Thanksgiving Bounty

In just 5 days Americans celebrate Thanksgiving with food, friends, family and football on the menu.  Grocery stores are brimming with shoppers planning their holiday feast.  My favorite part of the holiday season are the baked goods.  I love the smell of fresh-baked cookies, pies and cakes in the house.

I wanted to honor this special American holiday in Second Life by creating a Thanksgiving great room complete with living space and kitchen using a sunroom.  I mentioned in my last post to rethink the expected and I did that by transforming a sunporch into a great room.  I often feel that sunrooms are overlooked and only styled as breakfast nooks or porches, so if you have the space, as I did, make your sunroom a usable space that continues to celebrate your life for many generations.

The perfect autumn collection to mark the harvest season is Finishing Touches Tree of Life grouping available at 50% off at The Designer Warehouse Shopping Event (until Nov 27).  The Tree of Life set includes a tan herringbone sofa and chair, leaf patterned rug, walnut coffee table and side buffet featuring a tree of life design, a brick and wood fireplace, decorative carved wood leaf wall art, and assorted accessories.  A wonderful complement for the living room is the Finishing Touches Pumpkin Pie Kitchen set with baking animations and supplies, decorative gourd kitchen scale, matching walnut hutch with turkey pattern display plates and an apple quilt.  These are lovely pieces for any time of the year with soft soothing tones of cream, tan, brown, bronze, burnt sienna, and rust that will fill your home with warmth and charm.  I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving, enjoy the food (& sweets), the friends and family, and I’ll see you at the Black Friday Sales!

Structure: Heart Homes, Autumn Lovenest II (see previous post, Bask in the Glow of Autumn) 

Kitchen:

• Pumpkin Pie Set (Hutch, Island with Kitchen Scale, Stools, Baking Accessories, + Hat Boxes,  Apple/Pumpkin Quilt & Tall Side Table): Finishing Touches
• Hanging Pot Rack & Menu Sign: Cozy Essentials
• Fridge: Dutchie
• Pumpkin Recipe & Pumpkin Pie Decor: What Next
• Crate Stack, Recipe Tin, Baking Canister, Egg Basket & Milk Can: Floorplan
• Plates, Glasses & Jug: The Loft
• Turkey Plate Display & Autumn Branch: La Galleria (**FREE**)

Living Room:

• Tree of Life Collection (Sofa, Chairs, Rug, Fireplace, Wall Art, Baskets {Log & Apple}, & Lanterns, Books & Candles): Finishing Touches
• Autumn Wreaths, Gourd Urn, Table Lamps, Bench: Finishing Touches
• Drapes: What Next
• Blinds: LISP

Harvest Time Fun!

Autumn is well under way, the air is crisp, the trees are bare, and the sky is clear…great time for a hay bale ride.  Your just in luck, Finishing Touches is offering Halloween specials (50% off) at The Designer Warehouse Shopping Event until October 30, 2014.  The Halloween Hay Wagon & Scarecrow set contains an animated wagon (two versions, friends and couple) filled with hay bales and decorated with candy corns.  A friendly scarecrow makes a welcoming autumnal lawn ornament.  The perfect fall decor set that will transition from Halloween to Thanksgiving.

Taxi please…

Other items used:

• Trompe Loeil, Rivershire Waterwheel House
• Finishing Touches, Pumpkin Picker’s Wheelbarrow (Subscriber Gift)
• Finishing Touches, Bobbing for Apples Barrel 
• Pilot, Cluster of Pumpkins
• Junk, Pigeon Autumn Bench (Free @ Eloquence)

Autumn’s Embrace

Happy first day of Fall!  24Karat Roux of Finishing Touches is offering an enchanting rustic bedroom set, Autumn Embrace for 50%off at The Designer Warehouse Shopping Event, available until October 2, 2014.  The Autumn Embrace bedroom set is made of tree bark and twigs, reminiscent of a woodland forest.  Included in the collection is a canopy bed (5 leaf or no leaf options), bench, two side tables, whimsical chairs, two lanterns, rug, framed leaf art & add your own photo frame.  This is a perfect hideaway for a romantic getaway weekend.  Taxi please…

Other items used:

• {vespertine}, Chanson Dautomne Skyloft
• Shutter Field, Pumpkin Lanterns
• Kalopsia, Old Box (Green)
• Dysfunctional Designs, Harvest Bucket (Red & Yellow Apples)
• StoraxTree, Simple Elegance Mesh Braided Tan Rust Rug Sm
• {vespertine}, Vintage Postbox (Poppy Red)
• Alyxen Designs in Wonderland, Park Bench & Birdbath (The Designer Warehouse)

The Little Mermaid

This past weekend I attended a friend’s Labor Day party on his houseboat.  I’ve mentioned a few times that I LOVE living in California for a number of obvious reason but one of the main attractions is the diversity of homes.  In the Bay Area it’s common to see mini mansion, ranch, Victorian, craftsmen, Eichler, Spanish, industrial warehouses, and houseboats.  The party was a blast and it inspired me to design Heart Homes Floating House, currently available at Collabor88.  Jaylin Whitewood and Marina Ramer, creators of Aphrodite Shop & Heart Homes were guest designers at the 3rd Anniversary shopping extravaganza, theme Odyssey.  The design duo outdid themselves offering two fully furnished houseboats, Sailors (180 prisms) and Fisherman’s (130 prisms, both copy/modify) for $888L, at a deep discount.  They are also selling an empty house for $188L (57 prisms), as well as complementary pieces.

