Part 2 - A New Orleans Traditional Home Is Updated

This week I am sharing another room in the New Orleans home I have been working on HERE

It is the room adjacent to the living room, a second parlor. Even in a grand townhouse such as this one, the shotgun floor plan is in evidence, that is one room flowing into another. The two living rooms are used for entertaining.

Before - This is the room as I found it on the first day I looked at the house
You can see a glimpse of the chandelier we moved to the living room

The client said she wanted to get rid of her "old" furniture, but I felt she had some lovely pieces that just needed updating. For this middle room, we did not purchase any new furniture, but rather reupholstered existing pieces.

I loved the rug when I saw it, and again it was a pivotal piece in choosing colors.

This is the room as it is today
You can clearly see the relationship of the two living rooms

The daybed before it was reupholstered
Too many frou frou pillows, and the art work needed to go elsewhere

I loved these pale blue leather chairs
The client wanted to get new ones because the cat has left her mark
But I convinced her to keep them,
and to consider the very minor marks as patina
We removed the antique table and replaced it with a zig zag glass table

The room with the daybed gone to the upholsterer
The pair of club chairs is waiting for the fabric we ordered to come in
Various paintings were tried in this spot
The client was attached to to the lovely French mirrors and sconces
So it was decided to would work with them
We also kept the antique side tables and glass lamps

A painting by Louis St. Lewis was a consideration

Ultimately this Ed Smith painting won out
The antique mirrors are back under the sconces
The daybed is back with the new fabric, a Fabricut velvet

Ed Smith painting

The two club chairs were covered in an embroidered linen

Closeup view of one of the club chairs

This is the drapery before - cream color linen with balloon shades

This is the new drapery after
I continued with the same apricot silk that was used in the living room
No more balloon shades!

Apricot silk drapes made by perch.
All fabrics were ordered through perch.
All upholstery by Leonels

Here's the room again as it is today. It's fresh, filled with beautiful color and using all the pretty things the lady of the house had lovingly collected over the last ten years. As I said no new furniture was purchased for this room. Editing and updating were all that were needed.

Updated and refreshed double parlors in New Orleans

Repeated elements such as the apricot silk drapery, and the colors in the rug unify the these two rooms.

There is a third connecting room, the dining room that I will show you soon. The Mouille chandelier we ordered is taking forever to come, but I think I'll show you the dining room without it, and then show the room again when it comes in.

Thanks again for your interest in my projects. I love sharing what I love to do with you!

Tabasco Time!

Painting by Kristine Kainer

The food in Buenos Aires is delicious. But it is not spiced. Nary a pepper shaker appears next to the salt shaker on the table. After a few weeks there I could have put a nipple on a bottle of TABASCO® Original Red, because I craved something good and spicy, and that had some flavor from home. Now I travel with a bottle or two so I will never be deprived again.

Have Tabasco, Will Travel - Get it HERE

Tabasco is not just hot sauce. Its vinegar base makes it a flavor enhancer, and just about everything tastes better with it. One day I am going to put it on red velvet cake or on chocolate ice cream, because peppers and chocolate are a match made in heaven.

My favorite Tabasco infusion is in mayonnaise. It's so simple. I just add a few drops to mayo, sometimes home made mayo. And every time I serve it people ooh and ah. Tabasco has a pre-made mayonnaise that's very good too HERE

Mayo infused with Tabasco - Yummy!

So with this weekend being Super Bowl Sunday, I reckon a few bottles of Tabasco will be cracked open. Try it on pizza, in dips, and in mac and cheese. The options are endless! Tabasco is "So Much More Than Hot." It unlocks or enhances the flavor of food so you can get the best of every bite. Check out ten ways to doctor up delivery HERE

How do you use Tabasco? Got any great recipes or tips for us?

Every table in the South has a Tabasco bottle holder - HERE

Tabasco comes from Avery Island, which is 140 miles west of New Orleans. It's a salt dome island, and salt was actually mined there up until the Civil War. In fact Avery Island supplied 22 million pounds of salt to the Confederate army, up until the Union army invaded the island and destroyed everything.

New York Times Magazine's Oliver Schwarne Albright declares,
"Every well-set New Orleans table has an
Adler's silverplated caddy for when company calls." HERE

Avery Island is the home of the McIlhenny family and their employees, who are the only ones allowed to live there. Among other things, the McIlhennys are expert pepper growers, and have been growing them and making Tabasco since 1860.

Avery Island is also a major nature preserve, and a living museum of 450 species of camellias, many of them rare and endangered HERE

Read about the camellias of Avery Island HERE in The New York Times

Spring is just around the corner, and I plan to take a road trip to Avery Island to see it in its first glorious bloom, and to stock up on a few gallons of Tabasco.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TABASCO® Original Red. All opinions are 100% mine.

Watch Out Miami!

