Security Doors are in...

Our stacker security doors went in today for the downstairs kitchen area. We have 5 sets of these doors throughout the house and will be getting the rest after Christmas. What a joy they are...we can just keep the doors open throughout the day keeping flies out as well as offering security. At first I was concerned they would ruin the look of the home both from inside and out but they just blend so easily you don't even notice them. The photos below show how they look both from the interior and exterior.

This picture is from the outside with the stacker wire doors open....

Same view but with them shut. As you can see they just neatly slide out of the way if not needed. I love these wire doors...it has made living in and outdoors a breeze now as I hate the flies!

Mrs B

Modern Pendants from Lights Up

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that we have a soft spot for pretty, colorful things. We love decor that is fun, happy, and bright.

Our sales rep emailed us yesterday about Lights Up, a lighting company based out of New York. We love the line and thought we should share it with you. They make pretty, colorful pendants, which are really inexpensive and really fun. Lightsup's lead time is 10 days. The fabric can be customized.

Here are some of our favorites:








The fabric selection is adorable. Here are a few (you can see the rest on the site).





These pendants, as we mentioned previously, are totally inexpensive. They run between $200-$400.

To see the complete line, check out Lights Up web site. We'll be putting them up on our lighting section soon, so check our site in a few days...

About Us

The year was 2001. We were working in sales for one of those high-tech software companies in Silicon Valley. This was the year of the dot-com boom. The Internet was taking off and people were making money left and right.

We had a little money to play with and decided to decorate our own house. Mind you, we knew nothing about decorating then. We proceeded to waste a lot of money from overpaying for furniture, hiring worthless interiors designers (note: not all interiors designers are worthless, just ours) and whatever else. It was a complete disaster.

So we proceeded to find our own sources for decorating, and in the process, found some amazing places where you can get good stuff for cheap.

It was in one of those boring ass, trying-to-make-some-sales trips that we decided that maybe we could turn what we learned into a viable business. We quit our jobs.

Little did we know, it's a hard, hard business. Especially if you try to run a retail store. Especially after 9/11. Especially if you don't have any clue on how to run a business.

We started out as an online store only; then had this brilliant idea of opening a retail store, which we had no business doing. It almost undid us. Physically. Mentally. Financially.

So we got back to our core business a few years ago, which is to create an e-commerce site for home furnishing products that are pretty and affordable.

This turns out to be the best business decision we ever made.

We now operate two online stores. Inside Avenue is our main store and carries mostly furniture and accessories. Inside Fabric is our first niche store, carrying only upholstery fabrics and wallpapers. We plan to add more niche stores in the future- time and money permitting.

This blog is born out of our love for decorating. We love finding new things and tell you about it.

We love discovering new vendors, especially the small and emerging ones, and write about them.

As we find new resources that are interesting or useful, we share them with you. They are not all neccessarily about decorating. Sometimes we write about food,travel and fashion too.

We hope you enjoy our blog. Thank you for reading.

P.S. Your thoughtful comments are always appreciated (note we said "thoughtful"-read into that as it was intended).

Its Christmas time! or at least in my household. Some of the decorations and tree have gone up but I still have to find the rest in storage at my Dad's house. My little white tree (that one that will do for now) looks so pretty in this spot but it still needs more decorations and lights according to my children. My 'dream tree' lives in this beautiful candle shop and I am hoping that it will be for sale boxing day so at least next Christmas I will have this 8ft tree to fill the space.

I bought the magazine when it came out and I just loved this Christmas edition, so much that it inspired me to set up my tree in November. I am busy preparing for a few Christmas parties...one for my son's cricket team and parents and another for all my friends from work.

Anyway, more pictures to come once I set up all the Chrisie decorations.

Mrs B

Three Very Glamorous Chandeliers

You probably think that we are being lazy when there are only "three" items on our list instead of ten. What is it about lists that always have to have ten items in it anyway?

So we are going to buck the trend by only have three items in our list. Mainly because right now there are only three chandeliers that we think are worth mentioning, and the other reason is, well, we really are lazy today. It's been a long week.

We promise to bring it to ten eventually.

Here are our three favorite chandeliers this week. We like them because they make such a statement without being too expensive (they run about $1500-$1800).

This one is from Oly Studio. It's called Flower Fall Chandelier.


