lowelldown

Food:

In-home entertaining is on the rise as we turn our homes not into elegant formal eateries of the past (with formal dining room sit-down affairs) but with what I call the “bistro-effect.”   Plain white dishes and serving pieces from the local restaurant supply become the mainstay in American homes. The pricey dinner sets of the past are now being hung on walls as decoration since they never get much use anymore—that’s a good thing.   Remember a casual affair lowers guest anxiety and ramps up the fun quotient.

While the in-home entertaining idea and the Food Network have spawned a host of new home chefs in the kitchen — including men big time — there are still many who choose not to cook. So, local farmers markets and grocery stores are ramping up their pre-prepared food departments while food suppliers are helping by offering already-prepped foods that make entertaining far easier.   A few oversized plates heaping with rustic food placed on a kitchen island or the old dining room table as a buffet is the new entertaining style for the future.

Music:

Because of the ease of downloading and compact equipment, music takes a greater roll in tone of the get-together. With a new generation also discovering our old classic jazz, rock and pop icons, the digital play list becomes as vital as the menu.

Master Suites:

Those who said the bedroom should only be for sleeping didn’t have kids! In truth, the master bedroom will now mimic the boutique hotel suite.  Where once the low chest of drawers had a photo of grandma, now it sports the equivalent of a mini bar. An in-suite coffee maker, bottled-water, snacks and even wine allow parents the ability to have their own private “time-out.” That first morning cup of coffee can now be had before ever having to face the often chaotic mad-dash out the door morning.

Perpendicular Placement:

Taking the cues from great retail boutiques where thick, chunky cubby-style shelving, open on both sides, no longer goes up against the wall but perpendicular to it—thus creating instant alcoves and rooms within rooms. This not only amps up storage (with bins) and a display area but creates interest and even privacy spots in today’s open free-flow spaces.

Tabletop Mood Control:

With now-affordable decorative table lamps becoming the new accessory, table top dimmers have been redesigned to better help control the mood of the room as it transitions from tasking by day to lounging at night. Because of the many public spaces that make mood lighting their ‘thing’, this generation understands it’s seductive power.  So today’s tabletop lamp dimmers are smaller and far more discrete and cheaper then ever before.

Utilitarian Style:

The new look called “utility” has gone beyond stainless steel and wheels. It’s now a hybrid between the new ‘Steampunk’ style present in modern turn of the century movies like Hugo and a host of other Sci-Fi movies. A patchwork style use of various riveted metals on everything from coffee tables to chairs has been recently seen in some of the magazines ads of mainstream “Restoration Hardware.”

Rusted tin, distressed mirrors, pealing silver leaf, aged gold guild over modern streamlined objects are this generation’s nod to the past and a quasi-flea market look without the hassle.  Caution: It’s cool, but a little bit goes a LONG way. So choose your objects and their placement wisely or your home might look like Jules Vern’s 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Clocks:

Because of this Steampunk gear-heavy style, the oversized wall clock makes a comeback too…but in a very classic way. Simple carved chunky frames and aged Roman numeral faces in painted tin replace the pseudo French crackle finish over wood clocks of the recent past. Like the resurgence of classic framed mirrors in the home, it’s a non-gender specific wall adornment with function and architecture that both sexes are okay with.

If you’re diggin’ these forecasts let me know on Facebook and I’ll do a trend part 3!

Later,

CL

Design Forecast Part 1

It’s been a long haul. Many folks have now downsized. Those who owned homes now are renting for the first time, those still in their homes are beginning to rethink them in a whole new way.  Now, with greater focus and deliberate and conscious thought, many people feel that they have a lot more information to begin reshaping their lives and homes to fit these new priorities.

Lots of purging, repurposing and re-arranging is happening under many American roofs. This process has (also as predicted) actually brought out the innate creativity in many people who may simply have take how they once lived for granted.

The emerging trends we’re seeing are:

People are painting up a storm again. Rich earth-nature-spa-resort inspired colors are covering those white walls once again. Yellow-gold, warm grey, slate green, pale blue, eggplant, deep taupe, shale, warm deep tans and khaki, are taking the lead.

