Living Yellow

A few months ago I began a collaboration with the Yellow Pages, now known as YP. Today, the pages aren’t just made of paper, they are also online in the form of a site and an app where folks like me from cities all over the country are curating different collections to help to unearth the best of our cities. So far, I’ve created a few different collections including LA’s best  indoor/outdoor plant finds and DIY Spring organizing ideas. But the most exciting collection that I’ve created so far was one that, for one weekend, got to live in the real-world too. YP ask me to curate a living collection by designing a shipping container sourced with goods from my favorite local design shops that would be on display at Dwell On Design, the country’s largest design fair. With only a few weeks to get it all together, I enlisted the help of my sister, Faith, and together we designed a very *BRIGHT* space for YP at DOD…

They gave me total creative freedom to do what I wanted with the space. So yes, it was my (crazy! Bold! Risky!) idea to do the entire thing in yellow. I added in a bit of gold and some white accents to make the space shine. I wanted it to be like a bright, gleaming jewel box that gave off a glowing, beaming light. Also, I wanted YP to get a lot of mileage out of this project and I couldn’t think of a better way to tie in their branding and their heritage than to make it scream Y E L L O W.  Then, almost by accident, the container took on another theme–one of these desert. Faith found this amazing cactus lamp at Sommerlath — and it was ON.

We then brought the theme home with art prints from some great local artists/photographers like my homegirl Laure Joliet and The Black Vinyl.

Since the installation was for Dwell, a publication known for modern (and often stark) interiors, I knew I had to give our yellow jewel box a modern edge so I borrowed this amazing chandelier from my friend Brendan Ravenhill whose studio is just blocks from my new home in Frog Town. It lent an edgy/industrial feel to the space.

Our friends over at West Coast Modern really hooked us up. They custom painted several vintage pieces for us in our lemony-yellow hue. Both the above dresser and the below pedestal bar were customized for us for this event. They have a really great selection of vintage modern pieces and will customize pretty much anything, so they are a really great resource.

On the other side of the space, we wanted to give the shipping container the feel of a built-in, so we called on our friends over at Badia Design, the Moroccan import store in North Hollywood and we got this day-bed and pendant light. The wallpaper is designed by Karla Pruitt for Hygge and West.

We also designed the ‘outside’ of the container with these rad chairs from Tini and pillows from local designer Erin from Cotton and Flax.

Lots of gold accents, like these cylindrical tables, were from Lawson Fenning.  
The amazing array of vintage ceramics and pottery came from my friends at Amsterdam Modern, and the ‘geodes’ are from The Joneses LA.

The (incredibly soft!!) throw pillows on the modular sofa are from Bole Road. For additional sources, check out the Living Yellow collection on YP.
A HUGE HUGE thank you goes out to the lovely folks at YP and to my team on this, Faith and Danae who worked tirelessly to put this project together in just a few weeks. <3

Photography by Danae Horst.
This post was created in Partnership with YP.