Life onLaderaCourt is pretty good for Stacey Connor. The local blogger lives with her family of four on a cul-de-sac overlooking the La Cantera at Team Ranch development in Benbrook. They completed building the five-bedroom French country home with NH Southern Development a little over a year ago. Some homeowners walk away from builds and renovation projects with emotional battle wounds. Not the Connors. "It was so fun," she says. "We pretty much designed the floorplan ourselves and used a lot of Pinterest inspiration. I would truly do it all over again." She has been methodically furnishing and decorating each room of the home since. Stacey chronicles that journey, plus her journey in fashion, beauty and style on her blog, Life on Ladera (lifeonladera.com). Connor's office, a gem of a room behind French doors just off the front entry of the home, is her in-home headquarters for all things blogging. And, it's her favorite. "Sometimes I try to lock myself in there and hide from my kids," she says with a laugh, referring to daughter Charlotte, 2, and son Hugh, 1. Her home and the room serve as the muse for lifeonladera.com. "When your job and hobby are creative, it's important that your space be too," she says.
The colorful space is partly thanks to Tina McMackin and Alyson French of Arrange: Stage with Style. The local home-staging service doesn't usually take on interior design projects for homes that aren't on the market, but they made a special exception for Stacey. They were just the duo to blend her love for all design styles. "One of the problems is, I love modern, French country, traditional. I wanted to figure out how to make all of those styles work and go together," Stacey says.
Originally meant to be Connor's husband's office, the room started with navy grass cloth wallpaper, built-ins and coffered ceilings. "When we looked at paint samples of navy, it was way too dark, so we went with the grass cloth texture, Connor says. "I loved it so much that we did grass cloth in two other rooms."
She knew her office would be the one room in her house that she could really express herself with items like the leopard Suzanne Kasler rug from Williams Sonoma. "It was going to be mine, so I could have fun with color, animal prints and different textures," she says. "I am not afraid of color, and I can be eclectic."
The room's showpiece is a pink Lee Industries chair Connor had custom made through Simple Things Furniture - the furniture and antiques showroom more often known for serene settings and neutral tones. It sits behind Connor's favorite piece in the room, a sprawling brass rams head desk from Again and Again in Dallas. The pink from the chair is strategically repeated in a vintage bench covered in a Kilim Rug, sitting below an abstract piece of art titled "Delicate Declarations" by Carly Allen-Martin, currently on loan from ArtSpace111. The other piece of art in the room is by Jeff Schaub - it's a woman struggling to carry a pile of Hermès shopping boxes. Tina and Alyson said they saw it and immediately thought of Stacey.
Outside the office, other rooms in the home are less eclectic, more soothing, more family-friendly. Stacey plans to share those spaces on her blog when they're ready. But for now, the office is complete. And it's just for Stacey.