Small accent walls in vibrant colors are also making a comeback. Warm (yellow based) orange, deep plumb, periwinkle, chartreuse, chocolate brown and flannel grey are non-gender specific colors that both he and she are liking and painting small accent walls with blocks of color.

The chunky, oversized, architecturally framed mirrors (in black, silver, gold leaf, ash and mahogany) are replacing dated wall art as a way to visually open up space and reflect the room while adding timeless, movable architecture to spaces.

Media centers are moving back into living rooms…which are no longer reserved only for company. Big flat screens and compact components now allow media centers to set on credenzas or table surfaces like large picture frames versus enclosed in big media cabinets of the past. The wall mount is also trending huge. The swing arm has been better perfected so that the TV can be viewed now from various angles. But the price you save on less TV’s should be put towards a professional install.

The large backless modern settee is going strong. Now sofa sized, these upholstered pieces allow them to float between two furniture groupings where people can sit on both sides and when empty they don’t block views.

Lamps are the new tabletop accessories. With tabletop clutter now less desirable and designer lighting now very affordable, the lamp is often the only thing on the table.

Stacked crystal glass ball lamps with simple, modern geometric shades (in white or black) are trending well. In fact taller, more geometric inspired lamps of all kinds, are replacing the traditional urn or vase shaped ones of the past.

Area rugs are ruling over wall-to-wall carpet now: Wood or veneer floors (even in bedrooms) are doing the heavy lifting while area rugs now define conversation areas. Here we see a more textural-driven attitude in design versus the more vibrant approach of the past. Random leaf and nature patterns are hot and even the old oriental carpets have been toned way down and even ‘tea-stained’ to not dominate the space but simply provide more subtle pattern under foot.

I’ll have more for you in my next installment…

Bye for now!

CL

Hello All!

Well it’s 2012. 20-12 has a nice alliteration to it that I think is easier to remember. In so doing I can now move forward with the possibilities for a fresh new year and let the marginal aspects “lay where Jesus flung ‘em,” as a cowboy friend of mine says often.

My only real resolution this year is to have increased clarity and awareness.

If I’m in the moment and agenda-free, and let that inner-self speak, I then can recognize those little observations I might have otherwise missed because I was over-intellectualizing. Then I can shift the dynamic that creates little moments of change — small corrections –  that add up to bigger ones.

I find that if I ask for anything beyond ‘clarity,’ then that’s just me projecting what I think I want. Grasping, based on the past and leaving no space for moments in the moment to consider something new that has just been presented to me—something that (had my mind been elsewhere  — like in the future) –  I’d have missed entirely.

Sure I’d like to lose a few pounds, increase my drive, boost my creativity and passion…but those are not things I can get to from where I am—because I only know what I know now sitting here without revelation.

For that I have to simply start each day being grateful and humble and asking to be clear and see things (that may or may not be in my comfort zone) as they are—whether the ideas and thoughts are supported by the world around me or not.

Life should happen from the inside out.

So in turn I wish you all the blessing of clarity too. Because with it come all the other elements that help us to continue to shape our individual lives, moment by moment, until we one day we say to our selves,”Hey you know what? I’m actually okay. I feel the absence of fear now most of the time, and the power of spirit, heart, soul and and awakening self more of the time.

Life is not easy for smart people. We think way too much and inadvertently set ourselves up for things we only thought we wanted…

Note to brain, “Shut up!”

Let’s share this year together here is positive candor and observation all 14,000 of us.

Let’s use this forum to its greatest power!

Later,

CL

Hi Everyone,

Is it hard to believe that another year has passed? Well, it’s not like you didn’t see it coming!

You know, when I look back on the year now, I don’t look at physical accomplishments anymore. Rather, I look at what I learned. It’s hard to do unless you take notes throughout the year. I do this thing once a month; I have a journal note pad on my laptop  –  it’s where I jot down everything from those ah-ha moments to specific phrases that seem to resonate for me, even if I don’t know why. I list considerations, project ideas, and even letters I write to people…but never send. ..what?

