home style with the new york housewives

“Word on the street” is that the Real Housewives of New York have already been busy filming season 10 and not only that, but a few of them have been busy redecorating their homes and getting their homes ready for the holidays. The best news of all for me is that the entire season 9 cast is back this year!  

So let's get started...

Firstly, I have to apologize for this being a bit of a long post today, but there's a lot to cover! These women have been busy!

One of my favorite things about watching the Real Housewives is checking out their homes, and my all-time favorites are New York and Beverly Hills! 

I also love that most of them own more than one home.

In addition to their city apartments, lofts or townhouses, several of the NY gals have homes in the Hamptons. And then of course, there’s Dorinda with her fabulous Berkshires mansion! 

Luann’s Hamptons home has recently appeared in Architectural Digest so we can take a sneak peek at its recently zhushed-up interior.

As you can see, Luann replaced the red patchwork cow head in her kitchen with one of her antique mirrors.

This really is a favorite spot for her to pose,

isn’t it?

Here’s a little real action in the kitchen with Sonja,

during filming and seen on Instagram.

Here’s Luann, her son and her niece out on the front porch of her Sag Harbor home. This 19th century Greek Revival house is quite a little gem!  

Do you recognize the kitchen from the show? 

I love how bright and airy it is!

Yum, Yum!

Did they take one of these dining room mirrors

into the kitchen just for the AD photo shoot?

Maybe...

Here’s Lu singing and partying with Sonja

in her dining room, possibly during filming of RHONY…  

A peaceful view out back.

Here’s where she sat with Andy Cohen

for her post-divorce interview.

Sonja and Lu single and ready to mingle!

This little sign is so funny after what happened

 last season to Luann in Mexico!

Here's another pretty view of the back of Luann's home.

And now on to Dorinda...

She's been super busy promoting Home Goods 

and with all the excitement of the holidays,

I don't blame her!

Who would turn down getting your whole apartment

decked out for Christmas courtesy of Home Goods?

If you follow Dorinda on Instagram,

you’ve probably seen all of her fun

Home Goods insta-stories and posts.

Don’t you just love her?

Her tree does look very pretty…

Here’s Dorinda’s dining room in the city, but what I really can’t wait to see is her Berkshires dining room. I hope all the ladies get to spend lots of time there this season.

Shopping at Home Goods is always a good time!

Bethenny has great style too, and news broke just this week that she purchased a second home in the Hamptons. She’s becoming quite a real estate mogul as well as Skinny Girl mogul. 

Don’t forget she has a new real estate show coming to Bravo soon with Fredrik Eklund. (BTW, Fredrik and his husband just welcomed twins into the world this week, a boy and a girl!)

Simple holiday décor is the best way to go in Bethenny’s New York apartment. Don't you just love the white tree and fluffy stockings? 

Fabulous “Skinny Girl" red highlights Bethenny’s front door and it also plays a big part in accenting the rest of her Hamptons home.

 Such charm in the Hamptons!

Here’s the front of Bethenny’s new Hampton’s home, not far from her other weekend home. This former bed and breakfast may be a new business venture for her.

I can’t wait to see how she renovates, decorates and designs the inside of this home.

How about making this a vacation home for wayward housewives? Lol.

Bethenny’s a big fan of TJ Maxx and Home Goods too, so I hope she shares some of her decorating tips with all of us!

And we can’t forget about Ramona (and her contractor Mario)… She just renovated her lower east side apartment last season and it was a HUGE improvement. Now she’s working on updating her Hamptons home. This is a little peek she just shared on Instagram.

Carole is always on top of the most fabulous design trends and her home also recently appeared in Architectural Digest.

Tinsley recently moved into her own place after breaking up with boyfriend, Scott and finally moving out of Sonja’s townhouse. We’ll have to see what her place looks like!

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of RHONY. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills starts up again on December 19th, and until then, I’ll anxiously be awaiting the latest design updates from the BH gals!  Who are your BH  housewives faves? 

ciao! fabiana

photo credit:

Architectural Digest, People, Instagram

vacation highlights and styling projects

A typical sunrise at our beach in Sea Pines.

Summer vacation is over, and I really miss it. It's like we snapped our fingers, and it vanished into thin air! Over... so quickly. That's the way it goes with these sorts of things, I guess.