Coming Soon - "Real Housewives of Miami" HERE
Rumor has it the producers have been sniffing around New Orleans.
Everyone here says they would NEVAH do it!
We'll see.

Bravo is not really filming The Real Housewives of Miami. Finally putting that rumor to rest is the announcement of the voyeuristic network's new series is, Miami Social Club (working title). Read more HERE

Have lots to do this weekend...
Come back Monday for another look at the trad home that got rocked...
Also thanks to Joni I am putting a look book together of the changes our home has gone through over the past six years ha ha.

Happy Weekend!

Your Thoughts Please - Naming Names

Room #1

Naming paint colors and decor styles seems to be a full time job for somebody. So many of us are comfortable when we can put a name or a label on our decorating style. Why? Does it validate what we do? Help us make choices? Offer a shorthand for others to understand?

Room #2

Earthy Modern; Industrial Countryside Chic; French Gothic Arboretum; Rustic Zen Ranch; Boutique Hotel Traditional; Glam Vintage Chic Office.

This are the labels Hi Fashion Home has put on their room displays. Really.

Room #3

Can you match the name with the number of the room?

Room #4

Personally I chafe under any kind of label. What about you?

Room #5

I squirm when people ask me to define my style, because my style is organic and always evolving. I don't like to be put in a box, or painted into a corner. Certain touchstones are always there. I want a room to have style and verve; to be pretty; to be comfortable; to be interesting; to be hospitable; to have a certain quality. I guess that conveniently describes my fashion sense, and my life philosophy too.

Room #6

Of course definitions are needed to identify furnishings: French, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Asian, African, Moroccan, antique, vintage, modern, retro, Mid-century modern, etc., etc. And we define patterns: Geometric, floral, solids, textured, etc.

Room #7

The answers:

• Room 1 - Rustic Zen Ranch
• Room 2 - French Gothic Arboretum
• Room 3 - Vintage Chic Office
• Room 4 - Earthy Modern
• Room 5 - Industrial Countryside Chic
• Room 6 -Boutique Hotel
• Room 7 - Traditional Glam

Are you smiling? Smirking? Laughing?


ALSO - Be there or be square - Go to perch. who is giving away the cutest red Chinoiserie style chair HERE

Go to perch. to get this chair for free!

Warm and Cozy With Brown Velvet

This is the front door to our house
The Union Jack armoire is our coat closet
This room is our dance studio

I had another old ratty vintage chair reupholstered. I bought it for $20. eleven years ago, and it was in such good shape, it stayed the way I found it, gold velvet with brown wood arms and legs.
The chair has good classic lines, so I decided I would re-up it.

Leonels has done all the upholstery in our home, and we use them at perch. the high end home furnishings shop I work in. They are simply the best for workmanship, and they are fair with pricing.

Leonels is the upholsterer to Visual Vamp
View from the living room into the dance studio

I meant the chair for the dance studio, placed by a window, a nice spot to just sit and gaze, or an handy place to change into dance shoes, or sit and teach from the chair ha ha.

Uh, no. Too "Mr. and Mrs."
So I broke up the romance, & moved Mrs. Brown Velvet Chair

But I got seduced by the "newness" and moved the chair into the living room. It didn't quite fit, and paired with the lime green wing chair, it looked a little too much like "Mr. and Mrs. Chair", too granny even for this granny.

Mrs. Brown Velvet does a tango in the dance studio

So Back to the dance studio it went.

I painted the arms and legs of the chair white, and distressed the paint a bit. The new fabric is brown velvet, purchased from Fabric.com. The old chair had nail heads, but for the new version I chose self-piping. I have nail heads on the couch and French settee, and my breakfast room chairs, and just thought, "enough with the nail heads already."

A place to gaze or change into dance shoes

Then I moved it back to the living room, and moved it this way and that way. Fuss and fidget, fuss and fidget. Oh the silly restless illness of a decor addict. Don't judge/laugh. I know you do the same thing.

I moved the chair this way...

Then I moved the chair that way...

And then I finally moved it back to the studio where I wanted it to be in the first damn place! So now the chairs are all at rest for the moment, cozy on this winter day.

Striped doors in the dance studio adjoin the living room

Visual Vamp living room February 2011
Cozy - Do you see Cholo?

I have some exciting news. The Preservation Resource Center invited Alberto and I to be on the first Shotgun House Tour since Hurricane Katrina. We are so honored and excited. It's Saturday April 2 in case you are in New Orleans.

I needed to snap some photos, and I got a new camera from Alberto for Christmas, so I am experimenting with settings and exposures. I always shoot with natural light which is tricky, since even though our house doesn't feel gloomy, it's not exactly flooded with light.

So these photos are part of the learning curve, and since I had them I thought I'd share them, in hopes to give you something to look at during the MONSTER STORM OF THE CENTURY!

Visual Vamp living room looking into the dance studio - 2011

PS Thank you all for the great response to my project with the apricot silk drapes. Next week I will show you another room....