Yes I often write to people about the truths I feel or observe…things I would not have the courage or heart to tell them in person. I find it clears the cobwebs and gets it straight in my mind as to how to deal with these people moving forward. Sure enough, I also find that because I’ve taken the time to write out exactly what I feel, but never send, that a level of kindness emerges and the things I thought bugged me somehow don’t, or I’ve put them into better perspective. I’ve noticed that while the letters never get sent, much of the topics I cover in them actually do surface in bits and pieces when I’m in conversation with these people in a far more measured, humane way than had I fired off a “TAKE THAT!” email that I would have no doubt regretted the moment I pressed ‘send’ and killed all further communication moving forward.

During the Christmas/New Years week I then review the notes and am always astonished at how much written there actually did seep into my head and get filed for future use. I look at those unsent letters and often find that over the course of the year, slowly but surely, most of the issues I listed were in fact dealt with regarding that person in a natural, honest way.

There are letters I write to God too…and then see how prayers have actually been answered in ways I’d never have thought of.   I see creative ideas that, in the form I expressed them, never were executed but in fact, bit by bit, worked themselves into other projects and concepts in a way very different from how I’d originally conceived them.

This year what also resonated to me the most was that I could see a far more aerial approach to my life beginning to emerge, if not dominate, my thinking. I liked that a lot. It told me that I was concentrating more on matters of the heart versus creative accomplishments than ever before.

The clincher phrase for me was this — that work is circumstantial and situational. It happens for a variety of reasons. While you meet with people to discuses their or your agenda, it’s never about the outcome of the meeting, or the hour spent in wagering your case. It’s about the moments and seconds of clarity. Being able to be relaxed enough to really observe what’s actually happening. No masterminding, no power plays, no needing to win or control the meeting’s outcome…no aggrandizing, nor defending…but the ability to be present and clear and generous.  In short, being the only guy in the room who does NOT have an agenda.

I noticed that this year it changed every meeting. It drew people out, getting them to tell me (for the first time) how I can really be of service to them. It took on a far more positive power then I or anyone else in the room knew.

The point? It’s not about having the answers, but in creating an environment where answers can emerge.

Have a very happy 2012!

CL

Hello Everyone,

Stressed much? It amazes me that only two years ago when the economy crashed people were destitute, shocked, dismayed and well…not happy. People then started making some really positive changes. They cut back here and there. They reprioritized by shifting their focus to what really mattered, thankful for what they had (perhaps) taken for granted. It seemed for a moment there that people were kind of getting the idea that quality of life had less to do with stuff and more to do with grateful contentment, even kindness. For many like myself, this is now a profound and soulful way of life. But for many others amnesia has set in.

Only a year later, we suddenly had the biggest Black Friday in the recent history of retail. People were lined up again for stuff—greedy violence broke out with pepper spray brawls and campers lined up out in the cold during their Thanksgiving Day just to get their hands on a big screen TV. What? Did I miss something?…is this what Americans do when the going gets tough? Spend MORE? Is the antidote to frustration going into deeper debt then ever before? Does the way we vent and be heard now come with a lay-away plan?

Even as I write this—with the already-huge retail haul this year, over 45% of Americans haven’t even started shopping yet??? OMG is all I can say.

However, just to put this into better balance, Time magazine announced the most important person of the year was…and it was no one we knew. Instead, the front cover bore the illustration of “The Protester”  — great people finding their real voice in the Occupy Movement (though I must say, I don’t know anyone who can specifically define what that movement is in three sentences or less). Still, not since the 70’s have young people taken to the streets to stand up and be heard on a national level—spending their time not busting down the door of their local Walmart but giving up their holiday to be present and accountable to a government that simply refuses to do their job and repair itself.

Is this the great divide which faces us in 2012? The unconscious and greedy versus those who have actually learned to live better with less? What will the incoming solders think when they return from a war that was victory-less?

Yet, here we are with many still scrambling to get that obligatory gift for people they can’t quite communicate with. That wrapped gesture that is somehow supposed to be the substitute for reaching out and being loving and kind and genuine…God forbid.

