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Throwing a Glamourous Birthday Party with Kitchensurfing

Photographs by Sean Gin Dear Gorgeous Interior Designer Matthew Lanphier, You had a birthday recently and you didn’t know what to do about it. Birthdays are fun when you’re little because your mom throws you a huge party and invites all your friends and everyone gets candy. But once you hit your 30s birthdays start to get annoying. You can either get one of your friends to throw you a giant party at their glamour mansion, or you can force your friends to go out to fancy dinner somewhere and then everyone will secretly resent you while pretending they want…

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Homepolishing for Fashiontoast

Photographs by Tessa Neustadt, Courtesy Homepolish Dear Fashion Ladies, Do you read Fashiontoast? It’s the beautiful fashion diary of Rumi Neely. Do you know who Rumi Neely is? She’s the cute girl that’s so cute it will make you want to scream and tear out your eyeballs and cry blood until you die. Homepolish recently hooked me up with Rumi to redesign her living room and dining room to reflect her elegant, minimal style. Here’s me excusing her beauty while we looked at magazines together: DINING ROOM For the dining room, we started with a large-scale French country-inspired table from AllModern (who sponsored the…

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D.I.Why? Making an Ugly Coffee Table Into A Simple Work Of Art

Beautiful Photographs by Sean Gin. Ugly Photographs by Orlando Soria. Dear Old Coffee Table I Got from Emily Years Ago, You taught me a lot of things. Firstly, you taught me that it’s important to take care of things or they’ll turn into garbage. I remember the day years ago when Emily and I looked at each other and were like “What are we going to do with this piece of garbage?” This once-beautiful royal blue lacquer coffee table got scratched after we moved it around in our storage for two years. Which reminds me, I HATE LACQUER. Yes it…

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Gray’s Gardens

 Photography by Nicole Lamotte, Courtesy One Kings Lane Dear Gray Malin, I’m pretty jealous of your outdoor space. The glamorous, enormous back yard you have behind your West Hollywood home is green and lush and inviting. I want to go to like 500 gardenparties there. Designing this outdoor space in conjunction with One Kings Lane was a dream because I basically had the best outdoor stuff at my fingertips. We began our design by selecting this wonderful outdoor sectional from One Kings Lane (where all the furnishings came from). Like most type-A LA Gays, Gray and his husband Jeff have 500 million friends…

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Styling Emily’s New Dining Room

  Dear Diary, I had some fun styling with Emily at her new house the other day. Check out what we did with her dining room. Using awesome art from Tappan Collective, vintage accessories, and some cool lamps, we transformed the dining console from grotesque to gorgeous. Happy Monday! Click here for full story! Love, Orlando PS: Click here for a chance to win the beautiful Molly Berman photo we used in Emily’s dining room.

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Homepolish & One Kings Lane Give Gray Malin a Home Makeover

Photos by Nicole Lamotte, Courtesy One Kings Lane Dear Reader, By now, you’ve probably heard of Gray Malin (pictured above with his hubz Jeff and my scaryface), the brilliant photographer who took these gorgeous photographs: As you can see, these photos are right up my alley. We both love Miami colors, tropical locations, and the coastal aesthetic. You can check out the rest of his beautiful portfolio online. Homepolish hooked me up with the opportunity to design Gray’s home, starting with the living room and outdoor spaces. In collaboration with One Kings Lane (who sponsored the project and donated their lovely home…

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Homepolishing in La Habra Heights

Photos by Bethany Nauert courtesy of Homepolish. Portrait by Matt Lara. Dear Diary, One of my first projects post-Emily is also one of my very favorites. I was called upon to decorate this glamourous house in La Habra Heights, a beautiful little town about 40 minutes east of Downtown Los Angeles. The home is located on a huge lot on top of a hill and has an amazing view. The family that lives there (who wish to remain anonymous because they are already, like, way too famous) is a young couple with two kids. They recently remodeled this 1930s Spanish home…

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My Weekend in Instagramz: Miami

Dear Diary, It’s been a crazy few weeks. Like crazy good. First, my very very close friend Erika (above) got married. Then, I installed at Gray Malin’s house and Rumi Neely’s house in one week and had back to back photo shoots for three days. Then, a brand new member of my family was born (a little handsome nephew named Celio) and I jaunted up to Sonoma County to check him out. I’ll be writing more about all that in the future, but for now I want to concentrate on Miami, because it’s one of the most incredible places on…

