Shop Keepers Homes 6 - Neil Alan Peyroux

I haven't done a Shop Keepers Homes feature in awhile, so I am excited to do one now on the home of Neil Alan Peyroux. I think you will really enjoy it!

Peyroux's Customs Curtains is a post Katrina baby. Native New Orleanian Neil Peyroux opened his shop right after Katrina, filling a need for the great demand for home furnishings to all who were rebuilding. Six years later it is well established as a great place to go for custom curtains.

Neil Alan Peyroux

This month his own home is featured in New Orleans Magazine (story by Bonnie Warren, photos by Cheryl Gerber). Peyroux's home is filled with color, beautiful fabrics, tasteful furnishings, and vibrant art work.

Neil Peyroux featured in New Orleans Magazine

Born in New Orleans, Neil’s creative roots run deep. His great-grandparents were well-known Italian opera singers who came to New Orleans to perform in the early 1900s, stayed, and opened the beloved Turci’s Italian Gardens. His family operated the restaurant for 57 years, and his uncle Earl Peyroux had a television cooking show and several hit cookbooks. His cousin is notable blues and jazz songstress Madeleine Peyroux. All this left Neil with a passion for people and an unquenchable entrepreneurial spirit.

Neil loves color - The stripe silk drapes in the living room are fantastic - He chose all the textiles, and his friend Curtis Herring did the interior design chores

After successful stints in tourism and restaurant ownership, Neil followed his passion for creativity, textiles, color, and pattern and began a small solo curtain business. Within six months he had six full-time seamstresses working for him, along with a plum position as the exclusive production authority for a nationally-known group of curtain boutiques.

The downstairs features a comfortable den. “It’s the favorite place for
Wolfie and Sigmund, my dachshunds.” It also adjoins the patio and raised deck facing the
pool. I love the over size photo of Peyroux’s grandfather, who was an attorney and a member of the New Orleans Police

The swimming pool -  “Once a pecan grove, many of the trees still remain in the area, although I
have been told that a number came down during Hurricane Katrina,” says Neil, “The land was part of the Alfred Bonnabel plantation that exists a block away.”  photo by Neil Peyroux

The back porch - I love the Trina Turk fabric! - photo by Neil Peyroux

After Hurricane Katrina, Neil founded Peyroux’s Custom Curtains while in exile in Lafayette. He followed up with a New Orleans showroom a few months later — helping renew his hometown with meticulously custom-made curtains and window treatments for homes across the region.

Herring (Peyroux's designing friend) designed a completely new kitchen across the back of the house adding luxurious
Calcutta Gold marble for the counter top and backsplash. “I hand-selected the marble searching for the slabs with the most gold veins,” he says. 

Another view of that gorgeous marble in the kitchen - photo by Neil Peyroux

The dining room - Love the oversize lantern

The three bedrooms in the house showcase the talent of Peyroux’s workroom that made the
bedspreads, pillows and curtains. “I like the bold patterns and rich colors,” Peyroux says. “I
wanted fabric that was handsome, masculine and durable.”  I spy a Julie Neill light fixture

Another bedroom with beautiful custom textiles from Neil Peyroux

Peyroux has a line of ready-made curtains called Neil Peyroux HOME.
You can get it this line at JULIE NEILL DESIGNS, 3908 Magazine Street in New Orleans, and at great treasure trove of a consignment shop called LE BOULEVARD MARKETPLACE, 3815 Veterans Blvd. in Metairie.

I recently picked up a couple of gorgeous pair of navy blue silk panels, and had Neil customize them with Greek Key trim I got from M&J Trimming in New York,

His HOME line of beautiful textiles features fabrics from some of the top names in home decor including Robert Allen, Kravet, Beacon Hill, and B. Berger, along with trim and passementerie from Samuel & Sons.

From neutral linen and silk taffeta to colorful prints and modern geometrics, the curtains in the HOME line are made on-site with the same attention to detail as our custom orders. HOME curtains, however, feature a simpler silhouette, butterfly or box pleats, and standard hem lengths of 96, 108, and 120”. Neil also purchases larger quantities of our HOME fabrics, passing along our savings to his customers.

