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    tara-and-percy

    Jersey Ice Cream Co was founded in the summer of 2010. Two kids in love found an old embossing stamp at a flea market, dreamed up a design empire, and then set to work trying to create it. Today Tara Mangini and Percy Bright spend their time moving house to house, job to job, leaving beautiful homes in their wake. They believe in craftsmanship, timelessness, and leaving things better than they found them. They do not make ice cream, but will happily have some if you’re offering.

    Jerseyicecreamco@gmail.com

Big Indian REVEAL Revealed

October 11, 2013 by Tara Mangini 5 Comments

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Last week we had the honor of sharing our Big Indian project with the world. In case you missed the beautifully done feature on Remodelista, be sure to take a look. We owe a huge thanks to Justine Hand for putting so much care into entire piece, and for taking the time to so eloquently explain the insane amount of work that went into the project.

It’s always so exciting to have these big projects revealed. We spend so many months working in isolation, doubting ourselves, sweating, sanding, etc, that it’s so thrilling-and slightly nerve wracking!- to throw the cover off and say, here it is! This article in particular was a total stunner, and I found myself bragging to complete strangers about the feature, something I swear I never usually do. So really, be sure to take a peek at it.

Luckily for all of you die hard fans out there, I am a compulsive picture taker, which means that even though Remodelista filled their post with tons of pictures, there are still tons more to share! So now, for your viewing pleasure, a personal peek into our Big Indian project, with some never-before-seen final shots. Enjoy!

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kitchen_03-blogTons more photos after the jump!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: home, Uncategorized, upstate, vintage

A TURKEY was HERE.

December 7, 2012 by Tara Mangini 3 Comments

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How shall we start this off. Perhaps, forgive me I’m a huge blogging failure?

I meant to post pictures of how we left the house before Thanksgiving. Each room waiting anxiously to be seen. A new table preparing to hold its first turkey. Fresh paint drying all over and beds made and couches and everything! But instead I ate a lot of food and watched lots of movies and stayed far away from my computer. The moment for the grand tour seems to have passed, or at least been postponed until things are finished! Which is in a few weeks, which just gave me a heart attack. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have something beautiful to share with you. To be honest, there is SO much I want to show you. But we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

For now…the dining room! Or at least the front half. From start to (near) finish.

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This is how the dining room looked when we walked in the door for the first time. We instantly knew we wanted to change every single thing about it. Green trim. Lace curtains. Hand stenciling. Those things could look beautiful if done right, but they sure didn’t look beautiful here.

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One of the first things we decided was that this little dividing wall had to come down. It created two tiny unusable rooms instead of one grand dining room. Which is exactly what our food and company loving clients needed.

So with one swift blow of his mighty hammer…

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…Percy knocked the wall down. At least that’s how he tells it.

With the wall down, we realized that under about 5 layers of cheap wood flooring, the original wide plank floors were still in tact. We couldn’t just leave them buried under there! Many many days of demo and sanding and sanding and staining and finishing followed.

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We knew we wanted to plaster in the dining room, and loved the idea of having a blue sky like ceiling and slightly darker walls. I read somewhere that people used to paint their ceilings because it was cheaper than painting the entire room, and for some reason loved that thought. Even though we didn’t paint, and covered the walls as well, it still makes me feel like there’s a story hidden in there.

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It’s no easy task, but plaster going up is a beautiful sight to see. The bottom half of the room was so rich in color we almost wanted it to stay that dark. But once the dry white clouds started forming we fell in love with the new color too.

Plus, some wood from an old barn door came together to make a perfect long dining room table.

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This is what the dining room looked like around 7am the day before Thanksgiving.

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And this is what it looked like when we walked out the door a few hours later. (We thought we’d give the green trim one final meal.)

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A little lot of turkey and rest did us good, and we were so excited to get back up to the house after a much needed Thanksgiving weekend.

