Design.Wine.Dine.

Good things come…

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…hopefully!  Right?!  After a ton of CAD, a glass of wine and taking a leap of faith by moving some desks around at the office last night, I’ve come to realize that my original configuration for the third floor of our space just isn’t going to cut it.  WORST.  And after waking up at 2:30 this morning with a light bulb moment, trying it in CAD and seeing the new idea successfully come together (YES!), I’m too excited to go back to sleep.  So, indeed – if good things could please come to those who are up late, that would be fantastic 😉

Hope you have a great day and more updates to come!  xo

{Lettering by Jasmine Dowling}

TGIF!

tumblr_m85f6tm0C21qlu8g1o1_1280Came across this a while back on Pinterest and it always helps me feel a little better when I need it most.  This week was tough.  My mom and aunt were visiting last week and having them in town was SO nice.  It’s really hard not having any family within 2,500 miles and saying goodbye only gets harder over the years.  Coming home to an empty house on Monday after work felt a lot lonelier than I’d anticipated it would and even little Lily couldn’t fill the void (although she tried with tons of cute snuggles and meows).  Fast forward 2 days and I’m drowning in a sea of work in preparation for what feels like a million projects before I leave for a week on vacation.  SUPER excited to go on vacation, but trying to squeeze in a TON beforehand to make up for the time I’m going to be gone has been stressful.  Do you ever feel that way too?

Anyway!  I’m excited for a weekend with my love and my kitty in an amazingly clean and adorable backyard that my mom and aunt so generously spruced up last week.  Can’t wait to share some images soon 🙂  In the meantime, have a very happy weekend!

xoxo

Meg

Holiday Table Inspiration

ONEHOPE Holiday Table Final Flattened

Faux Sheepskin – Ikea |  Confetti Placemats – Kitchen Papers  |  Hurricanes – West Elm  |  Cedar garland for table – Available at most wholesale flower marts | Clear glass candlesticks – CB2  | Hanging candle holders – CB2  |  Deerhead – ZGallerie  |  Chargers – Assorted from Michael’s and ZGallerie  | Reclaimed wood wall – Pallet wood DIY (details coming soon) | New York White Sequined Linen – La Tavola  |  Gold Rimmed Glasses – West Elm  |  Votives – Jayson Home and Garden (no longer available but similar here)

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Happy, Happy Holidays!!!  I hope everyone is having some much deserved down time and rest while gearing up for 2014!  I think it’s going to be a big one and I’m actually super excited to see what the new year holds 🙂  So, without getting too distracted, I REALLY wanted to get this published before Christmas, but if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen what a ridiculously chaotic yet successful December we had over at ONEHOPE Wine.  We more than quadrupled our sales over last year and we had an all-hands-on-deck situation for most of December.  Instead of dabbling in anything creative, I was with the majority of our team in our warehouse packing boxes, sourcing product that we’d run out of (eeeek!) and helping to load hundreds upon hundreds of boxes onto multiple UPS trucks daily.  The experience of seeing our company grow like that and watching all of our hard work finally pay off was nothing short of incredible and I wouldn’t change being there, smack dab in the center of it for anything in the world 🙂

In early December, I posted a few sneak peeks from our ONEHOPE Holiday party (#ONEHOPEHoliday) at work. Since the wine industry is absolute madness in December every year, in 2012 we didn’t plan anything fun during the holidays. It was the first year that I really felt that the holidays just slipped through my fingertips and it bummed me out beyond belief. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again this year and planned an afternoon for the girls on our team to spend some time together outside of the work madness to decompress and do something fun. We played Christmas music, did a little wine tasting and gold leafed glasses to give away as gifts… It was just what we needed. Since we were going to have a photographer there to capture it as a DIY, I wanted to make sure that we gave our conference room a little TLC and turned it into a winter wonderland. I am SO HAPPY with how it turned out and can not wait to share the images our amazing photographer captured.  In the meantime, take a look at my inspiration board for the project 🙂

PS: I know Christmas is over, but I truly believe that so many Christmasy pieces can be carried into New Years Eve/Day parties.  So, recycle that garland, grab some gold confetti and wintery fur and enjoy your seasonal decor for a few more days!  If you’re not diggin’ it, keep this in your back pocket for next year 😉

xoxo

Meg

Office Inspiration

Color-PaletteAs much as I love the black executive suite at our office, the marketing team’s space on the top floor is collaborative, bright, airy, open and white… which is truly my go-to aesthetic.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since we moved into our space and within that year, we’ve inevitably had everything from boxes to paper samples to glass samples, ribbon – you name it – pile up… everywhere.  I took a day this week to de-clutter my personal work space and I was shocked at what an unbelievable weight was lifted off my shoulders.  I actually WANT to get to the office early, light a candle, put on some tunes and get creative.

