1) I related so much to this New York Times article last week about feeling guilty about our green failures. Sometimes it feels like you can’t win, or you have one habit you know is not very good for the environment but you cannot give it up. The author, Joyce Walder really hits the nail on the head with this article, it was a really fun read. Oh, and the title of this post was my favorite quote from the article.

What not-so-green habits are you feeling guilty about? I can start. After being very serious about water conservation, thinking about every dish that would need washing and not even giving my poor cat her beloved fresh water from the sink faucet, I am addicted to taking a bath in a really big bathtub. It uses lord knows how many gallons. Even worse than that, while I’m in there, I read People magazine. It’s shameful. Please begin public flogging now.  And/Or join in and tell us your not-so-green shame.

2) Another link: Here is The Greenwatching Index, so you can try and keep track of what’s really green and what’s just using the term for marketing purposes.

3) Finally, I wanted to share an interview I did with architect Christian Dauer on another website. In this Mission District renovation, he reused as much of what would have otherwise been construction waste as possible, and it added to the beauty and spirit of the house. Even this gorgeous kitchen table was constructed from on-site reclaimed wood:

image via houzz.com

At first, Gwenyth Paltrow’s website, GOOP, annoyed me to no end. I don’t know why, because I really like her – as an actress, she seems really cool, and one time on Oprah she described a hilarious teenage prank she and her friend played on Arnold Schwartzenegger when he lived next door to her family and it’s made me like her ever since. But GOOP seemed so pretentious and name-droppy. However, since then I have heard her explain that she has been able to do a lot of extraordinary things in her life, and wants to share what she finds out with her friends and anyone else who wants to know as well, so I’m softening on the whole GOOP thing, sitting back, and enjoying the newsletters. Unless they have to do with Tracy Anderson – those just make me feel irrationally bad that I am not size 00 and that I don’t survive on fish and kale.

Today there is a post about how Annette Joseph renovated Gwynnie’s temporary apartment in Nashville that was really fun to read – the apartment was ripped down to a shell, rebuilt and re-decorated in TEN DAYS! The only thing I don’t like are those cheap knockoffs from the discount website – if I’m going to get an iconic chair, I’m not going to settle for some Canal Streetish wannabe, copycat version of it, I’m going to save and save and get the one that’s really special. Wow, I ‘m just full of personal opinions in this quick link post, perhaps I should just give you the link and shut the heck up! Here’s a teaser, starring a sofa from Blu Dot:

On Saturday I attended the Kirkwood Spring Fling here in Atlanta, and checked out every house on the home tour. It was a blast, and there was a wide variety of sizes and styles. The house that made me the happiest was perhaps the smallest one on the tour. It was a bungalow surrounded by post-WWII brick ranches. When I walked up onto the porch, the first thing I noticed was a figure by R.A. Miller, a favorite folk artist, and my mood elevated about ten steps – I could not wait to step inside. Bright colors, stripes, kitschy retro atomic age style and objects abounded. This place is more fun than Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Yet somehow it wasn’t too much. I am so sorry my pictures do not do it justice – all I had was a cameraphone. It was so much brighter and alive than it shows in these photos.

One of the owners is a printmaker by trade. To check out her work, click here.

Charley Harper Ford Times covers displayed in a grid.

This snowglobe collection is right next to the toilet, and it really worked!

I have a feeling the owner and I may have crossed paths at Kudzu or the old Victory Vintage at some point.

I love the way this Charley Harper print looks with the stripes. Also, if you look at the nightstand, they were simply topped with printed paper and a sheet of glass.

So sorry these pictures are so faded; they are not doing this great spot justice. It was so cheerful and retro-stylish that I half-expected Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson to be singing in the backyard of this shiny happy spot:

Thanks so much to Angela and Ryan for opening their home to the tour!

Did anyone else open up the first few pages of In Style, see this, and think “Huh. Gwenyth looks kinda weird in this picture. And her style sure has changed since H&G featured her house in the Hamptons..”? I did. Just wondering:

It must be the blonde updo and the big smile. By the way, that’s Julie Bowen. Her sister, Molly Luetkemeyer, founder of M. Design Interiors decorated Julie’s Studio City house. It’s a fun mix. While we see a few icons from our design drinking games past (I spy a hand mold and a turquoise foo dog), I think her work has a fresh take. She is able to mix in a bunch of eras, styles, colors and textures without creating a sloppy mish-mosh; it becomes a style of its own, one that has to do a careful balancing act to work. It’s not quite Regency, it’s not quite crazy enough to go under that ubiquitous “eclectic” moniker – I’m dubbing it “Vicente Wolf on a very tightly controlled acid trip”. I also like it because I have that elephant on the coffee table in the living room. I got it at Neiman Marcus Last Call for like thirty bucks:

To see the rest of the house, and some other exuberant projects from M. Design Interiors, click here.

All imagess property of M. Design Interiors, except for the first one, which is from In Style.

Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan Connecticut is opening up for tours again starting May 1 and running through November. Tickets start at $30 and go up to $400 for a private tour that includes dinner at The Four Seasons in NYC (this is my nerdy architectural dream date – forget all those The Bachelor-esque dates that include helicopter rides or wine tasting lessons). Click here for more information on the tours. Also, if you are a member of The National Trust for Historic Preservation, you will receive 50% off the Standard Tour (90 minutes) and the Extended Tour (2 hours, take all the pictures you want).* Seriously, if you are not already a member, why not? I mean, The Governator recently proposed SELLING California’s historic sites in order to raise cash! Get on it! Click here and join today – you’ll get all sorts of discounts at historic sites and you’ll receive a subscription to Preservation – it’s a wonderful magazine.

Image swiped from The Glass House website.

*members pay full price when ordering and then receive the 50% discount when attending the tour.