interior paint colors: 2009-06-28

EMAILS AND CHARLOTTE MOSS NEWS!

I’ve said it before, but I get a lot of email – a lot! Besides all the comments that come to my inbox, I get emails from readers who have a question or want to give me a tip – (thanks to a reader I just bought 10 yards of gorgeous Bennison fabric on EBAY for the price of 1 yard!) Sometimes, I get really behind on my emails – I’ll spend a day or two answering all the newest ones, while the older mail gets, well, older! Yesterday, I woke up to 650 emails and spent the entire day answering them. When I went to sleep, I still had 643 emails. It can get a little overwhelming. But I try. I had plans this July 4th weekend to really clean out the old mailbox and answer each and every one of them. So imagine my horror when I woke up this morning to an inbox with just 3 emails!!!!! YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 640 emails had disappeared into cyberspace!!!!! I managed to salvage about 400 in my Deleted Email box, but that still leaves me with around 200 missing. SOOOO……if you emailed me with a question and I haven’t answered you, please, please, please resend it!! Thank you for understanding. Just resend your question if I never answered it!

Cote de Texas’ Stylish Summer Tips for Charlotte Moss include information on the best beach in Texas and what to wear all summer! Can you guess what that is????? Also, I give tips on what to serve for a summer meal. And no, it’s not Wendy’s Caesar Salad. I behaved myself!!! Three more weeks until I’m back under that umbrella – and I CAN’T wait!!!!

And in a little shameless plug, Charlotte Moss, my favorite designer and #3 on the Cote de Texas Top Ten Designer List (I know, I know – I have two more to name!!) – has the cutest web site/blog. One section is called “Tete A Tete” where Moss blogs about her travels, her interests, and anything else she has going on. I love to read “Tete A Tete,” so I was beyond thrilled when she asked me to participate in a story called “Tips for A Stylish Summer From Our Favorite Bloggers!” blush. I am joined by Rhonda from All The Best and Jennifer from The Peak of Chic, two of my blogging mentors – so that makes it extra special. Truthfully, I’m not sure an invitation from Obama would mean quite as much to me as this invitation from Charlotte Moss did. Charlotte’s style is one that I would love to emulate, not just her design work, but the way she lives her life, surrounded by the things she loves and the things she finds beautiful. She is such a powerhouse, such a hard, dedicated worker, and still she finds time for her philanthropic duties - all the while taking the time to smell the roses. I especially love that she is self taught in design! Today with ASID trying to legislate laws making interior designers complete six years of study plus pass their extremely difficult and mostly useless test (it ain’t rocket science, folks,) successful designers like Moss prove them so wrong. If you’ve got the talent like she has, you can do the work. Period. Besides her extremely successful ID career, she is also a prolific writer. Moss’ book The Winter House is one of my all-time favorite design books. It’s all about her Aspen house – a beautiful retreat in greens and blues. Stunning! I could go on and on about what there is to love about Charlotte Moss, but I already have here – if you missed it the first time. To read about Cote de Texas’ stylish summer tips (!) go here.

Charlotte Moss – my favorite picture of her from The Winter House. I love the blue and white urn lamps with green silk shades! The slipcover of the chair is divine! And, I love how she is perfectly coordinated to the house!

P.S. Don’t forget about the emails!!!!!!

I hope all my American readers enjoy the long 4th of July holiday weekend. Oh, and let's keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't rain!

Photo from Markham Roberts

Cote de Texas’ Second Anniversary Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the Cote de Texas Second Anniversary Giveaway

Rhonda of the Blue Creek Home blog won First Place in the CSN Lighting giveaway. Rhonda picked out a limoges box. Blue Creek Home is a relatively new blog where she chronicles her life - living in a home with a beautiful view of Lake Martin in Alabama. Congratulations Rhonda!

Runner up – is Terry Kearns from the Architecture Tourist blog. Terry wins a Kenneth Turner candle – my all-time favorite! Terry is a very prolific commenter to Cote de Texas and especially to The Skirted Roundtable, so I’m thrilled that he won.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all who entered the giveaway!

We all are heading to Denmark this summer. When I say "we all" I mean my three sisters, their husbands and children - my entire side of the family. We total 11 people. My parents, who have since passed away, had four girls and I am sister number three.

Sister number two lives part of the year in California and part of the year in Denmark. She has lived between two countries for most of her adult life.

Many years ago when I lived in Germany, we often visited her in Denmark. We did a lot of sightseeing and antiquing. She knew the best out of the way barns and I found some terrific Danish pine pieces.

Sister number two is getting married in August and having a traditional Danish wedding. Her fiancee is a native of Copenhagen, Denmark. My children, and their cousins, are in the wedding and they are all very excited. The photo above is the Danish Royal couple; Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary. Just like a living fairytale!

She has planned some great sightseeing for us. One stop we hope to make is Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen.

I plan to get plenty of photos of the plate room for my friend, Valorie at Visual Vamp. She would love this.

To keep the children ages 5 through 12 happy we also plan to stop at Tivoli Gardens.