Around the same time, I’ve been stalking admiring Emily Henderson’s latest project (isn’t she seriously THE BEST?!?!) and being that my color palette right now is basically mint/sea foam green, white and flax, I realized how insanely easy it would be to integrate some of the warmer blush tones and a hint of raspberry or coral to spruce things up.  I finally pulled the trigger and ordered some art that I’ve been wanting forever and can’t wait to pull everything together hopefully next week 🙂  Below is a little inspiration board I threw together… What do you think?

Office-Inpsiration

love print / made by girl
greek key pillow / caitlin wilson textiles
monique lhuillier / blush champagne coupe
french cade lavendar candle (favorite candle ever) / voluspa
do good print /sugar paper
faux sheepskin / ikea
hold the phone / fab
gold polka dot pillow / caitlin wilson textiles
peonies in a vase / minted

Hope at Home Site Launch

Wahoo!  It’s finally here!  Today we officially launched the new Hope at Home site which has been a tremendous effort on the direct-to-consumer side of our business.  Originally, Hope at Home was just a tiny section of the ONEHOPE Wine site and being that the program has been such a huge success, we finally invested in creating its own stand-alone site and did an entire rebrand.  I worked hand in hand with the program’s Director, Haley Harris to appropriately rebrand this program and integrate some softer and slightly more feminine design elements into the customer’s visual experience.

We started with completely eliminating black from the equation.  Black is a very prominent color in the ONEHOPE Wine branding, which is perfectly fine, but we wanted to tone down the masculinity a bit for this at-home wine tasting side of our business (being that our customers and Wine Specialists are primarily female).  However, since all of our wine labels are black, we didn’t want to go so far in the opposite direction to where the two couldn’t compliment one another.  From there, we integrated a lot of texture including kraft paper and chalkboard with a little hint of chevron thrown into the mix to give it some energy and fun.  I love it!  What do you think?

PS:  If you’re interested in hosting a wine party and donating back to a cause of your choice check it out here.  If you’d like to become a Wine Specialist, click here.

My Life in Pictures

  • Came across a picture I took last week of this amazing winter wonderland tablescape at Wildflower Linen.  Definitely got me excited for holiday decor!
  • Serious packaging envy!  A case of Sea Smoke was delivered to the office today and I could not believe how gorgeous their shipper and wine inserts were.  Talk about customer experience!  I think we have a little catching up to do 😉
  • Picked up a few (ok, like 30) paint chips on my way home from the office tonight.  I’m feelin’ Benjamin Moore’s Black Ink now… what do you think?
  • An impulse trip my favorite meat market on earth greeted me with this view.  One of those “pinch me, I really live here” moments.
  • Finally home from the office, shooting out a few more emails (or trying to) with my little one by my side.  She likes to take over the keyboard  =^. .^=

Hope you’re having a great week!

Executive Office – Paint it Black

After posting about our office yesterday, I got a few concerned comments (primarily from my mother) about my decision to paint our executive space off-black.  “Are you sure you want to do that?  You do realize that black is one of the hardest colors to paint… right?  What if you hate it and want to paint it back?  Do you know how hard that will be?”  Not going to lie, I panicked for a moment and jumped back on Pinterest at the first chance I got.  True to my stubborn self, after taking a 10 minute break to re-evaluate the images of black offices I’ve been stalking collecting, I decided to move forward with off-black plan.  Tomorrow I’m picking up paint chips to make a final decision on the exact hue and we’ll finally get this show on the road.

