This weekend I had the chance to stop in and sneak a peek at Bungalow Home and Garden‘s new location in downtown Powell. They had the shop all gussied up for the holidays. I love their first location in the Short North. They have since expanded to both Powell and New Albany so now there is even more to love.

Please excuse my blurry iPhone pictures!

Apparently this pillow loves me back. This is the vignette that greets you upon opening the front door; a lovely first impression! I may have to pick up one of those greige and while pillows as a Christmas present to myself. I especially like the rectangular one.

They took over a building that was a church in its first life, so the space is open and airy with large windows.

I love this lamp with what appears to be an old architectural salvage piece.

On the way out I got this shot of their great kubu chairs and ginormous fire pit. Such a great place to relax with all your heavy bags!

You can get more info on Bungalow Home and Garden at their website here and their Facebook page here.

Finally, to round out this post I just had to throw in this picture of Pippa hanging out in her new favorite place… under the couch.

Be back later this week with another cute store in the central Ohio area, one that you would never guess was so cute!

Regarding fake plants, I have always felt kinda like Joan Crawford felt about wire hangers. You know… “NO WIRE HANGERS!” is something like “NO FAKE PLANTS!” However, I just added fake (gasp) boxwood topiaries to the containers flanking my front door. I doubted that actual living boxwoods would fare well with little to no sunlight under the porch roof and thought winter freezes would kill off anything in a container, so I bit the bullet and tried the artificial kind.

 I took out the sweet potato vine and Creeping Jenny that were growing in the containers during the summer and emptied out the dirt while Miss Pips supervised from inside.

I couldn’t find any reasonably priced boxwood topiaries that would survive the elements so I set out to fashion my own. I bought two indoor/outdoor plastic boxwood balls on eBay. My Dad provided two branches he trimmed from large oaks on my parents’ property earlier in the fall. These two branches became the “trunks” of my new topiaries. He then cut a board to length and screwed the trunks to the board.

The board helps stabilize the topiary in the container.

We put the dirt back in et voila…

All in all I think the faux boxwoods look pretty dang good even if they are big fat fakers. When Spring rolls around again I’ll plant some trailing flowers and vines to fill it out a bit. Bee Tee Dubs… I am still loving my nautical rope knot doormat.

Speaking of convincing fake plants, I spotted the below hanging on The Mount Inn, a pub in the Cotswolds.

They were so convincing that they had me scratching my head wondering how they watered them and how sunlight got to the balls’ nether regions. I had to go in for a closer look and, duh, they were totally fake!

I have been suuuuuuuuuuper busy with work this week so I don’t have much to say but I do have a lot of pretty pictures. Right now I am drawn to the juxtaposition of modern and more textured, aged elements. See below.

In this vein I found a little friend I want to bring home this weekend.

He is an old concrete garden statue who is supposed to be a lion. But, I think he’s a little more canine than feline. If I do end up picking him up this weekend his new assignment will be keeping guard underneath my glass console table. (Get it? A modern, sleek table juxtaposed with a crusty old lion/coyote.

I was looking for a vintage kilim rug and found this jaw-dropping beauty!

One gets a real sense of time passing with this piece. The natural dyes on the wool and cotton fibers have faded from use, light and age to give those gorgeous, muted and varied hues. Absolutely divine!

Unfortunately this one is a little steep for me. I have a few pillow covers made out of a similarly colored vintage kilim rug, which is a great way to get this look on a budget. My pillow covers are currently doing a rotation in the closet while Pippa puppy learns that there are things which just shouldn’t be chewed.

We’re full tilt Fall around here! Leaves have been raked and more are on their way down. There will be homemade chicken noodle soup bubbling away tomorrow while we hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters.

I think this Barbour jacket would be the perfect topper to a candy-hander-outter outfit.

These J Brand trousers would be just right.

These Loeffler Randall rain boots teamed up with chunky wool socks would be perfect to keep the chill and some of the wet weather we have been having lately out during beggar’s night.

Last year we handed out (okay, okay, I probably ate more than I actually handed out) some of these…

Mallow Cups! Have you ever had one? They are absolutely divine… milk chocolate and coconut flake cup filled with fluffy marshmallow creme! I even found a huge cache of them on sale the day after Halloween last year. I couldn’t locate any this year but will keep my eyes peeled after the big day. They taste even better when you know you got them for half off!

If you have a memory like an elephant, you may remember the sad cardboard boxes that were holding up my Nate Berkus lamps from this post.

Well… no longer!!!

Here is my new glass console table…

When I first conceived of the glass table I was focused on how it would provide a surface near the entrance for keys and mail, but at the same time keep the space clear visually. I did not, however, focus on how the icky yellow cords would be sooooo obvious. I am planning a solution that involves some pleated trim like so…

Hide the ugly cords with ruffles! Ruffles are totally less obvious, right?!?!

