Behind the Scenes at EH Design: Episode 3

Written by Brady

Well folks, to say that it has been a busy couple of weeks would be an understatement. But busy-ness is never a bad thing, for sure.

Lets break it down from the beginning.

We finished up a quick weekend makeover for O Magazine – yes you heard it right Oprah Magazine, as in “YOU get a car.. and YOU get a car”. I mean gag me with a spoon people… I can now die a happy man.

I mean look how happy she was to hire us and to get this makeover started!!!

It was such a fun project to work on and the room turned out pretty great, if we do say so ourselves. We did run into a few snags along the way… i.e. not having it in the budget to hire a painter – so being the resourceful people we are, we painted it ourselves.

Unfortunately we have to wait until the magazine hits newstands or else we would hereto be known as the people that spilled the beans on the Oprah spread.

Click through to read more:

What we can tell you is that we had an amazing client to work with and such a fun time during a very busy weekend pulling it all together.

For all of those who don’t know where our flowers come from, we source pretty much all of them from the LA flower market. This may sound easy enough as that place has just about every flower, plant, or anything in between you could ever need. However there is one small detail. They open at 5am and all the good stuff is pretty much gone by 8am. So In order to get the coveted flowers which don’t look half dead and completely picked over it means that someone has to get their butt out of bed at 4:30am to head to the flower market before all the goods are gone. That lucky person during this shoot was me :)

But how can you complain when you have one of the most adorable and deserving clients ever. Everyone meet Alexis, she was the lucky lady that the editors chose to receive the room makeover and we all could not have been more happy to work with her.

In other news… Emily went on a week long cleanse a couple weeks later, and it was just about the worst idea in the history books.

Not only were we insanely busy shooting the book that week, she was also prepping for book shooting in portland, purchasing props and things to style with, and trying to juggle everything else in between (blog/baby). To this day I have never seen a mad or angry Emily (crossing my fingers that I never see that day) but I can definitely say that we saw a very hungry, very irritable, and very desperate for food emily during that 5 day long cleanse. She got so desperate at one point during a shoot when we had ordered pizza that she proceeded to not eat the pepperoni’s but to suck on them for just a moment and then spit them into the garbage because in her books that was considered NOT cheating (i’ll let you be the judge on that one).

The jury is still out on whether she ended up enjoying or hating the cleanse but it goes without saying that it made for a very interesting week which brings us to our next topic.

If you ever see me or any of the Emily Henderson team running amuck in a Whole Foods, or specialty grocery store you may want to move out of the way because chances are we are trying to grab props for our next shoot. In our cart you might find a nice collection of the following:

artisan waters (we don’t drink them but they sure do look nice)

beautiful liquor (color and label appearance are key on this one, also extra points can be earned for getting a variety of sizes and shapes)

fruit (but only if it has all the stems and leaves on it. Without those you might as well just prop out the bowl with doritos and pretzels)

bread and rolls (but only if it looks home-made and has casual aura about it – seeds on the crust are a big bonus and get gold stars from Emily)

nuts (I made a mistake on this one by getting nuts that had already been shelled – emily quickly slapped my wrists and forced me to eat my mistakes. I kid, I kid. She made them work and with a smile on her face taught me that nuts that have already been shelled are ugly and are not our friends.)

fancy looking vegetables (these are the kind of veggies that no normal human actually eats, but they are just to darn beautiful and must be used to prop out a kitchen island)

Another biggie that has been a long time coming is that we finished up shooting the house for Domino magazine! After a few all nighters, and a few stressful moments it all came together and the house looked amazing. I know I am teasing you right now even talking about it as I can’t share any real images of anything, but I couldn’t help myself. However I can show a few behind the scenes moments that will not be forgotten anytime soon.

The beginnings of the great art debate. Where to hang what and most importantly what to hang was the question that was on our mind for a good portion of a few afternoons. It took us a good while to narrow down the plethora of art that Emily has stocked up but we definitely decked the halls with boughs of holly art.

We could not have done it without this guy, Tim from Curve Line Space, who saved us and our art on many occasions. We sent him just about every piece that we had to frame and he turned it around SOOO fast and it looked so good.

Efficiency is key at Emily Henderson Design … i.e. touching up the door jam (which we damaged trying to fit one too many pieces of furniture through the night before the shoot) while Domino photograph’s the other room :)

Lets play a game of how many people can we fit in Emily’s family room (the room that really didn’t get shot because it was the least ready): Here we go… we’ve got 1. Brady behind the Camera, 2. Emily the lovely Intern, 3. Shauna the Nanny, 4. Emily the homeowner, 5. Jordan the Stylist, 6. Sonya from Target, 7. Robert from Domino, 8. Scott, Emily’s friend and stylist, 9-12 The videographers. Oh, and I am sure that Charlie was crawling around playing with his toys somewhere whilst Brian was casually observing from behind the camera. Next week we will play a round of: How many different places can we call our office for the day?!

This above photo, folks, was a moment that Robert – the editor in chief of Domino Magazine genuinely made Emily laugh for the camera. I know its disappointing to hear that Emily’s face does not permanently have a cute quirky smile on it. During times when that smile is, lets say, not looking as natural as it could, we all gather around to tell a mildly inappropriate or hilariously embarrassing story to make her laugh. This time it was Robert who not only made Emily laugh but everyone else in the room. Tears were rolling, camera’s were clicking, and the rest is history my dear friends.

Stay tuned folks for other behind the scenes moments that only I will bring to you – with the permission of Emily (after all she does run this blog).

Is there anything you are dying to know about what makes the company ticks, what happens every day, or any behind the scenes pics you are just dying to see? If so, leave your questions in the comments bar and next episode of Behind the Scenes your dreams just may come true – that is if Mrs. Emily lets me publicize it :) fingers crossed America.

See the first and second Behind the Scenes post, written by Brady Tolbert.