Treasure Coast, Martin county, Florida, registered interior designer- South Florida- Tamara Dalton Design Studios

A Christmas Breakfast Story

December 4, 2012

Last week I participated in a Tablescapes event to benefit Habitat for Humanity of Martin County, Florida. Specifically, this event raised funds for their Women Build program, which is a really cool program here in Martin county in which a group of women volunteers build a Habitat home for a needy family.

Yay women!!

Partnered with my good friend, Yana Bible, we created a table landscape designed to emphasize Family at holiday time, and all the fun things we do to make it special. Yana owns Drape Couture, a drapery and softgoods workroom, and she made the tablecloth, the table runners, and our silverware “boots.” Find her on Facebook here, and Like her page. She’s dynamite!

And so, without further ado, I bring you….

A Christmas Breakfast Story

It’s a bright, shining Christmas morning, and the family is gathered around their breakfast table to exchange gifts and enjoy their first meal of Christmas day together. Mom and Dad, still bleary-eyed from the late night preparations, sip Bloody Mary’s and coffee, while the excited children enjoy virgin mimosas in fancy stemmed glasses and wait impatiently for Dad to assemble their newest toys. The morning sunshine reflects and sparkles off the champagne gold and mercury glass table decorations, warms the fur at the heart of the table, and radiates through the crisp greenery of the fresh cut flowers.

And now some incredible details….

Happy holidays to all!!

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Featured Posts | Comments (0)

How to use your Outdoor Rooms beyond Summer

August 23, 2012

Hi there! Part 5 about designing outdoor spaces continues! I, along with my compadre, Landscape Architect, Mike Flaugh, are exploring all things related to exterior design, outdoor living spaces, and landscaping in a series of conversations on each of our blogs. We’ll be covering a lot of ground here (no pun intended!)- don’t miss an update. Sign up to receive our free email brainstorms of love…..and thank you!

What do you do when the weather turns? How to use your Outdoor Rooms beyond Summer.

We’re quickly moving into Fall (where has this year gone?!), and it seems a shame to have spent so much time planning and using your Outdoor Rooms during High Summer, and then pack ‘em up and close shop when the weather starts to become less summery.

When the weather starts to get cooler, and day turns to night earlier, how can we capitalize on all this extra useful real estate we captured with our Outdoors Rooms?

Light and Heat

Internally lit furniture

Lights that float. Sweet!

Check out Space Lighting for more furniture and lighting like this.

Tiki lamps

I like these wall-mounted types. Light and heat without losing valuable floor space.

I found these on Apartment Therapy. A DIY project.

Beautiful copper torches. They’ll last longer than the cheap ones at the big-box stores.

These copper torches are from Frontgate.

Freestanding Outdoor Heaters

Both of these great styles use a garden-variety propane tank.

Firepits

I love these modern, substantial firepits from AK 47.

I also love Multi-purpose objects.

It gives light and holds my wine bottle? Super.

How’s this for multi-purpose?

Internally lit planter pots.

Modern and funky, or traditional.

(How fun would these be to work with, Mike?)

I found these great planters from Illuminated Planters.

Outdoor living doesn’t have to end when Summer ends. Send me a photo of your favorite outdoor space, and let me know how you’ve adapted it to be useable during Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. (And send me your best recipes for organic bug-repellant– they love to bite me.)

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Featured Posts | Comments (1)

A Little Piece of History in St. Petersburg, Florida

July 19, 2012

I recently stayed at a beautiful, historical, resort hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg Resort and Golf Club is a lovely resort right across from the marina and overlooking Tampa Bay. Its beginnings date back to 1927. It went through a period of abandonment and dereliction for twenty or so years during the latter part of the 20th century, and has since been completely restored. Along with many architectural details and embellishments that were preserved, the hotel has some magnificent pieces of glass art by Dale Chihuly, whose gallery is just a short walk away.

St. Petersburg is also home to the new Salvador Dali Museum, which is magnificent. A post on that is coming up soon. Subscribe to my email list and you won’t miss it.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts | Comments (4)

Define with Design

June 21, 2012

Welcome to Part 3 of our series about designing outdoor spaces. I, along with my compadre, Landscape Architect, Mike Flaugh, are exploring all things related to exterior design, outdoor living spaces, and landscaping in a series of conversations on each of our blogs. We’ll be covering a lot of ground here (no pun intended!)- don’t miss an update. Sign up to receive our email brainstorms of love…..and thank you!

Last week, in Part 2 of our series, Mike expertly took us through some of the preliminary steps necessary to get your outdoor space design started. With your site analysis complete you should have a pretty clear idea about what you want to do with your exterior space and where you can do it. Let’s refine and define a bit more and get inspired.

