Hello 2011...I think it's going to be a good year.

I think 2011 is going to be a good year, it's off to a fantastic start already! I am incredibly honored to have been selected as one of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Top 10 Under 40. Truly I cannot explain how thrilled and completely humbled I am. To those who submitted my name for this honor, thank you so much, just to know that you think highly enough of me and my work to consider throwing my name out there is recognition enough. Briefly I would like to thank Azadeh Riaz for teaching me about business and giving me a chance when I was just a teenager. Barry Leach for making me realize, I made the right decision and telling me that I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body (possibly my most favorite compliment EVER) Scott Laslie and Mark Williams for putting up with me and guiding me. Mark--you're one of my best friends and I truly enjoy every day that I get to come to work with you. My father, for telling me I can do whatever I want and be whatever I wanted to be. He has always supported me and taught me what it means to take pride in the work that you do. And finally, to my amazing husband Sandy, thank you for letting me be me, for putting up with my insanity and being so supportive of everything I do. I could not ask for a better partner in crime or in life, thank you for loving me. I am in fantastic company this year including some of my favorite people and some new friends, congratulations to us all and thank you Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles!

Christmas at The Mans

The 2010 Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles Christmas House opens TOMORROW!!! I went there yesterday do take care of our flowers and fluff a bit and the whole place looks great! I feel like all the designers have done a fantastic job, some with very challenging spaces. The Christmas House will be open Thursday and Friday 10:00-6:00, Saturday 10:00-5:00, and Sunday 10:00-1:00. I will be there this weekend so come and take a look and say hello!!! For more information or if you would like to volunteer at the Christmas House click here!




ALSO, click here to go to CBS Atlanta's website and watch a video or AH&L editor Clinton Smith talking about the Christmas House as well as the Alliance Theatre, and guess where he is doing most of the interview?!?!?!?

Iris is moving in...

It's been a busy busy week full of installations and I am worn out! Aside from a giant client installation on Monday I have been back and forth to the Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Christmas House all week. Today I am resisting the urge to go over there and continue to fluff (and continue to search the hotel for Jason Bateman who I met at Valet yesterday with fellow designer Amy Morris. Ok so we didn't meet him, but we stood next to him and giggled, same thing.) I won't give away too much because I want you to come and visit me, but here are a few snaps of how Iris' digs are shaking out...





You can find me at The Mans beginning Friday November 26th through December 12th. The Christmas House will be open from 10:00-5:00 Thursday through Saturday and from 1:00-5:00 on Sundays, I will be in and out and hope to meet some readers (if there are any!!!)

If you follow the link to the Christmas House...HERE you can purchase tickets online as well as in several locations around town. Hope to see you!!!

Making My List & Checking it Twice

It's that time of year again (honestly it's been that time of year for over a month now, I just haven't had myself totally pulled together!) Mark and I are fortunate enough to have been asked to participate in the 2010 Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Christmas Showhouse. This year the showhouse will take place at the Mansion on Peachtree and will be composed of two units on the 41st floor. I am proud to announce that we are working on the Master Bedroom in the South unit and we are in some fabulous company (including my all time fav--Susan Ferrier--I flip for her jewelry and personality.) We are still pulling it together and so far we are really loving the direction that it's taking and DYING over this year's "client." Last year Mark and I felt like our room was a tribute to Rhoda Morgenstern and we proceeded as if she was our client, naturally we decided this year we needed a new client. This "Rare Bird of Style" is really forcing us to pull out all the stops and we are having a great time with it. Take a look at some snap shots of our space from this week's site visit.








This year's client is a style icon, do you know who she is?

Rhoda moved out

Oh how I will miss flying down West Wesley Road to that big beautiful blue house! I had gotten quite used to going up there once a week to change the flowers, fluff the pillows, see if we had sold anything, etc. I really should be focusing on getting my own house ready for the Holidays, but it just doesn't seem as fun. Anyway, as you should know, the Christmas House is officially closed. It was open for a fabulous 4 weeks, it was so well received with a fantastic turn-out--I am hoping we raised a great amount for the Alliance Children's Theater. Anyway, if you were not able to make it out to see the show house you really missed out, and to make you feel worse, here are the professional photos we had taken of our room by Lauren Rubinstein. She is amazing and so much fun and I am enamoured with these photos that she took of Rhoda's apartment!