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D.I.Why? Making A Frame for Your Large-Scale Art in 10 Easy Steps

Photographs by Sean Gin Dear My Client Tiffany That Asked How To Make Your Own Frame, Do you have a giant painting sitting in your house? Is it naked? Afraid? Frameless? If so keep reading, if not spare yourself. I devised this super-simple/cheap solution to framing large paintings a while back when I made a big painting for a client. And now I’m going to share this amazing money saving secret with you. I made the above painting a few weeks ago while I was frantically cleaning my apartment. I’ve nixed my gallery wall in favor of one large piece….

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Whut Glamour: The Dual Worlds of Matin Zad

Dear Tappan Collective, I love your site which features affordable art by emerging artists. I was especially taken with the work of Matin Zad, a New York fashion photographer whose work is just captivating. He’s done some great collaborations with brands I love (Levi’s, etc). His original works are also lovely. Just quiet and simple and evocative. Basically what my dreams look like. The world he creates has an interesting duality to it. It’s a combination of beauty/elegance/glamour with awkward/uncomfortable/weird. The combination works, making it hard to look away from these images. You can see more of Matin’s work on…

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How To Plant a Succulent Garden Without Making a Giant Mess in Your Apartment

Photographs by Sean Gin Dear Other People Who Live in Urban Apartments, Do you ever feel sad about the fact you have no outdoor space? Like no yard with a hose to water your plants, a space to run around in? That you can’t just go outside and dig your hands in the dirt and feel SO connected to nature just like you did in your forest upbringing? I do. As someone who was raised in a land where I could stick my hand in dirt whenever I felt like it, without the risk of getting a lethal strain of…

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Restoring a Rain-Destroyed Dresser in Three Easy Steps Without Exerting Any Effort at All

Photos by Sean Gin  Dear Diary, I had a wonderful trip to New York a few weeks ago. If you haven’t heard of it, New York is a large metropolitan American city where residents are known to complain about winter for six months out of the year and then flee the city for the entire summer to go to the Hamptons or Fire Island. Anyway, while I was in New York there was a monumental rainstorm in Los Angeles which I named “Rainmageddon.” Rain is a  big deal in Los Angeles. Like as soon as it starts raining cats start…

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Fashion Felicitations From My Father’s Closet: 70s Bird Shirt

Photographs by Sean Gin Dear Fashion Diary, One of the most exciting pieces of clothing I’ve taken from my father’s closet is this ridiculously awesome bird shirt my mom made for him when they were in their twenties. Shown are my parents, my father in the glamourshirt: It’s not something that you’d wear to, like, a job interview or anywhere fancy. But every once in a while, when you want to wear something luxuriously 70z, it’s great to put on. I love that it looks like a gorgeous Japanese watercolor painting. I remember in high school, like freshman year, all…

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Style Tips From The Desk of Kelly Oxford

Photo via Domaine Dear Reader, Do you ever fantasize about trapping Kelly Oxford in a human-size birdcage so you can force her to talk to you and be your friend? Me too. That has nothing to do with the piece I wrote for Refinery29, but make sure you read it anyway. Some good tips on how to make your office as cozy and comfortable as the cage I designed for Kelly. I mean office. Whatever. Go read! Love, Orlando LINK: Kelly Oxford Office Decor Ideas on Refinery29

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Whut Beauty: The Photo Diary of John Arsenault

Photographs by John Arsenault Dear John Arsenault, Say what you will about Facebook, but sometimes it can be such a great tool for discovery. Just the other day, I was sifting through the vast stream of Gay shirtless pics, life-is-glamourous-I’m-somewhere-expensive status updates, and countless Buzzfeed GIF-list posts and I came across, as if by miracle, one of your images. I was immediately entranced. I love how quiet, mysterious, and ravishingly beautiful your work is. The following is a mixup of pieces from your visual diary and photos from your various exhibitions. I love it all so much that I want…

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Homepolishing in Laurel Canyon

Photographs by Tessa Neustadt Dear Reader, For a long time, it’s been a dream of mine to live in Laurel Canyon. I just imagine I’d move there, Joni Mitchell would be my neighbor, she would sing to me every morning out her window, and I’d be surrounded by trees and wilderness and I could pretend I lived nowhere near a city. Do you ever notice that the longer you live in a city the more annoying it starts to feel? Like you’ll be walking down the street and you’ll be like “why are there so many people waddling in front of…

