You Need a Slipper Chair in Your Life!

I love chairs of all kinds.  I am known to bring home any stray chair that I feel is orphaned and needs a good home.  Little antique French ones are favorites and are sprinkled around my house.  But another type of chair that I cannot resist is a cute little slipper chair.  Every house needs a least one somewhere.

Slipper chairs have quite a romantic back-story, as they are said to have served the function of giving Victorian ladies a low, armless chair on which to sit while putting on stockings and shoes.  The lack of arms made room for the billowing skirts worn in those days.  I just know that aesthectically a slipper chair is very pleasing to me.

Slipper chairs are just so versatile because of their small scale.  You can tuck them into so many places in a room.  It can often be a good solution for treating an awkward corner.  Pairing a slipper chair with a small drink table, as in the photo above, creates a cozy reading spot.

 This is a cell-phone shot of a similar chair I snapped at a recent furniture show.  This chair is from Lee Industries.  I wanted to illustrate how, even when there is button-tufting present, a pretty print fabric such as this blue-and-white ikat style, looks great.  So pretty!

 I think this little chair is just so unique and stylish.  More button-tufting and legs with casters, two of my favorite style details.

How about this for something truly different and utterly feminine?  I love it in a neutral linen like this and it would be fantastic in a large scale print as well.

This is a little antique slipper chair I have owned for a very long time, from back when finding something like this was rare, before French reproductions became so common.  It is done in needlepoint.

This slipper chair has a very classic, sophisticated feel which I think would look great done in a living room in a pair, side-by-side.

This was another one of my vintage finds that I had covered in a cotton fabric with a small fern pattern.  It sits in my grandson's nursery at my house. (By the way, those walls are chocolate brown.  Not the greatest picture.)

This is a more contemporary version consisting of cleaner, straighter lines and a little larger scale.  I'm more of the curvy persuasion myself, though!

If something seems missing in your life, maybe adding a delicious little slipper chair to your decor will brighten things up.  You never know!

Photo and vendor credits: 1. Suzanne Kasler Interiors, 2.Suzanne Kasler for Hickory chair, 3.Williams Sonoma, 4. Lee Industries 5. through Carol Raley Interiors 6. through Carol Raley Interiors 7. personal collection 8. Williams-Sonoma 9. personal collection 10. Williams-Sonoma

Love List Friday

On your Friday Love List is this fabulous, sensuous, French bergere from Chelsea Textiles.

Just looking at it makes me feel a little light-headed!

Contact me if you are interested in any of our Love List items.

Formal + Funky = Exciting

One of my very favorite design styles is dressed-down elegance.  I love dressy, glamourous furniture and decorative objects, but these things can make a room take itself too seriously.  The best way to have your cake and eat it too is to take a formal piece of furniture and dress it down with a more casual or even funky fabric or paint color.

A wonderful canape from Cote France.  Not your grandmother's brocade here.  A large-scale modern floral brings a timeless piece into now.

The Francine Sofa from Anthropologie.

The Hollandaise Commode from Cote France.  Classic with a punch of turquoise.

Louisa Settee from Anthropologie.

I love this so much.  Reverent of the past and so irreverent at the same time.

Formal tea table from the oomph line.

French fauteil in chartreuse patent leather.

Traditional tufted chair in pink leather from E.J. Victor.

Tradition with a twist is fresh and exciting.

Atlanta Finds

See anything you like?

A Few of My Favorite French Things

I consider myself a sourcing fanatic. I am always on the lookout for fabulous finds for my clients (as well as myself!). I love the thrill of the hunt, whether it be at market, locally, online, just wherever. I thought you might enjoy a few shots of some of my favorite French products. If you're interested in anything you see, just let me know and I can give you prices and buying info.

The Louis chair above is perfection. It is covered in a soft pastel needlepoint design and would look great in the bedroom, living room, or bath by the tub if you have enough space. I personally would love one for my home office. So feminine and pretty.

I really love this reproduction Louis XVI bergere and ottoman. It is shipped in an off white duckcloth, which is great as-is or you can re-upholster in any fabric you wish. (We can help with that, too!) I own this set and it is amazingly comfortable. I have also used it in some client homes and they have all loved it. One client says she has her coffee in this chair every morning while reading her newspaper.

Another sweet little chair that coud be used just about anywhere, even maybe the foyer or entryway. It is handpainted with soft needlepoint cover.

