August 28, 2019

Let’s Meet Alison Sheffield

August 28, 2019/ Meryl

Hi Gang! This week I want to introduce you to a lady who inspires me daily - not only through her Interior Design work but, with her zest for life and wonderful endearing nature.

Alison Sheffield shares a glorious Bow Roof Cape in Cohassett, MA with husband Stephen Sheffield a talented Artist and Photographer; sons Milo, 14 and Finn, 11; and some sweet furry family members - their adorable pup Evvie and cats Otto & Puck.

I’ve been following Alison on social media for years … and over that time we’ve become friends. This greater Boston area designer has been working in the industry for over 15 years. I know you will enjoy getting to know her as much as I have.

Alison grew up in Wellesley, MA in a home filled with antique furniture and rugs, many with an Asian influence. She always loved rearranging furniture and decorating growing up and remembers three distinct incarnations of her childhood bedroom. Her mother wallpapered every room in their house at least once; so using wallpaper doesn’t feel permanent to Alison and its why she embraces it so effortlessly in her own home and with her clients.

Both sets of grandparents decorated with antiques. Her paternal grandparents foyer and upstairs hall walls were covered in Blue & White Toile. It was a huge influence on her.

“Before I even knew what Chinoiserie was, I was smitten with it.”

A Peek into the Butlers Pantry from the Kitchen

Alison told me decorating her freshman college dorm room was a summer-long activity, involving custom pillow shams and lots and lots of Laura Ashley.

“Decorating every space I’ve lived in since has been as much of a thrill.”

Recently Alison’s Home which she designed was published in Erin Gates newest bestseller: ELEMENTS OF Family STYLE. As an example of how to live stylishly with children and pets. During her career she has also been featured in Better Homes & Gardens and Boston Globe Magazine.

While living in that dorm room she studied English, Art History, and Women’s Studies and remarked that all these disciplines have been helpful and relevant in her life since.

After college she worked for John Hancock in their major events department. Which ran events surrounding their corporate sponsorships of the Boston Marathon and the Olympics. From there she ended up at The Jimmy Fund, the fundraising arm of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, running smaller fundraising events. That morphed into managing the Stewardship Events for the hospital’s development office - which included naming dedications and thank you events for very large donations.

Alison decided she really wanted to try her hand at interior design. She attended design school where she focused on - the history of furniture, architecture, color theory, lighting and the decorative arts. While attending The New England School of Design she worked part time for the - then regional editor for Traditional Home and Better Homes & Gardens. Alison did research and interviewed designers about their spaces and she would write up the first pass for her boss. Her boss pitched she and Stephen’s home in Boston to BH&G for their First Home feature and it was published in the September issue just before their oldest son was born that December. The article was called A Marriage of Styles and described how they’d meshed their different aesthetics in their first home.

Alison added that she wasn’t exposed to anything very “modern” or “contemporary” until she met Stephen, an artist whose Father an architect is a fan of the Bauhaus movement, and whose Mother is a master of all the home arts (cooking, sewing, knitting, quilting, gardening, etc.). The home he grew up in had a much more modern slant, and its what he was surrounding himself with when they met. She shared that he doesn’t have bad style and that he’s actually very good at putting a space together. He leans toward the utilitarian (especially when he was in art school – think sawhorses and hollow-core doors) with a bit of an edge. At the time they met her style was still entirely traditional – mahogany furniture, Persian rugs, toile wallpaper.

“Incorporating his style with mine was a tremendous learning experience for me. Figuring out how to balance the different silhouettes, styles and materials and make each sing in its own way, 100% changed how I approached design.”

Their son Milo’s nursery was featured in Boston Globe Magazine. With that exposure she was able to cobble together enough work to start Sheffield Interiors. Over the years she’s done primarily residential work, with a few commercial/hospitality jobs in the mix.

“Homes really are my passion. Creating an environment a client loves is so important to me. To be able to give them a space that reflects who they are and what they love brings me joy.”

Alison shared that her style still definitely slants toward the traditional. She’ll always turn toward antiques and vintage rugs, but offset them with clean lines and more up-to-date textures or finishes.

“I use a lot pattern and color because I LOVE them. I consider jewel tones and animal prints pretty much a given in most designs I create. And there’s nothing more important in creating a timeless and classic room than layering. And art, always art.“

I asked what the rest of 2019 held -

Alison is thrilled to be participating in the 3rd annual Heading Home To Dinner event in October. The event works to raise funds to provide emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing and supportive services to homeless and formerly homeless families and individuals in the Boston area.

This event brings members of the local design community together to support this incredibly important organization. Tickets are sold to a cocktail reception, as well as a formal dinner, during which bar carts created by local designers are auctioned off. You can see her concept for the bar cart she’s designing - the inspiration is a collage created by her husband Stephen Sheffield.

She wants to expand her client base, and continue to create and collect beauty!

New Logo

Alison will be updating her website, in the meantime she’s using Instagram as a portfolio of her work. She loves the connections she’s made both professionally and personally as well as the inspiration she gets from the creative community on the app.

“I’m currently working with an artist on my branding.”

Her next-door neighbor was a decorator and the most glamorous person Alison knew and she wanted to be her when she grew up! Well, Alison you’ve succeeded in Spades!!!

Pop over and check out Alison’s feed and follow along, you’ll be so happy!

Til next time - have a terrific week and I’ll see you on the Gram!

All Images by Alison Sheffield

June 26, 2019

Amazing Abbey

June 26, 2019/ Meryl

Meet my amazing friend Abbey! She is wonderfully artistic soul. Her passion is bringing great design to life through her paint brushes, creativity and hard work!

The first image that caught my eye on Abbey’s IG feed was this mural she painted on the wall of her Diningroom in her Nashville, TN home that she shares with her husband Jake, their mini Australian shepherd Jet and their rescue cat Gracie.

The Newly Installed Backsplash adds much wanted color to the Kitchen.

She hails from Yorkville, IL. located in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s part of a big, loud family and counts herself lucky to have two parents that are still married and very much in love. Her parents are an incredible source of love and support for her and her three siblings. She shared that in 2006, right around the same time as the recession, her Father was diagnosed with a rare blood disease that acts similarly to Leukemia and he had to have open-heart surgery and couldn’t work for six months. The second child of four Abbey looks to older brother Adam when she wants to vent, she goes to her sister Anna when she needs a laugh and her youngest sister Amy is the go to when she needs a hug!

“I didn’t realize how rare these relationships were until I was older. I am so absolutely freaking blessed with the family I have.”

Abbey and Jake met through mutual friends at the tender age of 11. She clearly remembers holding his hand in a hammock in her best friends backyard. They both grew up and grew apart. When Abbey was 18 she moved to Chicago and they rekindled their friendship; she was already in the midst of a serious relationship. As she and Jake grew closer she started the inevitable journey out of one relationship and into another; breaking it off with her boyfriend and kissing Jake in a span of two days. They tied not knot at the ripe old age of 21!

“I like to follow my gut, and it has yet to fail me.”

They bought their first house on Nashville’s south side in 2014 and flipped it - selling in 2016 for 100% profit! She shares they were very fortunate in so many ways with regards to that experience - they had support of their families and they bought at at great time in the Market but, it all boils down to working hard, learning a lot and saving as much money as possible.

They moved on to their current home after selling the flip. You can see the way it looked when they bought in below right it was a 1960s/80s renovated gem. They have spent much of the last three years renovating it themselves - everything from electrical to landscaping and design has been their doing.

2019

2016

Abbey told me that their current home has brought her so much joy. While it’s not their dream home (that’s a cabin in the woods somewhere) creating this with her best friend has been the greatest joy of her life. Since they flipped their previous house they didn’t put their own stamp on it. This home is another story completely - they have moved from space to space redoing and tweaking. The mural, the paint, the backsplash, the tiling on the front stoop and new door and the landscaping. They are beyond proud live in something they have created and is so uniquely their vision. It feels like home to she and Jake -

“Home is a feeling, not a place, but I mean... this place and this person and the animals inside of it makes me feel like I’m home.”

Abbey told me she studied creative writing with a goal of being a poet and writer. She attended school for two years before dropping out - she befriended one of her professors and she sat Abbey down one day and dropped a bomb informing her that she didn’t need a degree to do the things she wanted to do.

“No adult had ever told me I could leave school. School was the thing you did - you go, you graduate, you get a job. She rocked my world and changed my life. I wasted no time and left school that semester.”

After dropping out, she did freelance makeup for a few years while also working at Sephora. She felt liberated and she flourished.

“I could be creative and help make people feel happy. The combination was intoxicating.”

I asked Abbey to share how she got into design. I asked if she read magazines or designed spaces when she was growing up.

“I didn’t and still don’t read design magazines. We were lower-middle class growing up and a magazine subscription was a luxury we couldn’t afford. Interior design is always been something I gravitated towards but didn’t pursue because, in my head, it required a degree I didn’t have.”

As a kiddo Abbey would lock herself in her bedroom and just create artwork for hours on end. As she got older, her Mother let her paint on her bedroom walls. Her first mural was a giant purple thistle with tons of greenery. She spent the money made waitressing at a local restaurant on car insurance and gas - anything leftover went to paint, paintbrushes and canvases.

“When I went away to college, I was so broke. I would frequently get low-balance alerts on my phone, but as soon as the money hit on payday, you bet my ass was in-line at Michael’s waiting to pay for art supplies. They were and are as vital to me as my groceries and rent.”

She and Jake kept their first house neutral and she told me they painted it so many shades of grey - they nicknamed it “the fifty shades of grey” house. It wasn’t until they moved into their current home that Abbey started thinking about design - experimented with colors, re-arranged furnishing and whole rooms - rethinking their functions. She fell in love with interiors during this process. She shared she woke up energized and would go to bed at night feeling the same - all because of the way the house made her feel This was a new thing for her and she couldn’t get enough.

“Initially, I would document our process on my personal Instagram account and much to my surprise, it garnered a lot of praise. I had never in my life thought that something I would create, whether a room or a painting, would beget such a positive reaction.”

In January Abbey launched an Instagram account solely devoted to their home.

I inquired what her plans were for the rest of 2019.

“Our realtor Mark (who is now a friend and an absolutely wonderful man) contacted me recently asking if I was planning on getting into interior design as a profession. - The day before, I’d been reading You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, in which she outlines a path of success through what is basically trusting your gut. In this book, Sincero discusses at length the powerful nature of speaking your goals into the universe and the power of positive energy -- good energy begets good energy. I had tried this and had literally spoken I will become a creative professional into the universe and was met with a proposition: Mark wanted to help me. He said that he saw my potential and my talent and wanted to see me succeed.”

Abbey told me that she is taking this torch while it’s lit and going to run as far as she can with it. She went on to say:

“I’m not entirely certain where it will go, but I think I’m going to start a blog, do some staging jobs for realtors and learn as much as I can about interior design and go from there. It all feels so right.

Abbey’s etsy shop - she has the most fun prints to download!

As I hit publish Abbey has been redesigning her Diningroom’s mural. Her original was inspired by another. This time she started from scratch. See the below images of the process and the new final View! You really need to click on her IG feed and give this lady a follow her stories are wonderful!

Friends I know whatever this marvelous human puts her mind to - she will be successful! I am so ready to cheer her on! It’s at times like this that I want to shout to the world how awesome Instagram is… otherwise how would - I - a Mom, Stylist and Blogger from New Jersey have “met” Abbey a 20 something from Nashville? Abbey is truly gifted - a women who stimulates others through her original vision. She has a deep grounded knowledge of people and character - we have shared profound conversations about Women’s Rights and Literature… I’m never shy about voice messaging people! (golly I want a podcast - but, I digress) I clearly remember standing in the Chalet kitchen while voice messaging and texting Abbey - we chatted for quiet a while... I appreciate her friendship and meeting her has broadened my world.

Til the next time please pop over and give Abbey a follow on IG - she hosts a great Tag #girlsjustwanttodiy and check out her Etsy Shop!

June 05, 2019

Lovely Ladies!

June 05, 2019/ Meryl

You know what’s exciting!?! When Social Media turns into actual friendship.

Instagram has introduced me to - so - so many wonderfully inspiring individuals but, these gals… this tight-knit group has become my crew… let me introduce you to these sweet friends!

My Lovely Ladies!

Aileen Grodzinsky @homemadehappinest is a fellow Jersey gal; who is as true blue as they come. I was thrilled not only to follow and connect with her but, to meet in real life. The things that make this lady tick are anything and everything Lucy (her sweet 6 yr daughter) and Steve (her loving hubby), beautiful art, creating art, flowers, being with close friends and family, cheap wine, craft beer and amazing food. She’s passionate about creating a home that is cozy, happy, unique, eclectic, realistic for their everyday lives and oozes them! She, Steve, Lucy, Grover the dog and Henry the bunny moved into their new home in December of 2018, only 5 months ago! Aileen is having a blast making this house a home one room at a time. Currently having a major love affair with the color pink, all things floral and peel and stick wallpaper! She works full time in the promotional products industry creating cool swag for companies like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn! She has a BA from The New York School of Interior Design and although she’s never followed the interior design path professionally, it’s always been a serious personal passion. So, picture her on any given day painting a floral piece with Lucy painting her own masterpiece right by her side, moving the furniture around or switching up a gallery wall just because the mood strikes her or simply faffing about her home with all her knick knacks, because doing all that sparks some serious joy for her. Her tag is #eclecticallyspeaking and her Insta feed is about her awe inspiring home.

Alene Conner @aconnerhouse this fun momma is a thrifting maven - another jersey gal who’s originally from Wyoming, her family moved here while she was in High School. She says she’s a country girl through and through. She shares her thoroughly thrifted home with the man who swept her off her feet 15 yrs ago - they married after knowing each other 8 months. They are the parents of 4 sweet kiddos. When Alene is not on Mom-Duty you’ll find her hunting for treasures. In the last couple of years she’s discovered a love for interior design and styling using mostly thrifted finds. Alene says creating an Instagram account has allowed her to make wonderful connections with amazing people from all over and fueled her desire for a creative outlet. Her Insta feed is about her home and her thrifted finds.

Alison Sheffield @sheffield_interiors is an incredibly talented lady from Cohasset, MA. a designer who’s has spent the past 4 years turning her house into a wonderful home. To put it mildly, she LOVES her house. It’s the only one that could get her out of the city of Boston after 20 years. It’s a charming antique cape with a bow roof. She’s been designing homes for other people for about 15 years. Her style is described as youthful-traditional or updated-classic. She wants all the wallpaper, pattern, colors and rugs but, nothing fussy. And art. Always art. She loves her job and wouldn’t do anything else. She’s a mom to her two boys (11 & 14) and wife to Stephen. They have two cats, Otto & Puck and a rescue pup named Evvie. Her Insta is a little bit family, some client work and a lot of her gorgeous home.

Cameron Jones

Cameron Jones @cameronjonesinteriors is a delightful lady from North Carolina, who’s addicted to Mexican food and HGTV. Her happy place is with a glass of red wine in her hand but, nothing brings her more joy than her two young kiddos and her husband. Her family is her main job and her first love, interior design is her second. For as long as she remembers home design has been a huge part of her life. Growing-up she dog-eared hundreds of design magazines and home catalogs and still has notebooks filled with spaces and DIY projects that inspire her. Her grandmother owned beautiful art and furniture, much of which her grandfather brought back from Europe while he was serving during WWII. Many of those pieces are in Cameron’s home today. She loves the sense of history and authenticity they bring. One of her favorite aspects about interior design is the challenge of mixing antiques and sentimental pieces into the design while making them work for her clients modern lifestyle. She’s a huge advocate of mixing styles, periods, patterns and colors. Also, she loves the thrill of scoring a good bargain or a truly unique find - some of which end up in her shop @shopcameronjonesinteriors. To her, design should be meaningful, purposeful and possess the ability to evolve as your life does. She believes your home should reflect the things that make you happy. Her Insta feed is a mix of her home and client projects.

