I'm Seeing Red ...

Interior Design by Mary McDonald

I am a fan of Mary McDonald, I think everyone knows this. Her rooms are physical manifestations of my design dreams, absolutely perfect - not a thing missing! For oh so long I've coveted her ability, and looked over every picture in her book, The Allure of Style, which includes a few well styled photos of a home Mary decorated in Beverly Hills.

The whole house is absolutely gorgeous, but there's this one particular space that I just can't get out of my mind. For a long time, I thought that it wouldn't work at CDLV, but just recently I've come back to these photos and thought - perhaps, it could work! 

A view of the room from another photographer, and a different angle. As you can clearly see, this room has much more architecture than mine. MUCH more, and better - it's inspiring none-the-less. Because I already own so much of the accessories that Mary used, and I have the ability to have some gorgeous slips made for my current furniture, thanks to Michelle at Custom Interior Sewing; I am seeing this as being very possible.

As shot for Veranda, the light is much better and shows even more styling. 

Back to the real estate photos, you can see that in typical Mary Mcdonald fashion, blue and white Asian jars are spread throughout the room, along with custom slipcovers on antique gilded chairs, and those beautiful bone inlay tables. It's a huge room, with 4 separate seating areas. I'm thinking more about the sofa and gilded French bergeres. 

Looking back toward the foyer, you can see all the different seating areas, and a few other special pieces in the room, bolin push suzani's. All sitting atop seagrass, with antique kilim rugs in a desk area when you first enter the room - this space is very definitely a you like it or hate it. I happen to like it - love it actually, but keep wondering if I could live with this much red on a day to day basis. 

I mean, we're talking about $500,000 minimum to furnish this room which is about the size of my entire first floor, so could I live here - YOU BET! But could I live with what I can create on my budget in our house with the things that I already have?

 From the pages of her beautiful book, you can see the Moroccan inspired slipper chairs, and those gilded chairs, and their simple but beautiful slips. I think I mentioned that I have these chairs - they're not gilded right now - but they could be very easily. My sofa could be slipped, with either the same fabric used to slip the chair or a match to the red slips from Ikea. 

And although I don't think that I can afford this bone inlay chair - I have found a few out there that are in my price point. I've found suzani's on ebay, I only need one for the sofa - or maybe I need a new brain. Either way, I'll let you know which comes first!