I was so excited on Friday when my first issue of Sunset Magazine arrived. For some reason, until recently, I always had this title mixed up with Highlights and never realized what I was missing! While the issue seemed a little thin, this was deceiving – it’s jam-packed with all kinds of great features. I was most excited to get a peek into the home of Vanessa De Vargas in Venice Beach. For those of you who don’t know, Vanessa writes the fabulous blog Turquoise and owns a shop with the same name. She has the ability to refurbish, mix and edit like no one I’ve ever seen. For those of you drawn to Hollywood Regency style, you must buy this issue if only to soak in Vanessa’s take.
Vanessa has the eye and talent to turn this:

into this: !!!!!

There was also a feature on an Eichler home update. I especially love the rectangular horizontal planters filled with the straight vertical horsetail. It’s so wonderful when enlightened homeowners come along and bring a house like this back to its original glory.

This issue had a fun D.I.Y. project titled “How to Stencil a Shade.” Now usually when I hear the word “stencil,” 1980′s Kountry Krafty Kitschens come to mind. This is not the case here! The simple leaf pattern they chose is beautiful, and let’s face it, plain old shades are just so boring. If you get sick of your stencil work, just roll it up and it’s gone. Personally, I’m going to use their advice to try my hand at stenciling an shade and turning it into a light over my dining room table. I was all set to order one from Galbraith and Paul before I realized how expensive those things are. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may turn into one of those projects I try and then laugh at my horrible result at the end, but I’m going to give it a whirl. Then I can feel justified when I drop the bucks on some gorgeous G&P shade and think “well, I tried.”

This magazine even has recipes that the culinarily challenged, like myself, can actually try. This is the first time I’ve ever ripped a recipe out of a magazine and thought “I might make that!” Maybe this is because I’m so used to looking at recipes in Martha’s magazines, where I’ve never even heard of half of the ingredients.

Finally, Sunset’s website ROCKS! I was able to search for all of the above-mentioned articles and find them on the site in full! Unlike, say, Elle Decor’s website where they tease you with the start of an article and then it says “to see the rest of the story, buy the magazine.” The Sunset site is part of the network that has galleries of rooms from Coastal Living, Real Simple, Southern Living and more.

All photos from Sunset except for the chair before and after, which were swiped from Turquoise.