Design on a Dime 2009

_{Ty Pennington for Sears Vignette for Design on a Dime. Sears was one of the event's title sponsors.}

Thursday night I attended the opening night party for Housing Works' annual Design on a Dime fundraiser. Each year, Housing Works enlists some of the top names in interior design to create spectacular room vignettes with donated, brand new luxury home furnishings which are sold at 50-80% off retail to benefit Housing Works' charitable programs for homeless and low-income people living with HIV and AIDS in New York City. This year's vignettes were filled with amazing pieces for sale and were also chock full of design inspiration. I stopped by the venue mid-day on Wednesday to interview a few of the designers as they were setting up their vignettes and the place was a chaotic construction zone! So I was amazed at how the designers were able to pull together such fabulous, polished looking spaces in such a short time!

_{A cheery vignette designed by the editors of Real Simple.}

The opening party was really fun. I went with my friend Samantha who I'm currently helping to decorate her bedroom and we had a great time shopping around and mingling with lots  of interesting people. I ran into textile designer Michael Devine, whom I met back in October during Market Week at the D&D and for the first time I had the pleasure of meeting designer and antiques dealer Steven Sclaroff as well as designer-to watch Olivia Song who donated a few pieces from her housewares collection to Calypso Home for their vignette (her products are sold at their stores too). I was also excited to finally meet blogger Heather Clawson of Habitually Chic in person along with David Jimenez who both couldn't have been nicer.

As for the shopping, I found a few great things for my apartment. I almost overlooked this set of drinking glasses at Ernest De La Torre's booth but thankfully Samantha spotted them...they had my initial etched onto the glass! How perfect! I had to buy them, especially since they were only $2 apiece!

My splurge of the night was on this black and white photograph by husband and wife photography team Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton from Steven Sclaroff's room. I just fell in love with it. It was from a series of photos that featured beautiful, yet distraught looking women in a very messy space with books and cigarette butts and all kinds of junk strewn about...sort of reminded me of Grey Gardens and I loved this juxtaposition of these gorgeous women in a very ugly state, in a messy, chaotic environment. This purchase also solves the dilemma of what to do with the wall behind my sofa! (Stay tuned for the reveal of my gallery wall of contemporary photography!) Samantha's shopping went well too...she found an amazing X based bench covered in Quadrille's bright green Aga pattern from Elizabeth Bauer's room, a silver mirrored tray along with vintage perfume bottles, some barware, and a fun, brightly colored accent rug as well as a photo frame from Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants themed room.

She also won this color photograph in the silent auction from contemporary photographer Hank Willis Thomas, which I thought was super cool and kitchy. It was based on an Afro Sheen ad from the early 70's and is now hanging above Samantha's chic bar area in her living room. The open-to-the-public sale is going on all day today and there have definitely been markdowns so if you're in the area you must go! And you can shop with peace of mind knowing that your purchase is going towards a very worth cause! Click here for more info.

_{Vignette photos courtesy of Housing Works}

Comments

[Sharalee]

I love that photo, very groovy!

- and glad to see you're back, I was wondering where you'd been...

[J in NYC]

Loving that Gage/Betterton photo you picked up! I was there yesterday as well and snagged up the one photo from that series with the 3 women in the room (1 was sitting, 1 sitting and reading, and the third was standing and posing). I immediately knew I had to buy the photo and while I didn't get a chance to see the others, as this was the last one available, I'm sure they were all just as great.

Enjoy yours--I'm sure it'll be perfect in whichever room you decide to display it in!