What is your role at Wisteria?
I am the Senior Creative Manager, I manage all the photography for the catalog and web. I direct and edit the photography at the photo shoots and the styling on set. I also contribute in the overall conception of the catalog and marketing pieces. I have a very very cool job, challenging, but cool. It is never boring and I get to work with so many talented people.
What is your personal design style?
Well. I would say eclectic, except I feel that’s too broad, and my aesthetic is pretty specific, in my own mind. I like a lot of different styles and periods of furniture. I tend toward graphic solid design for the basis of my home. Essentially everything in my house is gray, black, or white. The tile, the walls, the big pieces. I like to accessorize with color. I am absolutely obsessed with textiles. I love textiles from India and Uzbekistan. I like bold pops of color through fabrics, pillows, and textiles. I love burlap, embroidery, and suzanis. I also love flowers, plants, and sketches of bugs and animals. I like natural elements and you see them throughout my home either in vases or in the artwork I collect. The most important thing to me is that my home feels comfortable and cozy and feels like “me.” My design style is this: it has lots of rules and no rules at all. I am an avid collector and a equally avid editor. So I am constantly changing things around.
What inspires you?
Most of my inspiration has come from books I read as a little girl: The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, The Girl of the Limberlost, and Anne of Green Gables. These were huge for me. I think that is where my imagination really took off. I love the imagery from those books, how they described nature and people and places. It made me want to live in a place like that. I have tried to recreate those fantasy type places within my home. I have nooks and canopies. I even have a secret path in my garden. I am also inspired by nature, things that a perfect and not perfect at the same time. I don’t throw out favorite dishes when they get chipped; it adds to their charm. I also am inspired by things that are handmade and have a global influence. I have traveled extensively and like to be surrounded by things that remind me of my travels. I also have a weakness for interior design magazines and books; my office is overloaded with all of them. They are my teachers.
What are your most prized possessions?
My photo albums of my family, a little toy skeleton my brother gave me when he was little, dishes from my mother, art from my aunt, my pets (Maizie, Miles, and Marshal). I have a few favorite furniture pieces: my Moorish Chest, bone-inlay mirror, and my Vintage Chinese Butcher’s Table. I also love my textile collection; I have lots of kantha cloths, wedding cloths, suzanis, and a beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloth from Mexico that was a gift from our Style Editor Mary Jane. And my books, I have tons and tons of books. I’ve had some so long, I consider them friends.
Where do you shop?
I live in a hundred year old house that I am currently remodeling so I spend a lot of time at salvage yards and on craigslist. I love flea markets and estate sales. I love things that are old or repurposed so I spend a lot of time at antique stores, too. I get the best ideas from there! I also have a lot of hand-me-down pieces that come from my mom’s house. I am very much an online shopper as well; so many times the best deals are on the internet.
Tell us something we might not know about your home at first glance.
I wanted my house to be all gray, black, and white. And I had to find the PERFECT shade of gray. It became an obsession. I painted my house completely three different times and wasn’t satisfied. After about 10 different shades, I finally found the right one for me: Benjamin Moore Gray Timber Wolf 2126-50. I became so obsessed with this color I even found a nail polish that matched. (Obsessed much? Yes!) You also wouldn’t guess by looking at my house that everything is EXACTLY where I want it. If the pillows get moved, I move them back. It’s organized chaos most of the time.
What Wisteria pieces are you currently lusting after?
I want the Peacock Mirror SO BAD! I have no idea where I would put it, but I’m not going to let that stop me. I also recently purchased the Wishbone Chairs and the Rectangular Parquet-Top Coffee Table. They go perfectly with my unmatched pieced together style.
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