Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home

By Emily Schuman

From a bestselling author and lifestyle blogger, a DIY guide to home decorating and party planning.
 
In Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home, Emily Schuman expands on the personal lifestyle advice that her fans loved in her first book and on her popular blog, with a focus on interior design and entertaining at home. The book features never-before-seen content and explores Emily’s accessible design philosophy for decorating and creating a fashionable personal space. In addition, the book includes DIY design projects and party planning ideas. Emily shows readers not only how to create space that is inviting, but also how to welcome guests and entertain in their homes with ease.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781613127742

Book preview

THROUGHOUT MY LIFE, I’ve walked the fine line of being a homebody—not quite reclusive, but just happiest when I’m curled up on the sofa at home. This is no surprise, really, because I’ve always believed that your home is one of the clearest reflections of who you are. If I didn’t find it to be far-and-away the most comfortable place to be, something must be wrong.

That feeling of home isn’t about the big gestures either—the curtains, the rugs, the side chairs, and couches—it’s about the well-loved books on the shelves, the tray for collecting keys on the table by the door, the smell of a familiar, much-loved dinner wafting out of the kitchen.

I’m an incredibly nostalgic person; and I have very fond memories of the house that I grew up in. I visit my parents all the time and am always secretly thrilled that nothing ever changes: There’s no need to reset, or learn a new way. I still sit on the same stool at the kitchen counter while my dad cooks, marvel at the fog that rolls in each evening, and never tire of the James Taylor albums we’ve listened to countless times. It is wonderfully predictable, and it is home.

Growing up, my parents entertained all the time—as an only child, they’d let me pull a chair up to the table with their friends. Ultimately, I would fall asleep to the low hum of conversation. It wasn’t just the music they played or the food they served, it was also about the people my parents invited in. It was a wonderfully complete world.

When my husband, Geoffrey, and I bought our first house late last year and set about assembling our first real home, the only thing we hoped to achieve was that same level of thoughtful and considered comfort. Sure, we hoped that our house would be beautiful, but more than that, we hoped that it would be our favorite place to be. This meant that while we could finally invest in a sofa that was the length and depth that we’d always wanted, we couldn’t obsess when one of our three beloved cats decided to take her claws to it; we wouldn’t ban red wine from our dinner parties; we wouldn’t fixate over the imperfections of our flea market finds.

Our home is all about balance: No single aesthetic overrides the space (it’s a mix of modern, vintage, and rustic), and no room skews too feminine or too masculine. We wanted a home that was serene and calm, but still playful—much like the outfits I wear, our home is classic with a bit of an edge . . . it’s not precious and it’s not too predictable. We’re not trying to break new ground—instead we’ve focused solely on elevating the every day.

If you’ve spent time reading my blog, then you’ll know that we love to have people over—for game nights, for themed parties, and for casual dinners. We tend to believe that an evening is successful when at least half of our guests have kicked off their shoes and are sitting around the coffee table on the floor (after all, that means that at least your rug is cozy). The success of our parties is the litmus test for us on whether we’ve created a home that’s as warm and inviting as we intended.

When I sat down to figure out what this book about home should be, I knew I wanted to document the care and decision-making that went into every room. But I also knew that I couldn’t do it without devoting at least half of the pages to entertaining—after all, what’s the point in pouring your heart into your house if you don’t get to share it with the people you love most.

Welcome to my happy place.

OUR HOUSE WAS BUILT IN 1916, and the original front door was still intact when we bought it, though it was painted an awkward color. Because we wanted to make a statement—and we wanted our home to feel unified and considered from the start—we painted the door a glossy black to tie in other elements of the house, including the fireplace, then we placed flanking kumquat trees on either side of the doormat in black, glossy planters. This makes up for the fact that our house does not have a proper entryway, per se—in fact, the front door opens onto a wide expanse that houses our living room on the right, our dining room on the left, and a view of the corner of our kitchen. Weirdly, even though L.A. is the land of perfect weather and the need for a coat closet and a place to stash wet shoes and umbrellas isn’t exactly pressing, the lack of an entry hall or mudroom is actually kind of complicating. We really wanted to create a moment to mark the beginning of the house without blocking the flow of the space, either visually or physically. And, we wanted a place to stash the essentials.

Ultimately, when it came down to it, we had to reexamine what we considered to be essential and to counteract any tendencies to stash shoes and bags or procrastinate over opening our mail. Immediately to the left of the door, we placed a skinny little console table, a mirror (who wants to step out in the real world without checking their teeth for leftover lunch or stray lipstick?), and a ceramic dish that we got on our honeymoon in Italy. It’s less than what we would have liked—and less than we thought we could live with—but it’s actually been a helpful exercise in restraint.

We brought the same sense of utility and economy to our living areas: a more formal seating area and fireplace nook near the door and a TV room that’s adjacent to the kitchen. The former is a little bit more done, while the TV room is marked by what is perhaps the world’s most quicksand-like sofa (Geoffrey likes to joke that once I’m down, I’m out).

It took us a while to arrive at the right floor plans for both, since we wanted to turn both spaces into areas that we would actually use: Our house is not particularly large, and we don’t have the luxury of only-for-special-occasions rooms, nor did we want those lifeless, dust-collecting zones in our home. We really wanted to maximize every square inch.

THERE ARE OH-SO-MANY WAYS to design and lay out a room—you can make it perfectly symmetrical, you can make it conversational, you can make it the antithesis of matchy-matchy. In determining the right mix, we settled on a combination of all three things, while taking into consideration those niggling little details, like what’s the right distance between a couch and a coffee table (sixteen inches, for us) and whether every chair needs its own side table (we decided no). We also wanted to be sure that the lamps and side tables were at the right height, so that you can put your coffee cup down without either a precipitous drop or an awkward stretch, and so you don’t find

Reviews for Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home

[dcoward_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Mainly of interest to fans of the website. The interior design advice is very basic and the entertaining suggestions are one menu for a few different occasions.