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Holy Bertazzoni! I’m Renovating My Parent’s Ugly Kitchen!

Dear Design Diary, Literally the best thing ever is happening! Since my parents moved into their house I’ve been itching to redo their kitchen and now it’s finally happening. A little backstory: my parents moved out of my childhood home in Yosemite about three years ago and relocated to an area on the outskirts of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County. They found a great house where we can all hang out. An added bonus: my brother, his wife, and their kids live in a neighboring wine town called Windsor. It’s very cute up here and my parents love it. They…

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Eight Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Apartment

Photograph by Tessa Neustadt Courtesy Homepolish You guys! I’ve started a new series for Architectural Digest! Here’s my first story for them! I just counted on my fingers and I’ve moved 19 times in the 13 years since I graduated from college. I never really thought about it, but I guess I have a thing for moving. Most of my moves were brought on by job changes, going to grad school, because I was staying with friends and family while I had no job, or because I simply was over the place I was living and decided to move. Sometimes…

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Chateaulando Master Bedroom Reveal!

Dear Design Diary, Since we last gabbed, there have been some MAJOR updates in the Haus of Orlando. My master bedroom is done and ready to chat with you guys about what I chose and why. It’s only been a few days since I blabbed about my plans, but if you need to refresh your memory check out my intro post AND check out my even blabbier post on Hommemaker which has before pics and my plan for the space. CONTINUE READING >>>

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My New Guest Bedroom is Finally Done!

Photograph by Zeke Ruelas Dear Self, I kind of freaked out when I finally saw my guest bedroom in its fully finished state. Which was insane, because I’d literately been there the whole time putting it together, sweating my face off and screaming at the ceiling. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s Orlando and today I am revealing my guest bedroom, which I intro’ed last week on the blog. But.. back to the room. It wasn’t until everything was in place that was like “HI WHAT IS THIS CAN I LIVE IN HERE?” Since I moved into Chateaulando, this room…

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Planning my Guest Bedroom

Photography by Tessa Neustadt and Orlando Soria Dear Design Diary, You Guys! So much is happening you are going to FREAK OUT when I tell you. If you haven’t been following my shenanigans on Instagram, you have to start because my life is RIDICULOUS right now. To make a long story short, I’ve skipped town for a few months and am currently living at my parents’ house, writing my book, and running my design business remotely from Sonoma County (about an hour north of San Francisco, think wine, vineyards, and redwoods). I have a strict deadline for my book (which is…

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A Semihandmade Kitchen Makeover

Photographs by Zeke Ruelas Dear Diary, The long, national nightmare that was my kitchen renovation has finally come to a close! If you’ve been reading about it here, you know it was a total comedy of errors. I made a ton of mistakes, wasted way too much money, and ended up feeling taken advantage of by my landlord. But now that it’s done I’m just gonna do my best to move on. Sometimes when I’m stressing about something money-related I ask myself “Take money out of the equation, would you still be stressing about this?” If the answer is “no”…

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Chateualando: Planning the Living Room

Dear Design Diary, Looking for an apartment in LA these days is no simple task. When my ex broke up with me, the first thing I did (after staring into a mirror forever wondering why I’d gotten myself into the pattern of falling for people who would ultimately do nothing but disappoint and hurt me) was look for a new place. There were lots of good options and lots of terrible options and the good options kept getting snagged right before I could get to them. For every apartment there were multiple applications. And there were so many apartments in weird…

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Dating Sucks: On Depression, Loneliness, and Fake Happy Endings

Dear Depressing Diary, WHY U SO DEPRESSING, DIARY? JK I totally know. Read on… I find myself fixating on one element of my previous life with my ex. He used to wake up earlier than me (I hate the morning) and get some international phone calling done (he’s a producer who sometimes works on films in Europe). So every morning I’d wake up to him SCREAMING French into the phone (he’s French). It wasn’t that he was mad or yelling or anything, it was just that his voice is too loud. Like he doesn’t have volume control. When we would go…

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New Dining Chandelier from Park Studio

