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Archive for April, 2010

Organic Cut Flowers

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

A good friend of ours came for the weekend and graciously brought flowers –in addition to croissants, chocolates and a lilac lamby for our little one.  

She’s fabulous, French, in her eighth decade and cares tremendously for our environment and animals. It didn’t surprise me that she showed up with Earth friendly flowers.  In case you don’t know, most cut flowers are generally grown with toxic chemicals, preserved with even more toxic chemicals and then shipped half way around world. Not these simple, but beautiful, store bought babies- they came from less than 500 miles away and were grown with nothing that would make us sick. 

Even the packaging was recycled and recyclable, with a little triple R message reminding us to REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. 

I popped them into a Baccarat Vase  (that I’m sure will be passed to my grandchildren one day) and placed them next to my homegrown oranges. There you have it, simple, green elegant.

Tags: Baccarat, Organic Cut Flowers, Recycle, Reduce, Reuse
Posted in Green Living | No Comments »

Veranda Redefines Luxury

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Yesterday at the PDC Veranda hosted a documentary and all star panel on Redefining Luxury.  Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, Windsor Smith and Peter Campbell were among the panelists.

Unlike the Westweek event a few weeks ago, which completely neglected any greenspeak, Veranda celebrated the dynamic eco duo from the Q Collection, awarding them with one of their four coveted awards for the Art of Design. 

Each winner and all the panelists championed the green cause, one even defined luxury as a clean glass of water.  Again and again they reminded us that respect for the planet’s resources and healthy built environments go hand in hand with luxury, something our firm has been touting for over a decade.  The slides of their projects were breath taking and entertaining, especially the image of Kid Rock’s bedroom which looked nothing like I thought it would.  It was originally designed as a love nest for him and Pamela Anderson and apparently they were quite taken by a trip to St. Lucia.  Windsor Smith intelligently spoke about redesigning the way we use space, sharing plans on her new Mandeville Canyon equestrian compound. I wanna be Windsor when I grow up!

Dedar and Kneedler Fauchere held the reception.  As always the fabrics, flowers and food were scrumptious.  My favorites were the chocolate dipped macaroons.  Because an HGTV camera was following me around filming a day in my life, I received extra attention and a special, little interview from Carolyn Englefield, Veranda’s Editor At Large.  Fun fun fun.

Tags: Carolyn Englefield, Dedar, HGTV, Kid Rock, Kneedler Fauchere, Luxury, Mandeville Canyon, martyn lawrence bullard, Pacific Design Center, Pamela Anderson, Peter Dunham, Q Collection, Veranda, Windsor Smith
Posted in Events, Green Living, Magazines, Parties | No Comments »

Springtime at Our New House

Monday, April 12th, 2010

“I love living in our new house!”  That’s what my husband said when I handed him freshly squeezed orange juice this morning. We’ve been here for 10 days and now that everything is pretty much where we want it (NO MORE BOXES !) we have had the opportunity to start enjoying what this place has to offer.  And boy oh boy does it has a lot of citrus! 

We spent the past weekend planting our succulents, the beginnings of an herb garden and painting the patio fence.  The SoCal Contractor even made  three huge planters for the patio. 

We found the perfect spot with the right combination of shade and sun for the orchids and figs will be ready in a few weeks.  Can you say edible garden?

It feels like the garden of Eden and I can promise you I won’t screw it up by planting any apple trees!

Tags: Citrus, Edible Gardens, SoCal Contractor, Spring
Posted in Green Living | No Comments »