Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home

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• Publisher: Abrams Image
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781613127742
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Innenarchitektur

The highly anticipated follow up to the bestselling Cupcakes and Cashmere! In Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home, Emily Schuman expands on the personal lifestyle advice that her fans loved in her first book and on her popular blog, with a focus on interior design and entertaining at home. The book features never-before-seen content and explores Emily's accessible design philosophy for decorating and creating a fashionable personal space. In addition, the book includes DIY design projects and party planning ideas. Emily shows readers not only how to create space that is inviting, but also how to welcome guests and entertain in their homes with ease.

OUR HOUSE WAS BUILT IN 1916, and the original front door was still intact when we bought it, though it was painted an awkward color. Because we wanted to make a statement—and we wanted our home to feel unified and considered from the start—we painted the door a glossy black to tie in other elements of the house, including the fireplace, then we placed flanking kumquat trees on either side of the doormat in black, glossy planters. This makes up for the fact that our house does not have a proper entryway, per se—in fact, the front door opens onto a wide expanse that houses our living room on the right, our dining room on the left, and a view of the corner of our kitchen. Weirdly, even though L.A. is the land of perfect weather and the need for a coat closet and a place to stash wet shoes and umbrellas isn’t exactly pressing, the lack of an entry hall or mudroom is actually kind of complicating. We really wanted to create a moment to mark the beginning of the house without blocking the flow of the space, either visually or physically. And, we wanted a place to stash the essentials.

Ultimately, when it came down to it, we had to reexamine what we considered to be essential and to counteract any tendencies to stash shoes and bags or procrastinate over opening our mail. Immediately to the left of the door, we placed a skinny little console table, a mirror (who wants to step out in the real world without checking their teeth for leftover lunch or stray lipstick?), and a ceramic dish that we got on our honeymoon in Italy. It’s less than what we would have liked—and less than we thought we could live with—but it’s actually been a helpful exercise in restraint.

We brought the same sense of utility and economy to our living areas: a more formal seating area and fireplace nook near the door and a TV room that’s adjacent to the kitchen. The former is a little bit more done, while the TV room is marked by what is perhaps the world’s most quicksand-like sofa (Geoffrey likes to joke that once I’m down, I’m out).

It took us a while to arrive at the right floor plans for both, since we wanted to turn both spaces into areas that we would actually use: Our house is not particularly large, and we don’t have the luxury of only-for-special-occasions rooms, nor did we want those lifeless, dust-collecting zones in our home. We really wanted to maximize every square inch.

THERE ARE OH-SO-MANY WAYS to design and lay out a room—you can make it perfectly symmetrical, you can make it conversational, you can make it the antithesis of matchy-matchy. In determining the right mix, we settled on a combination of all three things, while taking into consideration those niggling little details, like what’s the right distance between a couch and a coffee table (sixteen inches, for us) and whether every chair needs its own side table (we decided no). We also wanted to be sure that the lamps and side tables were at the right height, so that you can put your coffee cup down without either a precipitous drop or an awkward stretch, and so you don’t find yourself so blinded by a lightbulb. Ultimately, it required some careful measuring, and we had to move past a few pieces that we loved, simply because they weren’t the right dimensions. It was helpful to create a priority list (i.e., the couch was a must-have) and build from that.

From the start, we were very conscious of not overloading the rooms with furniture, particularly because we wanted pieces that were substantial and comfortable rather than airy and lightweight. The heavier the piece, the more it physically eats the space in all ways, and this is particularly true of items that cling to the floor. If you can’t see the edges of the room, you tend to perceive it as smaller than it actually is. So, in lieu of buying all of the furniture against a floor plan, we went piece by piece, living with a new item for a few days before adding more. Ultimately, we ended up with less furniture than what was originally in the plan, which makes our rooms feel nice and airy rather than cramped.

FREE ONLINE LAYOUT RESOURCES

If you’re not working with an interior designer and your space doesn’t come with plans (although even those would be worth double-checking, just in case), there are some good resources for drawing your own. As you’re measuring the space, be sure to take into account moldings along the floor, outlet placement, the width of doorways, which way the door opens, and where windows sit, as these factors can dramatically affect the workability of the space. (You also want to be sure that you’ll be able to get your furniture pieces through...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• introduction
• Section 1 interiors & decorating
• Section 2 entertaining
• resources
• acknowledgments
• image credits