For the table? From Kurt Peterson.com $87.

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I’m lusting after this desk from Room and Board. Overpriced, yes. Delicious walnut colored goodness, yes. Feels good against my skin (major desk peeve), yes. Almost makes me want to work? Yes. Note that it is pictured with the Hutton sofa. Great minds.

Let me just say that customer service was great, I love that I’m buying American (I grew up in VT, and I’d like to keep jobs in rural places thank you). And most of their furniture is made in Minnesota, the Carolinas or Virgina. I was ambivalent about buying something brand new, when there is so much used furniture that is so good, and affordable. But, I really feel it was money well spent.

Room and Board – I’d heard the hype and I thought I’d be immune. Well, I’m now the proud co-owner of a blue velvet Room and Board Hutton couch. You decide who is immune and whose not.

First, get in the mood. Indigo. This color is mystical. This color has me hysterical. I want to only wear clothes this color, dye my hair this color, get those crazy colored contacts in this color.

I put bum to couch some 50 or so times to find this one. Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Pier One, West Elm, Martha/Bernhardt, Mitchell/Gold, BoConcept, Atlantic Avenue, Madison Avenue, auctions galore. I’d actually given up. And then it happened, in all its velvet, indigo tantalizingness.

It has rounded edges, it looks just like the tables I’ve been posting about… except… its HALF the price and has the added benefit of not being made in China. Thank god for Craigslist.

I mentioned earlier that I’m looking for a dining room table with rounded edges. T. found this one from Room and Board. Tomorrow we go to check it out as well as test some couches…

These are shots I took of my parents house in Vermont when we were there two weeks ago. My childhood home looks so different, so much more elegant through my 28-year old eyes. As we struggle to find the right mix of modern and elegant, I realize how much this house grounds me, how much I hope to recreate this mix of comfort and elegance in our own home. I realize looking at the photos below that my interest in print rooms has a very early start in the laundry room where my mother put up all my sister and my art.

We’ve been in the new apartment for a week — chaos still reigns, but we’re making progress. We have internet, a bed, only two forks (my fault, I left the rest in Brooklyn), this oversize lamp and a craigslist find of a $40 “english butler table”.

For the big move! We drove through a blizzard, T. was in a bank that got robbed and the 249th St. Patricks Day Parade marched on, and we’re still not done! Even though I’ve gone dark on the blog, I’m still thinking — and while I was in Vermont (my childhood home), I thought a lot about the idea of home, emotionally and psychologically. And also about style — how much or how little you can take from your parents style. I took some photos too. Will post when move is complete.

Hand and Heart: Collecting, Curating, and Creating American Folk Art

Saturday, March 31, 9:15 am–5:00 pm
Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

The 15th Annual Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Memorial Symposium is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Made for Love. On Friday evening before the symposium, Steven Mintz, Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of History, University of Houston, presents the keynote Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Lecture, “Private Passions: Art and the Hidden History of Love and Friendship.”

The conference program, including registration information, is available as a downloadable PDF. Or, for more information, please call 203.432.0615.

Exhibition organized by Erin E. Eisenbarth, the Marcia Brady Tucker Curatorial Fellow at the Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition is supported by an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and by Friends of American Arts at Yale Exhibition and Publication Fund.

Browsing Duane Keiser’s project on the places we call home:

“Home, aside from being the building in which we live, is a state of mind. Home is an idea that has been silently, and uniquely, cultivated in us throughout childhood. It is where we experience many of our most personal and intimate moments and it is where our memories reside long after we a moved on to other houses: revisiting a home from our past always triggers a flood of forgotten memories that come back as we walk through the rooms in which they were formed.”

Trolling about for more apartment inspiration. Domino, as always, provides.

I love:
* Gold mirror on mantle
* Cluster of photos on each side
* Low bench at windows

I love:
* Oversized Lamp
* Rounded edges on the beautiful honey wood table
* Comfortable rounded chairs

Orchids are everywhere in the past couple of days. Ashley Bradford’s illustrations of orchids are stunning. Dutch Gardens offers these orchid look alikes that you can actually plant in your garden.

A sure sign of the coming spring and of my March blues, the gardening catalogs have started arriving. Even though I live in New York City, I took a look and check out these lovelies. Blueberry bushes and shrub roses I can grow in containers on our balcony!! My favorite amaryllis, but grown for the summer. All of this capped off by noticing that the daffodils and crocus shoots are just beginning to emerge from the cold ground.

Update 2: C. gave me the most wonderful birthday present of champagne and dark chocolate champagne truffles from Teuscher. Buttery, with a gorgeous hint of champagne bubbles, dusted in peppery cocoa powder.

UPDATE 1: The shipment arrived much to the great humor of everyone. However, this new dark chocolate with orange from Michel Cluizel tops the Valor, and that is saying something indeed.

Dark chocolate has been proved to elevate your mood and around 4pm everyday C. and S. in my office sneak into my office for their daily hit. This dark chocolate with orange is the best I’ve had. As in, I just ordered a case of 17 bars.