miss you mommy bloomer

What to say...today marks the 5 year anniversary of our Mommy Bloomer's passing. It was a big year, lots of emotions with the two weddings, birthdays, announcements and odd daily musings that make you pick up the phone to share with her before you realize she is gone. 5 years is a long time, but there still hasn't been a day that has gone by where she was not in my thoughts and I am forever grateful for this ability to keep her so close. Whether its a pillow I bought at West Elm that reminds me of one that she had on her couch, the way I hang the blanket over the armchair with the same purposeful carelessness, the certain spice I know she added to her lasagna and the way I find my hand curled on my lap exactly like the way hers did...she sneaks into my thoughts and my every day life keeping her memory always alive.

For the weddings, both completely different but both completely wonderful, she was definitely a driving force in most of the design choices. At the circus wedding we used the antiques she collected and lovingly finished throughout her life, the collection of doilies that rivals no other, and the part of the property to get married on by the gardens and trees that she planted with weddings in mind. And then the Israeli beach wedding, covered with bougainvillea - her favorite flower - and the colours "aqua and orange" which are just a modern way of saying "seafoam and peach" which was definitely her favorite colour palette as you could attest to our family home before our recent re-design! She was definitely as close as she could possibly be on those days and I am so grateful she left so much of herself behind for us to feel close to.

Once I wrote to Oprah and Nate asking how to re-decorate our house without losing the essence and memories we cherished most about her. Sadly, it didn't happen, and as much as we would have welcomed Oprah and Nate to our home, I know we learned more in the process of doing it on our own. We learned more about her, created new memories with her and learned how to keep her as close as possible in our every day lives. I guess we have more to offer Oprah in the future so I'm glad we didn't have our Oprah moment yet!

We don't get the chance to talk to her any more, to curl up on a couch together and laugh about the silly things that made our weird minds tick, but we still share that love for beauty, design and her ability to always swim against the current. She is definitely the Original Bloomer and we look forward to many more years of keeping her memory alive in our work.

We love you Mommy Bloomer! Thank you for everything you taught us...we will make you proud.

almost oprah...

I have never told you about our almost brush with Oprah moment! Last year I was lying at home on the couch recovering from surgery on my poor twice broken nose. I was watching Oprah and the episode was one where Nate {did I mention how in love we are with Nate?!} was helping this family update the decor in their house because it was stuck in the 80's. He made a comment about how we don't wear the blue eye shadow of the 80's so why do we let our house wear it? This house had dried flower arrangements everywhere, wooden folk art, balloon curtains...you name it! I started to get really upset because I realized that our family home fell suspiciously in this category of blue eyeshadow. Its like the fog was pulled over my eyes and I saw it clearly the way it was. The problem was, the house decor was my mother's pride and joy. And she was really good at it too. But my mother is no longer with us and she was sick for so many years, the house got put on the back burner and was never properly updated even though if she had had the energy she would have most definitely done it herself. We were stuck in a rut, not wanting to lose memories, trying to preserve what we had left of her but living in an faded shrine full of victorian lacy curtains, floral wallpaper, sea foam accents and dusty, dried flower arrangements that probably had creatures living in them.

So, full of tears, I wrote to Oprah asking for Nate's help. How were we to update our home but preserve the memories we so desparately needed to hang on to? I sent it off all in a flurry. The next day, kind of embarrassed, I chalked up my letter to the left-over effects of the anaesthetic and forgot completely about it. I mean...like the Oprah show actually reads people's letters!

A few weeks later, I'm busy at work and my cell phone rings. Absent-mindedly I pick it up and I hear "Hi, I'm calling from the Oprah show, we got your letter and I would like to pitch it at our next meeting...would you mind giving me some more details about your family and sending me pictures of the entire house?" So I start freaking out, I call my sisters, we are all screaming and shrieking, thinking we have finally done it, we are finally worthy of being on Oprah! We are finally going to meet Nate! Nate is going to update our house!!!! We spend all hours of the next two days gathering details for the producer. I'm getting emails every five minutes asking more questions, looking for more details. And when I say details I mean novels of facts...then we get a call..."You've made it to our top 40 choices!"....a day later..."You've made it to the top ten, we need you to make a video telling us why you need this makeover and by the way we need it by end of day today"....CRAP!! So we put together this dorky home video all in the span of about 5 hours its Fed-Exed to the Oprah show. Then I get an email asking us if we have updated passports...OMG we are going to get this!!! Then we wait....and wait...and I guess a year later its kind of obvious that we didn't make the cut. Poo.

Soooo...we said to hell with them...we are going to do it ourselves! With renewed excitement we realize that we have it in us to update the house while preserving memories. Who knows the memories better than us?! We are talented designers who have been groomed for this sort of thing since we were born, we own Nate's book, we've watched what he does...we can so do this! We decided to begin with my Dad's room and bathroom. The room had remained untouched since my Mom's passing and we felt that it was an unhealthy environment for him to wake up in every morning. It provided him with a fresh reminder every day of what he had lost and it was overwhelming for him to think of sorting through it. It wasn't easy, but boy oh boy was it worth it! Here it is...move over Nate...I think you've got some competition!

Stay tuned, we've since over-hauled the entire main space of the house and we are still going...more pictures to come...

beautiful piles of dirt!

As Shayna Bloomer jets off to Israel to plan +design her own wedding, I will tell you the latest design project in my own life. I, Melanie Bloomer, just bought a house - well, actually, just a pile of dirt right now. It won't be built until 2010, but that excites me more. Now I have, with the help of my Bloomers, a year and a half to plan the way I'd ideally like my house to look! FUN FUN FUN.

Take a look at my beautiful pile of dirt. I want to just plod right in there on my horse at top speed and drive my flag right into the ground, just like Tom & Nicole did on Far & Away!



There's something sort of cool about that Warning sign!



Oh the possibilites this blank space offers!

I must say, I have always loved the Oprah Winfrey Show episode where Nate Berkus decorates his small Manhattan apartment. I love how simple it is with the stark white walls, the large artwork, brown leather couches, but when he painted his doors a glossy blue/black, I was SMITTEN. Nate says painting your doors offers architectural interest to the space. Sigh, did I mention that I love him?

Come and appreciate dreamy Nate and his dreamy apartment with me (photos compliments of on the Oprah.com) ...



Love this layout - very natural looking, very open.



I absolutely love this colour blue, but also, look how great his stainless steel backsplash looks?



I like the way the vintage lamp looks in his modern bedroom.



And oh, I could design some pretty amazing events from this workspace.

Oh the possibilities....this is what I call fun!