sometimes some fresh pillows and a few lamps are all you need to make your house feel like home... whenever we find lots of the same thing in a home, we group them. these roosters are happier together. the only downside of this is, people notice and think... "hey, she loves roosters" and then they buy you roosters until you have a whole hen house and you have to explain... "look, i don't really LOVE roosters. my designer just has this grouping theory... so please stop buying me roosters, already." or something. sorry 'bout that. see how happy they are on her handed down sideboard and by her favorite painting? the coffee table is really a dining table with the legs cut shorter. hehehe... all their stuff. just found. and grouped... can't wait to show you the fun kid's office we redesigned for this happy family!
xo... christina for all by christina britt lewis and tim lewis photography by deborah triplett someone i love has a big decision to make, so she texted me for my thoughts. i texted back the first words that came to mind... do hard and scary things. never be boring. reject the status quo. do the opposite of what everybody else does. do not go gentle into that good night. rage, RAGE against the dying of the light. i am with you. words from my mom. words from dylan thomas. words from TED talks. TED talks are how i procrastinate. i can lose whole afternoons listening to brene brown talk about how if we follow anyone home, whether they live in charlotte or boston, and we sit at their dinner table and talk to them about their mother who has cancer or their child who is struggling in school, and their fears about watching their lives go by...we are all the same. or glennon doyle melton talk about showing up even when we are scared. or kathryn schulz talk about how if we really want to rediscover wonder, we need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other...look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say wow. i don't know. maybe i'm wrong. or elizabeth gilbert talk about how when we just do our job...when we continue to show up for our piece of it, no matter what that might be...sometimes we get a glimpse of God. candice langston brought TED to charlotte five years ago. i found out too late to apply for a ticket. so i crashed. my friend, karin solomonson, had applied to be a volunteer so i just showed up with her and offered to help. somebody gave me a t-shirt and we got to welcome people to the first TEDxCLT all morning long. nobody was more psyched than we were. i have not missed a TEDxCLT since. they are always brilliant and moving and important and make me proud we picked charlotte to be our home. ours is a warm city full of world changers and status quo antagonists. it is not lost on me that we left boston to live in a place where everybody knows your name. when mike followthisman watson put out a call for TEDxCLT 2014 volunteers, i was probably the first to respond. next thing i know, winn maddrey called and asked us to design the stage. YES! fell out of my mouth before i remembered we had never designed a stage before. it had to be killer. it had to be cheap. and it had to be installed in an hour. i was terrified. so i called tracy grubbs who designs stages for a living. she rethinks, recycles, and redesigns what already exists to create something out of seemingly nothing. she is a kindred spirit. the theme for TEDxCLT 2014 was RENEWAL. this is what we came up with... ...one of the most visual representations of renewal is seen in architecture...stairs reflect the renewing of oneself, others, the situation or environment for the sake of progress. a collection of stairs and ladders represent the different paths we take to renew ourselves and our world. we will also create a seating area for mike watson that further reflects renewal. a classic chair, modern table, and a newly sprouted live plant lit by a vintage bulb hanging from a ladder represent where we come from, where we are going, and how we get there. we agree with bill bryson, “it is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” they liked that. but they wanted a sketch. we are the most deliberately undesignerly designers there are. we don't sketch. our proposal literally says this... to redesign is to come to your home and arrange furniture, hang art, and accessorize with your things all in just a day. plan to spend the day of your redesign away from your home for 8-10 hours. it’s best for you to see the rooms as a complete whole rather than piece by piece and it’s best for us to kick off our shoes, turn up the avett brothers, and be free to create in solitude. at the end of the day, you will love coming home. WE DON'T SKETCH! so tim sat down and did the best he could and then we said this about that... attached is a very rough, not to scale, sketch. our art is creating a fabulous stage, not drawing a fabulous stage. we hope it gives you enough of a feel to be as psyched as we are. we hit send and waited to be fired for not being good enough. but you guys, they totally didn't fire us. then this happened... mike watson, ladies and gentlemen this really happened the brilliant and oh so sassy, tracy grubbs big love and sloppy kisses and deep gratitude to... angela and kelly who run the redesign company while we run around doing hard and scary things jason wishnefsky who is our hero kate kestler who designed and redesigned and built the stairs like a boss steve knight for writing this and everything else nick fry who found the ladders deborah triplett who captured every important moment wendy fishman who manages the heck out of a stage i tell you this little TED tale so you know...
