Hollywood Regency Done Well

The Los Angeles Times has a feature on a Hollywood Regency today that looks very liveable and well-done.

Check it out here.

Source: LA Times

Where to Shop & Eat in LA

We've been meaning to share with you our favorite list of where to shop and eat in LA. It occured to us whenever we travel--that how nice it would be to have someone shares the local spots--as if they were your friend.

Well, we'd like to consider you our friend, and here is our short list:

Where to shop for home furnishings:

Most of the home furnishing stores are located in the West Hollywood/Melrose area--but our favorites is Weego, which is located in Santa Monica. Their stuff is very much our style, fresh and fun and colorful. Decently-priced too..

Another fabulous store is Grace Home in Brentwood. In fact this is our favorite store in all of LA. It's small but it's done very well. Pricey though.

Where to shop for clothes

For clothes/shoes shopping, the better stores are located on Robertson Blvd/Melrose Blvd. Rodeo Drive is actually quite boring and stuffy.

A great place for outlet shopping is the Camarillo outlet, which is about 30-40 minutes from LA. Here you'll find some very high-end stores like Saks, Neiman Marcus, Dolce & Gabana. Shop wisely though. Not everything is a bargain.

Where to eat

For eating, our favorite thing to do in the world, a marvelous place to try is Beechwood in Marina Del Rey. Their sweet potatoes fries and Angus burger are to die for. So yummy.

Gjelina on Abbott Kinney in Venice opened about a year ago and got rave reviews. The food is excellent.

For amazing Chinese food, try the San Gabriel/Abraham area. Check the LA Times food section for the latest spots.

For Vietnamese food, you'll have to drive down little Saigon off Bolsa in Anaheim.

What to do:

A very LA thing to do, is to see a classic movie at the Hollywood Cemetary in the summer. Click here for movie schedule.

Go rollerblading along Santa Monica & Venice. You can go for miles, and the people watching part is a blast.

Have a drink at Shutters or Casa Del Mar and watch the sunset... At night, go to the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica and have a drink by the pool while laying beneath the palm tree. It's a marvelous bar at night. Beautiful & young crowd.

For updated listing of things to do, check out Caroline on Crack, an LA blog.

Would you like to share your list? We'd love to have it! Please send us your favorite spots in your town, with some pictures if possible, and we'll publish it.

Julie and Julia -Living the Dream

Did you see Julie & Julia this weekend? It's a terrific movie. We strongly recommend it.

The movie, as you know, is about the parallel lives of Julia Child and the blogger who blogged about cooking with her cookbook. The movie is about food and cooking, obviously, but to us, the main theme is do what you love and the rest will follow.

The story of Julie Powell is truly a Cinderella story. The chance of a blogger being picked up for a book deal AND a movie deal is like, shall we say, the same chance of wining the lottery. Technorati estimates that there are 133 millions blog out there. Now, most of them are about what people eat for lunch, but there are some amazing blogs that are written with such care and love. You can tell that they are written by the people who are truly passionate about their subjects...

If after seeing the movie and totally loving it, you might want check out these food blogs. They are our faves...

Orangette
Chez Pim
101 cookbooks

Moroccan Decor from Zodax

We love to travel. Well, that's like saying you like to walk on the beach, isn't it? Who doesn't like to travel? It's one of those things that just open you up to all kind of possibilities.

One of the places we've been dreaming about is Morocco. It seems so exotic, doesn't it? Morrocan style decorating is big too. If it is done well, it's a wonderful look.

Here are some Morroco-inpsired home accessories from Zodax. They need some colors mixed in (deep jewel-tone, preferably). We'll follow up with a post on that later...

This line is really inexpensive. The web site is Zodax.com, but it is to the trade only and is password-protected, sorry. Drop us a line if you need help though..

PS If you are interested, here is a travel article on Morocco from the NY Times.

Very Pretty (and Very Inexpensive) Decorative Pillows from Surya

Are you a bargain hunter? We are. But we are not the digging type though. We have friends that love outlets and closeouts and the likes, but we prefer to get things that are new, nicely packaged, and in perfect condition when we get them, at a great price, of course.

This is why we really like this pillow collection from Surya. They are only sold in pair, but they are so inexpensive, like $40-50 per pillow including shipping!

Here are some really pretty ones:













You'll find these soon under our decorative pillows section (by the end of this weekend. Just remember to flip toward the end a bit...

PS For those who really, really like to dig, check out propertyroom.com. It's a site that sells unclaimed goods and there are some great bargains there, particularly for jewelry and electronic goods.

More Hollywood Regency Furniture from Worlds Away

A few years back when we saw Worlds Away for the first time, they only make these funky headboards and table covers. But my, how things have changed. We just saw their new products recently and we were quite pleasantly surprised.

If you are into the Hollywood Recency look, you might like them as well. The furniture is very chic and modern, yet moderately-priced.

Here are pictures for some of them:

This is a great nightstand. It comes in white and brown. Retails for $1095 or so...


Love this cabinet, don't you? Shown here in white, it's available in lime-oak as well. Retails for about $3000.
This is a cute side table/plant stand...
We use this as a console table for the hallway. It also comes in a nickel finish. Retails for about $1200.
This is a nice change from a typical sideboard. We use it as a TV console. Retails for about $2500.







To see more products, visit WorldsAway web site...

Pretty Fabrics & Wallpapers from Romo

We were at a hospitality show in Vegas sometime last year when we saw the fabrics and wallpapers from Romo. Have you heard of them? It's an English company that makes divine fabrics and wallpapers. In fact, if you think about it, most of the very cool wallpaper and fabric manufacturers are UK-based.

Here are some examples from the line. The colors and textures are just amazing.









This line is pretty pricey, but it's so worth it.

To see more of the line, visit the Romo web site. They only sell to the trade though, so if you need help, send us a line...