It was magical walking back into the house. The plaster had dried to the perfect colors. The sun was shining. The kitchen was incredible. Everything was simply dazzling to the eyes. Such a dramatic change from that first day, months ago, when we curiously opened the front door.

A little paint mixing and a few tedious trim painting hours later, voila. The oh-so-stunning dining room was officially born. There are still some final touches to be done, but we’re totally in love already. And hope you are too.

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Filed Under: design, dining room, farmhouse, holiday, home, plaster, renovation, vintage

What DAY Is It?

November 7, 2012 by Tara Mangini Leave a Comment

Tuesday, right?

Wow. That was an actual guess and I just checked and it’s literally Wednesday. I will never be able to prove this to you all, but take my word for it.

We are currently in the stage of this job that I like to call “The Total Worst”. That is to say, the total worst part of a situation that overall is amazing, so still not the world’s worst, but you know, the awful middle part of something that’s pretty great. Did I mention I’m high on floor stain fumes?

The coming together stage feels incredibly close, but as of today we are basically camping indoors, which I’ve been trying to think of a word for. If glamping is glamorous camping then we are… Riving? (Rough living.) Hamping? (Home camping.) Seriously, it’s the fumes.

I had big hopes to keep this blog orderly and compartmentalized but today I throw caution to the wind. Which according to the weather forecast will also be filled with snow any minute now.

Instead, enjoy this scattered glimpse into our lives (and the house) today. Everything you see is exactly how it really is.

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A new kitchen in the works. And PS it’s going to be beautiful.

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The future home of one very amazing sink.

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Can’t wait to get some paint on this wall.

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Fire hazards and coffee making.

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An old newspaper found behind the cabinets. And yes, those are The Beatles.

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Wish list.

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Quarantine floor refinishing area. Keds on guard.

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One day this will be a dining room.

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A door is born.

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These floors need some TLC. But I still love them.

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The new door. Even better from the outside.

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Refinishing floors means no dust which means, no heat. Yay!

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Upstairs bathroom gets a make-over.

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One day I will take a warm bath in here.

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Sweet homeless dresser from Brimfield.

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The great divide & small bedroom #1.

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Pillow storage and small bedrooms #2 and 3.

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The master bedroom. On the way to perfection.

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Plaster makes everything better.

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Winter view from the sunroom. Sun nowhere to be found.

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Where I’m sitting. Right this very moment.

Filed Under: farmhouse, home, vintage, winter Tagged With: behind the scenes, design

Paint Swatches & Things Hidden Under Carpets

October 22, 2012 by Tara Mangini 3 Comments

Things I hate:
Dingy wall-to-wall carpeting.

Things I love:
Paint swatches. (even though they drive me insane)
Finding out that original wide-plank flooring is hiding under said dingy carpeting.

 (Above, the floors before a little sanding and varathane.)

And voila! After! (Note the shoe color change. Sanding perk.)

Filed Under: design, farmhouse, home, upstate, vintage, wood floors

Our First Dream Job : Part II

October 22, 2012 by Tara Mangini 1 Comment

It’s funny, looking back now at Debby’s initial email, to wonder what she really had in mind when she hired us to work on her upstate home.

She wrote, “I have a fantasy of the family arriving upstate to a home without boxes and comfy places to sit. I don’t think anyone could face another set of boxes to unpack.” Somehow in that sentence we saw, “I have a fantasy of you completely renovating, designing and furnishing our new house into the perfect home.” If you can’t dress for it, dream for the job you want, right?

