New Feature: Reader DIY

One of my favorite things is getting emails from my lovely readers with photos of their projects! I think it would be fun to feature one or two of these projects each week.

First up is a beautiful entry way decorated by Kristen Dowd in Dallas, TX. Kristen saw my post about using pierced screens here and wanted to share her own creative idea. She found two pierced screens at a junk shop and is using one screen for a headboard (photos to come!) and the second screen she used to layer behind a mirror in her entry. Isn't this a great look? AND THAT CHAIR!!!

Kristen runs her own interior decorating business called Gypsy Soul Interiors. You can contact her here. She also has a shop at The White Elephant in Dallas' downtown Design District.

Do you have a project that you'd like to have featured on LGN? Please email your submission to pearlstreetinteriors@gmail.com.

Fantastic Swing Arm Wall Lamps

Wall-mounted swing arm lamps are a great space-saving solution for living rooms, bedrooms and even offices. Here's a round up of some of my current favorites. All of these are under $200.

Brass swing arm by Robert Abbey

Scissor Arm Pharmacy Lamp

White with shade

Santino Swing Arm

Pottery Barn's Delmar

JCPenney Bridge Lamp

Rounded Shade Bronze swing arm

PB Weston Arc

Simple Black with paper shade

Martha Stewart on eBay

Chrome and gorgeous!!!!

Silver from Walmart

Foyer Table

And since we're playing the dream foyer game, I'll add that I want a foyer big enough to handle a beautiful table sitting right in the middle of the room. Front and center.

Nathan Egan

Trad Home

Celerie Kemble

Jed Johnson

Elizabeth Martin via Habitually Chic

Frank Roop

There is a foyer/library table for sale at one of my used furniture haunts. It's tempting me, but as you can see, it needs some TLC.

Can you even handle those feet? to die for.

Seems a little familiar...

domino

Fancy Foyers

Today I'm dreaming of living in a beautiful apartment with a formal entry papered in Gracie or de Gournay.

Timothy Wealon

HB

Miles Redd

I think it would be fun to try and paint an oversized and stylized floral/vine pattern in the entry way/wall of our next place. I like a loose design, sort of like this pattern I spied on the walls at Forever 21 a while back.

Probably not yellow though. Maybe midnight blue? With a huge antique mirror.

Maybe I'll buy a couple of floral design books in the meantime and sketch up some ideas...

Maybe something more like these colors:

de Gournay

Botanicals on Black Paper and Mary Delany

It's no secret that I love botanical prints. But I really, really love botanicals with black backgrounds.

Jamie's store, Furbish

MSL

It seems like black botanicals are sort of hard to come by? I searched eBay and etsy and then I moved to Amazon. There I stumbled across this book about Mary Delaney.

It sounds like she was a fascinating society woman and artist in her day (the mid-late 1700's), who, between the ages of 72 and 82, made over 1,000 botanical works constructed almost entirely from cut paper. Can you imagine!?! I am endlessly inspired.

Lucky us, the British Museum allows downloading and printing of their images for personal use! Here are some of Mrs. Delaney's many works.

Knock-Off Sofas

I was looking through my bookmarks a few days ago and I re-stumbled across this company, Custom Sofa Design.

I am OBSESSED with this Kentwood Sofa, with a starting price at $799. So tempting! Wouldn't these be gorgeous in a pair, flanking a dramatic black fireplace?



Does anyone have any experience with this company? There are some testimonials here and some information about their construction.

Check out their other sofas. It seems like they are knocking off Crate & Barrel, Anthropologie, Pottery Barn and Room & Board with a lot of these styles. Prices are starting at $599: