November 17, 2021

Let's Meet Michele Strauts

November 17, 2021/ Meryl

Today I’m tickled to introduce you all to my sweet and funny friend Michele Strauts. We met through the Instagram and have bonded over a love of chinoiserie, thrifting and especially books! Michele shares her Chicagoland, IL. home with her husband Timmy, Daughters Olivia (8) Victoria (5) and son Theodore (7).

Michele Welcome to the Chalet! Let’s start by talking about Instagram - what year did you start your account? I started my IG account in early 2014 when I was just starting to learn how to crochet. At first I used my IG account to share what I crocheted and to connect with others in the crochet community. I even sold some crocheted items through IG back in the day.

How did you come up with the name Crafting Culture? I came up with my name because I was doing a lot more crafting and creating back in 2014 when I started my account. I don't actually fancy myself a crafter . . . sure I love a creative project now and then, but my account has evolved over time to focus more on thrifting and my home decor. Once in a while I end up crafting something and sharing it on IG. Who knows how my IG account will evolve in the future (maybe a beauty blogger)!

Michele beauty blogger is right up your alley; one of the first times I ever watched your Insta-stories you were giving a make-up tutorial and discussing products. I know many people are surprised when they learn Instagram is a hobby for you - I know I was - especially because your feed is so incredibly inspiring and you’re a host for a terrific hashtag #chinoiseriechicstyle.

Can you tell us a bit about your family growing up. Both Timmy and I have lived in the Chicagoland area our entire lives! We grew up only a few miles from one another (went to rival high schools) but didn’t meet until our early twenties. We lived in Chicago for many years, but after we had our second child, we decided that our third-floor condo wasn’t ideal anymore. In 2015 we started the process of building a home in the same suburb where Timmy grew up. In 2016 we moved into our completed home and had our third child, all within the same week was insanely crazy!

But, that is when I really started to feature my home on Instagram and connected with an amazing décor community online.

You stated you and your husband Timmy started building your home in 2015 can you share a bit more about how you ended up here? I grew up in a 100 year old Tudor home filled with character, so I really always pictured myself living in an older home. After six months of house hunting, we began to realize that older homes didn’t necessarily offer everything that was important to us in a home . . . thus, we started to think about building a home. From start to finish (although nothing is ever really done), it took us about 1.5 years to build our home and it was a surreal time. During the building process, I continually looked for ways to interject character into our new build. I found seven diamond pane leaded windows that were salvaged from an old Chicago home and incorporated them into our new home. I found a 100 year old barn door on Craigslist to use as our pantry door. I found two beautiful vintage fireplace mantels on Craigslist. And I collected over ten thrifted chandeliers to use throughout our home!

I love to ask - Did you decorate your bedroom when you were a child? I remember around the age of 14 that my Mom let me decorate my bedroom. We went to a fabric showroom and I picked out fabric for custom curtains and bedding. I still remember that it was purple, red, and orange (looking back at my choices it was pretty hideous fabric). I also collected mirrors all through my teens and my bedroom walls were filled with interesting and unique mirrors (self-absorbed much)!

What is your favorite space in your house. One of my favorite spaces in our home is our dining room! The room is light and airy, but neutral enough to compliment any table setting that I create in the space. I often view table setting as a creative outlet and I enjoy using the space to showcase my collections of dishes, glassware, and table linens (many of which are thrifted). Plus our dining room is just boring enough that my kids mainly leave the space untouched (another reason why it is my favorite).

Michele your table settings are extraordinary!

Where did you go to college and what did you study? I attended DePaul University in Chicago where I majored in Finance and graduated with honors. I also have a minor in Math and a minor in Economics (numbers have always been my thing). For the past 18 years I have built a career as a Financial Advisor, and in 2010 I took a big leap and opened my own Financial Planning Practice. Today I can celebrate 11 years as a business owner in a heavily male dominated industry.

I know you love to thrift. You mentioned incorporating both salvaged and Craigslist finds into the construction of your home. Can you please share with the readers a bit about how you started thrifting? For as long as I can remember, I have loved thrifting. When I was in high school I would take day trips downtown to thrift with my girlfriends. Back then, I collected vintage clothes and shoes and accessories. Somewhere in my twenties I began to thrift less for clothing and more for furniture and home décor! When I was 24 years old, I remember inheriting a chintz sofa from my Great Grandma and I was so in love with the fabric! I was into Grandmillenial décor before it was even a thing.

CHILDRENS BEDROOMS

I have furnished and decorated all the spaces I have lived in with thrifted pieces. Part of me is drawn to older, traditional pieces and part of me is drawn to getting a good deal! I love finding a beautiful, quality item for less money than if I found something similar at a retail store. Through thrifting I have created a home with a more curated and collected feel! I love having one of a kind items in my home that tell a story or created a memory of how I acquired them.

Your home is uniquely yours and you are spending less for quality. While this is true, I don’t know if its entirely true . . .I recently thrifted amazing vintage drapes for Olivia’s room for $300. I spent $600 having them dry cleaned, $300 on new window hardware, and $200 to have them installed. (And all of our windows have Hunter Douglas window treatments around $1,000 per window). So even though I consider that a deal for two windows, it still may still be more than others are spending on window treatments.

I discovered in my twenties that you often thrift an item for a crazy inexpensive price, but by the time it is restored and in place, that item usually ends up costing a lot more. I thrifted Tori’s Murano chandelier for $500. I paid $200 to have it installed only to find out it needed to be rewired and I needed to replace the light switch it blew out. It cost $900 to have it rewired and another $200 to have it installed again. So after 6 months the chandelier is in place and I love it, but it cost nearly $2,000.

You are incredibly artistic I am in love with the mural you painted in Tori’s bedroom. Have you always painted? Looking back, I spent my entire 20’s building my Financial Planning business (working long hours) and didn’t do anything creative or crafty. Sure, I took an art class in high school and enjoyed it, but that is the extent of my art education. After my first daughter was born in 2013, I decided that I needed a creative hobby to help keep me sane. I self-taught myself how to crochet and fell in love with creating. As a business owner, I don’t always have the time to craft or create but when the Pandemic hit the US in 2020, I found myself with more time and a real need for a creative outlet. I have always longed for hand painted chinoiserie wallpaper and just woke up one morning and decided, why not paint my youngest daughter’s bedroom in a DeGournay inspired style. I went for it with the bare minimum of art supplies we already had at home (including paint brushes from my kid’s IKEA watercolor set). I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t immediately like what I was creating, but I stuck with it and many months later I completed my own hand painted chinoiserie mural on her walls! It’s not perfect, but I impressed myself and that is all that matters!

Tell us the best thing you ever thrifted. Ha! More like the best thing I have thrifted in each room . . . The best part about thrifting is that every item comes with a memory or a story of how you found it, what you paid for it, and sometimes what previous life the item lived. Some of my favorite items are the ones with the best stories.

In my upstairs hallway I thrifted a chandelier that came from a mansion on the Northshore that was owned by a former Playboy Bunny! The chandelier was in very bad condition when I acquired it and was missing half of its crystals. Through Craigslist, I found an electrician who was replacing chandeliers in the Chicago Hilton and selling the crystals from the old chandeliers that they were getting rid of. I worked with him to find the crystals I needed to complete the restoration of my chandelier. I also had to re-thread all of the crystals with new brass pins (a total labor of love). Now, not only is the chandelier beautiful, but it has a little piece of Chicago history, and a lot of love poured into it. It is one of my favorite pieces. If you scroll way back on IG you can see some of the original photos of the chandelier!

Something Michele is known for besides her exceptional tablescapes is her all encompassing holiday decor! I can’t wait to see this years decorations!

Michele I can’t close this piece without touching on READING! It’s something you and I discuss and share recommendations all the time. In the last few years, reading has become a passionate hobby of mine! I am always reading a book or two these days! I’m in two book clubs. Recently I loved “Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Taylor also wrote “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” which I enjoyed last year and even mentions the characters from this book in “Malibu Rising.” I also recently read “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart and really enjoyed it! I am a huge fan of racy romance novels and LOVED “The Idea of You” by Robinne Lee (it is so good)! One of my favorite books of all times is “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah (whom you know because she also wrote “The Nightingale”). I’m currently reading “The Paper Palace” by Miranda Cowley Heller and “Much Ado About You” by Samantha Young.

Michele my dear thank you thank you for taking the time to share a bit about yourself with my readers.

Please follow Michele on Instagram.

Til next time friends be well!

Images: Michele C. Strauts

October 27, 2021

Let's Meet Kate Pearce

October 27, 2021/ Meryl

Friends I’m delighted to introduce the brilliant Kate Pearce - the owner of a Vintage Shop whose motto is Eclectic Living. She lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of ten years Billy and their daughters Eva (8) and Josie (4) and their sweet pups Ripley + Fia.

Kate welcome thank you so much for being here… I know how busy you are with your family, your website and vintage shop and you recently shared the news that you’re moving from Long Island, NY to Chicago! Such and exciting time for the Pearce family.

