when coastal living comes to call

So one day I get an e-mail from the homes editor at Coastal Living magazine wondering if I would be interested in being in one of their issues.  At first I thought it must be a mistake and how did they even find me?  Thank you Instagram!  A few months after that first e-mail, on three rare sunny days (it had been a stormy February), Coastal Living came to call at The Little Glass House.

The team consisted of photographer David Tsay, stylist Liz Strong, and Adam Franz to assist.  I met Liz the day before the shoot when she stopped by to drop off bucketfuls of flowers to chill out in the garage.  I liked Liz immediately.  Young, enthusiastic and full of energy, she assured me that I could be involved and that the final product would still look like my house.  Besides a few pillows, the flowers and a table runner, we shopped for props from my house and yard and oh, we “borrowed” a lemon branch from a neighbor’s tree…at least the lemons we put on the branch were from my own tree!

We started at 9:00 am the next day and I watched as Liz and David created their magic.  They seemed to have a language all their own after working together previously.  It was fun to watch people that were as particular as I am!  Liz would come up with an idea, I would try and find some relevant props, and David would snap away while Liz and I tweaked.

It takes a whole lot of mess to make something pretty.  I needn’t have cleaned as within the first hour, the house looked like a hoarder lived here.

The kitchen counter wasn’t much better…

We spent the first part of the day inside shooting the kitchen.  In this case, so much bright light and glass is not necessarily a good thing and poor Adam had to climb up on the roof to cover the skylight!  Pink grapefruits and lilacs were the star of the kitchen shot.

The living room also was a bit too bright and Adam had to stand outside with a sheet to block the glare of the sun.

With a few colorful pillows, a big leaf cut from the garden, and Adam screening some of the sun…the living room looked like something out of a magazine!

After that we moved the shoot outside.  I was too busy to snap photos as we were setting up the outdoor table for a cheese and wine party scene, lighting the fire pit and adding plants to the outdoor setup.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted and according to my Fitbit, had logged over 12,000 steps!

The next day, we shot the bedroom and bathroom which didn’t make it into the magazine so I won’t go into that.  The dining table which is the heart of the home, was not on the shoot list.  Both Liz and David thought that it should be and Liz came up with the idea of a lemon tree on the table.  Now I have a small Meyer lemon tree that had a bumper crop of fruit this year but certainly not big enough to cut a large branch from!  So while I went out to pick dozens of lemons, Liz stealthily stalked the neighborhood with loppers in hand to find a branch.  I didn’t want to know!

The last shot of the day was my photo.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I am camera shy.  This was my least favorite part of the shoot and I was relieved that David made it quick and relatively painless.  I figured if the photo made it into the magazine, it would be a small shot at the end of the article. Imagine my surprise to find out it was the first picture and a full page!

Overall, it was a fun and positive experience that I would gladly do again, if just to work with such awesome people.  Hopefully I will be able to share some of the gorgeous photos that didn’t make it into the article on my website soon.  You can catch The Little Glass House in the June 2017 issue of Coastal Living magazine!