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Two of my biorhythms are down today. It’s one of those ‘I just feel crappy and I want to go back to bed’ days so I went online and checked. Yup, physical and intellectual are down, but at least emotional is up. So I can laugh. Around May 17 it’s even worse, so you’ll want […]
I recently posted about good design and what I’m willing to pay for it. It matters. But does it make people happy? And what about the happiness of the designers who create the design? Are they happy? Happy Clients A couple of nights ago a residential client of mine invited me to a small gathering […]
I know…..this is not a lifestyle site and I don’t usually write about things that won’t interest the genders equally, but Elizabeth Street Cosmetics is a local company (Noe Valley people!) and I love Kelly’s lipsticks. I don’t wear anything else ever. It feels as good as my cherry chapstick. And if the lips are […]
I’m up to my eyeballs in taxes today, so am just posting a few links that I’ve enjoyed from around the web. Hope you do too! Miss Ko Check out the latest from Philippe Starck. Miss Ko (the restaurant) was branded by GBH and designed by Philippe Starck and lies smack dab in the middle of Paris […]
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how it […]
I love books. Not just reading, but actually the books themselves. I buy books everywhere and keep them forever…even my grandmother’s 1953 Encyclopedia Brittanica collection. Growing up we had 2 massive bookshelves in our family room and my mom was an avid reader. As a teenager I preferred laying on the rug under the […]
15 years ago we bought the ugly duckling house on the beautiful block. All we saw was the charm and potential of our little Victorian. Based on what little bit of research I’ve done, our house was probably built in the 1880s by two young Irish brothers named McElnay. The original footprint was a single […]
I cannot imagine a better person on a project team than someone with synesthesia. As a designer and a writer it’s always my goal to engage as many senses as possible in whatever experience I’m trying to create. So someone whose senses are already intertwined would be an awesome asset. Do you know a synesthete? […]
Elizabeth Gilbert gave this moving TED talk a few years ago about creativity and ideas and where they come from. She posits that, in order to protect the person from what comes after a great burst of creativity, we might better view creativity in ways similar to the views of those who came before the […]
The newest addition to the Radisson Blu group in the US, the Radisson Blue Warwick Hotel, just opened in Philadelphia. They utilized one of my favorite design elements to engage their guests: words. The project, created by Scotland based Graven Images, uses words on the lobby carpet to express the historical role that Philadelphia played […]
If you’ve been reading Parti* Notes (my newsletter and blog) for any length of time you know that I’m a bit of a Daniel Patterson groupie. I’ve eaten at his restaurants, bought his cookbook, follow him around when he speaks, and scavenge the restaurant rags for any item pertaining to the esteemed DP. Steve and […]
I think that most of us want to be happy and successful (whatever our version of success is), and some of us aspire to wealth as well. So the lists I’ve posted over the last few days share the wisdom (hopefully) of others’ research into the habits we need to develop to get there. The […]
Before I could begin the search for a list of habits of successful people, I had to define for myself what success is. My definition of success, at least for this purpose, is from the free online dictionary: the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. So here we are in this life trying to […]
George Carlin says that trying to be happy by accumulating things is like trying to conquer hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body. Love that quote. Of course it’s full of truth that I sometimes neglect when walking by the shoe department. There is an actual psychology of happiness and doctors who have been […]
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. Actually I am….I feel kind of creepy. My parents were both depression era babies so I grew up in a home that was very thrifty, where happiness was based on things that had nothing to do with the things that money can buy. Although we were […]
At the core I am a story teller. I’ve been designing commercial interiors for over twenty-five years and writing for much longer than that.
When I’m not working on a project I’m creating note cards, jewelry, a better way to get through daily chores, my own stories both true and not so much, a new garden, furniture, recipes. And most importantly relationships….with family, friends and clients. I live in San Francisco with hubby, one small dog, three chickens and a son and daughter who come and go, and spend a great deal of time texting my children.
~Leslie