Define your Outdoor “Room” by giving it a purpose.

Will you be dining? Cooking? Lounging with a book? Showering? Swimming? Meditating or exercising? Potting, crafting, or (my husband’s favorite- egad!) cleaning fish?

Keep in mind that most of these activities will require access to water and possibly electricity. Dining areas should be kept relatively close to the main house with an easy path to the kitchen, otherwise they will most likely never get used. Summer kitchens are great. Pay careful attention to where you place your grill. Give it plenty of ventilation and keep it far enough away from your house entrances to keep smoke and smells from billowing into the house.

Define a “room” by giving it “walls.”

“Walls” can be natural features, like hedge lines and trees, and also man-made features such as stacked stone walls, fences, rows of potted plants, living plant walls, glass walls, and my personal favorite- outdoor drapes.

via Pottery Barn

via Design Serendipity

via Pottery Barn

a "wall" of Mother-in-law's tongue

Define a “room” by giving it a “floor.”

Grass, mulch, pavers, bricks, tile, shell stone, and outdoor rugs are used to create activity zones and anchor furniture groupings.

via Small Garden Love

Define a “room” by giving it a “roof.”

A “roof” can be a natural feature, such as a large shade tree. Perhaps your architecture has been blessed with a covered patio area- that’s great! In addition to that, an inviting outdoor room can be created with umbrellas, canopies, thatched tiki huts, wooden trellises entwined with flowering vines, or shade sails.

via Colorado Shade Sails

via West Elm

via Tiki Murph

via Balfoort Architecture

Vine and trellis "roof"

modern shade sail promenade

What are some clever ways you’ve defined your outdoor havens? Leave a comment, and be sure to sign up for more inspiration delivered right to your inbox.

Stay tuned for Part 4 when Mike takes up our favorite summertime topic again.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts | Comments (1)

Step One, Ask Yourself

June 12, 2012

You may ask yourself, What shall I do with this yard? And I will answer with another question:

What can I do with this yard?

Part 2 of my Outdoor Rooms series, in conjunction with landscape architect, Mike Flaugh, focuses on the important questions that need to be asked when embarking on any design project, including your outdoor spaces.

Go check it out. Leave a comment. We love comments!! And don’t forget to sign up here and on Mike’s site to receive all our juicy email updates. Stay tuned for Part 3, coming up right here, later this month.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts | Comments (0)

Outdoor Rooms

May 24, 2012

Welcome to Part 1 of a new series about designing outdoor spaces. I, along with my compadre, Landscape Architect, Mike Flaugh, will be exploring all things related to exterior design, outdoor living spaces, and landscaping in a series of conversations on each of our blogs. We’ll be covering a lot of ground here (no pun intended!)- don’t miss an update. Sign up to receive our email brainstorms of love…..and thank you!

The best way to increase your living space without building an addition is by creating outdoor rooms. I use the term “room” loosely, of course. There are many fantastic, romantic words available to describe the many ways people have cultivated the Great Outdoors for their fun and leisure. What do you picture in your mind’s eye when you hear the words grotto, lanai, veranda, and grove? Rough-hewn stone, cobbled paths, lush and fragrant plants, shady trees, trickling water, mist in the air, pregnant silence.

{Sigh}

The most beautiful and useful outdoor spaces seem to follow some universal rules:

Easy access and coordinated transitions from inside to outside

Outdoor dining areas that are conveniently located near the kitchen

Access to a cabana bath from outside

Wide-opening doorways and connecting breezeways

Attention to all the senses

Focal points and privacy nooks, as well as open vistas

Fragrant plants, and/or edible plants

Wind chimes, music, bubbling water

Comfortable seating, touchable materials, pleasant textures underfoot

Creating moods with the natural elements: fire, water, air, earth, light and space

Protection from the elements

Covered areas, shady retreats, protected enclosures

Easy maintenance

High-quality, durable furniture that will maintain its beauty over time with little or manageable intervention

Outdoor fabrics, cushions inserts, and rugs

Easy to clean surfaces

Native and adapted plants and trees that are appropriate for your climate and require less water to maintain

The most successful personal habitats owe their brilliance to good planning. That’s where professionals like interior designers and landscape architects come into play. Your home’s exterior is an extension of your interior, and determining your needs, how you live, and how you intend to use your outdoor space is critically important. Good designers know the right questions to ask and how to make manifest your dreams without wasting your resources.

In this continuing series, Mike and I will break down these concepts, and share ideas and strategies to make your gardens, yards, patios, and porches beautiful and integrated areas of your home. If you have anything specific you would like to learn more about, leave a comment, or contact us!

