Diamonds Are My Best Friend, Forever

If you have read any of my posts thus far, I think I've made it clear that I really like bling, jewels, gems, sparklies and shiny objects in general.  Even going back to childhood, I was always very partial to them.  I'm not sure when or why that started exactly but now that I'm an adult and I have free reign over my decorating, I have felt both compelled and free to express this proclivity in full.

Let's review some of the decorating bling I have already showed you before I illustrate my point in new ways.

Here is my jeweled headboard notice the hanging ruby chandelier teardrop:

Perhaps you will recall my bowl of crystal paperweights in all types of gemstone cuts:

How about the Bling Frame mounted over my couch:

The crystal finials for my new curtains, not to mention the silver sequin curtains:

This could go on and on...

Alright, I know you want me to keep going, so here are some new things you haven't seen.  In my new place, I have a couple of bifold closets.  Another opportunity to add bling!  Really nice crystal pulls are very expensive.  I'm a woman with a budget, so I got creative.  In one word:  Ebay.  I found these awesome pulls from ebay.  The only problem is that they came with european size screws (millimeters) and they weren't long enough.  I went to Home Depot but they didn't have the size I needed. Long story short, this nice man from a local hardware store re-threaded the pulls, which I didn't know you could do, so that they fit US size screws.  Great guy.  Because the crystal is surrounded by the silver metal, the light refracts like a diamond instead of passing through like with a clear crystal.  It's hard to capture the full beauty of these pulls in pictures so I am including the ebay picture too.

In my red bedroom on my closet doors and because I only needed two, I splurged and got these red crystal pulls from Klaffs:

In my old apartment in NYC, I had a bowl of acrylic gemstones.  I was at Disney and they had an Aladdin shop, not sure if its there anymore, and they had a bin full of acrylic gemstones and you could buy a little pouch of them.  I didn't buy them there, but that sight stuck with me.  I wanted my own treasure!  I thought they would be easy to find online but I could only find the gems that were flat on one side and often they had holes drilled in them.  I went to the bead and trim district in NYC and went store to store until I found the mother load. I bought a whole bunch of different colors and different sizes. I pretty much cleared them out.  Here's what they looked like in my old apartment.  Excuse the dust.

Wow, that is a lot of dust.  I had all sorts of ideas of putting the gems in between two pieces of glass and hanging it so the light would pass through the gems.  I thought about using epoxy resin or some clear substance to pour over the gems and to suspend the gems in a lucite type of piece.  I searched for a rectangular vase that was very slim but ended up finding this cute vase from Crate and Barrel.  This is what the acrylic gems are up to now.

I have crystal lamps, rhinestone picture frames, a bling mirror on my dining room wall and more.  I have to save some for later postings but I'll give you a few more visuals.

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

Something Old, Something Older

When I first moved to Manhattan in August of 1997, I rented a studio apartment on the upper east side.  A studio apartment meaning basically one room.  The tiny kitchen and bathroom don't count towards rooms, trust me.  Prior to my renting it, the apartment was used as an office by an ethnic art dealer.  The wall to wall carpeting was dark green with faint tiny orange dots, the built-in cabinets and built-in open shelves were dark green and the walls were a red-orange color.  There was track lighting throughout, spot-lighting the walls in intervals.  And there were certain little walls that were completely mirrored.  It looked like a club when I first walked in.  I would have kept it as is because I was young and thought it was really cool, but my mother was with me and she insisted that at least the walls would be painted white before I moved in.  One day, I was at TJ Maxx and I found these African masks that were so cool.  I decided to get them and put them up on the walls so that the track lighting spots would highlight them. I should mention the horrible metal security gates that I had covering my windows, it made the place even darker than it already was. Please forgive the old picture quality, digital cameras were just born and megapixels were infants. 

Please also forgive the following pictures because the place was a mess, but its important to show you "the before" and these are all I have.

My bed is on the left where the kitty is and I had to have the long side against the wall which was very annoying. I really craved a real bed sticking out from a wall.  On the right was a huge L shaped desk with my computer and other stuff and as you can see the only windows I had in my apartment were all together and covered by the ugliest gates in the world.  It was like being in a prison after awhile.  Here are some pictures that show what the built-ins looked like.  The top built-ins, which flanked each side of the main room, I filled with empty wine bottles. Some of them, I saved from different parties/events and they had memories attached to them.  Others were from my neighbors.  I liked them.  Again, excuse the mess and the very large elliptical machine that took up way too much space.  Here you can see the wine bottles and below is my old TV which was on the same wall as the desk.  I wish I had better pictures.

As time went on, I was inspired by Middle Eastern and Indian influences.  In the next pic, the kitchen is on the left and the long hallway flanked by closets is on the right.  The bathroom and front door are down the hall too.  Notice that on the left side of the picture, the built-in cabinests are tall, making a long counter.  On the right, they were low so you could sit on them and in front I had an extra piece to put stuff on.

It became a hodge podge of cultural influences.

Alright, you get the picture of the "something older".  Obviously, it needed to be changed.  So, in 2005, I moved out of my apartment for a week while the management company removed the wall to wall carpeting and refinished the wooden floors underneath.  And they painted everything white.  I decided to get rid of a lot of the built-ins, but I kept 6 pieces to be reused.  Since everything was going to be fresh white, I decided upon a color theme.  I love red, as you know from my previous posts, so I wanted to incorporate that color into the design but I wanted to keep it light since the apartment was so dark before.  For the built-ins and cabinets and some of the trim, I picked Benjamin Moore Lady Finger paint.  Here are some pics of the new design. Night and Day.

I moved the bed to the other side and it is sticking out into the room off of the wall, yay!
On the left, I put a beautiful antique dresser desk that I bought off of ebay.  A new couch, covered with a stretch slipcover because of kitties, a new rug, a coffee table from my friend Dana and new other stuff which I will mention below.  I took the six pieces of cabinets that I kept and arranged them into a entertainment type center. I changed out the hinges for special ones so that some of the cabinet doors could open 180 degrees instead of just 90 degrees. 

The middle top cabinet contains my TV and the other cabinets are for storage.  Doesn't the color look so much better than that dark sherwood green?  Above you can see the open cabinets where the wine bottles used to be.  I used them as shadow boxes and put beautiful buddha statues in them.

I wanted to feel like the queen of my castle.  So here is my vanity desk with my jewelry boxes and my "mirror mirror on the wall" mirror. A Queen Anne chair, a pretty vanity mirrored tray, some peacock feathers I got from Bombay (I miss that store), two candle sconces I found at a flea market for $12.00 and finally, a red and gold damask curtain from TJ Maxx $7.00 that I hung with gold upholstery studs in a pleated fashion. 

You'll notice the leopard print comforter, Ralph Lauren, but I will talk about the bed in the next posting.  Remember the windows before with the horrible gates, the horrible vinyl blinds, etc.?  Well, I took off the gates, got white roller shades from Home Depot and installed them myself which was interesting due to the fact that the windows were very hard to measure and uneven.  So, I had to use little pieces of wood to make the brackets the right length across for the shades to fit. I reused the two side panel curtains, which were Ralph Lauren sheets that my mother turned into curtains for me (yes, that's where I get some of my craftiness from) and then I found the three triangular valances from Bed, Bath and Beyond, to top it off.  Very tailored looking.  I installed pull backs to get the gathering look.  I also, bought faux flowers from Pier 1 Imports to create a full bouquet.  Here are some close ups.

There is so much more to go into regarding the redesign of my old apartment.  That is what other posts are for. 

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!