"The Funny Uncle" meets Rhoda Morgenstern

I love installations. This show house installation went really smoothly and was pretty much complete and done on the first day--including accessories! There was something about doing this show house that I really like, it's sort of like playing dress up. You can be whatever you want and portray whatever you feel like, this room was like dressing up for me. This time we decided to dress up like Rhoda Morgenstern (meets MWDA)! I have said in the past that I love working with developers, typically you have a lot of creative freedom. Developers just want the project done on time and in budget and they pretty much trust you to execute their objectives in your creative way. I have found that a show house is similar, except you are both the developer and designer. You have to execute your objective on time, on budget and creatively. Mark said that this is the room that the "funny uncle" stays in when he comes to visit, but the further along we got in our design the more we wanted to be the "funny uncle" and we wanted to stay there (in fact, we all agree that we would be beyond content to move into our guest house)! It started to become more Rhoda then Uncle, so we'll stick with that--because let's face it, no one wants to be the "funny" relative but everyone wants to be Rhoda. It really took on this collected and personal feeling, probably because a lot of things came from us personally. I am excited to say that our room is done and lovely, we are so happy with the solution and the feeling. I hope those of you that make it to the Christmas House, please make every effort to walk to the carriage house and check out our room upstairs! The Christmas House opens next week, November 14th and will be open through December 6th. You can get all the details as well as ticket information here!

Installation Day, boxes and bags and lamp shades oh my!

Bubble Wrap is my friend, he keeps things safe!
(like the amazing artwork borrowed from Emily Amy Gallery & accessories borrowed from Stanton Home)

Places places! I actually mapped all of this out on the floor with masking tape to make sure it was going to fit!

Some of my books take from my Library.

Mark and I found this old camera when we were out shopping one day, and my dad brought me this sketchbook of Paris after one of his trips...we like them together.

All sorts of fun things...

My favorite thing, this beautiful Hermes bicycle. I can't believe they let me borrow it!


Another shopping trip find, really cool vintage luggage.

Just a few more finishing touches.

Toasting to the completion of our first show house! Hooray!!!

To see more you are going to have to come check out the Christmas House!!!!!
Open November 14th through December 6th
Details here!!!

Experiment gone wrong...

So I had fully planned to document our first show house experience and it just got away from me. I had really good intentions and filling you in along the way but it just didn't happen like I had planned--and neither did our room--all I will say is thank goodness I looked at the November issue of AH&L. But now it is X-Mas House time and I am in the throws of stress, paint, and a $4,000 bicycle. I am literally leaving the office to go paint, that's right, Mark and I are painting our own room...this should make for an interesting afternoon. I am fully committed to our design and I really am excited about it, I am hoping it will turn out as lovely in person as it is in my head, you'll have to let me know. Anyway, here is a teaser of what's going on in our space, and check the Yummy Scrumptious Facebook page and my profile for mobile uploads, I'll try to get in another couple of posts this week so you can see the insanity!

I love myself a sequin!

If I had a bicycle, I would want it to be this one from Hermes.

Christmas in July (or August--tomato/tomaato)

So Mark and I are excited to announce that we are doing our first Show House! We are so excited to be participating in the Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles (love them) Annual Christmas House benefiting the Alliance Children's Theater! It is an amazing house designed by architect William T. Baker and it is located on West Wesley Road. We are working on a guest bedroom in the guest house off of the main house and just so thrilled to be invited to participate! The room does present it's challenges, it is small-ish and has a few quirky elements that we will have to get creative with but overall I am just so excited! We have been so lucky to have help from some amazing showrooms all over Atlanta and I am so ready to get cracking on this design, it's a nice distraction from work that pays the bills and studying for the NCIDQ. Anyways, you can get more information at the official Christmas House Website and stay tuned, I am sure I will have some more blog posts about this, in fact, I might make it my Yummy project for the next couple of months, we'll see!

The Show House...Sooooo Beautiful.
It has a very Northeastern feeling to me, very Main.

Our Room!

I need to think of something fun to do with this windown seat

Must love akward ceiling conditions!

Must come down. Immediatly.

Bath of the Year!