Tammy Dalton- Interior Designer and Mike Flaugh- Landscape Architect. Thanks for joining us!

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts | Comments (8)

Move it!

May 22, 2012

From the active design files of my brain….

Don’t be afraid to move your furniture around. Try different arrangements. What happens if you angle your sofa? What happens if you move the lamp to the other side of the room? Shake up the energy flow in your room, and see what happens and how it makes you feel.

Are you making excuses for not working out because your coffee table is in the middle of the floor? You (most likely) do not live on a boat, and hence, nothing is nailed down or cemented in place. Move the table. When you’re done, move it back. It’s okay. You have permission.

What have you given yourself permission to do lately? Tell me in the comments below.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in A Little Bit of Moxie, Featured Posts | Comments (3)

Cattle Barons, Cancer, and my friend Susan

May 13, 2012

Mother’s Day Wishes

One of the most rewarding activities I’ve participated in recently (this past March) was the Cattle Baron’s Ball of Martin County, Florida. Now, growing up as a suburbanite in Fort Lauderdale for most of my life, the concept of something called a Cattle Baron’s Ball was a bit alien to me. Let me explain. The Cattle Baron’s Ball is a signature gala event for the American Cancer Society. It’s a hoity-toity fundraising event without the hoity-toity part. It’s a country-western, boot-stomping, barn-dancing affair where everyone dons their fanciest western-wear and parties to raise money for cancer research, advocacy, and patient services.

I was new in town and a friend of mine invited me to join the planning committee. I thought, what better way to meet people and participate in a good cause? I hadn’t owned a pair of cowboy boots since I left Omaha in 1980, and this sounded like fun. Being the only designer on our committee, I was put in charge of the decorations, and so it began.

Back up to September 2010.

This is my friend, Susan.

Susan and I were high school friends. I snapped this picture during our 10-year reunion in 1997, which was the last time I saw Susan in person. When I finally jumped on the Facebook bandwagon, Susan and I found each other again, much to my delight. I remembered Susan for her easy-going manner, her sardonic wit and humor, and her incredible intelligence. She was determined to become an archeologist when we were teenagers, and as it happened, she ended up getting a PhD in Sports History, marrying a great guy named Rob, and having three beautiful kids. We reconnected in August 2010, and in September 2010 she gave us devastating news: she was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Fast-forward a year to 2011. My family and I had moved to a new town, we were busy with work, school, and new house issues, and I began planning decorations for the Cattle Baron’s Ball. Susan and I kept in touch on Facebook, and I followed the chronicles of her illness as she posted about it on her Caring Bridge webpage. All throughout the previous year, she spoke positively, optimistically, and with her characteristic humor about chemotherapy, surgery, dying her hair purple before it fell out, and the Future. Her Future- a certainty, a sure thing.

I met lots of people, wonderful people, working on the planning committee. People who had survived cancer or lost family members to cancer, children and teenagers still battling it, and cancer doctors that are certain- CERTAIN- we will cure cancer and have a cancer vaccine in the next 15 to 20 years; definitely, they believe, within our lifetimes. But Triple Negative Breast Cancer is a particularly nasty beast, and by September 2011 Susan’s posts had changed. Things weren’t going well and her prognosis wasn’t good. Her Future was now certain, but in a totally different way, and even though I understood on an intellectual level what was happening, I really didn’t believe that cancer would take her…until it did, a few short months later.

Susan passed away two weeks before the Cattle Baron’s Ball, and my participation in that event took on a whole new meaning for me. Our ball went off without a hitch, and we raised over $93,000. I am really proud to have been a part of it, but I’m heartbroken about my friend.

So, it’s Mother’s Day. My husband keeps asking me what I want for Mother’s Day, and really, I don’t want anything.

At Susan’s memorial service in April I met her husband and her three children, the youngest only 4. She lives on in their bright, shining faces, so much so it took my breath away. During her eulogy I learned one of her last statements was to encourage people to have more memories, not things.

I want for nothing. All I have are wishes and gratitude.

I wish for Susan’s children health and happiness, but especially clear, vibrant memories of their mother that will last their lifetimes and never fade. I am so grateful to have known her. I am grateful for my health, my healthy children and husband, and having 42 years (and counting) of memories of and with my mother (and my father and step-parents too, for that matter).

So for this Mother’s Day, I count my blessings, and encourage all of us to collect and savor all the beautiful memories our lives are truly made of.

