Chinoiserie, sconces, marble floors....oh my!

"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort"
-Franklin Roosevelt 

Starting in Feb. I am going to be doing monthly giveaways! In Feb. I will be giving away 2 fabulous needlepoint floral pillows (same private label company that sells to Pierre Deux) Subscribe/follow me so you have a chance to win! More details to follow............


Good morning, hope your day is fabulous...today in NY they are calling for more snow...fun. I am personally way over winter at this point and its just begun. I am a summer/spring/fall girl at heart, anything but winter!   Anyway, as my decisions start to come together, one which I am very excited about working on is my dining room. We have a beautiful wall of mahogany french doors that leads to the back terrace,a beautiful fireplace wall where a marble Louis XVI mantle will be placed and lots of sconces throughout. Its a large gracious dining room, about 21x29. I have decided to go with a chinoiserie paper and am looking at Gracie, Paul Montgemory and DeGournay. I am looking to have the paper made in a pale blue/green field with touches of beige's,golds,greens and a spotting of red. 


A few patterns I love are below. ......the ones shown are all from Gracie Papers. I went to their design studio about eight months ago and it was such an incredible treat...the really have such amazing things.  Check out their magnificent array of reproduction and antique chinoiserie panels...truly exquisite. (www.graciestudio.com)

Then we move on to lighting....I love the sconces from Decorative Source in Greenwich, CT. I bought a lot of lighting for my old house from them and their things are timeless and elegant. I am going  to order a bunch of sconces, as we need so many and I love the lighting achieved with sconces and lamps (prefer minimal use of high hats/overhead lighting except for task lighting like in the kitchen,bathroom,etc....)....LOVE their line of lighting! Check out their lighting and accessories, they import from Europe and China and really have exquisite things....www.decorativecrafts.com

Moving on......I am in the throws of also selecting the flooring for our foyer and hallway which runs the entire width of the house and front to back. I have decided on the traditional limestone with dots placed on the diagonal. I am going for a french limestone which is very quiet almost no movement and very subdued. In my old house  I had it with the classic black (it is shown in my original post) but I am considering this time around going with the limestone with a gold/taupe colored marble/stone. It happens to be gorgeous and very french indeed. My husband is not as keen on it however and something tells me we will end up going the black dot route. Nevertheless here are a few pictures I have collected over the years, I only list where I got them if I happen to know but many of these pictures I have had in my online album way before I knew I was going to start an online blog (otherwise I do like to give credit where it is due) Let me know if you have a favorite! 

This was out of Connecticut homes and gardens and looks a lot like my previous floor 

Love the classic checkerboard but my husband is not a fan

 we

A fabulous foyer from a Maurice Fatio house from the Douglas Newby website...... this is so stunning and an example of the limestone with the taupe colored marble as opposed to the black

Same floor by the staircase as the Maurice Fatio house above

Another very similar floor, this one I took a picture of a showhouse in Boston

From Paris Ceramics, this rondele design is very similar to one we will use in our foyer

Another option

The classic..it is certainly quite beautiful!

Very pretty the way it was boxed out here in this foyer

Wish I could remember where I got this picture...would love to see the rest of this stunning home!

This was an ad out of a fashion magazine, and again I was drawn to the gold/taupe colored marble with the limestone...its monochromatic yet so elegant and a little different

So that concludes my post today, hope you all have a fabulous day. Talk to you tomorrow!