check.

I finally saw my subway poster last Saturday night! I hopped on the subway on my way to a Christmas party with Brendan and my friend Ashley, and I looked up and therrrre it was. I held in a shriek, but was equally excited nonetheless and was able to snap a pic despite the jam-packed Saturday night crowd.

And Brendan saw it on the 4 train!

Then LeeAnne saw it (I think this was her 3rd time. Thanks for being so observant, LA!) on the M (?), F, and 6 train.

on your next subway ride...

Give me a shout if you see this and let me know what train you were on!

As an interior designer by day and a freelance designer (of all kinds) by night, I was commissioned by the Women's Bible Society of New York to design their annual Christmas Subway Ad for 2010. The ad went live on the subways a little over a week ago, and I have still yet to see it! However, my sweet roommate Margaret noticed it on her train on Saturday night and snapped a pic for me. Until I lay my own two eyes on it, this is pretty sweet in the interim.

is this a perryn chair or what?!

I saw this chair on my most recent visit to 200 Lex a few weeks ago and I instantly wanted a pair for my apartment!

the best chocolate cake in the world

Been there, done that and eaten a slice. Brendan and I went to a much anticipated restaurant on Saturday night (more anticipation by him than me) to see if we had finally found what the rest of the world has long been searching for: the best chocolate cake in the world. The name of the restaurant actually is The Best Chocolate Cake in the World. I was skeptical, but the cake was good. Sadly, though, it was far overshadowed by the incredible design of this tiny little hole in the wall. It was tee-niny space in SoHo where only about 10 people, max, would fit. Brendan spent the whole time eating the cake while I spent the whole time swooning over this beautiful, fabulous sofa. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, but I'm pretty sure it is now on my list to own something like this someday...

The sofa was covered in a cork fabric! I had seen fabrics like this before for commercial use when I worked at Perkins Eastman, but I had never seen any application of it. You can find different variations of the fabric, here, at Stratford Hall Textiles.

Then, as you can see in the photo below, it had a deep chocolate brown rope piping that offset the color of the "cork" so perfectly... the two neutrals especially set the stage for the main effect: the buttons in the tufting.

Every button in every tuft was different! They had one American flag button, solid color, multicolor, buttons with rhinestones...every button imaginable! It added such a nice pop of color but not so much that you were confused about the main design idea. I've been thinking about this couch all week and can't get over how amazing it was!

Then, for proof that we really did try out the cake, I took a pic of our clean plate!

This place gets two thumbs up from me: one for the pretty good dessert and another for the superb atmosphere and design.

and, more color invasion

Remember in this post when I said I'd have more pictures from this event! I did, and I wanted to make sure I posted them because they are much more fun than the one picture I took. Such a fun event...

Old PE coworkers.

paste art

If you like art, you will love this lady! I met Denise from Paste today at my office. She came over to bring the bulldog print and I fell in love with her stuff. She takes vintage book pages and collages them together to make these images. How brilliant! Coincidentally, I had seen an ad for her in House Beautiful this month, earmarked the page, and then totally forgot to check out her website. And who would have thought that I would get the chance to meet her? She was a lovely lady with especially lovely art!

[I chose a few of my favorites...which you can tell, are quite a few!]

color invasion this year

You might remember me attending an event last year that was right up my alley, called Color Invasion? Can you possibly think of an event name that I'd be more excited about?! And I've been lucky enough to attend Color Invasion, one of the biggest interior design industry-wide events in New York City, for the past 3 years now! Last Thursday night I met up with LA and some old coworkers and enjoyed one of the most fun parties of the year. The theme this year was nurse & doctor, so I opted out of costume the part. But I did wear scrubs-green.

Meg, me and LeeAnne reuniting.

I have more pictures, from the official Color Invasion photographer, to post later but I was made to promise that I wouldn't post them anywhere yet. More to come.

perfectly imperfect

Call me crazy, but I think this easel with paint splatters and spills already on it is brilliant. Of course, Anthropologie thinks of everything. It's like buying jeans with the holes already in the knee! Except buying hole-y jeans is a little more reasonable than this beautiful pre-splattered easel for $2100...

ok, if you say so.

[found here via etsy]

my future library

Arranged by color in ROY G BIV order, with every book displaying a beautiful vibrant cover. Ahhhh.

[found here.]

i'd love to be sitting in:

THIS! These chairs are so beautiful and multi-colored and make me think that they would make any mood happier while working in them...

[Found here, via Design*Sponge]

my kind of pear

rainbow + pear = happy perryn.

[found here.]

beautiful city

If I didn't love New York City so much, I would surely move to a place like this. This is a community in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where the community was commissioned to help beautify the neighborhood by transforming the facade of 34 houses into a colorful art project to create pride and ownership for the residents. They were given a small salary and an education during the process of turning their neighborhood into a beautiful, bright, cheery rainbow! I love it.

[Found here via Suwatch. Thanks!]

fabuloso dress-o

I don't speak Italian at all, and I only speak a teeny bit of Spanish so I'm sure the title of this post is insanely butchered, (Anyone who wants to help- Anna? LA?- feel free to leave a comment...) but the main idea stands: this dress is completely beautiful and fabulous! And something that I would have possibly stolen from the museum had I seen it in person.

Anna sent me this picture from her travels abroad in Italy this summer. She said this is from the Roberto Capucci Museum in Florence. Until I can get there one day and see it with my own eyes, I'm going to be on the hunt for about a million different color silk fabrics to make my own version...

magic garden

Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven in parables so that it will become more real to us and we can grasp it in our own terms: how we see beauty, wonder, splendor, and treasures since that is what Heaven will be. [Here are a few examples: Matthew 13:31, Matthew 13:44, Matthew 20:1] This is what I think heaven will look like for me:

The Magic Garden is an outdoor garden-like-house-structure with tunnels and grottos that is completely covered in mosaics. Walls, ceilings, floors- all mosaics with beautiful glass, tiles, bottles and other pieces of recycled material. Isaiah Zagar began this as an art project in a vacant lot in 1994. He completed it after 14 years of working on the installation, where it is now a beautiful work of art for residents of the neighborhood and visitors to enjoy. In 2002, when the lot was supposed to be sold to construct a parking garage, the residents of the community raised $300,000 to buy the lot and preserve the beautiful art! I'm glad they did.