Cher Gumin @cgumin is a sweet thrifting soul from the suburbs of Cleveland, OH. She studied fashion in college and worked in the Visual Merchandising field. Once her son Cullen Michael arrived he became her focus - the center of her universe and she dedicates her days to him. IG is a creative outlet for Cher and her enthusiasm for interiors. She loves adding new items to her home and is passionate about shopping vintage before buying something new. She’ll take those thrifted finds - fix them up and use herself or she sells them. She flips furniture! Which I think is so cool! She has a deep appreciation for all design styles. Her Insta feed documents her ever changing home.

“Friend: a favored companion”

— Merriam-Webster

Chris Whitehead @green.see.home lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts. She’s a fan of all things hearth and home, with a healthy dose of organized and balanced living. She and her husband Greg bought their 120 year old farmhouse with the intention of renovating and flipping it within 3 years but, they are still there 20 years on. They became serious weekend warriors and DIYers over the years and are still updating it today. They are about to be empty-nesters when their daughter heads off to college in the fall and perhaps that has been the impetus for the serious refresh they’ve got going on right now…they just keep going from room to room! Chris loves layers, textures and mixing new with vintage finds. One of her favorite things to do is to style, organize and update her interiors by shopping her own home or doing the same for her clients. As a relative newbie to social media, what began as a creative outlet and an open mind to see where it would lead, has blossomed into endless inspiration and incredible connections formed with a wonderful community of creatives. And don’t worry she and Greg won’t be completely alone in September - their two pups, Monti and Joey will keep them busy. Her Insta feed centers on her home and it’s updates.

Jessica Rhodes @parkanddivision is the face behind the interiors and DIY Blog Park and Division - where she writes about her home renovations, inspiring interiors, thrifting and furniture refinishing. She hand-painted a faux runner down her staircase that is unbelievable and must been seen. She’s a married mother of two boys and resident of the Adirondacks region of upstate New York. Family and country living inform her antique meets modern design style. Her Insta feed is devoted to her home design.

Morgan Swenson @thehappycocoon is a mom who lives in Utah with her 4 kids and her best friend/husband Chris. Her IG account is a visual diary of the evolution of her home as she and Chris add charm and character while working within a small budget. Her design philosophy thus far has been that she wants anyone who visits their home to be able to say “my grandma used to have that” - and so far - it’s working friends.! She loves to thrift and is endlessly inspired by the magic people are able to create using second hand items. Her tag is #broughttoyoubythrifting Her passion for vintage and her cheapness is what introduced her to thrifting but, what has kept her going back is - the puzzles. If you like either of these things stop by and say hey to Morgan she likes making friends! Her Insta feed is about her home, her thrifted finds and a bit of her family.

Remy Kenney @honeyfitzyachtclub lives in Louisville, KY. with her husband Matt and two daughters Reese age 4 and Charlotte age 2. She started her e-commerce coastal decor shop Honeyfitz Yacht Club in October 2018. It specializes in vintage pennants, flags and other nautical treasures. She started her Instagram page as a way to promote the shop but she’s been surprised by the amazing community she’s become a part of on this little app! The support received from friends she’s never even met in person means the world to her. Her Insta feed is about her home and her Decor Shop.

I read this on Instagram:

Don’t Use Social Media Less. Use it More Intentionally. Follow People Who Inspire and Motivate You. Engage with Experts You Can Learn From. Create Genuine Positive Friendships!

Without this app - we would never have met - women of different ages, backgrounds and geographical areas across the United States! I so dearly hope you have a crew!

Go check these ladies out - on their sites and on Instagram and give them a follow!

Til next time!

Musings