Well, I feel blessed that I have broken that cycle and traded the Christmas haul for being present and ‘there’ for those in need—on a year round basis. And I have met many others here in Santa Fe who continually give of their time without question. I’m blessed that I have a sister who gets it too…and close friends who worry that they’re not doing enough. I’m grateful that they will be in my life this coming year.

As I write in front of my window, the snow is frosting the adobe wall and the cottonwood branches beyond—all bathed in that icy blue fairy light. It’s beating against my widow, sending a howl down from the ceiling vent and with it a clean whiff of cold that passes the plaster front of the crackling fireplace. It hits the red chili peppers as they sway over my mantle.

A little handful of gifts sit on my coffee table with the flicker of the fire reflecting in their red metallic bows. Yes — after all my swag-bashing –  those few little gifts are in fact very special to me.

You see, for as long as I can remember, my sister, often times money challenged, has somehow found a way to send me a carefully put together gift bundle no matter where I am. It’s a tradition she took up after our mother died and Christmas doesn’t quite start for me until that package arrives.

Frankly it could be an empty box sitting on my stoop as long as it bears her name and address. Inside the dollar value is never the point at all, but the effort and the thought and the tradition and the reminder of her love for me is. And it is priceless. On Christmas Day, no matter where we are, I open the gifts while on the phone with her. And here’s the thing; it’s not a substitute for our friendship but in fact a confirmation of it. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not anti-gift at all as long as the gift in question means the same as the ones from my sister.

Have a Merry Christmas!

CL

Hey all! As you can see, we decided to run a holiday decorating contest. As you might remember I wrote about the topic recently about being a single guy at holiday time. The yearly debate for me is, “Do I decorate or not?” since chances are (with my schedule) no one but me (and a very few inside friends here in Santa Fe) will see my handy work. The question always comes up—“Is it worth it?”

I’m sure there are many of you with income and time challenges who are thinking the same thing too—well I know so because you told us – LOL!  So I thought if you were still on the fence about it, a contest here, where people actually would see the fruits of your labors, might inspire you. It might give you that creative push to help you decide…meaning that you can still have the essence of the holiday at home, and now others will in fact enjoy it with you, whether they ever step foot into your abode or not.

So we’re not looking for people who have transformed their homes into a holiday village. That’s not the point. Bigger is not better in this case. Since the submissions are photo-based, we’re looking for creative vignettes that tell your story in a single frame. The photo could depict something done on a sideboard, a small table, a banister or even a small tree or unique wreath….or even a display done in an unconventional spot in the home. It’s that one photo that if we placed it on the front of a holiday card, would tell your story and evoke the holidays and your meaning of this special time of the year in a single picture. So it can be traditional, quirky, silly, sentimental…whatever – it need NOT be more labor intensive—but more thought provoking!

You can do it!!!!

Happy holidays,

CL

Hi All,

You know we lifestyle experts start contributing holiday tips to the press in July/August! It’s hard to be emotionally invested in the middle of a sweltering summer as sweat drips onto the colored sugar to frost holiday fruit—or stains the satin ribbon for the Christmas tree shot. When the hot glue gun is the coolest thing in the room…So by the time the real celebration dates approach, we are kind of already gobble, gobbled and ho-ho-ho-ed out LOL.

For years when living in LA where seasons barely change, it was hard for me to re-do the holidays again just for me. But somehow here in Santa Fe, when that first snow falls and the ‘cozy’ factor is heightened and the whole town suddenly looks like a Christmas card, you can’t help but get into the mood that’s all around you.

This year my sister and her husband, Ben, came to Santa Fe for the first time from Florida. They arrived the day after Thanksgiving.  Laura, being a New Englander at hear,t was actually wishing that she’d see snow but was about a week shy of the first blizzard.  Still, the crisp air, people in hats and scarves and red chilly pepper wreaths everywhere, put her in the mood and we had a blast together.

When they both left, there was the natural pang of wishing she’d be here for Christmas (sorry I know that’s not Politically Correct, but what can I tell ya?) I was then back to the age-old dilemma;   Being alone, do I decorate now or not? So much of the decorating process for me is the anticipation of other’s enjoying the artistic expression and there are just certain things that a single person learns not to do—like eating at the dining room table with 10 empty chairs…I mean, you’re asking to play the lonely card, dig?

