The Lifestylist® Network
All about the Lifestylist® Movement
Lifestylist® Designed Cafe Gets a Bobby Flay Throwdown
Aug 16th
I am so excited! I just learned that Bobby Flay traveled to Tucson and had a “throwdown” with the Matias family at Teresa’s Mosaic Cafe. This is a restaurant that we did the interior of, and as with all Lifestylist® Designed challenges we spent a lot of time getting to know the family and their needs before we came up with a plan.
Teresa’s is all about family and the wonderful handmade food so the interior had to have as much personality as the family does. To do this we designed tables made of handmade tiles – thousands of them all that we made by hand. It was an extensive amount of work but the results were definitely worth it.
The episode airs on the Food Network - check out dates and times for your area.
Homearama Returns to Rochester, NY
Aug 9th
It’s hard to believe it’s already time for Homearama again – where does the time go? But this is the perfect time to visit Rochester – the produce season is in full swing, perfect weather and it’s also a great time to be thinking about decorating ideas to warm up your home with.
This year this annual event will be held at WaterSong in Penfield August 14th – 22nd. Sponsored by the Rochester Homebuilders Association this 9 days will not only highlight these 5 beautiful homes but there will also be an abundance of wine tasting, cooking demos and decorating seminars.
Lifestylist® Design has teamed up with @home Builders three different years to participate in this great event, but my favorite home was definitely the Ronald McDonald Show House we did a few years ago. We teamed up with the amazing group of volunteers from the Ronald McDonald House and merchandised a home using furniture, artwork and accessories that were donated to Ronald McDonald for their annual ABC Sale.It was truly a Lifestylist® Designed home - I spent three months going over images they would send me of new donations and digging through their warehouse to find the perfect items for this home and by the end we did!
It was a fun challenge to show how you can do a beautifully decorated home using only “gently cherished” items. The best part was @home Builders then did an online auction and visitors to the home could bid on each room. All of the proceeds then went to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. From this, the dinner auction prize and other events that @home Builders did with the home they were able to raise over $25,000 for the charity. To see photos and get more information about this show house, check out the website we designed for it.
Clearing Out The Clutter
Aug 1st
It’s hot as heck here today – the 1st day of August and it’s supposed to reach 106 degrees! So today instead of even trying to do anything outside I decided to work on one of my new goals and start simplifying my life and style.
Have you noticed how easy it is to make impulse purchases now and how things just start piling up? I think I inherited a little of my parents recession-fear mentality and it’s hard for me to pass up anything free like the little soaps and shampoos that you get in hotels. As a Lifestylist® I’m always picking up cool and unusual items that I plan on using for staging or merchandising a model home – thanks heavens the Home Idea Factory has lots of storage or I’d be in big trouble!
Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to The Family Place – an amazing resource for abused women and families. I serve on the board for HomeAid / HomeBuilders Care in Dallas and we just built new apartments, a clinic and a school room for them and it was so rewarding to see what we were able to accomplish. We were also able to meet some of the women who live there and what a difference the Family Place has made in our lives. As we toured we also found out what a great need they have for some of those things I’ve been collecting and today I’m going to start simplifying my life to help them with their fresh start.
Ronald McDonald House in Rochester, NY is another charity very close to my heart. A few years ago we did a home that was merchandised completely with items that had been donated to the charity, then auctioned off to benefit Ronald McDonald House. I’ll be forever grateful to the volunteers and Rochester community who donated such beautiful items to work with!
Towels, sheets, bath products, diapers… these are all things we may have an abundance of but don’t want to throw out the ones that we don’t use as much anymore. Stuffed animals that we tend to collect at fairs and in crane games would be cherished by a child that had to leave everything behind to get to safety.
It feels so good to clean away some of the clutter and know that these items are going to help someone else. The less you have to organize the easier it will be!
Color Spotting
Jul 30th
I do love being a Lifestylist®, and getting the opportunity to travel across the country meeting new people and spotting new trends. Recently I was up in the 1,000 Island area of NY and spent a day just driving and looking at the magnificent architecture and natural beauty of that area.
When I found this little cabin tucked by the river I fell in love – especially with the brightly colored Adirondack Chairs in the front of it. Of course I took a picture and never forgot what a great, happy look this was.
Then the other day I was walking through Home Depot and found these bright, happy chairs and I had to have them! Especially since they were only $12.00 each and maintenance free. I love what a difference they made in the backyard of the Idea Factory – even when I’m not out reading a book or birdwatching on them I love just being able to look out the window and seeing the burst of color.
It’s easy to use an accent of color to wake up any space. It can be done with pillows in a living room, towels in a bath or with plates in a dining room. Great, fun design doesn’t have to be expensive – you just need to be brave enough to try different ideas out.
Getting Inspired by Your Surroundings
Jul 28th
When I work on a model home, my first priority is bringing the outside in – what’s going to make the buyer feel like what he experienced before he walked into the model continues into his model experience?
My son just gave me the perfect example – he is buying a new home in Florida, and was troubled after seeing the new model home because they didn’t like the colors or feel of the home after it was merchandised. It bothered them so much they actually considered canceling the sale. The colors and the lack of lifestyle felt like they could have been in any city in any community, but it didn’t have the warmth that they anticipated their home would have.
