Barren-chic

It's no secret that I love a clutter-free life.

Which is why I was a little surprised at how shocked I was when I returned home after a weekend in Colorado. My parents had made so much progress in our house for the upcoming move, the walls were nearly bare.

And when I say I was shocked, I don't mean by the progress.

I was surprised to find I kind of liked it.

Sure, it was a little much seeing the walls completely empty. But with a fresh coat of paint on them, the rooms kind of sung to me. The blank walls were a vision of cleanliness and progress. Bliss.

And although I'm an advocate for the to-each-his-own attitude, I still find the buzz surrounding Meryl Streep's hearth room in It's Complicated to be a little much. I haven't even seen the movie, but I could easily describe the room to you from the pictures I've seen.

The room certainly looks comfortable, but all the colors, textures and table-top fixtures make it look cluttered.
The room was featured in People last week, and they explained how to get the look. Prior to realizing it was from the movie, I looked at it and thought "Wow, that's a little much." It wasn't until a few additional publications used it that I realized this was the room everyone was talking about.

After studying it in greater detail, I decided it really is a beautiful room and it would be almost perfect if they'd removed just one or two things. Maybe they could have done without the coffee table decorations. Or maybe they could have used just orange or just blue accents.

Granted, I know that I'm an extreme minimalist. My parent's house was once described as "barren-chic". It's in my blood.

I like to use Coco Chanel's famous words to guide not just my style, but my life: "Before leaving the house, a lady should stop, look in the mirror, and remove one piece of jewelry."

Before decorating a house, a home owner should stop, look around, and remove one piece of decor.

Oh if only...

Blake Lively has a cold

In 1966 Gay Talese revitalized magazine writing with "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" for Esquire. The piece was imaginative, metaphorical, and read like a story. Today writers still attempt to imitate Talese.

This month, Esquire is at it again. Check out the piece on Blake Lively. There's something so playful, and yet so heavy. It's seductive while remaining innocent. It's indescribable. It's Lively.

Check out the exerpt below, but be sure to read the rest at Esquire.

She's so into it, really trying to make this pie great. She tinkers endlessly — a pinch of the special salt she buys online, some more cinnamon, a fingerful of flour. (She has long fingers.) She talks while she tinkers. Sometimes it looks like she's talking to the apples, but usually she stops cooking when she's making a point, then returns to seasoning her fruit.

She's talking about career choices, which you'd think would seem monumental to her at this point.

"I surround myself with people I trust, but ultimately it's my gut. That's what I trust. Because I could be swayed any which way — I'm not saying I'm a person who can be swayed easily, but one can be swayed any which way. People will talk to me and something that I'm against at first will then seem like a good idea, but I always end up saying no to that thing, because-"

She jams a few fingers into the hot apples and licks them.