In addition to ready-made curtains, the HOME line includes plump, down-filled pillows stitched from coordinating fabrics — perfect for unifying the design elements in a room.
 

You can get beautiful Greek Key pillows like these from Neil Peyroux

Stop by and visit Neil Peyroux in his workroom, and tell him The Vamp sends you!

PEYROUX'S CUSTOM CURTAINS  

2929 Jefferson Highway, Suite F | Jefferson, LA 70121 

504 234 9668

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Style Addicts

The New York Times has a pithy article about regular folks "over propping" their homes, and of course then posting the pictures of their over propped and over styled homes on a blog or Facebook or Twitter.

If you have at least three of the ten things on their list of over used items, then you are over styled with props making your home a performance. Boo hoo.

It's hilarious. And of course I have a few of the things on the list ha ha.

I am guilty! Bar cart, vintage typewriter, color matched books! All in one photo on a blog!

Here's the list - how many do you have? If you have three or more you are guilty guilty guilty.

• Books arranged by color
• Vintage typewriter
• Edison (light) bulbs
• Terrarium
• Monogrammed towels
• Taxidermy
• Le Creuset Pot
• Bar Cart
• Fresh Flowers
• Vintage Fan

Are you laughing? I beg to differ with a couple of them, like bar carts, which are a staple in homes in the South and used on a daily basis, and fresh flowers, and even vintage fans, which again are useful and so much cuter than modern fans. And monogrammed everything in the South is a way of life, not necessarily a photo-op.

It's there! Hiding in a corner masquerading as a book end, the dreaded vintage typewriter! I confess it's my house!

What's worse, a new fan pretending to be vintage, or a vintage fan? We use it everyday!

Guilty! I arranged some of my books by color - Cute orange chair painting by Annechovie

So all you Dorothy and Dan Drapers out there, keep making your house cute no matter what, and use lots of stuff, and please post pictures. It used to be you had to peep into windows when you took a walk to see how people decorated, now the blogoshpere is one huge fabulous picture window. And you know we all want to see what other people have!

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Does Your Decor Tell Your Age?

What's young? What's old? Can you tell the age of a person by how they decorate their home?

From House of Fifty - Does Your Decor Tell Your Age?

I have been getting some nice email with some interesting comments on an article I wrote for House of Fifty. Go check it out and tell me what you think. If someone never met you and saw a room you decorated and designed, could they guess your age? And is there age-ism in decorating? Do we care if our rooms look young or old?

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Do You Collect Folk Art?

This post is a reminder that the Thornton Dial show at The New Orleans Museum of Art will close after the final day on Sunday, May 20. The museum is open until 9 PM on Friday. If you have not seen this show, get over there now!

Thornton Dial at work

We had a couple of guests for Jazzfest who stayed over during the week between the two weekends of festivities, and we suggested going to the museum to see the show. We all had a wonderful time, an emotionally moving experience.

Jane Fonda collects Thornton Dial and loaned a piece of it for the show at NOMA - This is her loft

The Thornton Dial show amazes you with creative virtuosity, but even more with the emotions you will certainly experience. You will cry and you will smile. The show is hung like a four act play. It starts out hard and heavy, and moves into humor and life, and then into romance, and finally leaving with you with a sense of hope and redemption. If you live in New Orleans, you are a fool if you don't see this show.

Alberto and I have a very small and modest collection of contemporary Southern art, done by what some call folk artists, or outsider artists. I have always been attracted to folk art, and somehow owning a few pieces naturally occurred when we moved to Louisiana.