KP: Thanks for including me on your blog. I am very honored. Yes, we’re starting this exciting new journey in January in Chicago! We bought our Long Island 1910 fixer upper in 2017 and we have renovated every inch of this home since we moved in with love but, another fixer is calling our names and we can’t wait to start our new adventure.

Can you tell a bit about growing up and your family: I grew up in the same town I live in now in a half Irish and half Italian family. My parents both came from large Catholic families and so I had tons of family around me during my childhood. My mom always took me to estate sales and museums, and really encouraged me and my brother to grow creatively. My parents owned their own business, and now both my brother and I do, too. I think creativity, hard work, and independence were the professional qualities my parents instilled in us most.

I know you learned about thrifting from your mom - can you please speak to your experiences with it: Yes - I would go to garage sales and estate sales with my mom all the time growing up. I loved it from a very early age, and could be caught reading House Beautiful in grade school. I always had an obsession with aesthetics and interiors, and I was lucky that my mother gave me free reign of my room as a child. My Italian grandfather also had a very strong influence on not just me, but my entire family. He taught my mom how to make everything from scratch as a child, and taught her how to grow the best tomatoes, figs and gagootz (and very large Italian squash we eat in pasta dishes). Eating from cans and boxes was sacrilege in our house. Sauce was made every Sunday from garden tomatoes and garden basil. My grandfather would bake 20 loaves of Italian bread every Saturday that we would all pick up at Sunday pasta dinner. Then we’d hit up a garage sale or an estate sale to see what treasures we could find.

I love that thrifting is tied to your family - I know a huge part of why you thrift is because sustainability is extremely important to you: Sustainability is a word that I might use now as a very climate-conscious adult. But it isn’t a word my family used when I was a child. My grandparents were economically disadvantaged, and my brother and I were first-generation college graduates. The “sustainability” that we grew up with was borne out of necessity, and had not as much to do with eco-consciousness. By that, I mean that my mother learned the ways of her father and they became quite natural ways of living for her, but my mother is also incredibly environmentally aware. I did not grow up in an economically disadvantaged situation as my parents did and the very low-waste manner in which they were raised was the same way they raised me and my brother. Still, despite not having four-year degrees, my parents are both incredibly well-read and self-educated and my mom, especially, is a bit of a guru when it comes to living off the land.

What and Where did you study: I went to school for Art History. I received my B.A. in Art and Visual Culture from a small liberal arts college in Maine (Bates College). I then went to graduate school in Washington, D.C. and obtained my M.A. in Modern European Art. Billy and I met in D.C. while I was in graduate school and he was working his first job out of college. I worked a bunch of curatorial internships at some really cool places after graduate school. Gigs at the Guggenheim and the Whitney brought us back to New York, but I eventually took a job at Morgan Stanley on the trading floor just to make a paycheck (turns out art history jobs aren’t the most lucrative). I ended up working in the finance industry for three years or so before deciding to go back to school for pre-med. I was very influenced by my doctors in my 20s and had spent much of my late 20s and early 30s in and out of the hospital having major surgeries. I went to Columbia’s post-bacc pre-med program, but quit 1.5 years into the program because my health was too poor and that’s when I opened up Kate Pearce Vintage. I wanted (needed, even) the flexibility of working for only myself so that I could manage my health effectively while still having professional goals and accomplishments.

Did you immediately start your Blog when Kate Pearce Vintage opened: I sold vintage for about four years before even starting a blog. I kind of accidentally fell into the influencer/blogger thing when Apartment Therapy asked to do a home tour of my house back when I was really just exclusively selling and promoting my vintage shop through my IG.

Kate can you tell the readers about your decorating process: My process starts with estate sales and thrift shops. I find pieces I love and become inspired by them. They are, nearly always, the jumping off point for every room I create. I think my background in Art History, combined with my lifelong obsession with art and aesthetics, has really informed my design philosophy. I love mixing eras and styles. I personally feel that spaces fall flat when they are dedicated to a single era (a room done exclusively in mid-century modern, for example). I can’t think of a single historical period that doesn’t interest me, and the challenge is mixing them in a way that feels fluid and interesting.

Eva's Room

Family Bath

Josie's Room

How has Social Media impacted your brand: I wouldn’t be anywhere without social media. I’ve made my professional contacts there, but also some of my most dear friendships. Hashtags were created for a reason… to bring like-minded people together. I am incredibly grateful that social media has been so kind to me, and feel incredibly indebted to my followers for making this career possible for me.