At Lifestylist® Design we focus on lifestyle, and what they buyer hopes to experience in his new life in your new home. We just finished doing a Lifestylist® Designed home for @home Builders in Baldwinsville, NY and I thought I’d share the thought process on how we came up with this home.
Timber Banks is a new incredible planned community near Syracuse, NY that features an 18 hole, Nicklaus designed golf course, river frontage with it’s own marina, clubhouse, and a stunning, natural beauty all around you that you can call home. It seemed only natural that I would bring this lifestyle and the colors I saw all around me into the design of the model. We went with some of the foggy greys, clear blue sky, river rocks and eco-greens that we discovered on our walks and as a result when you are in the home it truly pulls the outside in. Plan a visit to the Timbers yourself and see what we accomplished – contact Teresa Carpenter with @home Builders for more information at: 315-635- 6006.
XTreme Model Home Challenge
Jun 5th
I love a challenge, but when I got a call this week from Champion Homes of Texas I may have gotten one that is even more than I can take on.
They are introducing their new XTREME Home Value Series, and they are so excited about it they didn’t want to wait for the normal time it takes to put together a home show to introduce it to their buyers – they decided since these are factory built homes and they could get them built in a week, they would have a home show in a week! This means putting together 4 furnished model homes with Xtremely tight budgets in 7 days.
Can Lifestylist Design Inc. get this done? Check back in a week or so and find out how we did!
Buying Local
May 24th
Today was a great day – I got a lot of work done on my gardens then we went to our local farmers market to pick up some goodies for the week.
The Home Idea Factory is in an area of Dallas called Oak Cliff and we are very fortunate because we are close to town but it’s an older established area that is really coming into it’s own. Some amazing restaurants have opened, I’ve heard there is now an organic coop and now we even have our own coffee company – Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters. So today we picked up some coffee, and sampled our way through the local farmer stalls at the Dallas Farmers Market. Local peaches were just coming into season and there also was a bounty of tomatoes, onions, squash and cucumbers. It’s going to be a healthy tasty week around here!
Some vendors are only there weekends and we discovered the Lucky Layla Farms which had amazing cheeses. I bought the Fresh Campesino which was perfect with my tomatoes, avocados and cucumbers for lunch. I’m going to make some homemade ice cream to use with the peaches for dessert.
One of the best things about being a Lifestylist is getting to explore what’s out there and figure out how to make it approachable and accessible. I was amazed how much I saved by buying at the farmers market vs. a typical grocery store – I got 5 huge beautiful tomatoes that were picked that morning for $1 each! My goodies helped me make a quick and healthy lunch for under $1.50 per serving.
We have got to support our local farmers and businesses. The Lemley family has been bring exceptional tomatoes, peaches and other produce to the farmer’s market for over 30 years. I know that a lot of the better restaurants in town also buy from them and I can’t imagine a summer without their goodies. It’s exciting to have all of these choices now and I plan on supported them so they are here for years to come.
Falling in Love
Feb 14th
Using color is one of the least expensive, most terrifying but also most rewarding ways to change a room. When I’m designing a new model home most builders will encourage me to use memorable colors, but when they first paint the room and see it without any accessories or furniture I often get a call wondering if they have the right information.
These rooms are a perfect example. You can imagine the call the builder got from the superintendent the first time they saw these! This is a model for Canoa Homes in Tucson, and they trusted me enough to wait and see what happened. This is also a great example of designing for your buyer, not yourself – we were targeting families with school age children. A Lifestylist targets in on what the buyer is really looking for, even when they may not realize it themselves.Once we had a few families go through the home we found that almost every female from 2 – 50 wanted that room with those paint colors. It was something the buyer might not have been brave enough to try on their own, but when they saw it completed they loved it.
This is also a great example of Partnership Merchandising. The Home Idea Factory had a great relationship with Home Interiors and Gifts – a direct sell company that we had done styling and product development with. Many of the accessories and “wallies” – the decals on the bath wall – we theirs and we identified them as such so buyers could reproduce what they saw in the room at a price they could afford. The bedding was from Bombay and the furniture from Ashley so all could be bought at local stores or from a Home Interiors and Gifts consultant.
Let your child have a say in what they want their room to look like. It might not be a color you would chose or a style you would like but by letting them be a part of the decorating decision they’ll take ownership of their decisions and be even more proud of what they accomplished.
Happy Valentines Day from all of us at The Home Idea Factory!
Night Photography
Feb 13th
What a crazy week in Dallas! This town is all about the NBA All Star Game which is this weekend, but mother nature decided to steal the show and dusted us with over a ft. of snow!
The is the largest amount we ever had so we decided to take advantage of it and declared a snow day. The Lifestylists were all out playing in it trying to outdo each other with snowball fights and snow sculptures and when it got dark out I realized I had the opportunity of a lifetime to get some really unique shots of the Home Idea Factory. Fortunately I share the factory with the very talented Lisa Stewart of L.a.S. Photography and we headed out to see what we could find. After she used her magic and skills I love what we ended up with, and to me these really capture the personality of what The Home Idea Factory is all about – Your Life. Your Style. Your Way.
Lifestylist Concierge Services
Feb 12th
The NBA All Star Game has come to Dallas, and the Lifestylists are here to make sure that your weekend in Dallas is a complete success. Trying to get reservations at a special restaurant or looking for ideas on how to shop until you drop? We can help make your dreams come true. Catering services also available.