We got this piece from Mary Proctor when we were evacuated to Tallahassee, Florida after Katrina - We were out on a drive and saw this incredible junk yard of a place decorated with folk art - There was  a little shack called a museum and we entered- No one was around, and once we walked though we went out into the enormous yard and saw hundreds of pieces of art - All of a sudden we saw a woman sitting in the dirt in the shade and shadows, and she was making art - We made the accquaintance of the amazing artist Mary Proctor - This drowning girl made us think of New Orleans and Katrina

I loved the folk art museum in New York and was familiar with a wider vernacular of American folk art from attending exhibitions there, but there is something extra remarkable about the Southern self-taught artists still living and working today.

This is a black cat made from corrugated metal by artist Charles Gillam that hangs in the laundry room

Life imitates art - Kitty Kitty Bang Bang with the black cat art by Charles Gillam

Le Tango by Charles Gillam, a wood carving done for Alberto and me (I had red hair then) that Alberto gave me for my birthday - In my dreams I have my eye on a Thornton Dial piece for my birthday this year if we win the lottery

The Funeral by Lottie - The description written by the artist on the back says "She put him away fine and looking out for another one" - Contact Lottie in Patterson, Louisiana at 504 395-6677 -  I love this painting for the Grandma Moses quality of it, showing so many delicately painted details

Words in folk art are an important component, the art not only conveying a message but spelling it out - This saying is now identified with New Orleans coined by the famous artist Dr. Bob  - I loved this one because the background looks like old wallpaper to me - Note how the frame becomes part of the work of art

We commissioned the French artist Simon to do this sign for us - His signs are seen all over New Orleans, but especially on Magazine Street near his shop

This sweet painting of magnolias was done by dear friend Anne Farmen as a gift to me - She passed away at age 90, and painted this a couple of years before that

This amazing piece was done by Mary Gillam the sister of Charles. It is made from found objects, and I just love it!

Does folk art have a place in your home?
Go to all the links and check out these amazing artists.

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Who Has An Over Dye Rug?

The over dye rug has been trending for a couple of years. Old worn vintage oriental carpets are bleached out and then over dyed with pale or vivid colors. The effect is an interesting and pretty pentimento. Sometimes smaller rugs are stripped and dyed different colors and then put together in a patchwork form.

An over dye rug via Desire To Inspire

Prices vary wildly from the thousands to the hundreds, and the mainstream has caught up fast with this boutique item.

This over dye rug is from Overstock, and comes in teal and pink - The 8 x 10 i only $387.

Rugs USA has a terrific affordable selection (and also Moroccan rugs) - I love this color called Obstinate Orange

Kilim.com has some lovely vintage wool rugs - This beautiful pale rug is a 5 x 8 for a little over $1000.

Flor is doing carpet tiles in many colors from the most pale blue to the vivid colors - An 8 x 10 is $480.

Of course I am attracted to these rugs, the worn patina style and in all the variations of colors possible. A pale bleached out one with just a touch of color is soft and romantic. The brights in lime greens, hot pinks, and teals excite.  I appreciate a good patchwork design, though it is not something I visually respond to.

The over dye patchwork rug

Clever bloggers are doing DIY projects with the over dye. I  have done it on slipcovers, blankets,  toss pillows, and throws, but never on a rug. But hey, a gallon of bleach, an old rug, the bath tub, and some dye can add up to a nice project.

Blogger Kristen Davis has a great DIY tutorial

Have any of you introduced the over dye rug into your decor? Or your client's decor? Or done a DIY over dye rug?

And vote for Jenny today HERE

she's in 3rd now but at least Slim Paley is #2 and maybe can win over #1 

but please still vote for Jenny - only one days left

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Dirty Nasty Decorators

Am I the only one that thought Fifty Shades of Grey was a new decor book? Instead it's cheesy romance style soft core with bondage and S & M that has taken over every best seller list (with mainly women readers).

Not my shade of gray, especially when the M in the S & M is always the woman. I read The Story of O when I was in my young impressionable twenties, and at first I laughed at how stupid the premise (and prose) was, because I was a young woman fortunate enough to live during the time the feminist movement was born. To me, no woman who had love and respect for herself would submit to bondage, spanking, and abuse as part of having sex. Sex was meant to be fun, not torture.