But, back to the wedding. Here is another photo of the Royal couple - I just had to keep this one in it's so romantic. Sister number two has agreed to let me do a post on her wedding when I return. The plans sound really wonderful so watch for that in September.

After the wedding, my husband, children (ages 10 and 12) and I are heading to the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland. We are staying in the wonderful little village of Wengen. No cars are allowed in Wengen you can only get there by cog wheel train.

We plan do a few days of hiking, which no doubt will inspire me to sing songs from The Sound of Music. The kids have asked me to promise to not break out into song.

But it that may prove difficult because the scenery is so spectacular.

We may travel over to Thun to see the Schadau Castle.

Or stumble upon some other unexpected and delightful sights.

Then we spend our final days in Zurich. We very excited.

So, my international and well traveled readers, I am requesting any information about out of the way locations that we may want to stop in and see while we are there. These are those not to miss spots that unless you have traveled or lived in the area, an average tourist would not know about. So, if you have a moment or a thought, do let me know.

Oh my, I feel a song coming on... lucky for you I have no audio feature.

xx-Gina

all photos Google Images

While I was looking through designer Meg Braff's portfolio, I came across the most perfect East Hampton home. I love the patterns and shades of blue she used throughout all the spaces. The mudroom is my favorite room and pretty much sums up the feeling of this chic weekend home. I can also imagine how much fun the family who owns it will probably have over the long holiday weekend. I hope all of you l have a wonderful Independence Day no matter where you spend it!

It’s Lonely At the Top: For Bloggers ONLY

FOR BLOGGERS ONLY: It’s lonely at the top. A few weeks ago my best blogging buddy, Things That Inspire, signed up for Blogrankings – yet another new, cool tool to rank your blog visitors. There isn’t a dedicated Design Blog division on Blogrankings, so she signed up under the Lifestyle Blogs. Apparently all the other current Design Blogs are registered under Lifestyles too. TTI got me to sign up and for a few weeks we’ve been having a blast trying to beat each other in our rankings. You get a widget and the widget constantly updates your current ranking. The really interesting part is everyone is reset to Zero at the start of the week to level the playing field!!!

But, the problem is that there are so few design blogs signed up right now, we’re looking for competition to play with. Come on everybody – please sign up! It would be so much fun to see how many readers we all have and who is really shaking up the blogosphere on any given day. Technorati has turned out to be a real bust – they measure how your blog ranks by how many link to you and who really cares about that anyway? Besides, they have been fraught with technical problems lately. Sitemeter is good for one thing, to figure out what state your hateful anonymous’ are posting from (and even that is suspect. My address shows I’m posting from a field in the middle of Kansas!) I do love Google Analytics which has a wonderful tool to gauge your reader loyalty – but that can actually be quite depressing when you add up how many of your readers actually stay on your blog longer than a second – not many!

So, Things That Inspire and I are inviting everyone out there in the Design blogosphere to join Blogrankings and dethrone us! It’s no fun being in the Top Five when there are only five kids playing. Come on – and play with us! Join www.blogrankings.com today. And be sure to sign up under Lifestyles Blogs. Email me of TTI if you have any questions!

Cerrado por vacaciones

Ya estoy de vacaciones. ¿ Adivinas dónde ?

www.all-free-photos.com.

Nos vemos en un mes.
Buen verano.

Eddie and Jaithan Visit the Skirted Roundtable!

Oh my. We are probably the luckiest three girls in the world! Who wouldn’t want Eddie Ross and Jaithan Kochar to visit them? Eddie – known for his close association with Martha Stewart and Jaithan, fresh from Stanford AND The Rhode Island School of Design (!) are the two hottest bloggers ever to hit the scene. Do NOT miss this one! The two guys tell us how they met and where they are going (to the moon, Alice!) A better time probably could not be had – the two guys kept us entertained and on the edge of our seats. To listen - please go to the Skirted Roundtable HERE.

AND, don’t forget, tomorrow is the last day to enter Cote de Texas’ second birthday celebration giveaway. Go HERE to sign up.

It's funny when an answer to one of your questions falls in your lap. I've been trying to find out who represents Bob Collins & Sons in New York and just I found out that Todd Romano has recently started carrying the line of fabulous fabrics and wallpapers. You might not know the name Bob Collins but I can bet you've seen the wallpapers used in rooms by the some of the top interior designers as seen below. It was so much fun to be able to check out all the patterns in person and even though none of them seem right for any of my current projects I will definitely be filing them away for a future project! They are really fabulous and you should check them out too!

Bamboo Birds as used by Albert Hadley

Bamboo Birds as used by Kelly Wearstler

Chinese Lattice as used by Kelly Wearstler

Chinese Lattice as used by Meg Braff

Chinese Lattice as used by Kelly Wearstler

Antony Todd has exquisite taste and now that eponymous shop is having a sale, you may actually be able to afford a few of his impeccable choices. Items that are 25-40% off are marked with a tag. Everything else is regular price. Don't forget to peek downstairs. You won't see Antony since he's in Europe but you will find more of his treasures. Bonne Chance!