Spring 2021 One Room Challenge the Speakeasy — **Spring 2021 One Room Challenge** ***the Speakeasy***

Friends please check out where Kate has been featured:

National and international print publications:

Better Homes & Gardens (May 2021)
REVEAL (Drew + Jonathan Scott Magazine) (Spring 2021)
Flea Market Home & Living (11/20)
Para Ti (AR) (11/20)
Reclaim (UK) (Issue 51)
Origin Magazine (Volume 36)
Newsday

Online features:

Domino, HGTV, Apartment Therapy, Hunker Home, Design Sponge, and Tastemade Home. Kate was selected as a Featured Designer for the Spring 2020 renowned blogging event, The One Room Challenge, and was featured in Better Homes & Gardens (the official media partner of the ORC).

HGTV filmed an episode of Kate and her husband, Bill, which featured their Long Island, New York home on the show, Handmade Home. This featured also tied into the HGTV Handmade IG feed. Kate is thrilled to be a Featured Designer with the Property Brother’s newest venture, Casaza.

Please check out Kate’s most recent feature in Apartment Therapy – where they published a new tour of her home and a full feature in July 2021. Her work has also been seen in the online publication, Work + Money. She’s been featured on Casaza.

**Kate and Billy - She designs it and He builds it!**

Kate truly I can not say thank you enough for saying yes when I asked! Follow Kate on Facebook, Instagram, Like to Know It, Pinterest, Twitter and her Website

Til next time friends be well!

Images: Kate Pearce

September 22, 2021

Let's Meet Regine Labossiere

September 22, 2021/ Meryl

I’m so jazzed to introduce everyone to the fabulous create behind The 256 Project Régine Labossière. We met in 2019 through Instagram when we both attended a dinner in NYC for our friend Racheal Jackson. Turns out we live pretty close to each other in New Jersey. She along with her husband Daniel, son Gus and sweet dog Molly live in what she has lovingly coined The Cozy Cottage. It’s a hashtag you can follow friends!

Régine welcome thanks so much for being here… can you share with the readers a bit about your family growing up: I grew up in suburban NJ with my parents, Gladys and Paul. My family is from Haiti and I still have quite a bit of family there as well as in the NY/NJ area and other parts of the country and world. Being raised first-generation American in a suburb definitely has a huge influence on everything, especially on my desire to go out, explore and travel, and also on the food I eat, languages I speak and understand and try to understand, and the elements of design that I’m open to and enjoy.

For as long as I can remember, I was designing spaces and writing. I used to write little novels that basically just my mom and a cousin would read but to me they were grand novels. I would so clearly describe what the heroines were wearing and what their bedrooms looked like. I just always loved fashion and home design, even before I really understood what all of that was. The writing aspect is what I based the start of my career on but my passions and side hustles have always straddled design of some sort as well as writing.

How did The Cozy Cottage become your home: We were living in New York City (Brooklyn, to be exact) and started looking in our current suburban area in October. We put an offer on a house and it wasn’t accepted and then decided to check out an open house one weekend in November. It was this very small house in a really nice neighborhood walking distance from the train (we knew it was walking distance because we didn’t have a car and had to walk to get there). The next morning we put in an offer and that afternoon, it was ours! This went a lot faster than we expected and was pretty seamless, considering we were first-time home buyers and were moving to an area we were unfamiliar with.

So since you were already absorbed in the world of design as a child - I have to ask - Did you decorate your bedroom growing up: Oh my gosh, YES I sure did. I mean, I designed my bedroom over and over again in my head. And then actually convinced my parents to let me paint it lilac. So for maybe 10 years or more until I left for college, my bedroom was this light purple color and half of the walls were covered in Will Smith tear-outs because I was obsessed with him.

But I basically can’t walk into a space without designing it in my head and imagining what it could look like and function as if I were to live in it, even if it’s an office space.

Where did you attended college and what did you study: I went to New York University and majored in journalism. What’s your day to day gig: I started out as a newspaper reporter and then switched to public relations after seven years and have been working at PR agencies ever since.

A really cool design element in your home is your entry door can you share the backstory: I participated in the Spring 2018 One Room Challenge. I designed this wallpaper on Photoshop, had it printed through Spoonflower and I installed it on my front door with lots of patience and beer! I still love the design 3 + years later. I was going for eye-catching and I believe I achieved it.

Oh Régine you most certainly did. It’s stunning and I had no idea you designed the wallpaper pattern yourself. You have many talents my friend!

How did you get into design and helping clients: I’ve always been visually oriented, I can understand something visually even if it’s not literally in front of me. I have no training in design, it’s just something I love, so I dabble in it in different ways. I work on the occasional DIY project (like our headboard and the media console) because I have ideas in my head for pieces of furniture and want specific measurements, which are all hard to find pre-made, and I just want to try it myself before I hire out for custom furniture. I am constantly designing something at The Cozy Cottage, like our kitchen renovation, which I am so excited about.

