This weekend couldn’t come soon enough. It was a long, long week. I am planning on a lot of relaxation and time in front of the fire, my absolute favorite!

image via

• I discovered this tutorial for a floral garland, amazing inspiration for my Thanksgiving table.
• Nordstrom’s half yearly sale is going on right now and it is seriously dangerous. My list includes: This emerald green faced watch (40% off!!), this oversized plaid cashmere scarf, the perfect fur trimmed army green parka, and these highly recommended Rag & Bone skinnies.
• Absolutely love these gold foil letter press thank you notes I found on Pinterest.
• Have you seen Julia’s lookbook for 31 Bits? It is the most festive, adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
• Make sure to check out Naomi’s One Room Challenge, where bloggers complete a room, start to finish in a matter of weeks. Naomi’s just blew me away.

I’ve been designing quite a bit of custom furniture for my clients recently and thought it would be fun to share the process: from inspiration to execution to the finished product. Naomi recently did this with a beautiful custom console and I loved seeing all of the steps!

A couple months ago I had clients who wanted something really special for dining chairs. Unfortunately, most of what is available at retail is really basic and a lot of the to-the-trade options were more than we wanted to spend, so we decided to have something custom made.

We started here, with the inspiration image. We loved the shape and color but wanted to remove the “handle opening” from the back, simplify the leg and alter the curve a bit.

From the inspiration, our workroom built a prototype chair. I went and sat on it and felt the seat was a bit narrow and the back was a little wide. With a couple revisions we were ready to move forward.

We chose a cobalt velvet, white gimp and widely spaced nickel nailheads and voila! The finished product.

And this is a picture my client recently posted of their first dinner party with their new chairs!