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Text by Kim Ratcliff •
Produced by Linda McFalone and Laura Ziffer
Well-traveled and impeccably accessorized, Pamela Blackwell is the go-to girl
friends approach before they hit metropolitan hot spots around the
globe—especially her favorite locale, Paris. Although she visits frequently, she
wanted to bring a touch of the city she adores into her own home. So Pamela had
a tête-à-tête with designers Linda McFalone and Laura Ziffer of lulu Pom in Los
Gatos. Together, the three women turned a blah extra room into a posh hideaway.
“Our mission was to take a space with no closets and zero storage,
camouflage the decidedly un-French look of new built-in cabinets, and devise
creative opportunities for Pamela to stash her supplies,” Laura says. “It’s
about displaying the pretties and hiding the nuts and bolts.”
(a) A wooden drafting table, stained a rich espresso hue, offers ample work space.
Collected over time, silver trophy cups are perfect containers for trims,
buttons, tassels, and other French passementerie. A signature lulu Pom window,
rough burlap panels edged in luscious black velvet ball fringe, gives the room
its casual elegance.
(b) Pamela’s husband, Chris, a custom homebuilder, revamped a closet into a
swank sewing nook. A beveled mirror desktop adds smoky intrigue and showcases
Pamela’s mother’s old Singer. (c)Vintage tiebacks
swoop up a burlap panel hung from black glass drawer knobs. (d) Silk ribbons
casually looped around a bottle drying rack await the perfect gift. (e) Gathered
linen skirting hides stacking containers. (f) Pamela snapped up this sunny yellow ribbon box at a French flea market.
Reproduction brass scissors come in handy for sewing projects. A vintage polka
dot hatbox from Chelsea Hats shares a name with her daughter, Chelsea, 15.
(g) “The best way to make a space shine is to fill it with your favorite
things.”
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As any great illusionist knows, magic is often smoke and mirrors. In
that vein, the lulus nixed cabinet doors in favor of soft French linen skirting,
gathered on a tension rod, to cloak the room’s primary storage area. They stole
the idea from Pamela’s favorite Parisian shoe boutique, where surplus inventory
is similarly stacked and stashed. “Fabric softens the hard edges and cleverly
hides stor-ables,” Linda says.
Ascrumptious scrap of pink wallpaper adorned with a fancy French
coquette, (h), establishes a theme for the room. “When I
spied it artfully
unrolled in a tiny antique shop during one
of my
trips, I had to have it,” Pam
says. She was equally
smitten with a
French oil painting (on easel) during a
trip to
Vanves flea market with
her mom and sister. Caught in a downpour, she
snapped up the soggy
score for $25, tossed the “hideous”
frame, and jet-setted
back home
with the canvas.
Pamela’s
posh parlor is also a great spot to
display her ribbon
collection, whether it’s a burnt orange curl from a
Hermes
box
purchased on her honeymoon in New York or a candy-striped
grosgrain
flea-market find. She’s drawn to fanciful trims like a
tourist
to the Eiffel
Tower. “They’re a beautiful remembrance of my
travels.”
(h) The Blackwells’ Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Sabrina, is Pam’s
companion when she wraps gifts. “I love to gussy presents up with tissue paper
and I adhere to a strict ‘no re-gifting’ philosophy,” she says. (i) Hand-sewn towels make perfect hostess gifts. (j) A collection of ornate
frames adds instant panache. (k) Gorgeous packaging is too delicious to toss. (l) A
wooden dress form draped in Chanel ribbon. (m) A mademoiselle, pink and petticoated,
serves as Pamela’s alter ego.
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