{This space, designed by Atmosphere Interiors is so beautiful that it warrants three pictures.  Those walls definitely aren’t painted (I’m certain it’s a wallpaper – not paint/stencil), but the black, white and gold are so gorgeous together I could die}

{The lamps. The mirror. The chair… GAH!}

{Simply perfect}

{Check out this stunner by Amy Morris for the Atlanta Homes and Lifestyle show house.  Black, gold, lucite, cognac leather… and that fixture!!!  Done and done}

{From the home of Adam Straus as seen in Lonny Mag.  Pretty much obsessed on every level here…}

{Not as formal – love the integration of the wood and textures of the roman shades.  Perfection featured in Lonny}

After doing some extensive research on rooms with black walls, there are two primary things you need to have in order for the space to succeed:  Great architecture and a ton of light.  Being that this space is a glassed-in loft (with two whole walls of glass, leaving only two to be painted), I’m certain that we have both of the above.  The architecture of our office space is gorgeous (pictures to come soon) and being that daylight enters from both the east and west glass walls, we have plenty of light to keep the space from feeling cramped.  I can’t wait for it to be done 🙂

Executive Office Inspiration

In July my company expanded and moved into a new sales and marketing office in LA which was a huge step for our little startup.  Previously, we had a tiny executive suite in Manhattan Beach (in addition to our Orange County headquarters) that housed two of our LA team members who worked there daily.  While the other 4-6 of us rotated in and out, used the floor’s conference room when it was available and primarily worked from home, it quickly became apparent as our team expanded that we had outgrown our one-room office and needed a collaborative environment for our company culture to really thrive.  When it came to designing the office, being that I was the only one with a design background, I spearheaded the project and it has been SO. MUCH. FUN!  It was a thrill to get back into AutoCAD (NEVER thought I would say that) and finding creative ways to work within our tiny budget, albeit extremely challenging at times, has been more fun than I could have ever anticipated.  It’s been a work in progress for months and we’re finally getting ready to finish our executive office which is one of the final items on the list.  Take a look at my inspiration board and sources below.

1. Rug – West Elm  |  2. Console Table – Lulu & Georgia  |  3. Pillow – West Elm  |  4. Sea Urchin Art – Pieces  |  5. Chieftians Chair – DWR  |  6.  Mug – Custom  |  7.  Tray – CB2  |  8.  Lamp –  The Land of Nod  |  9.  Tumbler – West Elm  |  10.  Pouf –  Jonathan Adler

While the rest of our office is a combination of white, lucite and neutrals, I wanted this space to have a darker and slightly more masculine feel while remaining in line stylistically with the rest of the office’s modern aesthetic.  Currently we have a donated white sofa, the above rug (also donated) a white Ikea Expedit and desks to start.  The next steps are to paint the walls this color and start moving things into place.  Obviously we’ll never have anywhere close to the budget for the Chieftians Chair, but I would love to find something similar (and for 1% of the bill) for some casual seating.  I love the combination of the black leather and the exposed walnut frame to really warm things up.  I foresee a few DIY projects in the near future!  Stay tuned 🙂

Rainy Days

After a highly productive weekend that felt entirely too much like summer to be true, Monday blew in with a vengeance.  I woke up shivering yesterday morning to grey skies, wind and rain and would have given anything to pull the covers over my head for the remainder of the day.  Picking up a bundle of sunny daffodils at the market was just the cure I needed and some refreshing lemon/mint water at my desk was all it took to turn around my spirits.  Sometimes taking a moment to reflect on the simple pleasures in life is all we need to push through.  Hope your week is off to a great start!

{Check out some of my shots from my Sunday run here}

Lemon and Grey

There is a color combination that I can’t get off my mind lately: Lemon and Grey.  I love the clean chic contrast yet warmth and cheerfulness of the yellow… What a great palate for a living room, office, nursery, kitchen… the list goes on as the two hues paired together are so versatile and inviting.  Love, love, love!  What are your favorite color combinations for your home or office?

{Faceted Mirror Side Table – West Elm, White Capiz Pendant – West Elm, Grey Tufted Sofa – ZGallerie, Table Lamp – Bloomingdales, Moroccan Pouf – Jennifer Delonge, Carrara Marble Coffee Table – CB2, Pillow – ZGallerie}

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