Shortly after we finished up in Brooklyn, we hopped in our fancy white van and headed upstate for Brimfield shopping and of course, to see the little house that would become our lives for the next few months. It felt like we were going to see our new baby for the first time. Not that I have any idea what that’s like but, that’s the best way I can put it. 
We’ve been at our official post up there since late September, though the past week we’ve been back in NYC on another job, and can I tell you, I truly miss being up at that house. 
Life up there is like a creative retreat. Wall after wall to experiment with. Hidden wood floors. Years of flowered wallpaper to uncover. Endless possibilities. Cookbooks and a fireplace. Leaves changing all around us. 
I worried that I would go crazy with all the silence around me, and miss New York and all its spirit, but to be honest, I’ve never felt more content. 
We work from sunrise to sunset, and still the days pass all too quickly. We make dinner as the deer tiptoe in the yard. We snuggle up to relax with an episode of Downton Abbey. It might not be for everyone. But for us, for now, it’s perfect. 
Debby is an amazing client, and completely trusts us to create a home for her. She has shared her vision for each room, but aside from that, she has left us to our own devices. As any designer can tell you, this  
is a gift in itself. 
We have our own visions for the house, but living where you work creates an intimacy that is invaluable. The house was build in the 1800’s and it has a spirit of it’s own. We don’t hesitate to take our cues from the walls, the floors, the way the light hits, and the energy of each room. 
This is where we spend our days. This is our dream job. 

Filed Under: design, fall, farmhouse, home, new york, upstate, vintage

Our First Dream Job : Part I

October 22, 2012 by Tara Mangini Leave a Comment

I’ve been meaning to tell this story for awhile now. It’s one that has only gotten longer the more I’ve put it off, so at this point, to cover all of the twists and turns seems almost impossible.

But I think that a bit of distance and perspective has done me the favor of editing out the headaches that no one needs to hear about anyway. Because all that rises to the top is the good. And in this story, that still leaves a lot to be told.

Still, it’s a bit of a struggle for me to make this coherent when all I want to do is show you a thousand pictures of what’s happening now and say LOOK! But everyone likes stories. So here goes.

Over the summer, which is now light years away, our little Brooklyn sublet was featured on Design Sponge. Transforming that place into a home of our own was a mental challenge, knowing that as soon as we finished we were going to have to pack everything up and move back out. There were many afternoons when I wondered what on earth I was doing, but one email that came our way after that post changed everything.

This is literally how the message began.

“Hi Tara and Percy,

I saw your homes on Design Sponge.
I possibly have your dream job as you describe it.”

I had just left the house to go on a run and Percy texted me something along the lines of, “EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Debby, a wonderful woman, wife and mother of three was writing to us because she has just sold a house in Park Slope, rented an apartment in Clinton Hill, closed on a house in upstate New York, and broken her hip in the span of a week.

She had seen our post, admired and related to our frequent moves, and was hoping we could work our magic (quickly) on her new apartment and if the fit was right, their upstate home.  Being in the state she was, she needed some help to make this happen. And the sooner their current apartment could go from feeling like a whirlwind to a place they could actually live, the better.

We met with her the next day, fell in love with her family instantly, and were on the job. Debby’s husband was away for business, and she was hoping to surprise him with a TV-worthy reveal, which meant we had a week to design, source, and build everything needed to overhaul their Brooklyn apartment. And so the madness began.

I’ll spare you the gory details (and there are quite a few) but over the next seven days we completely transformed Debby’s home, packed up and moved out of our Brooklyn apartment, attempted to move into a new apartment, decided not to take the new apartment, moved everything into storage, racked up five parking tickets and even managed to get a car towed.

But every single bit of agony we went through that week was 900% worth it.

After days of planning and building, we were finally working in the apartment around day #5. As we walked out that day, Debby stopped us and said “By the way, you’re on for the upstate house.”

I still get giddy when I think about it.

– – – – – – – – 

Check out the pictures below of some of the magic we worked on their Brooklyn apartment.

Swoon city, right?

Next up, Part II.

Filed Under: brooklyn, design, handmade, home, new york, reclaimed wood, style, vintage

The Fantastic Mr. Berg

September 20, 2012 by Tara Mangini 2 Comments

One of the best things to come from our Nate Berkus appearance was meeting the fabulous and fantastic Mr. Steve Berg.

