Meet Our Stylist--Elizabeth Beeler!

Bright, beautiful, and one of the best in her business--that was the young woman that showed up to style The Coral Cottage for our HGTV Magazine photo shoot last week!  Meet 
Elizabeth Beeler!

Elizabeth on the sleeping porch at Cottage on the Green

 I've been e-mailing back and forth with Elizabeth for several months as we worked out all the details for the photo shoot and I was really looking forward to meeting her so I asked her to lunch along with my designer and friend Jane Coslick.  I planned a simple meal, set a simple table and we three had a nice visit.

I knew Elizabeth was an accomplished young woman but I'm so glad that I didn't know just  
how accomplished she is or I might have been self-conscious showing her around my little cottage that is still a work in progress.  It's not every day I have the former Homes Editor for Coastal Living over to see my house and presently she is an editorial contributor to many publications including Southern Living, Coastal Living, Garden and Gun, Traditional Home, House Beautiful, and of course, HGTV Magazine who plans to publish Coral Cottage....and there's more on her resume.  Yep--it's good I didn't know all that!  She's nice--that's what counts.

I tagged along after lunch to one of Jane's latest projects, Cottage on the Green.  Elizabeth was scouting it for future potential magazine articles.  

 
The cottage is a duplex and it was staged so creatively with many trademark Jane Coslick touches written all over it!  Elizabeth used her phone to take pictures--she encouraged us to stand way back and take pictures of the whole room when taking scouting photos (relatively rare occurrence for me but not so rare for Jane).

I grabbed my little point and shoot camera and took a few photos of my own because I thought you would enjoy seeing what I saw--a cottage full of personality that welcomes you in.

Love the farm sink and the little curtain below!

I caught Jane fluffing pillows at the breakfast table.  The sign above helped to determine the color scheme.

 

I could just stay here all afternoon!

The other side of the duplex was wonderful too...

Aren't these slipcovered settees a nice touch here at the breakfast booth?

This bathroom was a highlight for me with it's footed tub...

...and it's connection to a private outside shower which can be entered from the bathroom or from outside to allow people coming back from the beach to shower the sand off 
before coming in.

and last but not least, another lovely, comfortable porch...

I like the string lights!  Must order some.

After touring Cottage on the Green, we took Elizabeth to Coral Cottage so she could begin to style it for the photo shoot.  I'll tell you a little more about that next time!

Cottage Style Meets Coral Cottage!

It's late Tuesday night as I write this post and I've had an amazing day! I can't disguise how excited I was to attend the photo shoot of The Coral Cottage today for Cottage Style magazine.  It was really fun!

Last week I shared with you in this post how the whole thing came about and today it actually happened!  Yeah, I know I've used a lot of exclamation points but exclamation points are what I need to express myself accurately!

This is what happened:  I opened up The Coral Cottage at 9 o'clock this morning and soon the photographer,  Richard Leo Johnson, drove up.  His beautiful work has graced many a magazine and we were so happy to have him on our project.  Turns out Richard is very personable as well as capable and when he learned I was interested in improving my photography skills, he was kind enough to share his knowledge and explain what he was doing so I could understand.

Richard began setting up his camera on a tripod and he connected it to a computer so that we could look at the images as the stylist composed each scene...

...which bring us to our stylist, Sandra Mohlmann, who arrived next with a car full of props from her own collection as well as from various design stores, the grocery store, the florist, etc.  She said she often goes to as many as thirty places to shop when preparing for a project.  

 Sandra lives in Charleston, SC and I learned that her career as an interior designer led her into her current position of Field Editor and Stylist for Meredith Publications when she assisted in styling her own home for a magazine feature years ago.  Her talent caught the eye of editors and now she styles for many magazines all over the country!  I made it my job to watch and learn as much as possible from her while trying not to get in the way.  Thankfully she was very gracious, showed me what she was doing and allowed me to help a little (not that she needed any help at all.)

Sandra did a lot of this--moving the furniture and accessories for the most pleasing arrangement.

One thing that I found fascinating was that Sandra had what looked like a script that contained a list of photos the magazine wanted taken.  The script described the angles they wanted the shot taken from and the orientation--landscape or portrait--they needed.  Often, this required furniture to be moved around.

See the end table to the left of the sofa in the photo above?  Looks funny from this vantage point where it is so far away from the sofa, doesn't it?

Now look at it from this direction...

It looks good here, doesn't it?  Sandra and Richard wanted to show the shape of the end table and it would not have been seen if photographed close to the arm of the sofa.  Lots more tweaking took place before the final picture was captured--pillows changed around, accessories added, rooms in the distance styled, etc.  It took much time and thought to make it all perfect.  An eye for detail is essential in styling!

One other really cool thing I learned from Richard was that in the Photoshop editing tool you can "stitch" two photos together.  Richard uses this feature frequently to give a fuller picture of the room.  It is often impossible to get everything into one picture with a digital camera.  By putting the camera on a tripod and taking the same photo twice but with a slight shift left or right/up or down, Photoshop can merge the two photos into one and you cannot detect where the "stitching" took place.  Seriously cool.  Maybe even cool enough to make me want to learn how.  Hmmmm.

Richard and Sandra worked hard all day and, after over seven hours, they were satisfied with the pictures of The Coral Cottage.  They should be--they are gorgeous!  Can't wait to see them featured one day in Cottage Style magazine!

Thanks Richard and Sandra!

Cottage Style Magazine--Here We Come!

I've got some exciting news!  I've known for a while but I've kept my secret "in the vault" just in case it should prove too good to be true.  But now I think it is safe to share.

 

The Coral Cottage is going to be featured in Cottage Style magazine!

If you've been reading my blog for a little while, then you may remember meeting Nancy Milligan
 from this post.  Nancy is a freelance writer who is a frequent contributor to Cottage Style magazine.  When I was setting up housekeeping at The Coral Cottage before Christmas, she came by to see the house and ended up helping out!

You'd better be careful offering to help--I may just accept and put you to work:)

Nancy lives in Colorado and this fall she was attending a writer's conference at Tybee Island.  While she was in town, she was looking for some cottages that might be candidates for future writing projects--so glad she found The Coral Cottage!  

 

Nancy loved the cottage--even in its unfinished condition--and gave pictures to her editor who gave the go ahead to write the feature.

On Tuesday Cottage Style will send a professional photographer and a stylist to do a photo shoot at the Coral Cottage!  Can't wait.  So excited.  I'll tell you all about it next week!