Talking gardens

Waiting on our new arrival of flowers which should have arrived yesterday but didn’t so hoping they will be here today as we are so low. I’m often asked about the best part of my job which I can rattle …

Some News

As I mentioned yesterday its all change on the blog from next Tuesday with a different format and more content. Once a week I will be (as briefly explained yesterday) running a feature called Style Surgery. So if you have any decorating dilemma’s concerning a particular room or certain area email in and I will do my best to solve. I can only handle one per week (a few more if its a light week, but light weeks are a thing of years ago), can’t remember the last time I actually twiddled my thumbs. The email address again is stylesurgery@abigailahern.com.

Open Call is back so if you have a product that you think rocks, email us at Opencall@abigailahern.com and once a fortnight I will highlight and put across my social media channels. The real aim of Open Call is to highlight and give a platform to new designers, its tough in the market place right now, we get tons of people coming in to the store with stories of how they can’t get anyone to take notice of their products – so hopefully this will resolve that slightly.  If I can help you guys out then it makes me happy because I for one wouldn’t like to be starting over in this climate! Anything that I totally love and works with our aesthetic I will stock in the store (I may love but it might not work with the collection so I can’t take everything). Talking of which not so long ago a totally cool artist submitted her work to Open Call, I brought one of her paintings and her work is about to go online. More on her and that next week!

Other features include – my curated edited list of the coolest products from around the globe, decoding or taking the mystery out of arranging, mixing, combining colours – the sort of questions I am asked alot! Oh and a forum finally a forum where we can all post images of our pads, comment interact and try and convert everyone across to the dark side. You can of course post images that aren’t dark – I will not grumble I promise! I loved the forum we had for the online class and the community spirit, learning off each other and so forth so I think it will be a rather cool thing to have don’t you?

I’ll still be yabbering every morning – there is even a section called yabbering (rather love that word along with the words schlepp which I use alot from my American days and shluit which means puddle in Hebrew, which I don’t use alot since I’m not Jewish but I like that word)!   I’m digressing I’ll leave you with this image of a super cool art wall,  made even cooler with the addition of the bright green table. The home in question belongs to Angel Dormer who has the coolest pad in NYC (photograph Graham Atkins Hughes). So starting next week my source book of where to find cool stuff from rugs to panelling, mirrors to door handles to art. Think it could be a lot of fun!

Happy Thursday

Style Surgery

From next Tuesday its all change on the blog, new features, more tips, oodles more tricks as well as savvy ideas.

One of the new features we are working on is called Style Surgery so if any of you guys have any dilemma’s regarding anyone of your rooms, or need help with a nook, mantle, paint colour anything send an image to Stylesurgery@abigailahern.com and once a week I will post your images plus my suggestions helping you out!

Creative ways to get your jaw on the floor!

Morning I thought I would talk floors this morning as they are one of the largest most important components in the decorating game! Most people don’t worry about floors so much, biege wall to wall carpet sound familar?However I want to highlight just how important they are for turning a scheme around – they are actually one of the game changers in my decorating bag of tricks. My aim is to keep you staring at the ground but at the same time intriguing you with a decorating scheme that lifts your jaw off the floor so that you feel immediately uplifted, and intrigued. I want to challenge your brain in ways that it wouldn’t usually experience when walking into a home and one of the easiest ways I do that is to push it with the flooring.

There are a zillion routes to go down when it comes to flooring my only word of advice is to introduce some pattern, because pattern elevates your space to a whole other level. Think of it as I say so often like a herb, it adds a whole different dynamic. On plain floors i.e. painted floor boards or wall to wall carpeting, consider skimming with area rugs.  Make sure they have an element of pattern otherwise your space could end up feeling like a one of these bland hotel chains – mentioning no names!

Some cool rugs to wet the appetite:

If budgets are squeezed make paint your best friend – either paint a pattern on the floor or get creative. Below are a few super cool examples of painted floors.

If budgets are squeezed then go down the electrical tape or decal route - pretty darn cool no?

Now we’ve nailed the floor we just have to make sure the rest of the room is as equally as TA DA – otherwise you run the risk of the eye darting straight to the floor with everything else paling into insignificance. But that is for another day as they say.

Must mention before I go the last Design Class until the Fall has just gone live, its held on July 12th – all the other ones in June are fully sold out I hate to say so if you are thinking of coming along its best to book early as spaces are limited.

Have a lovely day