This is a product that is hard to find: a Louis bar stool. Bar stools can be the one element that can ruin a pretty French-style interior. There are some reeeallly ugly versions out there for sure. The silver leaf finish is beautiful.







Here are a couple of my favorites. Headboard and bench in the Louis XVI style. Both are totally customizable in any fabric choice.








Here are two really sweet little nightstands with a light cream finish. I used two of these in my showhouse nursery last year.







A very pretty French settee which would look great mixed with about anything including Swedish.



I have sources for these and many, many more similar pieces. I love taking these and personalizing them for my clients with fabrics which complement their homes and personalities. I will post more great finds soon.

Memory of a Beautiful French Home

By now if you read my blog you know that I am a lover of all things beautiful, both in the fine arts world as well as the decorative arts. I believe that you are a product of everything that comprises your past, present, and future. I'm not sure where I stand on reincarnation, but I sure have to wonder why certain things have such a magnetic pull over us for no apparent reason.

I often think about my life as a whole and how I arrived at this particular career. It has been a rather circuitous route, but somehow I always knew it was the place for me.

One early memory I have is visiting a beautiful home that I am sure influences me still to this day. The house belonged to a elderly but very stylish lady that had been my parents' landlord when they were first married. Her name was Mrs. Witt. She had been a hat buyer for a major department store chain in the South and made twice yearly buying trips to Paris. Her husband was an accomplished attorney.

Even though my parents had moved to another house nearby, my father would still occasionally do odd jobs for her. I will never forget one Saturday visit I paid with him to her home. I must have been maybe six or seven years old.

The house sat in the middle of a good sized farm that had once supported tobacco crops. Small workers' houses dotted the hill above her grand home. A large barn could be seen from her windows. A tree-lined, winding driveway enhanced the anticipation approaching the house.

The best way to describe it I guess would be a French Country house. It was one level, brick, with a hipped roof, to the best of my recollection. (I don't remember the exterior details as vividly as the interior.) It had an entrance with a handsome broken pediment door-surround. My Dad was a friend so we used the more intimate rear entrance. Large boxwoods framed the sidewalk and door. I still remember their fragrance.

As we entered the back of the house, we were in a rather small sunporch where I could tell she now spent a lot of time watching her small television with her many cats. It was charming, filled with windows all the way around three sides with views of the farm. I remember thinking that I wasn't accustomed to such a house and that my Dad would want me to behave. A banquette-style sofa covered in a brightly colored, though faded, floral fabric was the main piece of furniture that I remember here.

For some reason, I don't remember why, she rose and began to lead us through the rooms of the house. Who knows, maybe she sensed my little-girl fascination with her home and her life. She
led us through a small hallway and into what I would describe as a gallery-type area that ran crossways of the house. It was here that I glimpsed the room that will live in my memory forever. It was was she called "the ballroom". It stepped down from the gallery hall. It contained large floor-to -ceiling windows with faded velvet curtains tied back. The floors were beautiful hardwood. The piece de resistance of the room was a grand piano. I had never seen anything like this! She talked about the parties that she and her late husband had enjoyed in this room and how much she missed him and those days. How she could still hear his Cadillac come "purring" up the long driveway.

Wow. That's all I can say still to this day.

From here she led us into her bedroom suite. This I think was the room that solidified my love of French furniture. The room was lighter in feel and held a double Louis XVI bed. It had a dressing screen in the corner that I could tell she actually used. Clothes were casually thrown over it. I vaguely remember it to be painted with some sort of scene. Also in the room was a skirted vanity with a small French bench stool. It was laden with an assortment of perfume bottles and other ladylike paraphenalia. There were of course hats of all designs scattered about as well as fancy hat boxes. Again, in my little mind, Wow.

It couldn't get better than this for me. We followed her through more rooms. They were obviously not used much anymore. Spare bedrooms with dusty old things and boxes. One room held white painted French chairs with red velvet upholstery. I remember being brave enough to touch a chair and my Dad giving me "the look". I still remember how the fabric felt to my little fingers. As we walked, she would casually mention the things she had picked up while in Paris. Paris!
There was a small dining nook as well as a kitchen with white-painted cabinets that obviously didn't get much use anymore. (She watched her fashionable figure until her dying day.)
As we bid our polite goodbyes, I was enthralled with all the things I had just seen. The faded grandeur of the house and the obvious love and romance that had once filled it left an indelible impression on me. I was never in the house again. Later it fell into disrepair and was razed. But it lives forever in my heart and mind, the embodiment of all things beautiful and French.