Houston Design Blog | Material Girls | Houston Interior Design

{I’d kill for these obelisks from Mrs. Howard – and the lamp for that matter}

After seeing Paloma’s post on these Penguin Classic books, I think these are a must have.

I’d take a Nola lamp in either color!

This lamp would be PERFECT in our Master Bedroom – I’ll take a pair!

{photo via All the Best}

Sorry, crazy day!

{pretty image is Ashley Whittaker’s Living Room}

Those fabulous silk curtains are actually from West Elm but double lined for weight by a seamstress.  The slipcovered chair and sofa (not shown) are from Quatrine, the oushak is from Kuhl-Linscomb and reproduction french chairs are covered in a Manuel Canovas fabric from Walter Lee Culp.

{portrait by Jenny Antill}

The darling Katie Stassi in the living room of her long time friend’s River Oaks home.

A Stassi vignette with a flea market gilded mirror found in New York, Horchow lamp, silver candy dish, crystal matchbox, lighters (vintage and new), crystal decanter, and glasses from Baccarat, all cleverly displayed on a French Louis Philippe four drawer commode with marble top from Tara Shaw.

Gotta love that West Elm Parsons Desk!  I could do a whole post of the many uses of this piece! Katie placed it in the master bathroom to serve as a dressing table.  I love the makeup brushes in the acrylic containers!

This dining room has all the elements I adore…slipcovered parsons chairs, traditional table, fabulous chandelier, and silk curtains!  Table is from Carl Moore Antiques, glass chandelier was found on the internet, and the dining chairs are from Ballard Designs.

Of course I love that touch o’ lucite!  Can’t beat a good ole Ghost chair.  The rug, also to-die-for is from Kuhl-Linscomb.  If you look closely, you can see David Hicks hexagon wallpaper in the powder bath.

I LOVE this vignette, and it totally reminds me of Emily.  A West Elm bookcase full of great books, is topped with a lamp from Target (I LOVE that Katie goes high-low).  A relative of the homeowner was actually a Ford Model, so she photocopied some of her favorite magazine covers and framed them.

If you live in Houston, be sure to pick up the latest issue of Paper City to see more pictures!

Credits:

Photography by Jack Thompson as seen in Paper City/April 2009

Interior Design by Katie Stassi

This edition of Furniture Friday is a little bit self-serving. I’ve been looking for a new sofa for…ev…er… and I know I can’t be alone. I think this piece of furniture has to be one of the hardest. Even though I truly agree with Celerie Kemble who basically said: the sofa is like the potatoes, you wouldn’t build a whole meal around a starch, so why build your whole room around a sofa?!  Okay, I butchered the quote but my point is, the sofa must still must live up to a lot of expectations. Timeless, durable, comfortable, washable, the list goes on and on. My search for the perfect slipcovered sofa is not over, but I thought I’d share the different styles that I’ve found.

Contemporary with Graphic Touches:

Ondine from Top Design used a similar (non slipped) sofa from Plantation in one of her rooms. I would love to use this in a black and white room. This is the “Contemporary” sofa from Quatrine.

I just had to share this room from Living Etc. that I spotted on This is Glamorous’ fabulous post on lucite. It is the living room next to this fabulous dining room I can see peeking out in the background.

If there is one word to sum up my sentiments of the Round-Top Antiques Fair after my first trip there this weekend it would be, “excess.” I joined my mother-in-law and her two friends this weekend for an exhausting whirlwind shopping extravaganza. Now these ladies mean business, this is their fourth time to go (with no signs of ever NOT attending again), and they stay for a full week of shopping from 8am – 10pm. Crazy. I could only hang for the weekend, but it did not disappoint. You can find everything from the junkiest of junk to fine European Antiques. I thought I’d share some of my favorite finds…

At “Excess,” I found this barn filled to the brim with industrial-chic-modern finds. A nice breath of fresh air when you’ve been looking at gorgeous antiques you can’t afford and sorting through the junk you can. I would describe this vendor as Anthropologie on crack.

I loved this glamorous steel and lucite dining table/chairs combination! The chairs have SUCH potential.

My love for gorgeous rocks knows no boundaries and I about DIED when I saw these hunky chunks on lucite stands.

He had lots of gorgeous (expensive) lamps as well.

On the right hand side of this picture, note how he hung white coral all the way up the wall – very dramatic in person.

The new look Restoration Hardware is advertising was EVERYWHERE at Excess. Every last one of these cart/tables were sold.

This one booth had loads of zinc tables, I could think of a thousand possibilities and functions for them.

It amazes me that these “stores” only set up shop twice a year. It took the owner of Clutter three weeks to get everything set up.

Any kind of print you could imagine was available.

SOOO many cute dishes!

A screen I contemplated as a headboard, but decided against because that’s not what I ultimately want.

I saw several of these large mirrored obelisks – amazing!

Small sunburst mirror I passed up (I really want a pair).

I fell in love with this zinc chest, so so cool.

It’s hard to tell but that is a cowhide rug all folded up – they had tons all over the fair. I mean this is TEXAS after all.

These antique bottles were really beautiful. The dealer found them in an old factory in England. They have the look of mercury glass but they are not actually made of the mercury. He isn’t sure what they were used for, but had speculated that they were used to make herbs more potent. I think they will sell out quickly. I already saw various dealers who had bought from this man hawking them in their booths.

I loved the lines of this alabaster lamp.

The show has only just begun, so if you can make it I highly suggest checking it out!

A vintage chair is reupholstered and paired with a CB2 “City Slicker” table.

The fabulous mirrored headboard is actually four packs of mirror tiles from Ikea at just $4.99 a pop - ingenious!

{photos from Sunset Magazine}