I used the Floating House with Pier, mixing and matching items from the other two furnished homes with past releases; the Sailor Seabreeze & Seashell Finder bedroom sets (available at the main Aphrodite Shop), to create a mermaid hideaway.  Nautical decor was very popular this summer and I created a whole maritime beach house (hint, hint, open house till Sunday, September 7), but I wanted to style a feminine Mer-creature dwelling in pinks, mint, and sea foam.  Since the floating houseboat is one room, I needed to divide the spaces.  I used the Heart Homes Sailor Seabreeze and Seashell Finder curtains to drape and section off the boudoir area, creating privacy for the little mermaid.  The star of the build is the pink seashell shaped Pure Mermaids Bed sold separately at C88 ($488L).  I highlighted the ceiling with seashell fishing netting and Neptune’ Staff netting on the wall (both from the Fisherman’s House), reminiscent of the depth of the oceans.  I flanked the seashell bed with the seahorse craved Poseidon Fishing Chairs ($288L) in bright pink, purple and teal blue.  Our little mermaid has a lounge spot all her own and a view of the rest of the houseboat.

The main area is a sea foam and mint green living room complete the Sailor’s Couple Sofa, Wheel Chandelier, Sailor Boat Table, and Sailor Deco Frames (all from the furnished Sailor House).  I added the Seashell Finder beige fireplace and rug, as well as the Sailor Seabreeze ocean triptych, dresser, wing chairs, rug, and decor.  In the corner of the living room is the large Hades Lamp ($188L), greeting guests and lighting the way.

The long hall space on the sidewall contains a buffet kitchenette from Brixley and a bistro dining spot from LISP (*not part of Collabor88).  I added a few seashell prints I had in my inventory and inserted the Shipwreck Mirror (Sailor House) in one porthole above the main kitchen counter.

The outside of the houseboat is just as important as in the inside since so much time is spent enjoying the water views.  Entry deck is appointed with a Rope, Rusty Anchor with Rope, Brass Stand Anchor (Sailor House), and Fishing Rod, Netting with Shark Jaws, and Red Seashell Netting (Fisherman’s House).  I also decorated the exterior of the adjacent houseboat with the Good Catch Fishing Chairs ($288L), Rope, Red Lifeguard Anchor, & Planters (Sailor House).  I had a wonderful time staging the houseboat and showcasing TONS of Heart Homes items.  Hope you RUNNNNNNNNNNN over to C88 before they close (in 2DAYS!!!!!) to steal these deals and always remember Let’s Get Decorating!  Taxi please…

Carolina On My Mind

As promised, I’m back with the complete styled Serendipity Designs Carolina Driftwood Living Room set, an exclusive discounted release for group members ONLY starting tomorrow, Sunday, June 15, 2014.  Join the Serendipity Designs group for $100L and get the Carolina Driftwood Living Room set for 50% off, plus don’t forget to grab all the group gifts under the stairs. (And, if you would be so kind, like Serendipity Designs on Facebook and creator Kyra Ishtari vows to release another gift when we hit 100 FB “likes”!)

The Carolina Driftwood Living Room is a wash of soft cool blues and bleached birch driftwood.  The combination of natural wood with the linen and cotton-covered sofa, arm-chair and lounge creates the ideal restful spot.  The Carolina Driftwood Living Room is contemporary with clean lines, over stuffed pillows, matching tables and ottomans, and corresponding furnishings.  It’s simply the perfect collection for a summer coastal cottage!  Ms. Ishtari flawless attention to detail, elegant appointments, and gentle nods to commonly found sand coated wooden plank floors is excellent.  I truly love all of Kyra’s designs but the Carolina Driftwood collection is so soothing and dreamy, I want to own the suite in real life!  The set includes the dusty blue L- shaped sofa, arm-chair, tufted table with shelf and accessories, patchwork ivory rug, boat bookcase, ship wheel, beach triptych, and anchored detailed console table.  To finish the living room, I used pieces from Serendipity Designs Summer Blue collection (soon to be re-released).  Both series pair perfectly together and I highly recommend mixing and matching to always create a unique home that screams YOU!  Pop over to Serendipity Designs and grab the Carolina Driftwood Living Room tomorrow, and in case you’re in the need for a restful bedroom haven buy the corresponding  Carolina Driftwood Bedroom Suite.  Taxi please…

Stay tuned, Kyra just release the Sarasota Living Room, inspired by real life design.  I will put my own unique style on the furnishings and blog the Sarasota set shortly.  It’s a modern luxury dream!  But first, I hear wedding bells.