making the shelter mags real

I love magazines. All kinds. Shelter, fashion, food. I subscribe to at least a dozen and I eat them up when they come. I'm a very visual person.

House Beautiful is one of my top three favorites. I love the photo above and tore it out when it was in the mag. There is a lot in this photo that I can't possibly replicate... not now, anyway. The windows, room scale, quality of the furnishings, etc. That doesn't mean that the rest of us can't find inspiration there, however.

I am very attracted to this color palette. It's very soothing and clean, free of lots of pattern and excessive ornamentation. What pattern is there, is of a scale that appeals to me and tends to be more of the tone-on-tone variety (like the screen). When you run across a photo like this one that appeals to you, figure out how you can convey the gist of the look while working on a budget.

For instance, the vase above pictured on eBay right now is a nice stand-in for the one in the pic. It provides a needed punch of color on that dark table.