Case Study: A New Orleans Traditional Home Is Updated

The living room the day I came to have a look
Things that I could not change: recently painted walls, and floor color
Everything else could go

A customer walked into perch., the home furnishings store I work in (in New Orleans), and asks for me. She's heard I revitalize rooms with a certain New York, rock and roll glam edge. She asks me to pay a house call, telling me she needs to update her traditional French inspired look she did ten years ago. She told me we could throw everything out and start over.

While the rooms were a little lackluster and dated, there was still alot of good stuff there, and I tell her we are not throwing anything out. We will reupholster and move things around to other parts of the house, and add a some things from perch.

I am doing the 95% of the house, and today I am starting with showing you the front living room. It is a room used mainly for entertaining. There is a family room, a room the husband loves as -is, and in actuality it is very nice, and I decide to keep him happy and leave well enough alone.

The living room today
I gave it my signature New York, rock and roll glam

The first thing I did was edit the contents and rearrange the furniture. Already the client said she could breathe. The pieces I kept were the mirror, the antique settee, the couch, and a little stool. The arm chair is covered in a gorgeous discontinued Bergamo fabric and got moved to a guest room I call "the French woman's bedroom." In fact most of the furnishings moved to this room, including the investment drapes. I just removed the brush fringe to update them a little. The lamp with the half slip left too, but for the moment it was the only light source (other than the windows) in the room.

The furniture was rearranged and edited
The fabulous arm chair covered in Bergamo went upstairs
Note the color of the floor - it inspired the new drapery color
The sad lamp with the half slip was the only light in here
We moved the crystal chandelier from the dining room here
It is original to the house
The dining room is getting a Mouille chandelier

We moved quickly. The project started in the third week of September and the bulk of it was done by December 15th. I have a gift for instantly envisioning a room completely done, and make confident decisions quickly. The client was a dream, trusting me instantly, and able to move quickly as well. Three rooms were done, and a large bar area, and one son's bedroom got an instant update for his homecoming from college. I am now working on a another son's room and the guest bedroom, and some small things in the lady's office.

Furniture from perch. came in right away, and everyone there helped push the project as fast as we wanted to go.

As I said, the lady of the house has two children one aged 8 and one in college, just to give you her age range. She is stylish and very savvy. She loves mid-century modern, color, and metallic, and asked to use chrome somewhere, which I did in other rooms. I took the metallic cue and ran with. We purchased the zinc side tables from Restoration Hardware - they are actually garden pedestals. I placed a pair of gilded French antique lamps here that were moved from the dining room sideboard. I updated them by having the center pole raised and adding a modern shade.

Zinc "side table" is a garden pedestal

Two side chairs from perch.
I reupholstered the seats in vibrant turquoise, a color the client loves
The photograph is from perch. - "Jane Doe" by Lisa Conrad
I decided to keep the sea grass rug

I removed the over stuffed down cushion from the settee
It was reupholstered in white metallic ultra suede -
All fabrics I used come from perch.
Note when we do custom work like this
We "retire" the fabric in New Orleans - we cut it out of the sample book
New Orleans is a small city
perch. wants its customers to truly have one-of-a-kind work

A side table with a built-in lamp was added from Hazelnut
We loved it's mid century vibe
Check out the apricot silk swatch of the drapery fabric
No matter what, the girls in New Orleans want silk drapes from perch.


A metal sculpture was added from perch.
I thought about a sconce, but the scale had to be large
The oversize ottoman is also from perch.
I called Nicole Cohen to make us a large Lucite tray HERE
And the chandelier is in it's new home

A custom painting done by Jack Mayberry from perch.
The colors are inspired by the decor

Painting by Jack Mayberry

The Lucite tray designed by Nicole Cohen arrives!
Silver chrome studs give it rock star edge
A custom green silk pillow from perch. replaced the furry beasts


Detail of custom pillow
I chose this luscious fabric from perch.
The perch. fabric room has a half a million samples

The stairs are the first thing you see when you come in the front door
They had ten year old sea grass on them
I replaced that with an antelope pattern carpet runner
The window had a foofy balloon shade that had to go
I replaced it with an apricot silk Roman shade
Jack's painting hangs next to this window
There is no room for an entry table
The stairs, the shade, and the painting become an important focal point

Elegant antelope print carpet stair runner from perch.

Key elements include:
An infusion of color
Visual Vamp glam
Apricot silk drapes from perch.
Luxe fabrics and furnishings from perch.
(check out the little stool recovered in leopard raffia)
A mix of old and new
Interesting art work
Mixed metals

If you like, I'll show you another room from this house next week.

I am so blessed to have a stylish client seek me out with a project like this, and colleagues, Caroline Robert and Jack Mayberry at perch. I have never been happier!

Call us at perch.
There are three of us there doing the design chores, and you are bound to click with one of us!
504 899 2122

Please take a look at Susan's weekly feature Metamorphosis Monday HERE