary out of here, which means my Shakespeare notebooks from '99 and the handbag my mom bought me for my 30th birthday that I felt too bad to return even though I hate it are going to have to go...stay tuned!
 
A shot of Randi's apartment in Brooklyn Heights.