This Old House October 2012 article and out-takes

October 2012 edition

Make no mistake about it, a photo-shoot for a major magazine is pure manual labor.  You'll work for 8-10 hours straight, with lunch brought in, moving furniture, and swapping wall art then taking the photograph, reviewing it, and then making another change to get it right. 

Each magazine will have their own look and it may not match your style so colors and accessories will also be swapped whether you like it or not.

TOH wanted the color orange and then red (October edition) to you'll see an orange hand towel and various peppers on the countertop.

The photographer (from Atlanta) and the Stylist (from Los Angeles), the FABULOUS Sunday Hendrickson, arrived at 8 a.m. with coffee and a great attitude.  I'd met the photographers the day before when they came by to drop off their equipment.

I knew it would be fun time when I offered to have my three dogs kept elsewhere during the photo-shoot and was met with a responding "No, we love dogs!".  In the end, I arranged a "play date" for the first part of the day. As you can imagine one dog would jump on the couch or bed or wander into a shot at just the wrong moment so I brought them back after lunch.

The orange throw over the couch and the orange oranges on the table were brought or bought.  

Sunday actually travels with a suitcase of various linens in the "decided" color.

My couch was also moved. I've included photos below from another photo-shoot so you can see where it normally sits.

I was asked to walk in through the front door as though I had just "come from The Market".

For those who know me, I don't wear pink but I am here! I wanted to wear my favorite white linen shirt but who cares what I want...

This is where my couch is normally placed. 

Here's how it works: The editor for a magazine, in this case she's in New York, provides the stylist with a "Shoot List" so she knows what the magazine wants as much as what they don't want. 

 I'll let you compare the photo above with the photo below which is how my house is normally, to see the editor wanted lots of changes - no "zebra" rug, lamp on the table, or tree in the corner.

Sunday arrived a couple days before the actual photo-shoot.  She needed to see the house and then spends the better part of a day buying items to get the look they want.  For example, as soon as Sunday walked into my house for the first time, she went over to the computer area and said that the faux, wool "zebra" rug had to go.  I was asked if I had another rug so I walked her into a bedroom and offered up the bear skin rug before I realized exactly why the faux "zebra" was a resounding "No".  It's not because it's "been done" but because it's not politically correct.
So that was that for the bear skin rug too. Same fate for the wall of crosses on either side of my bed.  See photos below.

There's that orange hand towel again...

This is actually what my bedroom looks like. I had to swap the linens as my preferred dark colors is not what TOH wanted.  As mentioned above, the crosses had to come down on either on side of my bed (see photo below) 

along with a rosary hanging from the headboard.

They made the photo more narrow and added sunflowers for color on the left side and a set of oars and bundles of wheat on the right side. 

 By the end of the day, I was asked to come out onto the back porch and see if we could get some shots with the dogs.  It was a challenge as you can imagine but fun.  I was happy when one of the photos made it into the magazine.

 You know how people make silly noises for dogs and babies to get their attention for a photograph.

At this point, at the end of a long, hot day, we got silly. Invariably, when Sunday and the photographers got very silly the dogs picked up on the infectious laughter and kept leaving the porch and going to the where they were, very confused then, as to why I would then yell, "No. Come (back)".

After a few minutes of that, they are all looking like, "Whatever!"

 The yellow flowers were a great find at Lowes - a dollar a bucket - so we bought 15 of them and spread them around.  You'll see these in the foreground of the photos of the front of the house. When Sunday and I started out that day to run a few errands for props I was not thinking it through so we took the Mini Cooper. 

I snapped a few photos of how we looked by the end of our running around - ala The Beverley Hillbillies - but someone stole my camera from that very car....
We had to take the top down in the MINI to allow for both the rug (from Target) that ended up in the computer shot and 15 buckets of yellow flowers.

Love Beau's goofy ears!

Sans me and dogs...

Notice how the dog door (located under the three photos to the right of the french doors) was Photoshopped out. Scroll back up to the other photos to see.

I drew the line at my gun...

You cannot see it very well in this photograph but I keep my father's military dog tags on my key chain along with a handcuff key. He died when I was 19.  

(That's the camera that was stolen)

None of these photos made the final cut but I loved them.

The combined texture of wood, copper, exposed brick and galvanized metal is so very BellaRustica.

 If you are looking for any easy rack for wine or water use a milk crate.