This one is from a small designer in Los Angeles called Marjorie Skouras. We saw this in High Point and it is lovely indeed.


This one is from Made Goods, one of our new favorite vendors.

Colorful Upholstery Furniture from CR Laine

One of our biggest complaints about American furniture manufacturers is how BORING their furniture can be. Year after year you see this same old stuff--they call it classic but we think they are just unimaginative. We're talking about brown, dark wood furniture, heavy upholstery in taupe and cream, plain styling. The sad thing is, 80% of households have this stuff. Why? Because we don't have lots of choices.

So we were really happy to see some colors this seasons from some of the old-school uphoslterers. They are finally getting it! Who wants to be surrounded by drab all the time! Give us some vibrancy and happiness! Give us colors!

Here are some from CR Laine that we kinda like. This company makes great upholstery furniture. Most of their stuff is fairly standard (as you will see from the web site), but here are some jewels:




To see the complete product line, visit to CR Laine web site.

Six Great Decorating Web Sites

We love decorating web sites as much as some people love chocolate, perhaps even more so. It's an addiction, actually. A harmless one, but an addiction nonetheless.

Here are some fantastic decorating web sites we'd like to share with you. They serve as inspiration boards, ideas and sometimes, just decorating porn...

1) Light Locations

The web site itself is a photography agency for home & garden magazines, but you can get ideas from their beautiful images.

2) Remodelista

This is great blog for resources, product ideas and the like. Easy reading, pretty pictures.

3) Design Sponge

Founded by Grace Bonney, this blog has several postings per week with topics ranging from decorating, DYI project, before & after, book reviews. Very thoughfully written.

4) Point Click Home

This is the official web site for Metropolitan Home and Elle Decor. It is well-categorized and have all the back issues covered. A great site to browse through past & current issues without having to store tons of old magazines.

5) My Home Ideas

This is the official web site for Sunset Magazine, Southern Accents, Southern Living, Cottage Living and Real Simple. It has tons of pictures (and tons of ads as well), but it is a wonderful site to browse through for tips and inspirations.

6) Redcover

We love this web site for its wide range of home decorating pictures, mostly international. Beautiful photography.

Unique Pendants from DK Living

We think lighting is one of those things that's really hard to shop for. You either get the generic, boring stuff at Home Depot or Lowes or you get the really high-end stuff at specialty stores.

So we were a little excited when we saw these at DK Living. This company sells furniture and accessories that are simple but very unique. The prices are very reasonable too. They run between $200-800 for the fixtures.

Here are some pendants that are quite lovely...
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This one is a mesh-wire in silver. It 's only $200.
We love this glass pendant. It's so simple and clean-lined.
This picture is terrible, but the pendant looks adorable in person. The bubbles are being tied together by very thin wires. It runs about $700 or so.
We just like the simplicity of this pendant.
This one is very glamorous. It's about $800.
The pictures are not so great, sorry. They look much in person though.

Pretty Chinoiserie Furniture from Guild Master

Going to trade show requires tons of stamina, let us tell you. You usually walk floor after floor of showrooms, and because you don't want to miss everything, you try to stop at almost every single one of them.

Until your eyes glaze over and everything starts to look the same...

At any rate, we saw this line toward the end of our trip at High Point. Although we were dead tired, it caught our eyes and we thought we show it to you. It's Asian and rattan, two things that we normally don't like, but these are done very well.

Here are some examples from the line.

The items run between $1200/per pair for chair to $1800/per pair for barstools. Not too bad for very high quality stuff!

For more information on the line, visit the GuildMaster web site. The site is for the trade only, but it has contact information so that you can be directed to a dealer nearby.

Creating Your Own Destiny...

The LA Times has an article today on The Satorialist, a fashion blog. Although it has nothing to do with decorating, we thought you might want to check it out. The blog is about fashion, worn by real people on the street. It is full of great photographs of real people, occasionally accompanied by background stories.

What is most interesting to us, though, is how a unique yet simple concept-when done with passion- can be so successful. The blog founder started his blog in 2005, simply by taking pictures of people on the street who put clothes together creatively. It is now one of the most 50 popular blogs in the world. If you read the blog, you'll see how unbelievably simple it is.

We love stories like that! While everyday we hear about people being out of work, getting laid off, or mainly just surviving, here is a case that shows us that we can create our own destiny and make our path in life.

To read more about this great story, click here.