don't wait until you know what you are doing. for us, that day has never come. don't wait until you feel ready and not terrified. for us, that day has never come. don't wait until you feel good enough. for us, that day has never come. i used to think other people had it all figured out, but now i know we are all the same. do hard and scary things. never be boring. reject the status quo. do the opposite of what everybody else does. do not go gentle into that good night. rage, RAGE against the dying of the light. we are with you, tim and christina by christina britt lewis photography by angela statzer were you wondering what that pretty pink pouf was all about in the background at the kenmore avenue master bedroom redesign? it's not everyday we get to redesign a sewing room. we think you are going to love this lamp as much as you love those angel wings... i know, right? the best part of this little redesign story is...
you can have those angel wings and that lamp too. and all kinds of other fabulousness made with love by people we love. and you get to pick which good cause you want your purchase to support! ...the redesign company shop coming soon! xo... christina for all by christina britt lewis photography by angela statzer you know we love to use what you already have, but sometimes what you already have just doesn't feel like you anymore. i'm finding this in my own home. a magazine is coming to shoot our happy little home, our notsobig back yard, and our teen cave. A MAGAZINE! i was freaking out a little. so i did what everybody should do... i hired the redesign company to help me love what i already have and also to let go of the things that don't feel like me. angela and kelly came over and walked through my house with me like i was a real client. i wondered if they would have trouble telling me the truth, but they didn't. hehehe... it was AWESOME! our master bedroom needed the most help. i was trying to build a room around these 2 flowery chairs that i got for next to nothing at world market. i love those chairs. those chairs got us into apartment therapy! but they don't feel like me. at all. i am not so...flowery. so after helping me see all the ways the room could come together with the chairs and me not being psyched about it, they recommended i pass on the chairs to somebody who will love them more and start over. peace and freedom flooded my soul. suddenly i saw i could have the navy and white and gold bedroom i wanted for less than i imagined. there may have been some happy dancing at this point. just like when we helped this beautiful couple see that passing on their inherited bedroom furniture would flood their souls with peace and freedom too... then this other thing happened... i was feeling like my stuff wasn't good enough for A MAGAZINE! and i really needed some new stuff (our bedrooms all look like we just moved in. it's sad.) i felt like i should buy fancy, trade only, designerly things like you usually see in magazines. AND THEN my phone buzzed and i answered without looking, which i NEVER do! and instead of hearing tim's sexy voice like i was expecting, i heard this sweet southern drawl. she went on and on about how she was searching for this fancy, trade only, designerly fabric. she knew it would be about $100 per yard. she finally found it, the linens in lily's room. she wanted to buy that fabric from me, a...ahem...designer. as i told her... that fancy, trade only, designerly, $100 per yard, custom made looking, bedding that you love... was $39.99 at homegoods. high end look at a low end price is what i do best, sister. i realized i was saying words i needed to hear. and i wondered if the others could hear her or if she was my own personal angel. how many other holy moments have i missed because i was so caught up in my own drama? God still speaks, people. sometimes in a sweet southern drawl. i'm telling you people,
if you feel like your stuff isn't good enough and you just don't know what to do to make your house feel like the home you hope for. angela and kelly are design therapy. after an hour or so with them, peace and freedom will flood your soul. this i know. xo... christina for all her home is one of our favorites. they are fun and spunky and happy, so their porch had to be fun and spunky and happy... how crazy fabulous is that rug? it's indoor/outdoor. you could totally hose it off if it got red wine on it or whatever. spools are the new pallet. somebody tweet that. we forgot to take a feet shot on that gorgeous rug.
so here ya go... |