FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 07, 2012 –
Starr Miller, President and Principal Designer of StarrMiller Interior Design, Inc., was just honored by the National Interior Design Society with two 2011 National DotY (Designer of the Year) awards.  The first award was for 1st place in the Family/Living Spaces division and the other was for 1st place in the Specialty Spaces division for a Sunroom design for a client.

When the awards were announced in Las Vegas, NV January 28th, 2012 the presenter said that "the pictures belonged in Traditional Home or Veranda Magazines".

Over the past two years the team at StarrMiller has won four Lake Norman Home Builders Association’s Best of the Lake 1st Place Awards, a Charlotte Home Builders Association Gold Award, a NARI of Charlotte CotY Team Award for renovations under $100,000 and several North Mecklenburg Woman’s Club, Over the Tabletop Awards for innovation in Tabletop Design.

Starr earned her interior design degree at the prestigious Parsons School of Design in NYC and her business degree at the University of Alabama.  

Starr has designed several episodes of "Save My Bath" on HGTV.  She is also a contributing writer for Lake Norman Woman magazine. She has recently moved her studio to a new space in Cornelius, NC and caters to the fine homes of Lake Norman.

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StarrMiller Interior Design, Inc. is an award-winning interior design firm based in Cornelius, NC. Starr may be reached at 704-896-3321 or you may visit her website at www.starrmiller.com

My friend Penny wrote me on facebook and I thought I would answer here so I could add some photos for inspiration……

Hi Starr – so wish you were still here in Florida! Seems weird decorating for fall when it’s 80 degrees outside. But your house ALWAYS looked amazing. Can you send me some pictures or ideas for Thanksgiving Decorating "Beach Style"?

Hug for Tom! ♥     Penny L.

Penny! - We miss you too!  Since you are a Carolina Blue girl living in Florida the best color combo for you at Thanksgiving is the orange of the Autumn trees and Pumpkins matched up with the blue of a Carolina Sky or the Atlantic Ocean!

You can accomplish this combination with blue napkins on a burlap table cloth and baby pumpins in a galvanized silver beach bucket as your centerpiece.

Or you could go to William Sonoma and buy "Cheese Leaves"  put them around the bottom of a hurricane to add some Fall color.  (Keep leaves away from flame!!!)

Here are some photos I found on line for inspiration…(The last tablesetting was added by my friend Jane Ann Maxwell on her blog for Maxwell House of Design.)

Love and Hugs to all!

In May, I was very fortunate to attend the Kravet Blogfest 2011.  At this event one of my favorite tours was of the Kravet Design Studio.  This is the creative think tank where all of the artistry happens to bring together lines of fabric for Lee Jofa, Brunschwig and Fils, GP&J Baker and Kravet.  Our fabulous guide was Scott Kravet, a member of the 4th generation of this amazing legacy.   I thought you might enjoy seeing a portion of our tour!

I took the summer to redo this website and blogging took a back seat.  Now I am going to catch up and show you everything that has gone on! Check out this video about Kravet Blogfest 2011.  

In May I had the great opportunity to enjoy this event in NYC and as you will see from the video – Kravet put on a show!!!    

So let's chat about office supplies.  I am an official office products junkie!  Before I went back to school for Interior Design I spent 6 years as a Merchant for all of the North American Office Depot stores, 1 year with Levenger's as a senior merchant and another 5 years working for one of the largest Office Supply manufacturers in the world.  You would think I would be past office supplies by now.  But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I love 'em!

These are my top 5 most used favorites!

#1 The Swingline 2002 Limited Edition Red 747 stapler.  It is a workhorse.  Never let's me down!  I was given mine at a corporate meeting years ago as I was working for the company that makes them.  Sleek design.  This is mine… 

This stapler was immortalized in the 1999 movie "Office Space".  Milton's boss took his stapler and frankly that is the premiss of the whole film.  Funny or Die has remade the "Office Space trailer as a horror flick with the Stapler as the weapon of choice.

#2  The Post it Note – They are everywhere!  I cannot help myself!  2 years ago I was asked by a friend at 3M to help them pick the Back to School colors – such fun!  In turn they sent me a box of 3m products…..now see what has happened…

 
P.S.  Don't but the super sticky unless you really want it to stick for a good long while!  I have had them pull up type and paint and not release easily.  They are great for door notes and in the car!

#3 The Circa Pads and Notebooks….

I love these versatile books.  They are slim like a spiral notebook, but work like a binder.  You can customize the rings, the covers and insert and take out pages whenever you like!

