As an interior designer, nothing excites me more than being in and around a world jam-packed of design stuff. Naturally, when I found out that the BlogtourNYC group would be touring SoHo, NY [first & successful initiative of the Modenus' My City walking tour] with Blogtour Alumni, Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo of ABCD Designs, I was nothing but overcome with joy. Did I mention that this was my first visit to SoHo. Yay!!!

Artist, designer, stylist and all around great person, Amy is New York’s gal at heart. From splitting her time between NYC and Litchfield, Connecticut to working as an event planner, interior designer, window display artist and photo stylist, there is nothing that Amy has not accomplished throughout her career. Design is her middle name. To add to her decorative career palette, Amy also completed a chef program at NYC’s National Gourmet Institute and earned a certificate in floral design at the Parsons School of Art and design.

When not designing, Amy enjoys making collages, knitting, homemaking and above all, spending time with her husband. Amy is also co-founder and one part host of the not to be missed weekly twitter’s #DesignTV chat on Thursday evenings at 5 PM est where designers share thoughts and enthusiasm about making your house a home. Go Amy!!!

Clever as clever can be, keeping 18 design bloggers on point, in one group, on a tour through SoHo, needed some serious planning. Amy started with a map of her favorite go-to design resources, which were completed with treasures of electic, contemporary, antique finds [to name a few]. From furniture to trinkets, this was one serious design-find trip accomplished in a few short hours. Here are a few of my favorite finds along the way.

Casual-Chic with Style, Canvas home store is complete with an array of elements to style your room. Offering stylish bottles, vases and pillows in many shapes, sizes and colors, there’s nothing you won’t find in Canvas to help perfect your space. But accessories aren’t the only things you’ll be enamored with at Canvas. If you’re looking for that one piece of furniture, be sure to stop at Canvas.

Exotic Contemporary is how I would describe Calypso St. Barth. I just wanted to touch everything and naturally so, the store was loaded with textures. From soft luxurious throws to plush animal prints, texture, texture and more texture is what you’ll find at Calypso St. Barth. For chic + glamorous, I’ll be contacting Calypso.

Michele Varian offers a diverse collection of appealing and unique finds that I would definitely use in any of my interior designed spaces. Take a walk through history when you visit Michele’s store, because you’ll find something, well, that doesn’t belong in this era; and, that’s the beauty of Michele Varian. One of my absolute design rules is to always have one piece of historic value because it creates more interest.

Ochre is a British based company that has a retail store in NYC. I treasure stores that offers furniture and accessories uncommon in the US because sometimes you just need a bit of international flavor. Ochre’s perspective on design is imaginative and a conversation starter. Each piece, furniture, accessory and lighting, are uncommon in form, line and texture. Brilliant!

Flair Home‘s design styling completely captivated me. It was hard to maintain focus because everything was flawlessly presented. Grouped to tell a story, each accessory appeared opposite but belonged. I enjoyed touring every angle of this store and you would too.

On a side note, I missed the beginning of the tour when the group visited The New Traditionalists and Paula Rubenstein’s store. Paula Rubenstein does not have a website but has been in the same SoHo space for 20 years and is known for industrial antiques. In between visiting all these stores, we also stopped at Hastens.

Someone managed to snap this pic with my phone of me and Katie Triggedon [Confessions of a Design Geek] resting our feet. Hastens made sure our thirst was quenched and hunger tamed; just enough to finish our tour.

—

Thank you…Thank you…Thank you

…Amy for this wonderful tour and showing us your go-to stores, which I have now added to my design resources.

**ALL photos are the property of Design Magnifique except the map of SoHo and the picture of Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo, which is the property of ABCD Designs.**

Cheers,

Marilyn