But I digress. My good old source, The New York Times published a thought provoking article about the shades of gray practiced by decorators and designers. I list a few from the article that I find hilarious:

• The two (decorators) were paid in cash delivered in Gucci bags for their work decorating the many homes of (the client)....when prosecuted for money laundering and warned by a federal agent that the client was a drug dealer, their lawyer said that, "We had an argument that they didn’t have to take the agent’s word for it that he was a drug dealer and that they believed (the client) had legitimate businesses. Of course, a guy who delivers cash in the middle of the night didn’t help their case.”  

• The decorator called to testify in the John Edwards case inspired this article.  The donation to Edwards is called Bunny Money, because the cash in question was provided by social icon Bunny Mellon. Mr. Huffman (the decorator) testified, “She said that we were awfully foolish with the ‘furniture business,’ ” referring to Ms. Mellon. “But we were having a wonderful time doing it.” 

• Mario Buatta, still feels guilty about designing a bedroom for the mistress of a man to match the bedroom he had already designed for the man and his wife. "I could never face the wife. I felt very icky.” 

• Mr. Buatta did turn down a job for a “pizza king,” who wanted the Prince of Chintz to design a kind of dungeon in an A-frame house on Long Island. As Mr. Buatta recalled: “I told him, ‘I don’t do this. I do English style.’ And he said, ‘What kind of a meatball are you?’ I heard later he’d been found dead in his car.”  

• “People hate sales tax,” said Noel Jeffrey, a gentlemanly Manhattan designer. Like most decorators, Mr. Jeffrey has had the occasional female client who will pay for things out of her own account rather than have the bills sent to her husband. 

• William T. Georgis, an architect who works mainly in the art world, said he never did a bondage room, but he does have a few panic rooms and gun rooms to his credit. Also shoe closets for “1,757 pairs of shoes,” he said. And vanity drawers to contain “350 tubes of lipstick,” and a round glass guest room for a voyeur. “He loved it!” said Mr. Georgis. 

• Decorators certainly see a lot — they can’t help it. “Decorators know where the safe is hidden,” said Celerie Kemble. “They know when someone is building a room under their house that might not show up in plans filed with the Department of Buildings. Or the hidden sex room. Think about ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.’ Someone had to design that room. And how many of those ‘wine cellars’ are really wine cellars?” People often choose their decorators for their discretion, she added. 

• The other Bunny weighs in:  Bunny Williams, the very traditional Manhattan decorator and chair of this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House, said: “When you read this in the paper, and it’s ‘the decorator,’ I just get furious."

• Decorators going rogue, as it were, are hardly in the majority. But even some of the big names have had to turn down requests for, well, fudges. (VV here - Fudges????  Does fudge make fraud sound nicer?)

Go read it HERE.

This article is the real Things I'm Afraid To Tell You (the latest blogosphere chain letter going around).

Got any good shades of gray to add? Discuss.

One Thousand Shades of Gray the new decor book I think I will write

And vote for Jenny today HERE

she's in 3rd now but at least Slim Paley is #2 and maybe can win over #1 

but please still vote for Jenny - only a couple of days left

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

The Incredible Patina Style Of Peterson Moon Yokum

Do you ever wonder what happened to the people you crossed paths with? Peter Yokum spent seven years at The Art Students League in New York in the 1970's. I took classes there then, and also was an artists model there. We were both 26 in 1975.

Peterson Moon Yokum in 1975 - Read a great interview with him that took place then HERE

Yokum, went home to New Orleans, and little did I know back then that I would end up living here some 25 years later.

The front parlor with the amazing ceiling - and a mantelpiece with a Napoleonic style. 'The Smithsonian wanted to buy this from my grandaddy because of this highly intricately carved honeycomb and bee design," Yokum said. As a stylist I would have removed the fan before a photo of this gorgeous room was taken

A closer look at the Napoleonic fireplace mantle

His family home, a grand Creole townhouse (and believed to be the oldest house in New Orleans) called Casa Hinard in one part and Case Hove in another, is legendary. It is a study in the beauty of patina style bar none. Often rented out for Hollywood movies always on the condition that nothing can be changed.