When we first heard that Nate’s hair and make-up guy was looking to get in touch with us, we were just thrilled that a semi-famous person (to us at least) was interested in our work. But after a quick meeting, that turned into a very long meeting, we were so happy that fate had crossed our path with such a hilarious and warm-hearted guy. There is no such thing as “swinging by real quick” with Steve.  Minutes turns into hours in minutes. In a wonderful way.

Seriously, if you need a hair cut let me know. I’ll have my people tell his people to call your people. You will leave looking and feeling fabulous.

Until then, take a look at these final shots from his newly updated West Village pad.

Subway tiling, lighting, reclaimed wood shelving and weathered breakfast bar made by Percy Bright. All styling and photography done by yours truly, aka Miss Tara Mangini.

Filed Under: home, kitchen, new york, reclaimed wood, shelves, vintage

Through the Looking Glass

August 6, 2012 by Tara Mangini Leave a Comment

Today is one of those wonderful Mondays where it feels like the world is whispering into my ear, “Hey, listen. It’s hard for me to admit this, but I sort of like you. Like, lots. And here are a bunch of sunshine-filled, hopeful, happy things to prove it.”

A handful of those happy things are these finished photos from a shoot me and my friend Joey worked on last week. I had some free time, he had some free time, and we were both itching to do something. And voila, we did. I was dizzy for hours from all the spinning. But it was totally worth it. 

I’m incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful people, who in turn can make me look pretty darn beautiful as well.

Walking down the street, blinded by summer sunlight, feeling completely content and at home. I think I’ll leave that sentence just how it is.

See the rest of the shoot, and more of Joey’s beautiful work here here.

Filed Under: photography, summer, vintage

Set of Eight Anatomy Charts : SOLD!

July 30, 2012 by Percy Bright Leave a Comment

Beautiful set of early 20th century W. & A.K. Johnston’s charts on anatomy and physiology.

Photos, details, and pricing after the jump!

Early 20th century W. & A.K. Johnston’s charts on anatomy and physiology.
By William Turner – Professor of Anatomy at University of Edinburgh.

Absolutely stunning set of 8 anatomy and physiology charts, plus a gorgeous cover page.
All bound and hung together by original metal hardware.

Charts include:
Bones
Ligaments
Muscles
Heart and Arteries
Veins and Lungs
Organs of Digestion
Nervous System
Organs of Sense and Voice

Beautiful graphics printed on perfectly aged linen.

Measures 30″ x 40″.

$950 for the full set.

Filed Under: for sale, vintage

Perfect 10: Two Chairs and Eight Stools for Sale!

July 25, 2012 by Percy Bright Leave a Comment

Ten beautiful seating options from our man in Connecticut:
Dimensions and pricing after the jump!

This mid-century modern Italian lounge chair features gorgeous lines and wood-and-metal construction. It measures roughly 36 inches tall, 24 wide, and 32 deep. A few very minor scuffs on the arms and legs.  $325.

This Sherrill arm chair is wrapped in beautiful chartreuse patent leather. It needs some attention at its seams but is in otherwise flawless shape; no tears. $150.
On to the stools!
The two adjustable square-top stools (left and center) measure 15 inches across and 17-25 inches tall. $70 each, $120 for the pair.
The formerly-adjustable stool at right (it’s lost its extendable legs) measures 15 inches across and 23 inches tall. $60.
Oh what a top! This oil-soaked-wood beauty with Scovill green base measures roughly 14 inches across, 13 deep, and 26 tall as pictured, but can be adjusted about two inches higher or four inches lower. $95. 
This unique black splay-legged stool measures 30 inches tall and 13 inches across its top. $90.
The grey guy on the left measures 13 inches across its top and can adjust from about 24 to 30 inches tall. $60.
The rusty-backed fellow in the middle measures 13 inches across its top and anywhere from 23 to 27 inches tall (plus 13 more to account for the back). $110.
And the grey-backed gentleman on the right measures 13 inches across its top as well, and anywhere from 17-24 inches tall (plus a regal 14 more for its back). $100.

Filed Under: connecticut, for sale, industrial, scovill green, seating, vintage

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