Tablescapes

I know that you haven’t been able to sleep wondering what table I selected to do – right?!  Ha!  Anyway, I am sorry that I haven’t relieved your curiosity until now but  I was at Tablescapes pretty much non-stop from Monday morning until Tuesday evening.  I took 76 photos of the event, so I needed some time to go through them all.  And no, I won’t be posting all 76!! OK, first things first.  What did I select?  Well, Joni and Janine both guessed correctly that the toile was my first choice – clever girls, they.   This former curtain from London had sadly sprouted a rather large hole in the middle of the panel and the only way to work around it was to orient the toile differently, which I didn’t want to do.

Both guessed that I went with this combination for my second choice.

And I was really, really tempted to do this, but I worried that the muted colors might get lost in the panoply of color that typically is Tablescapes.  So, this is what I ended up doing for Tablescapes:

So sorry for the blurry photo, but this was the best head on overall shot that I took.  I am really happy with how this turned out, especiall since I had to make another last minute substitution.  My yellow wine glasses didn’t make the cut because at 0 dark hundred when I was packing I realized that I only had 7!  Yes 7, and I counted 10 times because I hadn’t had my coffee yet.  I was really bummed, but in the end I substituted my clear bubble glass wines and I don’t think anyone was the wiser.  Phew!!

I used the bench from my foyer and dressed it with pillows from my living room and loggia.  The Thai spirit house which is the “centerpiecec”  normally lives in my dining room.  The bamboo ladder is currently happy to reside in my living room but it is whispering to me that it would prefer my bedroom.  The fun vintage Japanese lanterns I bought in Roundtop for a song.  The persimmon garden stool that you can barely see is part of a grouping that I use as a cocktail table.  And the root stool holding the bowl of orchids also was swiped from my living room.

The bark chargers came from Horchow and my napkins are Le Jacquard Francaise.  I love the pop of color that they gave the table.  The fab bowls are my Juliska Le Sange and I just love them.  The chargers are full of reindeer moss and rice.  Interestingly, in the evening, several people thought that the moss was broccoli!  Aren’t the orchids lovely?  The yellow ones floating in the bowls are Cymbidiums and the burgundy stems are stunning, but I cannot for the life of me remember the variety.  The white orchids are phalaenopsis and I do love how they all look.  My house is currently adorned with the remnants – lucky house!  See the lanterns lit?  Magic, no?  Those are candles inside some seriously old rice paper lanterns, so I found some tall votive holders, which I had never seen before, and ran a fire test at home first.  I did NOT want to burn down Brookhollow Golf Club…….I originally wanted to hang the lanterns from some gnarly branches, but I couldn’t find any that would hold the weight, and I found these lantern holders at World Market the day before the event.  Kismet.

Another angle shows my Chinese mandarins bearing yellow turmeric and perched on a river of coffee beans.  You also get a great look at the wonderful vase I picked up at Mecox for the photoshoot last month.  It didn’t end up in the those photos, but it stayed in my cupboard!

This shot shows the back of my breakfast room chair, which ordinarily sports a French vintage lentil sack on its back.  For the show, I affixed color photocopies of pages from a vintage book called “The Children of Japan” that belonged to my aunt.  I added a red wax seal to the back to tie in with the scrolls that I made as favors.  You can barely make out the scrolls on the stools, but they are burlap wrapped mailing tubes with photos, silk ribbon and a red wax seal wrapping them.  Inside was a certificate for a complimentary design consultation.

A closeup of the chair.  The sepia photos were so charming…

Last peek.  I have so many more photos to show you of the amazing efforts of other designers, retailers, and florists – including Charlotte Comer, but I am going to save those for the next post.  I do want to thank the Kappa Kappa Gammas for their wonderful hospitality and tremendous can-do spirit.  I had a wonderful time doing this event, saw many friends, old and new, and had the chance to chat with the homeowner whose home I featured on my Charlotte Comer post.  She is as lovely as her home is and was very gratified to read the post about her home. 

Again, sorry for the blurry quality of some of these shots, but I was so excited taking the photos that I was fluttering about like a bird and it certainly shows in the quality of the pictures!!

Kristin