The Creole home of Peter Yokum is the oldest house in New Orleans - The building is of "significant historical and architectural value, " said a spokesman for the Williams Research Center of The Historic New Orleans Collection. There are plenty of conflicting dates, stories and theories as to when what was built and who owned it at what time, but "absent any records that may have been burned, it is a possibility" that a portion of the structure dates to the 1720s".

There are so many generations of treasures in this house, including paintings by his mother, Rita Hovey-King, a Newcomb College graduate who used her maiden name on her work. "She was a helluva painter, " he said. The shop on the ground floor of the house that fronts Toulouse Street, was once the Hove perfume shop, which she ran after she took the business over from her mother. And long before that, it was a gunsmith's shop. Now you can find Yokum's art gallery on the first floor

The door to Casa Hove via

Take a look at a round up of images of this incredible patina style.

The front gates opening to the porte cochere and courtyard, called The Money Gates because they came off the old US Mint, and are said to bring good luck to those who rub them - The original gates were melted down to make bullets during the Civil War

Fan light windows have original hand rolled glass

The dining room with old plaster walls that have not been repainted for hundreds of years

Some of Peter Yokum's art - When he was interviewed at age 26 he said he likes to paint  "Faces, nudes, landscapes, still lifes, anything that's pretty, anything that moves me, anything that I feel is worth capturing." I wonder if he has any paintings of me from the 1970's ha ha

Talk about art in the kitchen! I wish there were a larger photo so we could see the old porcelain sink and vintage stove - I love the way the small brass desk lamp is used as a picture light

Old family treasures, art work, and an old brick wall make for a perfect patina style vignette - Yokum makes his own paint colors, he says "It was taught to me by my instructor, Frank Mason, at the New York City Art Students League. He calls it the Maroger medium." The Art Students League was the place to study classical painting, with the methods of the old masters taught  to students. When I was there I learned what rabbit skin glue was, and all about painting with glazes.

Peter Moon Yokum in his studio - He also plays music - "I got a little group. We drink a little liquor, get all fired up and play some music, make some noise, " Yokum said.

Peter Yokum in his courtyard - "Everything's intact. I don't want to mess with anything, " he said. "Cypress railing, I don't care if it's chewed up, me. I'm going to keep this old cypress railing. Cypress basically lasts forever. These posts are all original. Wouldn't change anything until I don't have another option, and even then I'll try to go get the old stuff."

Some images from Our Louisiana Magazine. Sadly they do not have the story on line. But read these two fascinating articles one from Nola.com HERE, and one from the interview with Peter Yokum when he was 26.

And vote for Jenny today HERE

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog

Trina Turk At Banana Republic

There are two kinds of girls. There are those who put every cent into decorating their home, and there are those who spend their money on their clothes. Now we home decor girls can combine both!

Banana Republic has released a special sneak peek of Trina Turk’s capsule collection. Known for her fun prints and bright colors, Turk’s collaboration with Banana Republic is the perfect combination of rich girl style with affordable prices. The 60-piece line, which hits stores and their online marketplace on June 7th, won’t have a price tag larger than $185.00!

“We went into our archives, and we probably started with about 30 prints that we felt were iconic Trina Turk prints that had that Palm Springs feeling,” Turk said in an interview with USA Today. “Then it really became an editing process where we worked with the Banana Republic design team to narrow it down to what we feel are the best of the best, which are five prints.”

Trina Turk at Banana Republic June 7

The collection is good for girls of all ages, with skin baring pieces or more covered up designs. And when you tire of your dress, top, skirt,  orshorts, you can turn it into a toss pillow!

I could wear these! And so can you! Trina Turk at Banana Republic

I love the dress - It reminds me of the Trina Turk Paradise Pool fabric

Okay, I will take the first dress and the top from Trina Turk for Banana Republic

And vote for Jenny today HERE

Please add my NEW address to your blog list:

http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower again (or for the first time) on this new blog