(500) Days of Summer: Summer’s apt

 

For Christmas I gifted one of my sisters with a copy of (500) Days of Summer. 10% of my reasoning behind it was that I thought she would enjoy it and the other 90% was purely selfish, because I was dying to see it!

 

I don’t want to give too much away for those that have yet to see it, but I would say it’s a must see if only for the amazing soundtrack. I’m not going to lie I thought it was going to become my new favorite movie and had very high hopes, but in the end I simply just enjoyed it.

 

One reason that I’m very happy that the movie was misplaced when dear sister was trying to pack up all her gifts (aka it is now with all my DVDs! Ssh) was Summer’s apt. I fell in love at first sight.

 

Due to Summer’s (Zooey Deschanel) brilliant blue eyes she wears shades of blue throughout the entire movie along with blue also making a strong presence in her apt.

 

I love toile! Normally one would probably think it would be a little too overwhelming to have it above and below the chair rail in room, but in this apt it just works! It adds a wonderful charm to the space and works just right with her personality.

 

Summer has a great collection of artwork that in the beginning of the movie she has simply stacked in front of a faux fireplace.

 

As the movie progresses you see Summer’s apt change a bit.  Now that she has fully moved in artwork has been hung and voila a bar cart has been added! I think the whole blog world would approve of that move.

 

Here you can catch more of the toile wallpaper that covers the main living area of the apt!

 

Love the twinkling lights on her headboard. Also blue!

I know this post is about Summer, but I must included a little sneak peek of Tom’s apt. My favorite has to be his chalkboard wall!

 

Here it is in the beginning of the film:

I love that the headboard is simply drawn in chalk.

 

Here it is later on in the film with some of his architectural drawings.

At one point Tom has, “ This is not a love story, but a story about love” written on his wall. This totally sums up the movie correctly.

 

I’m now actually itching to watch it again! I think I was perhaps too harsh with my first viewing.  So, dear readers have any of you caught this film yet? Thoughts?

Kitchen Love: The Women

A couple of weekends ago Jon had to go into work for a couple of hours. Now I could have taken that time to get a get a start on laundry, make the bed or unload the dishwasher, but I decided it would be best to stay in bed and watch The Women.

Yes I know I’m a bit late to the party. I never saw it before, because I had heard numerous horrible reviews, but I still wanted to know how bad, bad was.

Ok so it’s not wonderful, but I watched the whole thing and enjoyed bits and pieces. I must say though that the thing I enjoyed the most was seeing Meg Ryan’s character Mary’s kitchen.

I never in a million years thought I would say that I enjoyed brass and wood paneling, but in this kitchen it works.

Mary’s life is a bit hectic and the kitchen reflects her lifestyle. There are spices, mail, plates, etc all about the kitchen making it feel very lived in and real.

I love the open shelving and the kitchen island that is not centered in the kitchen, but off to the side.

Opposite the wall of the stove is a wall filled with a gallery wall. That’s notsomething you normally see in a kitchen, but again it works. I love all the mix-matched frames and oil paintings.

From the view in the hallway you can see that there is a pantry/butler room section before you enter the kitchen. The space as the same cabinets, knobs and countertops, but the backs of the cabinets are painted peacock blue.

It also houses this amazing farm sink!

All in all the movie was rather blah, but this kitchen kept me going, because it kept making appearances. It would be so easy to make so adjustments to a standard builder grade white kitchen and get this look.

Just switch out your knobs to brass:

Pick up some pine planking and stain it to choice of darkness. This would be a less expensive option then tiling all of your backsplash so that is an added plus!

You could add a little more character by painting the backs of the glass cabinets with a pop of blue!

To fill up an oil painting gallery wall I would head to my local thrift stores and see what I could find or search ebay for finds like this.

It’s also good to search for vintage paint by numbers as well.

I think with a few simple tweaks you could turn your kitchen into a warm and homey country retreat like the kitchen featured above.

Are there any other movie kitchen sets that make you weak in the knees?

Spill please!

I love a charade

Recently me and my sister were discussing movies and wishing that there was a site that told you the state a movie took place in and documented all the stores, restaurants, parks etc that were filmed. A site where you can log on, get all the info and go try the place out yourself.

Sometimes it’s easy to figure out what state a movie is taking place in. You see landmarks and realize oh they are in NY. But since I’m only from NY I sometimes don’t always pick on the clues when a movie’s location is in another state and it takes me a while to realize that the movie is actually in CT.

Where we enter even more of a problem is when movies are suppose to be in a certain state, but they are actually filming it in a totally different location like Canada and you end up trying to jot down store names that don’t exist where you think they do.

Ah the magic of movies!

I swear my long rambling has a point. I hope. In NY we have our fair amount of TV shows and movies being filmed all year round. One of the locations that is very popular to shoot in is the Hamptons, but here is where charade part comes in. The majority of the time it’s not really the Hamptons that you are seeing, but Old Westbury Gardens, which is a mere 5 miles away from me.

Enter the house in Cruel Intentions, Sex and the City Hamptons wedding between Bobby Fine and Bitsy Von Muffling and mostly recently Nate’s family estate on Gossip Girl:

Entrance Gate:

The Mansion:

This house is the main estate in Old Westbury Gardens. It is called Westbury House and was completed in 1906 by English designer, George A. Crawley. The Charles II style mansion is nestled amid 200 acres of formal gardens, landscaping grounds, woodlands, ponds and a lake.

Here is a virtual tour of the gardens. Walkway to the Rose Garden:

Walled Garden Pond:

East Lake:

Click here to check out all the TV shows and movies that were filmed at Old Westbury Gardens.

So long story even longer does your town have any famous locals that are constantly being used for films, tv shows?

Spill the details and lets dish!