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Nate Berkus & Jeremiah Brent Have Gone Bananas

Photographs by Mikael Jansson Dear Gay Diary, This isn’t exactly hot-off-the-press news, but I discovered recently that everyone’s favorite design powercouple Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent are part of a new Banana Republic ad campaign. Thus, I had to share the totally cute pics of them canoodling, cuddling, and just generally making every other couple on earth look like moldy dog food. Thanks guys! Of course these images fill me with the normal amount of jealousy, bewilderment, and outrage. But they also just kind of made me glad to see a cute gay couple in an ad like it ain’t no thang. The images…

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Dreamhouse: Coastal Living In Connecticut Cove

Photographs Courtesy Joeb Moore & Partners Dear College Diary, I took a class called Desire senior year in which one of my favorite professors taught us about the culture history of human desire. My friend Matt and I used to sit in the back and spend the whole class figuring out our post-collegiate lives. Like all the people I went to school with, we were planning on moving to New York (“The next trendy place to move is going to be Roosevelt Island!”). Our plans for our lives involved living in New York for 20 years, finding husbands, then moving…

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What Glamour: Jeremy Maz’s Kaleidescope Series

Dear Travel Diary, I’ve been running all over New York, working at the Homepolish HQ and looking at art (check out my Insta). Once I start looking at art I can’t stop, so here’s an LA artist who has been on my radar for a while. He’s a photogrpher, and I love his Kaleidescope series. See below: He also works with video, and created this piece to accompany the above images: [vimeo http://vimeo.com/82691226] You can view more of his work on his website, JeremyMaz.com. Love, Orlando

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Felicitations From My Father’s Closet: Mad For Madras

Photographs by Sean Gin Dear Jenna von Oÿ, I loved your work on Blossom, where you played the plucky sidekick to Mayim Bialik’s beloved character. She grew up to be kind of a weirdo, right? Oh well. Anyway, I’m doing this series where I take outfits I found in my father’s closet and show the world how they can buy new versions of them using nothing but their brains, the internet, and, like, tons of money. Below is an outfit I plopped together to go with a madras shirt with which I am in love. Madras is just classic. I…

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What’s Going In My Sunny Bedroom?

Photographs by Sean Gin  Dear You, Do you ever wonder what my bedroom looks like? Me neither! Because I live in it! Well your wondering can stop because my glamourphotographer Sean took some great pics which I will share with you now. My bedding is from West Elm. It’s hard to find something that classic and simple, so I love it. The stripe throw is from NineSpace, the lamps are from the Rose Bowl Flea Market, and the giant cactus is from my childhood. My ex founds these awesome nightstands at Pepe’s Thrift Shop. And then he went away forever….

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My Week in Instagramz

Oh Weeks, How you doth escape me! I began this week with a crazy-sexy-uncool feverthing that made me lay in bed all day long hallucinating that I was starving to death and then exclaiming at how soft the sheets felt against my starving, quivering feet. And then all the sudden the next day I was totally okay and it was way awesome. I don’t know what it was, probably food poisoning or something random, but it definitely felt like death. But it’s been a while since I’ve been that kind of sick. Like the kind of sick where you’re too…

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D.I.Why? How To Make A Giant Paint-By-Numbers

Photographs by Sean Gin  Dear Reader, Are you curious how I made this giant painting? And then stuck it in my normal-size bedroom? Read the full story on Refinery29! More shots of the finished bedroom next week! Love, Orlando Miss the refinery link before? It’s RIGHT HERE!

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Whatever You Did in Palm Springs Last Weekend Robert Smith & His Friends Did It Better

Dear Robert Smith, I saw the above image on my friend Jeffery’s Facebook and I just had to see more. Apparently you shot an awesome series of masked portraits in Palm Springs a few weeks back and I’m just loving the results. I’m not going to blabber too much about these images, I think they speak for themselves, but I’m glad you made them. Enjoy! Thanks! Love, Orlando PS: A mini artist’s statement, from Robert Smith “My interest in shooting masked portraits began after a weekend marathon of watching the 90’s TV show Twin Peaks. That crazy town is filled…

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