 
#4  Blue Ink – Love to write in Blue!  No other color ink feels as good to me.  It has been this way since I learned how to write!

 
#5 Post it Flags – great for noting where to sign on a contract, noting pages in books and magazines, and reminding me where I need to spend more time in my work papers.  LOVE THEM!

 
# 6 Single page Cutters….Perfect for pulling pages for magazines for our files or clipping articles from the newspaper!

 Ooooo let's run out and find some more goodies!!!

Why to I bore you with all of this?  Simply put I have done my time in retail stores.  Shopping the competition…. putting together displays…planogramming the shelves and dressing the windows….designing a store format for downtown stores and frankly I have seen a lot of good windows!(Thank you NYC at Christmas!)

That being said – THERE IS NO ONE BETTER, DAY in and DAY out than ANTHROPOLOGIE!  They have taken the dream of a window display coupled it with the core of the company vision (found items) and made us celebrateagain.  Retail should be theater!  At Anthropologie they get that.  It is our escape.  We shop for entertainment.  All of those big department stores that we used to enjoy as children have become homogeneous clones of one another.  I go to Anthropologie for flight of fancy and a theatrical WOW!

Do not assume this store is just for the younger set.  Go in – it will make you rethink what retail should be and what creatively you should expect from a store that cares about thrilling you, its customer.

This week brought all of this to light as we cried over the beating Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee took from the tornadoes and cheered as the young Prince married his Princess. 
 
I watched a news report where one couple from Birmingham hugged each other and started to laugh (not an, I am at a comdy club sort of laugh, but a laugh that said "we are still here and what else are you gonna do").  God gave us this weapon to get us through and hold us.  And isn't someone laughing just one of the prettiest things you could ever see?

Flipping to the other side of the world we found ourselves celebrating a Royal wedding.  Every little girl remembers a fairytale princess and dreams of pretty dresses and castles.  The frivolity of it all is so much of a contrast to the tornado that it brings an ironic laugh.

So in keeping with the idea of frivolous laughter and castles…….Let's talk "CRIBS", the MTV show about stars and their homes.  In the 2006 movie “Marie Antoinette”, starring Kirsten Dunst, there was an extra scene on the DVD.  One of those scenes was of Louis XVI , King of France and Marie Antoinette's husband, showing the palace of Versailles as if he were on MTV Cribs. Watch as he shows us his "Crib"!

"Let them eat cake" and remember, your home is beautiful as long as you have laughter to fill the open spaces.

If you would like to help those who need laughter now please give to the American Red Cross!

It was nice to see the return of the sleeve in bridal fashions.  In the European churches they dictate that the shoulders must be covered and I must say it is a nice departure form the strapless style that is everywhere these days.

 
Could Catherine have been any more beautiful?  And Pippa – wow!  It is a shame that Alexander McQueen could not see this moment.  Sarah Burton designed perfection! 

 
After the wedding I heard the chat on "The View" where the ever obnoxious Joy Behar went on and on about how awful it was that Pippa was in white.  Joy clearly does not know her history, as bridesmaids used to all dress in identical clothing to the bride so that the evil spirits would not know who was getting married. Even as late as 19th century England, there was a belief that ill-wishers could administer curses and taint a wedding. In Victorian wedding photographs the bride and groom are frequently dressed in the same fashion as other members of the bridal party. (Wikipedia)

The dress brought back storybook weddings of the past…real and imagined…

Princess Grace in lace.

 
Maria's slim figure.

As a trendsetter, Princess Catherine brings us what I love most in design –  simple elegance and clean lines.

Hip, Hip Hooray!

Now about Mackintosh..

 
No, not that Macintosh..

 
And no, not this one either – although it is not lost on this blogger the importance of this apple in the world of Design.

I am going to go way back to the turn of the 19^th century to a designer known as Mackintosh.  He was very important in the time of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styling. Mackintosh was seen as a modernist designer. One of the first to discard the very ornate Victorian styles and designed for people.  He did not look at is as designing for the masses. He treated all of his designs as pieces of art. What set him apart from other modern designers of the time is his blend of the geometric and structural designs of Arts and Crafts and the fluid natural feel of Art Nouveau. Here are some of Mackintosh's greatest works, some you may recognize, as for the others, let them inspire you.

The Willow Tea Rooms, Glasgow Scotland

Two famous chairs by Mackintosh. Probably not the most comfortable to sit in, but definitely pieces of art.

Gaudi Apartments by Mackintosh and Antonio Gaudi. Now this is architecture at its most creative and scary.

Now that I think about it an apple sounds good about now!