The new Crate and Barrel arrived in the mail today and I took a rare moment to sit and flip through it! Here are a few great finds for fall.

The Allegro Settee is a great deal at $499 (though it does say assembly required, which might mean nothing more than screwing in some legs) and looks substantial at 54 inches wide. It appears to slant back ever so slightly, which I like in a settee. I prefer it in the Mocha Micro. At this price, it would be a great piece to reupholster after a year or two if you get sick of the fabric! Stack a few brightly colored pillows on it and you have a unique new settee.

Another piece which caught my eye was this magazine rack. Goodness knows I can use all the help I can get in corralling the piles of magazines I have! I like the faux leather which is different than all the metal ones we see out there and the ivory stitching is a nice detail. At $21.99 it is available in green, red and white. Now if they had purple or orange, it would be ever so trendy.

The Alpha coffee table is a unique piece with its vintage looking printers blocks. It is a great conversation piece and could be the highlight of any living room. At $899, it’s not necessarily inexpensive, but it is a piece I would suspect one would keep for a long time!

What home decor pieces are you liking for fall?

J Crew’s children’s line, Crewcuts, is featuring the sweetest coat at the moment. Their September ‘08 catalog features a beautiful little girl wearing the Jacket. The model has fiery red hair and is posing with such an attitude, it reminds me of someone I used to know! Seeing her fabulous patterned orange coat sparked something in my memory.

Four months ago, I saved a swatch of fabric by Philip Gorrivan for Highland Court Fabrics, almost identical to the pattern in her coat.

For the last two seasons, orange has been everywhere and as one can see by my StyleFeed, I’ve been a wee bit obsessed. Now that the trend has calmed down a bit, I revisit the pattern and find I still enjoy it. This is a good indication I should have it in my home. This pattern would look smashing as pillows with a fat, corded welt to surround it, or even as a bed coverlet with a wide band of winter white border. This just goes to show once again, that fashion and home decor really do go hand in hand!

What have you saved to your StyleFeed that you may have forgotten about and fallen in love with again? Do you like the trend of orange in home decor?

It’s staring at you: a big blank wall, just crying out for a pop of color or a dramatic piece of art. If only you had the funds to buy a huge canvas, or the creativity to paint one yourself.

We had this problem when the StyleFeeder team moved to our new offices in lovely Cambridge, Massachusetts. Luckily, fellow Tastemaker Julieann had clued me in to a company called Wonderful Graffiti. She had used their wall decals for some of her interior design clients in the past and raved about the ease of application and graphic impact. So we decided to give their products a try.

We sent the Wonderful Graffiti designers our wall measurements, an approximation of our paint color, a file of our company logo, and some quotes we wanted to use to dress up the barren wasteland that is our conference room. We sent some proofs back and forth, and next thing we knew, several tubes of decal goodness arrived in our offices.

The first one was a bit challenging to apply, but once we had the method down, the rest went up with no issues. Check out these quotes on the wall of our conference room:

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This cocktail table from Neiman Marcus oozes glamour. You’ll see a lot of the mirrored look in interiors right now, a throw back to the time of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In a small room, this table could create such depth without having the typical mirror on the wall. The crisscross legs have a subtle wave to them, which gives the heavy top a bit of a feminine touch! I really like the detail of the mirrored tiles along the edge, it just adds to the movement and will reflect any surrounding fabric in a striking way.

In this room, I could see a beautiful ivory-colored sofa with black accent pillows, keeping it crisp and clean. Imagine a black murano glass chandelier above which reflects in the cocktail table; I love this option from Design Within Reach. Perfect, this table will definitely be the WOW piece in any room!

The way a room is pulled together has always intrigued me even from a very young age. Friends and family know when I go to a new place…a restaurant, house or even a retail store, it will take me a few moments to focus because I am looking at every inch of the space. It is amazing to me how a room can make you feel something without anyone saying a word…from a room so sterile it screams off limits to a room with big oversized furniture that makes you just want to kick your shoes off and get comfy!

As an interior designer, every job is a different collaboration with the client. I am always scouting in different genres depending on the client, which means I find very cool pieces I wouldn’t usually stumble upon if I was only keeping within my own personal style. To me, there is nothing more exciting than when you find that perfect piece which pulls a room together! I am constantly scouting for that WOW piece either for myself or a client. How can this room be different than any other? As Coco Chanel once said, “In order to be irreplaceable, one must be different!”

Where do I scout for pieces? The answer is anywhere! Depending on the budget I am working with, it could be a great find from eBay, an independent designer on Etsy, an online specialty shop, or mainstream stores like Crate and Barrel, Target and Pottery Barn. Mixing pieces and pricepoints from different stores creates a look that is unique to the homeowner. I hope to introduce you to pieces you might have zipped by in the store and also bring to light vendors you might not have looked at previously.

Given my background in fashion, each season I look to the runway to see what will be coming down the pipeline for the following season. It is so exciting to see a color or pattern translate into fabrics and accents.

I am not a trendy designer, though – I believe if you design with “trends” top of mind, there will come a point where your look is outdated. I do believe you can have fun when using trendy pieces, but they’re better for accents which can be easily swapped out. What home décor trend are you totally over at the moment?