For more information about the important work being done by the American Cancer Society, visit their website at www.cancer.org

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Featured Posts | Comments (4)

Tile gets all sexypants

May 4, 2012

How much tile can one designer stand? An awful lot, my friend. An awful lot.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the Coverings 2012 Tile + Stone Experience in Orlando, Florida. Filled to the brim with tile and stone of every variety and from every corner of the world, I soaked up as much as I could.

Some of the highlights, trends, and things that I learned:

Porcelain tile that looks like wood

Porcelain tile that simulates wood planks is still huge, and they’re just getting better and better. The good ones look so real. If you want something highly durable, cost effective, and with sustainable options, but you want the look of wood, porcelain tile wood planks are a good option.

Glass mosaic tiles made out of resin

Glass mosaic tiles of every variety were abundantly displayed throughout the whole show, but something new I noticed is that many of the mosaics are being made out of resin that simulates glass tile. They’re virtually indistinguishable from real glass. One of the tile reps. boasted that the resin tiles are so hardy and durable, you can pour acid on them and it won’t harm them (though they haven’t passed testing yet for outdoor use).

(I’m curious about the manufacturing process, however, and whether they’re environmentally friendly. One of the installers I met told me he had worked with the resin tiles, and they smell like plastic when you cut them, and that makes me wonder about how pollutive the production process could be. More investigation is required!)

I also saw some resin tiles that were very heavily textured to resemble rough-cut stone and wood. They looked great, but upon close inspection, it was clear they were resin/plastic. (That was a turn-off for me, but if used in a place where they can’t be touched, I would consider it if the price was right.)

These are real glass tiles (above).

These are resin (above).

Make like a tree….with tile?

Finally, one of the most fascinating trends I discovered is the proliferation of porcelain tile that “cleans the air- like trees.” Titanium dioxide is integrated with the ingredients as the tiles are manufactured, and exposure to light creates surfaces that kill bacteria and purify the air. The Italian tile company Fiandre calls their product “Active Clean Air and Antibacterial Ceramic.” Here’s an excerpt from their catalog:

“What is Active? Active is a production method that turns an inert material par excellence like ceramics into a material that is ecologically and environmentally active. Official references (TCNA and CCB) demonstrate that the Active slabs used for floor and wall coverings are able to kill off between 99.99% and 100% of bacteria and most organic and inorganic polluting agents generated by intense industrialization, as well as by heating, cigarette smoke, urban traffic…”

You can read more about this at their website: www.active-ceramic.com

Deutsche-Steinzeug America, Inc. calls theirs “HT Clean Air Ceramics.” (HT means “hydrotect tiles”) They use titanium dioxide as a permanently baked in tile coating. DSA Ceramics states that “1000 square meters of HT tile cleans the air as effectively as 70 broadleaf trees.” The other upside of these innovations is that they’re easier to clean with plain water.

Imagine not only choosing sustainable materials that protect and conserve natural resources, but can actively improve indoor air quality. Pretty cool, high-tech stuff.

Intricate patterns, magnificent textures, innovative materials. Put that boring old honed and filled travertine away!

Tile is bringing the sexy back.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts | Comments (3)

Warm Buns

March 22, 2012

I recently experienced a luxury so magnificent, so epic, I had to write about it. I was shopping at a kitchen and bath showroom with a client when nature called. I excused myself and retired to the loo, which was outfitted very nicely with a Toto toilet. I’m quite familiar with Toto toilets, having owned one myself, and specified them many times for my clients. They have quite the array of fabulous features available- washlet seats that turn them into bidets (with air dryers built-in!), remote-controlled flushing, and flush capacity big enough to suck down a grapefruit, yada yada yada. It’s a toilet for pete’s sake, right? How awesome can a toilet be?

As I sat down, however, I realized in one sublime nano-second that the toilet seat was heated.

A heated toilet seat.

If you had said it to me out loud, I would have laughed and scoffed, and said, how absolutely ridiculous is that? Who needs that?

Well, no one needs a heated toilet seat. Heck, in some places, just having a flushing toilet is considered a luxury. I think I can safely proclaim that we take our sanitary-ware and indoor plumbing completely for granted.

Luxury car companies have been doing heated seats for a long time, and if I lived in a cold climate I could probably make a case (albeit a weak one) for the necessity of a heated car seat. But I live in the hot tropics, and while we’ve come to depend on air conditioning and staying cool as an absolute necessity, a chilled toilet seat, well, that would be terrible!

I am here to tell you that, even with 80 degree heat, sitting down on a heated commode was embarrassingly fantastic.

My new definition of “luxury” is the heated toilet seat. It’s completely preposterous, and unnecessary; a filthy display of silly materialism, and dear god, I think I want one.

By Tamara Dalton | Posted in Cool People, Places, & Things, Featured Posts, Fun Stuff | Comments (4)