The Color Purple

By Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

It seems Fashion and Interior Design go hand in hand with colors, textures, and trends. Purple/lavender is everywhere at the moment!! You can easily and inexpensively use purple to update the look of any room in your home. Keep a calm and clean palette accent your home with seasonal touches. Throws on the sofa and colorful patterned pillows can spruce up any room. Don't forget paint. Cut flowers can add so much too for just pennies! Purple is an excellant accent color for the garden as well. It can trasform any space dramatically for little money!

I might be a little obsessed with purple...
Can you blame me?

A Touch of Europe Comes to Houston

By Erin Ferucci

Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

Designer Pamela Pierce applied her signature European style to her own Kitchen....

Check out the Viking refrigerator, my favorite. I loved that she ripped down walls and inserted metal framed windows that pour all the light in!!She added in antiques from her travels to Europe to warm up the space. I love the old beam window headers, the French antique limestone pavers on the floor…The dining chairs are 18th century -Dutch. I love that she ripped out all upper cabinets and installed open shelving...the shelving and back splash are all the same as the countertops, Statuary Marble.
The floors in her pantry sounded really great, they are old pine flooring she found from a cheese shop in Sweden!!!
~Photography by Stephen Karlisch~

Kitchen Inspiration

By Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

As some of you may know, my latest adventure has been helping a friend spec' appliances for his kitchen,which is not yet built.

A little known fact…If had not been a designer I would have loved to have been a chef. My dream refrigerator has always been with clear glass doors!
Maybe it's the culinary in me that loves the glass doors, or I just like all the products inside to face in perfect directions... Like your own private gourmet grocery store... I prefer the freezer at the bottom of the frig' as I rarely use it. These all come from Sub-Zero.Darryl Carter is one of my new favorite designer's. This is his own kitchen in a farmhouse in Virginia (photographed by: Simon Upton) I love this photo of a1904 Dallas building where designer Shannon Bowers has mixed Industrial with Antiques. Photo by: Joe Grisham

French Laundry

By Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

One of my dreams is to have a beautiful dining experience at the famed and proclaimed French Laundry in Napa Valley. The owner and chef is world renowned Thomas Keller. Dining at French Laundry is supposed to be unlike anything you've ever experienced!!! ever! I cannot wait!!! Here is an excerpt from their website, detailing their dining experience:

Every day we create two unique nine-course tasting menus – chef’s tasting and a tasting of vegetables – each a series of smaller, focused dishes. No single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal. What we want you to experience is that sense of surprise when you taste something so new, so exciting, so comforting, so delicious, you think, “Wow” – and then it’s gone. We want the peak of sensation on the palate to be all that you feel. We want you to say, “I wish I had just one more bite of that.” And then the next plate arrives and the same thing happens, but in a different way, a whole new flavor and feel and emotion.

And for those of you who want to take the dining experience home there is the French Laundry Cookbook! Bon Appetit!

Napa Valley Dream Destination Summer 09

by Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

As part of my commitment to "dreaming and doing" I have started researching my dream destination to Napa Valley.
Napa Valley is divine get away. Its a lovely provincial community that reminds me of Europe with its beautiful natural organic settings, earthy sensibility and lush landscapes. The fact that everybody loves gourmet food and wine, even better.

My dream hotel destination is the lovely Auberge du Soleil, also known as the “Inn of the Sun”.

My dream dinner destination is of course French Laundry. I can’t wait to turn this dream into a reality!

Photos courtesy of Max Kim-Bee for Travel & Leisure Magazine 02-09

Wild Lavender Landscaping

By Erin Ferucci

Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

Recently, while I was doing research for a new project I came across this great article in the May issue of Met Home “08. I love this amazing exterior design.

It looks so simple and wild yet Provincial-as if it has been there for years- growing wild.....un-groomed... I loved the low-maintenance plants and the fact that they are "drought-resistant".

The designer, Ron Lutsko Jr., began by wrapping honey-hued stone walls around the courtyard and used large limestone pavers surrounded by gravel instead of using grass.....It is both cost effective and maintenance free and looks absolutely beautiful... I love that it looks wild...with clusters of "lavandula Stoecha" and lavaundula "grosso" (types of lavender- there are 5000 types) I also love the contrastof the lemon-lime clusters called "Euphorbia", nestled amongst the contrast of the bold Blue Oak tree.

All photographs are by Marion Brenner

New Year's Resolutions

by Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

Okay, Okay, it’s the beginning of February, but now is still an ideal time to start on New Year’s Resolutions. And is there a better place to formulate your new year plan than a walk on the beach on a blustery windy February morning?

One of my goals this year is to really make things happen ~ to “do” instead of simply “dream”. I’ve started a new dream board and have begun making lists of places that I have dreamed of going.

In the health department I have decided to give up my usual 2-3 cup coffee habit that is laced with “fake” flavored creamers. This morning I enjoyed a lovely cup of green “yogi” tea with agave. It was an interesting and delightful change.
I have also renewed my passion for juicing. Juicing is a healthy alternative to snacking in order to satisfy cravings and it is a great way to get your daily recommended doses of fruits and vegetables. It's amazing the sheer volume of vegetables that can be packed into one tasty beverage. I highly recommend it!

Stay tuned to the Blog as I turn my dream board into a reality.

Teuscher Gourmet Chocolate Truffles

by Erin Ferucci

Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

Nothing says love like chocolate. However, quality rather than quantity is essential. As promised in the last blog, I have the inside info on what is undoubtedly one of the easiest ways to access world class chocolate for your Valentine.

Teuscher Chocolates (pronounced toy-sure) is one of the finest chocolotiers specializing in luxurious truffles that are sure to delight even the most discriminating taste buds. This is one of my favorite secrets. Everyone in my family loves these chocolates and they are a favorite of many of my celebrity clients as well.

Handmade in Switzerland of the finest, most decadent natural ingredients Teuscher gourmet chocolates come in more than 100 different varieties. The chocolates are made fresh in Switzerland and Fedexed for freshness.

Their most famous truffle is the Champagne Truffle, perfect for a Valentine gift, which has a French Champagne “conched” center. Four of these truffles are spectacular gift worthy of true love!

For Los Angeles chocolate lovers there is a Beverly Hills store or you can order direct from Teuscher. Treat yourself and your love to these spectacular chocolates and enjoy the experience.