Vivid Hue Blog

Photo Courtesy of Junior League of Hartford

Ya'll must be shocked to see a blog post from me after so much time In between my last post. Instagram is my usual method of communicating these days and I find myself sharing stories and snippets there where In the "old days" they would have been a blog post. Yet, so many exciting things have been happening In the Vivid Hue world lately that I had to share In one spot. Most imminently, we have launched our first ever pop up shop located at this year's Junior League of Hartford Showhouse.

Photo Credit Vivid Hue Home

I am a member of the Junior League of Hartford and have spotlighted previous show houses here.
This year, I was given the opportunity to have a pop up shop within the house. A lot of effort and work goes into pulling these houses together and I am so happy to be a small part of this year's house.
This year, twenty Connecticut Designers and Decorators each transformed a space In the house. For the past month, they've been working non-stop around the clock to prepare for this weekend's launch. On Friday, we had our official preview party to the public and the Show House officially opened for tours on Saturday April 28th with tours offered through May 20 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4-8 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m.-5 p.m

The house is located on 126 Waterside Lane In West Hartford CT and tickets are $35 each (Purchase here).

Today, I will share the journey of getting my little space In the breakfast nook ready for the opening weekend. I hope to share the other spaces and designers over the next few weeks (so yes, check back here regularly, I will be posting soon on the blog again).
Here is a peek of my finished space at the showhouse:

Vivid Hue Home

The house is located on a large plot of land surrounded by a peninsula of water. Our pop up is located In the breakfast nook area that overlooks the expansive lawn and pond.

It's a breath-taking location; however the house itself is very outdated (think 1980's).

Here are some before photos of our nook. The views In the breakfast nook are stunning and look out onto the pond and the private pool area. As you can see, we started with a well-used stone fireplace, dull walls and adobe tiled floors.

Before @jlhartford Showhouse @vividhuehome space Photo courtesy of Vivid Hue Home

Before: Vivid Hue Home Show house Space

Vivid Hue Home

Because I was a pop up shop, I wanted to create a space that would showcase our products without having to completely transform our entire space. But of course, presentation matters (to me) so I decided to do some easy cosmetic updates, including painting! Benjamin Moore's Hale Navy is a "go to" color for me (we used it on our trim at the shop). So, I decided to take the mustard out of the walls and make them navy!

Vivid Hue Home

We started to slowly bring In larger furniture items from the shop before layering with the gift items.

It truly takes a village to run a small business and after many weeks of carting items and products over In our SUV's and trucks, we decided to have an "all hands" Saturday morning where many of our team and husbands (and kiddos) pulled together to caravan a bolus of items over to the show house.

Our Vivid Hue Home Village

This is part of our Vivid Hue Home Village. Front, (left to right): Jack, Smidge, Annie, Leanne and then Back: Eric and Bill. Not pictured: Lindsey who was with us In spirit.

Annie and Bill Condon

Annie and Bill were life savers In transporting our custom sofa to the show house. They let us use their "Flintstone mobile" (a term affectionately coined by Annie herself In reference to their fabulous truck that is a work horse for transporting big items!) We laughed at the thought of captioning this photo as "leopard goes with everything" (referencing Annie's nice leopard print jacket next to Flintstone mobile).

We ordered marketing materials (Peanut our hamster is seen here).

Lots of shout outs and marketing on social media for our team!

And slowly, our space started shaping up. I should have known, but this pop up stuff takes work. I almost felt like we were launching an entirely new shop! (And, duh, I guess In a way, we were).

So, now, we're "live" until May 20th. We will continue to maintain our regular shop In addition to the pop up. If you have visited our pop up at the Junior League Show house and liked it, please stop by our brick and mortar store In Farmington. We're located right by Truffles bakery on 769 Farmington Ave, Farmington CT 06032.

Here are some side by side before and after photos:

Before:

Before Vivid Hue Home

After Vivid Hue Home

Vivid Hue Home

Vivid Hue Home Show house Pop Up

Marilyn Petite Sofa with Forest Green Piping by Society Social, Raffia Coffee Table Society Social, Marie Artwork by Gina Julian, Peach Lacquer Lamps by Meg Caswell for Couture Lamps

All products are available for purchase at Vivid Hue Home. Yes, we ship! And we appreciate you ordering through our small business. I carry all of the products In my retail shop and I'm a retail partner for all of those designers.

Thank you for following along In the transformation of our space into our Vivid Hue Home pop up shop. Please check because I will be sharing sneak peeks into the Designer spaces. I'm always In awe at the talented designer's we have locally In Central Connecticut.

Please follow me on instagram if you don't already! I share daily updates of my store and personal journeys.

Check out this fabulous article from Nancy Schoeffler at the Hartford Courant!

If you're not familiar with my brick and mortar shop, please check us out!

This week I scored a pair of vintage bamboo chinoiserie chairs from a local estate sale. I love them so much that I've decided to keep them for my own home. But now, I need to decide how I'm going to refinish them!

My master bedroom has been in a state of flux for a few months. It has changed drastically from the photos that appear on the blog. (Visit Master Bedroom). If nothing more, this project has made me realize that I need to get some updated shots of the bedroom up here!

Forgive the overly saturated color of this bedroom shot. I'm sharing it here so you can have a reference point of where I'm starting from. Earlier this year, I swapped out the pinstripe duvet for a custom duvet made from Cotton & Quill's art deco collection. I needed to work around the curtains in the room because we put some money into them and it's too soon to update them (budget wise).

I thought this Runnin Wild pattern from Cotton & Quill tied together the existing colors in the room nicely.

Here are the swatches on the bed during the planning phase. I had the front made in the art deco pattern with above and the back of the duvet in the yellow.

Vivid Hue Home Master Bedroom Project

I love how the duvet fabric blends with the chevron teal rug that was already in there.

Here is a very rough shot of the completed duvet with the drapery. I promise to share better photos as I move forward with this project, but this will give you an idea of what's in there now.

I plan to remove the gray fireside chairs that are in the room (in fact they are already gone and put into our guest bedroom). The new bamboo chairs will go on both sides of the fireplace. The natural frames will already blend beautifully in there if I decide not to paint them. But you know me, everything is better with a pop of color. The decision is still out on whether or not I will paint the frames.

The seat cushions will definitely be recovered and I'm currently gathering swatches to consider.

Here are some considerations:

These Broome Street Studio designs are not as saturated in color as they appear here. I love the peacock and think that would tie in with the art deco theme of the current duvet.