My Favorite Room: Nicole Cohen of Sketch42

Nicole from Sketch42 here- Thank you for having me Paloma and La Dolce Vita readers! Paloma asked me to share my favorite room... and right now that's kind of a tough call. My apartment is in a state of flux, I've repainted in the last few weeks and I'm making other adjustments. The only room I haven't changed this week is the dining room. I think it's the one room that I kind of like the way it is. It's gone through its evolutions already, and its kind of in the sweet spot between minimal and opulent. I decided to take you on a little tour of the dining room through the years. In 2009, when I first moved in, I quickly bought a table from Ikea, with chairs I got from Home Goods and the plexi chairs I had from my first apartment. I used this dining table as a work station for paintings and crafts, and it was pretty big. So that was good. But ultimately, it started to chip and I just wanted to take my room up a notch. Styling in this photo is SO BAD. I was such a newbie. I just filled up space with things.

Eventually I replaced the table with the Dakota table from Julian Chichester. It's rosewood and SO DELICATE. Dining table as workstation was done, in fact, I don't even work on my computer or set a drink on it without putting something underneath first. I also painted all the doors in the apartment black, which added a huge impact in the dining room, where the door to the bedrooms is prominent. This is the dining room as shot for Rue in 2011. You can see the art in the background... It was pretty cool, I liked that art, especially the striped piece in that context. But if you look in the mirror, you can see that I had pink candles in crystal candelabras. Oh My God, how much I hate that now. HATE. IT. I didn't even really like it then, and its not how I normally had the table set up, but when we were styling it for the photo shoot, it seemed like a good idea! Live and learn.

Then last spring, I had the Junior League house tour in my apartment, and I finally got some of my daughter's art framed and hung for the wall. I really liked how it looked and kept it like that for quite some time. I also bought that Pampaloni matte black bowl, and I just ADORE the simple styling on the table. No flowers. I also park my Missoni for Target bike there by the windows during the spring. I use it as a prop more than I use it as a bike!

I love that the dining room can work with fancy dishes, or like in the case of my 2012 Thanksgiving, a rustic modern way.

So as of right now, since we just repainted, the tiny little bump out wall in the dining room has nothing on it, until I decide what to put back up there. So there you go! My favorite room, in all its incarnations. Stay tuned for the next one!