I am so excited and so proud that one of our projects won the Bath of the Year contest put on by Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles! This was actually the very first project that Mark really let me work on with him. I did all of the construction documents, selections, and managed the process. I am really so proud of this project because it was my first that I felt like was really mine. We really wanted to create a space that our clients could enjoy and if you were to have seen it before it was just hideous--it was very out dated, poorly planned out and didn't meet any of they needs. We wanted to create a spa-like retreat that still felt masculine with some very specific and personalized touches. For example, all of the dark wood millwork was designed custom for the client to meet their storage needs. This client also cultivates orchids and we created an orchid bath for them between the shower and the bathtub. Here the orchids can get the filtered light they crave and they can be watered and maintained easily by the hand shower right around the corner. This project was really all about the client, and of course it always is, but because their space was so unfortunate to begin with we really wanted to make this a beautiful place for them. Like Mark says in the article, "it was the space the couple liked least but had to use the most, with simple reorientation of space, it is their favorite now." Anyway, pick up a copy of the July Issue of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles and flip to page 22 to see the article! You can also flip to page 27 to see a little blurb about a bath we designed at Plaza Towers, and you can flip to page 47 to see me!

Top 10 Under 40....just barely!

I am so proud of my 9-5 husband, Mark Williams! He was named one of Atlanta's Top 10 Under 40 by Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Magazine. I have said in the past how much I love this book and what a great job they do of featuring local talent. Pick up a copy of the May issue and turn to page 13! Congratulations Mark!!!

Love ya Marcia!

Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles

This is really a fantastic magazine. It's one of my favorites because it does such a good job of profiling local talent, businesses, and all around good design. I consider it an honor to be in this magazine and right now some of my favorite people are in the current issue!!! If I haven't told you yet, my favorite building in ATL is Plaza Towers (ok, so it's technically 2 buildings). They sit right on Peachtree Street in Buckhead and I just think they are beautiful tributes to modern architecture. I also happen to adore several people who live there. My clients Scott Murphy and David Spirt, we worked with them for over a year creating their dream home at PT and it turned out so beautiful and they were so much fun to work with. My favorite brother and sister duo, Jason and Andrea Moattar, both are georgous inside and out (and their homes are beautiful too!) And last but not at all least, my dear dear friends Rory Carlton and Barry Leach. Barry was my professor at AIU and we grew to love eachother...a little slowly at first. But Rory and Barry are such a great couple and I do so much love our cocktail evenings and Sunday brunches! Plaza Towers is celebrating it's 40th Birthday this year and I have been so fortunate to have worked in two units in these beautiful buildings. Pick up a copy of AH&L and take a look!

Mint

I am loving all of the bright colors I am seeing this spring/summer. I feel like it is done strategically because people are generally feeling down about our whole economic situation. Regardless, I heart what I am seeing and if it's intention is to brighten my day, then it's working. I have to say right now my favorite color is a fresh mint green. The photo above is of a kitchen that MWDA designed for a private residence in Atlanta. We went with this amazing bright mint green for the back splash. We chose do use sheets of back painted glass to create a very smooth and sleek effect while still adding a punch of vibrant color. We recently were awarded Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Magazine's 2009 Kitchen of the year for this kitchen and we are very proud. Here are some more examples of this fantastic color and how to apply it.




The Prince Charles Chair from Modernica. The chair alone is brilliant, such a great combination of two classics. The chair is beautiful, obviously, but I l.o.v.e. the color. This fresh green makes me so happy and I now want it immediately!

I love pretty hardware, it's such an easy fix to update any piece of furniture or cabinetry. I am desperate for this mint green knob. Anthropologie has really great finds for the home. Fun linens, dishes, accessories, all sorts of great stuff. But I love that they have these fantastic vintage inspired hardware collections. Really beautiful pieces that can make a huge impact on some less then amazing furniture.




I always say that accessories are a great way to introduce color into any space. It's much easier to move them around and trade them out when you get bored or need to refresh your space. Mark and I have been in love with Baccus bottles lately. Their color and shape is fantastic but they can be expensive. But these great little bottles from West Elm are a great way to get a similar effect. Beautiful mint green color and adorable shape.




If you aren't familiar with SMEG then you need to be. They make these delicious 50's style refrigerators. They come in a variety of colors and have such a petite scale (60"x24") you can't help but want to crawl inside one. Again their colors are so yummy, I want to lick them. They aren't inexpensive but the amount of personality they can add to any kitchen is phenomenal.