Dear Judith Light, In your honor, I have named all the lighting in my home Judith. When I wake up, I turn on the Judith in the kitchen and brew myself a nice piping cup of Joe. When I go to bed I turn off the Judith that sits on my nightstand. Recently, a new Judith entered my life. I got a new chandelier from Park Studio for my dining room and it’s rocking my entire world. I’ll be chatting about the overall design of the dining room later, but I wanted to share this light fixture ASAP because she…

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Chateaulando: Planning the Master Bedroom

Dear Design Diary, The description (from the Benjamin Moore website) for the wall color I chose for my new bedroom is “A romantic pink that’s light and luminous, this soft, feminine shade adds a sweet finishing touch to a little girl’s room or a powder room.” Nowhere in there does it say “This butch, masculine color for dudes will make sure you find a new boyfriend in a matter of minutes. The second your suitor sees your bedroom he’ll know you’re the masc bro he wants to spend the rest of his life with.” And I guess that’s kind of why…

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Dating Sucks: Everyone Is Looking Up

Dear Dating Diary, Something I’ve noticed about myself is that I’m constantly comparing myself to people who are more successful than me, who have more money, who are more in shape or seemingly happier. There is a natural human tendency to compare ourselves with other people we perceive to have more or be more than ourselves. This permeates into the dating world and affects the way we interact romantically, but today’s conversation isn’t confined to dating. It’s more about an issue I see in myself and in people around me. The issue is that we can basically never be satisfied, that…

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What I’m Up to in My Studio JK I Don’t Have One

Dear Artist Diary, As I’ve already blabbed about here, I made a New Years resolution to have an art show this year, so I’ve been playing around with what kind of paintings I’d like to make for it. A little background: I studied art in both undergrad and graduate school (I wanted to be an art professor but then realized academia wasn’t for me because all my grad school professors hated their lives and wanted to die). I have an MFA in painting, but I haven’t been consistently making art for years. In doing some post-break-up soul searching over the holidays,…

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A Spring Refresh at the Beach House

Dear Decorating Diary, Remember when I had short hair and looked like this? And posed like a wax figure? I added that photo in for literally no reason other than that I need you to know that I exist and I’m talking to you from INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER. One of my favorite (and most popular) Homepolish projects of all time is a beach house I designed for a client a few years ago. It’s a minimal, bright space in Venice, California and the best feature is the views of the ocean you can see from many rooms in the house. When…

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My Life Burnt to the Ground So I’m Building a New One!

Dear Reader, I realize this blog has been realer than an episode of Degrassi: The Next Class lately. And I feel kind of bad about that. I’m not trying to push my problems onto all of you. However, one thing that really bothers me in the world of blogger/influencer types is people who promote a perfect, unattainable version of themselves and leave out all the challenging stuff. Life is not all walking down the street, making a quirky face while holding balloons then going to a trendy eastside cafe to grab a latte. In the MY-LIFE-IS-PERFECT-AND-BETTER-THAN-YOURS echo chamber that is lifestyle blogging,…

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Dating Sucks: How to be a Good Friend During a Breakup

Dear Dating Diary, I was in a coffee shop yesterday, in a part of town I never go to (near Burbank? I have no idea where I was) and I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a close friend of my ex-boyfriend’s (X). I was at this guy’s wedding six months ago. We had him and his fiancé (now wife) over for dinner a few times. He wasn’t a best friend or anything, but definitely someone I’ve shared a drink and a laugh with more than once. But I kind of froze when I…

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Chateaulando: Planning The Kitchen

Sources: Delta Brass Faucet, White Tile from Cosmos, Ikea Wooden Countertop, Upper Cabinets (Color: White) and Lower Cabinets (Color: Clay) from Semihandmade, LG Refrigerator, Park Studio Cabinet Pulls, Drawer Pulls from MyKnobs, Bertazzoni Range, Bosch Dishwasher. Dear Renter’s Diary, It’s pretty impossible to find an apartment that is perfect in every way. Usually if the kitchen is great, the living room is too small. Or if the bathroom is spacious and sun-filled, the bedroom lacks a window or adequate closet space. So when I came across my new apartment (after being beat out for two similar apartments in the area) I…

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The Sublime Ceramics of Eric Roinestad