This year's two week vacation was spent at our home in South Carolina. Our first week there was dedicated mostly to DIY projects and updates in the house. 

We try to maintain the original 1968 style of the home but at the same time bring it up to more modern standards with the use of fresh paint and coastal accents.

 

Located on Hilton Head Island, our home is second row from the beach so coastal style and accessories are a must, but at the same time, we try to keep it from looking too kitschy.

 

Since we're only able to get out there for about two weeks a year, the rest of the time, the home is available on VRBO for vacation rental. 

The laundry room wall is updated with a variety of vintage baskets.

It’s been two long years since we’ve been able to travel back east, so the house needed major attention! 

We hired a painter to help us spruce up the fence, repaint the kitchen cabinets, walls and all the doors for a much overdue facelift. We tackled the more fun jobs like adding new artwork, accessories, bedding and organizing the kitchen.

An easy way to add texture and coastal charm to a room is to display a collection of baskets on the wall. 

The photo above shows our laundry room. It’s the first room that guests see when they come through the carport door, so we wanted to make it fun.

 

Most of the round baskets are thrift store finds that cost between 50 cents and $2, and I also found a couple of nice ones at Home Goods.

The wall of coat hooks is perfect for hats, bags and beach towels. We actually put that together over 15 years ago, and it's proved to be a great addition and very user friendly. 

 These vintage travel posters were thrift shop finds.

We traded out some tired artwork for bright and more appropriate beach house art and sprinkled in some new pillows and other goodies throughout the house.

 

The Savannah brick fireplace is original to the house.

The living room is a big, bright and cozy room. We simplified the look, added a few fun accents, and reupholstered two vintage slipper chairs. The bookcases did need some attention, though.

Spotted these at a consignment store, but they weren’t cheap.  

We needed a pair of vases or urns to fit into the top of the bookcases that feature arched openings. After scouring several thrift stores, Home Goods and consignment stores, we found the perfect pair.

This pair of vases were the perfect size, shape and color 

for the top of the bookcases.

I also restyled the books in a more informal manner and only used books that were in blue, green, beige, white and black tones.

 Lowcountry Produce is our favorite restaurant in Sea Pines.

Even though the DIY stuff did seep its way into our second week of vacation time, we did spend some nice beach days and dining time with our boys. Biking and fishing are also favorite activities.

This is the view from our favorite high-top table.

Here’s a peek at our top choice for dining, Lowcountry Produce. It’s really close to our home, and the food is always good. It’s more of a breakfast and lunch place, but they are open a few nights for dinner.

 

Besides the great food and surroundings, they have a relaxing playlist of music, mostly good 80’s songs. 

Their homemade baked goods are out of this world. Amazingly delicious giant peanut butter chocolate chip cookies always seemed to make their way home with us.

 

Our friend Tad came to visit us one weekend and brought his portable pizza oven, so we each got to make our own custom pizzas, which was really fun! The most unusual one we made was topped with mango pineapple salsa and local shrimp, yum!

 

Pizza night was finished off by warm plum pie from Lowcountry Produce, served à la mode, of course!

Our time in Hilton Head was really busy with all the projects we had to do, so there was no time to visit Savannah this time around. I was looking forward to visiting my favorite store and coffee house, The Paris Market, but it’ll have to wait until next time.

 

One funny thing is that while perusing The Paris Market on Instagram, I noticed that they carry a few tablecloths by Pacific & Rose!

 

The REALLY cool thing is that their website features some of the photos I styled and photographed… it's so funny how the world revolves, and then comes back compounded with the things you love most!

 

Among the pile of mail that was waiting for us when we arrived home was the new October/November issue of Cottages & Bungalows.

 

It was fun to see the little Laguna Beach project I styled back in March. We actually styled a summer look first that you can see HERE, and then we put together this quick outdoor vignette for fall.

 

We used the homeowner’s existing furniture, rugs and pillows, and I brought in the pumpkins, baskets, plaid throw, orange feather napkins, and HELLO PUMPKIN pillow.

After moving some things around, the pretty orange Birds of Paradise flowers and palms made a nice backdrop for the photo. The sunflowers really do liven things up too.

 

It was a quick “let’s just shoot something fun for fall” moment. Turned out pretty cute, I’d say. 

ciao! fabiana

 

 

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