In the past I have worked with a folks to provide e-designs but I haven’t done that in a little while. I also make and sell clothing but working full-time and having a toddler means that some things need to go for the moment, so I’m focusing on DIYs when I can and fixing The Cozy Cottage to be the gem we envision it can be.

“I basically can’t walk into a space without designing it in my head”

— Régine Labossière

The Kitchen remodel is the largest project you’ve tackled at The Cozy Cottage it’s so exciting. I saw the dishwasher was delivered last week: YES! It's been six years dreaming and saving for something better and we're excited! I’ve been sharing the design on the blog. The biggest change is opening up a portion of the wall between the kitchen and living room and extending the countertop into the living room to create a seating area. Joining these two rooms will create a larger conversational space, and also bring more light into the kitchen. As I said I work in PR and MasterBrand Cabinets is one of my agency’s clients. I knew we were going to use their cabinetry - we went to our local Cabinets Direct USA and worked with kitchen designer Pamela Boone - The Cozy Cottage kitchen is complicated and Pamela was incredible - making many drawings while I worked on the final design.

Please tell us how your blog started: I have been writing my entire life and had a couple of other blogs that focused on subjects I really loved, but I started The 256 Project right after we bought our house in 2014. I saw an opportunity to share a journey of making our first house a home through renovation and design but also food. When I was a kid, my grandmother stayed with us for a couple of months when she was visiting from Haiti and hand wrote recipes in this notebook for my dad. He kept it and I decided that I would try out those recipes once we moved into the house, which you can follow along in the part of my blog called the Kreyol Kitchen. I am no chef so it’s a funny journey!

What’s your favorite space is in The Cozy Cottage and why: My favorite room is probably my son’s room because it gets the best light of any room in the house, and I designed it to be gender neutral by incorporating vibrant pinks, blues and greens that make me very happy to see. The room also has plenty of white space and incorporates light wood tones to balance out all that color. The room has already changed slightly and will continue to morph as he grows, but the natural light is beautiful no matter what.

In any given moment, my favorite room is where the natural light is, casting a sunlit glow and making beautiful shadows.

Molly coming down the stairs with the custom runner Régine designed and installed

Please share your design philosophy: I am kind of style agnostic in that I appreciate just about every architectural and interior design style and have a lot of respect and admiration for something when it’s done well, even if it isn’t my personal taste in that moment. I also really love neutral spaces that incorporate lots of texture and real and raw materials. But I mostly gravitate toward lots of color and pattern and something funky, something fun to look at, appreciate and talk about. That’s why throughout our home you’ll see lots of bold color and interesting pattern choices, like our hot yellow fireplace and our front door that is a dark coral on the exterior and the interior is covered in a wallpaper I designed, a base of bright blue covered in yellow and pink flowers. You’ll also see a lot of light and medium-toned woods and other neutrals throughout the house because I think it all needs to be balanced.

I also think that design needs to fit the building while also not being a museum. Our home was built in 1903 so any renovation we do will nod to a more classic era while injecting our design sensibilities and taste. For example, when we redid our downstairs powder and laundry room, we combined it into what I call the “beautility room,” because it’s so much prettier than a utility room. We chose a vintage-looking console sink, beadboard for wood paneling and penny tile, and kept the stained glass window that was there, all to look like it belonged in our old home. We had fun and went modern in other areas, like the very bold blue paint, a modern faucet, and a pocket door that I wallpapered in a bright yellow with a print of a skull blowing bubble gum. If there was any space in the house that really screamed “us,” it would be the beautility room design.

Can you share with us how Social Media/Instagram has impacted your brand? I use Instagram in the same way that I use my blog, to show what I’m interested in and am doing with the main focus being on our home and in design, all with the idea of representation. For a long time, it felt like design and DIYs and the popular crowd all looked, sounded and designed the same way and I just want to be a part of the increasing crowd showing that there is more to see, hear, listen to and feel when it comes to interiors and DIYs.

I have a hashtag #thecozycottage it would be great for everyone to follow along.

I love to share links to publications/sites where my readers can find you: My blog, I’ve had several spaces featured on Apartment Therapy, like our former flex guest room and sewing room, which now is Gus’ bedroom. I also was so honored to be included in interior designer Angela Belt’s annual Black Tastemakers series.

Régine thank you so very much for sharing your creative and inspiring self with us! If all goes well I will be seeing you this weekend and I am super psyched!

You can find Régine on her Blog, Instagram and Pinterest