I love the result. The shades look a little shiny in these pictures, but that is a result of the flash. The shades are more a flat black linen. I have to work on the styling, and need a better place to keep Pippa’s leash. Speaking of Pippa’s leash, I want to get this one for her:

It’s the natural rope leash from Found My Animal.

While I’m at it, I think she would look cute for fall and winter in this watch plaid waxed cotton harness also from Found My Animal.

Oh, so I forgot that we went the Central Park and had a magical lunch at the Boathouse on Friday. How could I forget that?

rff÷∞     <—- This is a note from Pippa when she walked across the keyboard. I have no idea how she got that infinity symbol in there.

I started with delicious butternut squash soup at the recommendation of our waiter. Speaking of our waiter- he was totally awesome! He spoke so passionately  and in such detail about food and the items on the menu. He said that if he “developed a lafe-in-life allergy to tomatoes, he would probably jump in (gesturing to the little Central Park lake on which the Boathouse is perched) with cement shoes.” Kelly was entranced by his deferentiation between “lightly pulsed” and “pureed” and commented that all the foody talk was like dirty talk to her. Of course we all thought that was hilarious and didn’t let her forget it the rest of the trip.

Brooklyn and Kelly, accountants at work.

Cut back to Saturday.

We had dinner at Beauty and Essex. I wanted to surprise everyone with the restaurant as I heard the food is great and the atmosphere is even better. The restaurant is not in that great of a neighborhood and you enter the restaurant itself through a door in the back of a seedy looking pawn shop set up. Hello secret club! I had visions of taking everyone there and having them be like “What?!?! We are totally in the wrong place! I am not going in there!” FUN! Turns out Kelly had wanted to go to Beauty and Essex forever too!

The inside of the restaurant is gorgeous and the food was great! There’s even free champagne in the women’s restroom.

The only time I usually read tabloid magazines is in the airport or on the plane. What is it about travel that sparks the desire to consume crap? Later, while I we were waiting for the plane, I was super excited to see this little article in Star Magazine (I believe) stating that Beauty and Essex is Kim Kardashian’s new favorite restaurant. I had to wave it excitedly in front of B and yell out that we were cool as she returned from the restroom.

On Sunday we had a nice leisurely lunch at a cute colonial themed restaurant called Monument Lane.

After lunch we shopped around in the West Village. We saw some paparazzi with the long telephoto lenses. We looked to see who they were pointed at and it was Kiefer Sutherland from 24. I never watched 24 but celebrity sightings are always fun.

I purchased the below jeans from the Seven store. I know, not that exciting, but this marks my first pair of flares after the advent of skinny jeans. I have to get them hemmed so I am worried that they won’t be flares for too much longer.

We took a stroll on the Highline park later.

We ended the trip with a fun dinner with more of Kelly NYC friends at a teeny tiny little place called NOOK in Hell’s Kitchen. I have never had better tuna tartar. I don’t have pictures because I was too focused on conversation and the delicious food.

OK, so it totally seems like we spent most of our time eating, probably a fair assessment!

The weekend before last I went to NYC. A good friend who had lived there for a few years was moving out of the city. Of course we all had to get in one more good NYC weekend before she left!

This sign is not lying! We did a lot of eating and a little bit of shopping.

On Friday we popped into the Jonathan Adler store.

I love these little brass letter openers. I can’t decide which one I want more… peacock or squirrel.

I love this Jonathan Adler lamp. I like a lamp with a some bombast.

There’s Kelly and Brooklyn perusing the wares.

Love the Juju hat!

We also stopped by Club Monaco (which is exciting because we don’t have one here in Columbus). The lighting and their gallery walls caught my eye.

After a spot of shopping (and a brief Tony Danza sighting— “hold me closer Tony Danza”) we were ready for Kelly’s going away party at Prohibition Bar.

Things were a little crazy- the band was fantastic and the outfits were redic! It was great to see all of Kelly’s New York friends, some for the first time and some again.

On Saturday I peeled off from the group to meet up with another good NYC friend. If you are into houses, home, and design and haven’t been living under a rock, you have probably heard of her… Michelle Adams of Lonny Magazine. We met up at Tipsy Parson in Chelsea.

The place was adorable and the room we dined in was covered in John Derian plates and trays. Michelle said I had to check out the bathrooms. She was right (DUH!) the women’s was cute! I love the dark floral wall paper, the curved shield-shaped mirrors, and the industrial trough sink.

I was too focused on the gorgeous wallpaper and my scrummy burger with grits on top (don’t knock it til yoo’ve tried it) and forgot to get a picture wtih Michelle. So I’ll leave you with this one from a few years ago.

We stopped in at a little place called Nest after lunch.

The rain was awful later in the afternoon.

Ok… that’s a lot of pictures for one post. My computer is making that airplane takeoff fan noise. I’ll be back with the rest of the trip later.