I then, coincidently, started getting calls for other single friends in the same boat who were actually feeling a little depressed, along with a few parents who felt ostracized from their kid’s now-busy lives.  When they sought my advice I knew it was a slippery slope. They know that I’ve always been a bit of a loner, so the idea of holidays alone really never bothered me and they wanted to know my secret.

See, increasingly it seems my generation are losing loved ones or find themselves on opposite sides of the country. Many have really never gotten past those Norman Rockwell ideals. I also know that some of them want the ideal but frankly can’t get along with family for more then a day—perhaps because their unrealistic expectation is an over-reach.

Others I know become martyrs like something out of the old movie ‘Stella Dallas’ where Barbara Stanwick watches her daughter through the window from the cold and snowy street. Puh-leeze!

You know, during my many years traveling in the theater at Christmastime in strange towns, where stores were closed and home was a suitcase, I’d get myself gussied up and go to the fanciest hotel I knew at about 4:30-5:00 PM — somewhere that I knew would be decorated to the hilt and had a busy lobby and a festive lounge area.  I’d enjoy watching other out-of town people coming and going with their Christmas packages, meeting each other for a festive glass of champagne or hot holiday drink. The mood was always upbeat, people seemed nicer than usual and one could say, “Happy Holidays” to perfect strangers and get the same response back with a nice smile.

That usually led to the question, “So where are you from…?” And before I knew it, I was having a wonderful time. Often I’d later dine with those I met and sometimes even got invited to their friend’s in-town holiday celebrations.   I met people there with whom I’m still in contact with as a matter of fact — like-minded people who were making the very best of the situation. Meeting each other in the spirit of the holiday versus the sad regret of Christmases past or harboring judgments toward family members or, well,…all the emotional baggage that can seethe under the surface with selfish ‘agenda’.

I guess my point is, that the holidays are a state of mind — and that in every town there’s a place where you can express good cheer and make your own holiday memories — if you want to — in the genuine act of saying to a perfect stranger, “Happy Holidays,” at a hotel, a midnight mass, a homeless shelter…whatever — you are out in the world spreading cheer.

“Peace on earth, good will towards MAN” is sometimes better then peace on earth good will towards Aunt Sylvia whom you never liked and who can’t stand you!

Blessings are everywhere if you but choose to look for them.

Cheers!

CL

One of the things I do a few days before a holiday is get on my email and pop off a quick note to people I don’t hear from often in my contact list. Not a big Thanksgiving from me filled with the platitudes of the season–just a quick “Been thinking about you, Love, peace, growth, joy and gobble, gobble.”

I’m always amazed at not only the quick responses, but the things you discover about where people are and what they’re up to. One such surprise was from my dear friend Frances Shultz–a regular on my TV show for years and my NY editor for three of my books. I try to see here now and then when our schedules match up but I’d not seen here for quite some time. She’s a wonderful writer herself, has great taste and has contributed to many of my favorite home magazines – which is where I first met her – doing Veranda Magazine….Anyway she’s started a new blog which you all might want to check out! Some great thanksgiving moments..

http://www.francesschultz.com/1126

Bookmark her!

Later,

CL

When I was a kid, Veterans day used to conjure images of elderly men, squeezed into whatever part of their uniforms that could still fit in, sitting curb-side at a parade.  To say there was a ‘disconnect’ was an understatement.  When I was in high school and eligible for the Viet Nam draft, suddenly the connection was very real.  And the grainy newsreels on TV were horrifying. We seniors all had our draft cards and waited with every mail delivery for our dreams to be dashed and our lives to completely change or even end.

Today with thousands of GI’s about to return home and the media now covering every moment of the war, we should somehow be far more connected then we’ve ever been.  And yet for many kids today it’s still something that’s happening “over there.”  And without a draft, they often think that the fate of ‘professional military’ comes with the territory.  When in fact volunteering to keep our shores safe is one of the most noble, courageous and selfless act that few American’s are even up to considering.

I hope that when the solders come marching home this time, that we do our very best to make their lives and their families even better then our own.  They deserve it even if we often don’t.