Dear Ceramics Fetishists, Something I scream about pretty much on a daily basis is how much I love anything made out of clay. Like if I could marry a ceramic man, I’d be the happiest person in the world. So when I stumbled upon the incredible work of Eric Roinestad (I literally stumbled upon it, while drunk, at a party at his house), I knew immediately that I would never be the same again. These pieces are delicate and earthy and unique. They basically look like if ancient Greek vases weren’t ugly. Yeah, I said it. I think Greek vases…

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Winter Hometown Tour: Yosemite

Dear California Diary, Los Angeles actually had winter this year. Like buckets and buckets AND BUCKETS of rain. And while there are people here whining about how cloudy and cold it is, most people are just really thankful for the wetness. The last five years have been nothing short of apocalyptic here. Hot winters, no rain, dust everywhere, everything brown and dry and brittle and ready to start on fire at any moment. It felt like that scene in ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ where LA explodes into flames and Sarah Connor is a melting skeleton clinging to a chain-link fence, screaming her…

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Dating Sucks: Getting the Most Out of Rejection

Dear Dating Diary, In my life, there’s one thing I’ve probably fixated on more than any other topic. Rejection. I don’t know where this started. Was it in fourth grade when all my friends rejected my friendship because I was “different”? Was it in high school when all my pyscho friends and I became obsessed with which colleges we’d be accepted and rejected by? Or did it come sometime later, at the conclusion of my two significant relationships, both which ended in rejection. I guess all relationships end in some degree of rejection. Rejection is everywhere and I think about…

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Black History Month with Angela Belt

Dear Black History Diary, I was thankful when Angela Belt, Homepolish designer extraordinaire, stylist, and blogger asked me to share my thoughts about Black History Month and what contributions by Black artists and designers meant to me. Part of me felt awkward making broad statements about the contributions of African Americans to art and design. But Black History Month is for everyone, and should be about celebrating the creativity, contributions, and sacrifices Black Americans have made to make our country what it is today. It is a time to express gratitude. I am such a fan of what Angela is doing…

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Meet My New Place: Chateaulando!

Dear Future Houseguests, I moved almost two months ago and whenever anyone asks me how my new place is, I immediately respond, “TERRIBLE.” I’ve basically turned into a cartoon of a cranky old man and/or an old witch who lives in a tower and screams terrifying things when children pass by. It’s not that I’m not thankful that I found a cute apartment to live in, it’s that I bit off a bit more than I can chew by basically deciding to renovate it myself, alone, in agony. It makes literally zero sense that I’m spending so much time and…

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Inspired by Austra

Dear Music Diary, I’ve been obsessed with Austra, the Canadian band headed by Katie Stelmanis, since I heard their song “Lost It” in 2011. I had no idea they weren’t mainstream superstars until last month when I bought four tickets to their LA show and kept inviting friends only to have them be like “WHAT’S AUSTRA???” I found this completely baffling because Austra’s music is so amazing that I figured I’d been late to the game when I first encountered them six years ago. But no, literally none of my idiot friends knew who they were. I ended up finding some people…

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The Colorful World of Hey Sosi

  Dear Andy Warhol’s Diary, I know you’re not accepting submissions anymore, especially not ones written on the internet by strangers and not submitted over the phone, but I have to tell you about the lovely work of Sofia Schizas, who works under the nom de paintbrush Hey Sosi. I came across her work on the site/app/cool-kidz-club Tictail and was immediately in love. Her prints are playful, illustrative, and filled with color. They somehow manage to be both completely silly and sophisticated at the same time. Originally from Cyprus, Schizas lives and works in Barcelona. Which brings me to the fact…

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Dating Sucks: Which App is Applicable?

Editor’s Note: To those of you who read my post last week about my breakup, the change in tone here might feel a little jarring. I actually wrote that post over a month ago, and I’m doing a lot better than I expected. There are a lot of tumultuous things going on in my life (some I can’t mention here yet) so I’ve been in a state of rediscovering my goals, both professional and personal. One of those goals is and always has been to communicate with people (THIS MEANS YOU) so the tone of this blog, while staying in…

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