Until We Meet Again

Dear Readers,

We write this post with a bit of sad news: we have decided to stop publishing Here in This House. After three great years of design news, tips, interviews, showhouses, trade shows, products, home improvement projects and more, we are both happy to say we wrote about the best and loved every minute of it. Your support has been invaluable and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for reading, sharing and commenting. It made it all worth it to think we had over 10,000 pages viewed each month. So thank you for following along.

So what’s next?

Here in This House will still exist, sort of. It will not be taken down but archived. There will be no new posts or news but it will continue to exist in its current state.

Elise continues to provide social media services to brands and small businesses as well as write for a variety of publications about green and healthy living. You can find her latest and greatest at Elise Jones Consulting. She also has not abandoned her love of all things design and keeps pinning, tumbling and tweeting on a regular basis. Also, you can reach her at her personal email: elise@elisejonesconsulting.com. And if you happened to miss, she’s relocating to Northern California in July (which she is very excited about)!!!

Mae is thankful for this little side project that got to be bigger than she ever imagined. She will be continuing to pursue her photography among other personal pursuits and of course continuing her work to turn her vintage split level into a home of her own. If you have a hankering to revisit some of her interiors shots from this blog and elsewhere, stroll on over to her photography site. Mae can also be pinged on the usual social media outlets or via email at mae@maehackingphotography.com.

Again, thank you so much for all of your support and we look forward to “seeing” you all again!

All our best,
Elise & Mae

Design 101: Is there a right way to decorate a room?

Welcome to our next installment of the DESIGN 101 Q&A series answered by the talented designer, Alla Akimova. Our “Design 101” column is where we ask our favorite designers, architects, stylists, builders, artists and more all the burning questions you have. Since our blog is focused on “where design meets reality,” we have a lot of you who are curious about the how's and why's of the design business but not enough time to find it out on your own. So we are going to help you in your journey and answer your list of questions too!

Is there a right way to decorate a room? Talk to me about proportion, color, scale, etc.

 

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The New York Design Center; A NYC Design Resource

Last week we revealed to you one of the trade secrets that interior designers use when coming up with inspiration and products for one of their projects: design centers. Design centers are located in major cities all across the world and many of them have services for non-trade professionals (like you and I). Touring these showrooms gives you many ideas and allows you to see different options available for all rooms of your home.

If you are lucky enough to live in the New York City area, there are three different design centers: the Decoration & Design Building, the New York Design Center and the Architects and Designers Building. Combined together, these centers have over 160 showrooms. A showroom is just like any other open-to-the-public “home” store you would see but it specifically carries only one manufacturer's product line(s). Think stores with only flooring or stores with only lights or stores with a variety of fabrics. Of course there are also showrooms that have entire rooms of furnishings and decor too.

It's always bustling at the New York Design Center.

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Decoration & Design Building: A Design Resource for All

There are many design resources in the professional designer’s handbook. These resources may seem clandestine or out of reach to the regular, non-design-professional person but actually there are many that are accessible to anyone, if you know where to look. One such resource is the design buildings located in many major cities across the world. In Manhattan, there are three major design centers or buildings: the Decoration & Design Building, the New York Design Center and the Architects and Designers Building. All three of these buildings are open to the public as well as provide shopping and in-house design services to anyone who would like to use them.

Now, designers are not too keen on you knowing this and to be honest some of the showrooms in these buildings aren’t either. Why? Well, perhaps it is because they feel the value of their service is compromised if there isn’t some exclusivity about the business. Or perhaps they don’t feel regular, non-design-professionals aren’t qualified to know what to buy or how much to buy and need some guidance in the process in order to make it easier. Whatever the reason some designers have, there is a sentiment shared among the design centers in NYC that welcomes anyone who wishes to walk through the doors and browse and/or shop in the showrooms.

Today we are profiling the Decoration & Design Building located in midtown Manhattan (diagonally across from the Bloomingdales flagship store). It has 18 floors filled with 120 showrooms like Kravet, Holland & Sherry,  Fortuny , Ralph Lauren, Jerry Pair, Noblis, Dakota Jackson, the Silver Peacock, Niedermaier, Pierre Frey, Schumacher, Gracie, Andrew Martin, Christopher Hyland and Artistic Frame (many of whom we have featured before on this blog). The quality and selection are outstanding and it is a challenge to leave the building without tons of inspiration and a wish list a mile long!

Welcome to the Decoration & Design Building!

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Moving Time

“Memories,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories
Of the way we were.”
Barbra Streisand “Way We Were" lyrics

The way my house looked when I moved in five years ago. A lot has changed since then.

If you have been following me on my social media channels, you would know there is a change a coming in the Jones household. Our time in the Northeast is rapidly coming to a close and we shall be moving on to the West Coast; California to be exact. My feelings run the gamut of excited to nervous to sad.

You see, I started writing this blog with Mae because I wanted to share with you my journey in decorating this house, the first home that I owned. This old house, whose 100th birthday is a mere four years away, has taught me so many lessons and has been a fortress in this thing called life. We moved in a blistery, cold February and learned to appreciate our doorman we had left behind in NYC almost immediately. From snow shoveling to learning how to make your boiler work, our first year was filled with the mysteries of homeownership that you only can experience (and appreciate) when you own your own home.

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