Brands We Love: Designers Guild

Designers Guild is one of the most-beloved lines we carry in the shop. Founded by Tricia Guild OBE in 1970, this luxury line of fabric, homegoods, and wallpaper is based in London - and you can tell, as their aesthetic is pure upscale British chic. 

 Designers Guild has designed collections in collaboration with the royal household, with Christian LaCroix, with Laduree macarons - basically with all of our favorites. 

Designers Guild Design Inspiration

Tricia Guild's version of British style is far from stuffy, but she designs her wares in a way that allows you to incorporate them in to any space. Designers Guild's pillows, wallpapers, and fabrics can feel exuberantly colorful, sophisticated with an edge, or deliciously luxe and sexy depending on how you style the rest of the space.  That's why interior designers like us at Lavender & Company love their products so much. 

Does Designers Guild make curtains?

Designers Guild sells fabric that you can have made into made-to-measure curtains for your space. You can also find their luxuriously gorgeous shower curtains for your bathroom.

Order John Derian Tuberose Flower Fabric Sample here

Shop the Designers Guild Flower Birch shower curtain here

Shop the Designers Guild Peonia Grande Shower Curtain here

Our Favorite Designers Guild Pillows and Throws

Take it from Tricia Guild herself - throws and pillows are the best way to change up a space. 

There’s nothing like a new throw and cushions to refresh and recharge your living space. I love to have different sets of accessories that I change regularly. Some I have had for ages, while others are new and it’s exciting to mix them up for a different feeling. - Tricia Guild 

 

Shop the Porcelain De Chine Designers Guild Pillow here 

Shop the Designers Guild Mirrored Butterflies Throw Here

Shop the Designers Guild Widdale Brick Throw here

Our Favorite Designers Guild Wallpaper

Designers Guild wallpaper is bold, colorful, and stylish. We love it above the wainscotting in a dining room, on the walls of a beautiful library/sitting room, or covering a tiny jewel box powder room. 

Shop the Designers Guild Porcelaine de Chine wallpaper here 

Shop the Designers Guild Amrapali Peony wallpaper here

Where to Buy Designers Guild Fabric

Designers Guild fabric is sold to the trade only, meaning only interior designers, architects, and people in the industry can purchase it directly - if you're not, you'll have to buy it through them. 

You can get in touch with Lavender & Company for interior design services or to purchase your favorite yardage of Designers Guild fabric. 

Our Favorite Designers Guild Bedding

Designers Guild makes the most beautiful, luxurious bedding we've ever seen. To layer your bed in these beautiful silks and soft cottons is to truly sleep like a queen. As designers, we love how versatile the collections are to play around with and mix-and-match. 

Shop Designers Guild Pahari Cameo

Shop Designers Guild Chenevard Blossom

Shop Designers Guild Astor Shams

You've Got Mail New York City Style | Shop the Look

"You've Got Mail" is the ultimate fall movie, and we're sharing our favorite ways to style your home in the timeless shabby chic style from the film. 

Clockwise from top left: Jacaranda Living Christine pajamas |  Pom at Home Capistrano Throw in Blush | Kate Spade Book Tote | Seda France Lavender Three Wick Candle | Barr-Co Hand Lotion | Designers Guild Blue Daises Pillow | Taylor Linens Rose Pillow | Somerset Bay McClellansville Bookcase | Bella Bianca Plates

How to Get "You've Got Mail" Shabby Chic Apartment Style

Kathleen Kelly's light-filled apartment is the ultimate mix of updated traditional and 90s shabby chic. It's full of vintage-y painted furniture, chintz fabrics, and books as far as the eye can see. 

For the windows, these gauzey linen voile curtains are perfect to filter light through your windows without darkening your room too much. 

We know Kathleen loves daisies - here are some of our favorite daisy-inspired decor pieces. 

Taylor Linens Daisies Porch Pillow

Designers Guild Blue Daisies Sepia Toned Pillow

How to Decorate a "You've Got Mail" Inspired Bedroom

Kathleen's apartment is filled with chintz fabrics, like the Shore Rose print by Taylor Linens. To modernize the look, try layering it with a cool quilt like the Power Shake Scallop quilt by Pine Cone Hill.

We love Kathleen's painted furniture, like this Somerset Bay McClellansville Bookcase. For a small bedroom, it can double as major storage for towels, toiletries, and catch-alls. 
 

Where to Shop "You've Got Mail" Inspired Decor

Check out our cottage style section for more modern cottage decor, and get in touch with us for virtual design or interior design services! 

Fall Garden Cleanup: Don't Prune These - An Excellent Article from High Country Gardens

I still consider myself a new gardener even after owning my home 20 years. My garden has changed so much over the years and I have learned so much but always feel I need to learn so much more. Gardening is my favorite pastime and I love that there is so much to learn from other gardeners, garden centers and these wonderful online shops. High Country Gardens has always been a favorite of mine. This morning I was out in my garden and wondering what exactly to cut back and what to leave. Then I found this wonderful article. 

Getty Images from House Beautiful Magazine. 

Here are some tips:

Perennial Plants & Flowers 

Why leave perennial plants & flowers standing over winter months? Like ornamental grasses, it's a good idea to leave perennials standing as well. These plants will often provide the same shelter to beneficial insects as the ornamental grasses. 

Seed bearing perennials such as Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium), Hummingbird Mint (Agastache), Lavender (Lavandula), perennial Sunflower (Helianthus), and others, also provide valuable winter food for songbirds. Additionally, species with stiff stems and ornamental seed heads, such as Yarrow (Achillea), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Tall Stonecrop (Sedum), and others with flat or cone-shaped dried flowers, add to the garden's winter beauty.

Plus, perennials are more cold hardy when their stems are left standing over the winter. This is helpful for overwintering perennials that are living at the edge of their cold hardiness zones. For example, when native Sage (Salvia), Hummingbird Mint (Agastache), and Hummingbird Trumpet (Zauschneria) are planted in USDA zones 5 & 6, this will help them survive the winter cold. This is especially true for young plants (in the ground one to two growing seasons).

• Wait until mid-spring to cut back perennials.
• If perennial plants are exhibiting some summer/fall disease or are infested with injurious insects, then in these instances, these damaged plants should be cut back, and scraps thrown away in the trash, not the compost, to prevent the disease or pests from spreading.

Deciduous Shrubs & Trees

Winter is an ideal time for pruning deciduous plants (woody plants that lose their leaves), because they are dormant.

• Most fruit, flowering, and shade trees all benefit from winter pruning. This will help to remove crossed branches, gently shape their branch structure, and, with shade trees, help to maintain strong non-forked leaders.
• Don't shear the branches of spring flowering shrubs (Forsythia, Lilac, New Mexico Privet, Spirea, Flowering Quince, and others). These shrubs produce flowers on last year's wood, so removing old growth will reduce or prevent flowering. These plants should be pruned immediately after they are done blooming. 
• Summer blooming shrubs like Russian Sage (Perovskia), Spirea (Caryopteris), and Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii and hybrids) should be left untrimmed over the winter months.
• Russian Sage should be cut back hard in mid-spring, leaving stems 12-15" tall. This should be done every spring to keep them blooming heavily.
• Blue Mist Spirea and Butterfly Bush should be cut back by 1/3 to 1/2 of their height every third year (NOT annually) to re-invigorate the shrubs and encourage blooming.

You can read the entire article here. 

Here is another article from House Beautiful on fall gardening that I loved.