We love an unexpected mashup of form and material, so when lighting began showing up in jute, we immediately clicked ?add to favorites.? Regina-Andrew wraps the ropelike jute strands around a grand chandelier and a quirky lamp, while Jamie Young hides her light beneath basket-weave jute shades on two pendant styles.

We can think of three great jobs that require working on the beach: lifeguard, swimsuit model, and creator of sea-life d?cor. Karen Robertson is making a name for herself in that last category: Her collection showcases marine flora and fauna as natural art, framed for maximum impact on any vertical surface.

Her one-of-a-kind sea fans are ocean-harvested, hand-selected, dried and then tinted by hand.

The fans and starfish are suspended between glass panels, letting your wall color provide the ?matting.? Frames are gallery-grade wood with a white or silver/white finish.

Her white Gator Turtle shells mimic those of the ferocious alligator snapping turtle; each is individually hand-cast by a taxidermist.

A native of coastal New England and current Floridian, Robertson has been featured in national and regional design mags. ?My work is a way of bringing the essence of the ocean into the interior space,? she says.

Its cool touch and graceful striations make marble one of our favorite decorative accents. Here it goes the distance from formal to fun.

We love the contrast of elegant white marble with distressed pine in this Patridge cabinet. The Greek key and wreath motifs add a classical touch.

Inspired by the flyleaves of vintage books, our exclusive marblelized dinnerware brings cool shades of blue to summertime tables.

One of our all-time favorites, Arteriors’ sleek Sydney marble lamp has a slender conical base and simple drum shade. Pulls are antiqued brass.

Tole leaves add texture to the iron base of this marble-top side table. The hand-painted gold finish adds subtle shimmer.

Waterworks Studio gives vanity accessories an opulent spa aesthetic with gray and white Greek marble.

A handwritten thank-you is a must for a gift or to a host, but it’s also wonderful anytime someone does something special for you. Here are a few tips from our stationery expert:

• Don’t be intimidated by a blank piece of paper. Do a rough draft on your laptop or a legal pad, then edit, adjust, tweak before copying it onto your stationery. We guarantee this is faster and easier than trying to compose the perfect wording on a letterpress card or deckle-edge sheet.

• Start with “Thank you for…” or “I really appreciate…” and name the gift or occasion. Another approach: “Your gift (or gesture, or kindness) made my day.”

• A compliment means a lot: Tell them not only how much you like the gift or enjoyed the evening but how imaginative or creative or thoughtful they are.

• Three sentences is perfect. Close with “Thank you again” and perhaps a comment about getting together soon (if that’s appropriate).

• Keep all your necessities together in a pretty box or basket: stationery, stamps, and return-address embosser or labels (if your envelopes aren’t personalized).

A lot of great music and one life-altering computer company got their starts in garages, so Carla Regina Zajac and James Andrew Slaven had history on their side when they began making lighting and decorative accessories in 2000 in their Wyandotte, Michigan, garage. They were artists when they met, and they quickly found they also shared an entrepreneurial spirit, a love of travel, and a passion for animals.

Tapping their middle names and their generation’s clothes, furnishings, cars, and entertainment, Zajac and Slaven created a distinctive collection of lighting. Their designs incorporate glass, wood, metal, shells, and now jute with more traditional elements such as crystal, brass, and iron. The couple draws inspiration from art history and regular trips to Europe and Asia.

“We mix modern with rustic, elegant with casual, romantic with relaxed,” says Zajac. “It’s an eclectic vision that resonates with natural style – a new look at how we live today.”

A Depression Era gift with purchase, jadeite glassware was tucked into boxes of oats -- an easy giveaway that was inexpensive to make but surprisingly durable. The distinctive milky-green plates, cups, and bowls were popular additions to table settings into the early 1960s, and today vintage pieces are popular collectibles.

These Jadeite cake plates aren’t vintage but they are absolutely authentic: made by Mosser Glass in Cambridge, Ohio, employing the same molds and methods used over 60 years ago.

HGTV’s Genevieve Gorder – acclaimed interior designer, Design Star judge, host of the decorating problem-solving series Dear Genevieve – has leaped to the front of the flatweave pack with her fabulous new rugs.

“Wild Chev” is a jazzy take on chevron stripes in Medium Red, Yellow, Medium Gray, and Medium Blue. Gorder believes “stripes are the greatest illusion-maker in a designer’s toolbox. The chevron is classic and timeless; by playing with proportion and scale, my goal was to make it feel a bit refreshed and dressed up.”

“Uzbek” was inspired by “indigenous patterns from the east…contagious, folky, and powerful,” says Gorder. In Light Pink, Dark Blue, Heather Gray, and Emerald, this rug “plays with what's familiar in these woven wonders and pushes its patterning to the next level. I love the juxtaposition of the familiar and the unknown."

Both rugs are 100 percent wool, woven in India.

It’s National Decorating Month and I can’t stop thinking about a few of the late great designers who have left indelible imprints on the world of design. There are those who have become household names – Billy Baldwin, Sister Parish, Mark Hampton, David Hicks and the very recently passed Albert Hadley. And then there is the ingenious woman I fell in love with after seeing her brilliant wallpapers in New York a few years back.

Florence Broadhurst was an Australian-born designer and socialite whose clients included cosmetics magnates, landed gentry, and Qantas Airlines. Her brightly colored, boldly scaled patterns are having a major resurgence. We just added Kate Spade’s porcelain “Japanese Floral” dinnerware, with Broadhurst’s graphic blossoms in her mainstay neutrals of black and white. It looks just as chic on plates, cups, and saucers as it does on wallpaper.

Her eccentric life story is arguably as interesting as her designs. Constantly reinventing herself, Broadhurst sang and danced in a troupe that toured India, south Asia and China, founded a performing arts academy in Shanghai, opened a fashion salon on London’s Bond Street, and finally settled into decorating and textile design in her native country at the age of 60. Not surprisingly, two biographies have been written and a movie made about her life. So this month, give a nod to a rediscovered design visionary: pour some tea into a “Japanese Floral” cup, and reinvent yourself as a Florence Broadhurst fan!
– Phillip Montanez

With just a couple of weeks to go before the unveiling of Dwell With Dignity’s biannual pop-up shop, Thrift Studio, the Horchow Design Team is hard at work creating an inspiring space for this philanthropic event.

Thrift Studio showcases rooms and vignettes by Dallas’ top designers and retailers. Everything from furniture to finials is sold at more-than-discounted prices, with the proceeds going to Dwell With Dignity, a non-profit organization that helps families escape poverty and homelessness through design, one household at a time.

Using Horchow merchandise* plus items donated by to-the-trade showrooms, they took a cue from a room featured in Elle Décor. They don’t want to give away too many details, but I can tell you that it’s beautifully designed with pale grey walls and a white-on-white mural.

"Glamorous Rooms" by Jan Showers, 2012, Abrams New York   We've been following this Dallas designer for years, since the day we entered her showroom and fell head-over-heels for the Jean Michel Frank originals and her own flawless creations (including a French-wired lamp we still wish we'd bought). The fact that fashion luminary Michael Kors wrote the introduction to her new book indicates just how international her impact has become. You've seen her work in the pages of Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Southern Accents, Town & Country, and Traditional Home. Now you can see even more, and soak up her ideas, in over 200 pages of gorgeous photography and savvy commentary.

Our favorite things:
How it's organized: by type of room or space, from Entry Halls to Outdoor Living, making it easy to reference when you're planning a redo.