Fama Living

A long, long time ago I promised to start putting up my ICFF photos that I had neglected to post.  As an end of the year cleanup, I am starting again.

Fama Living is a new to me company from Spain that sells upholstered furniture.

I really like the similar style sofa in the cheerful fabrics below.

via Nuevo Estilo

It's not for everyone but I like the idea of low seating in a room.  How about you?

Ceiling Treatments

Here is where I show you what a creep I am.  A few weeks ago I totally took a photo of this ceiling in Boston even though there were people sitting at the window who saw me looking into their living room.   The glare from the light prevents you from seeing the whole ceiling pattern but it's amazing and the edges of the room have a dentil molding.  Sort of like a fancier version of this ceiling.

Thinking Pink

I'm pretty sure I have mentioned my love of extremely vibrant pinks before. It's not often that I get to use it in a project so I have to live vicariously through those who can. Needless to say, I fell in love with this bright, cheerful interior I found on HGTV {via Pinterest}.

I really like the molding on the ceiling.  Ceilings are so overlooked in design that it's nice to see one with a treatment like this.

{via HGTV}

{via HGTV}

In other news, there may be a home for the flooring I mentioned last week. Not the one pictured and not in pink, but the striped version may be coming soon to an office building near you.  Assuming you live near Boston, of course.

Happy Labor Day!

or Labour Day {if you're Canadian}!  It's a day to celebrate work by not working.  I will be spending some of the day working on the Etsy store I have finally decided to open.  I've been thinking about starting one for years and now that I'm almost there, I'm really excited about it.  This is probably the first time ever I've been excited about working on a holiday.

In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with some home office designs I've been enjoying recently.

Martha Stewart Living

Rue Mag

British Vogue - September 2011

Lonny Mag - design by Brad Ford

Lonny Mag - design by Betsy Burnham

Red and Turquoise

I'm still loving the color combination of red and turquoise.  I tried to use it in a project last week with a brown {almost animal printish carpet} but the company logo was wrong for the red.  I'm kind of sad about it because it's not often you get a carpet allowance as high as they had but we might just change out the paint colors for all blues and neutrals, no red.  Their lunch room would have been kind of similar to this but with a blue floor, white cabinetry and red walls.

image from Futura Cucine {McAfee says their site has a virus or I'd link}

They will still have the high gloss cabinets I wanted and nicer looking hardware so there's something good right there.  I really wanted to convince them to change the company logo but I restrained myself.

Do you guys love or hate the red and blue color combination?  I tried not to like it but I really do.

Fashion King - Set Design

Saying I only watched Fashion King for the set design kind of makes me feel like a guy who swears he only reads Playboy for the articles. But I'm serious...really.  I have to admit having a strong stomach for bad movies.  When my sister and I were young, we would get the tv guide that came in the paper and look for 2 star movies to watch.  So, despite being warned off repeatedly by others, I was in for the long haul on this one.  After finally finishing it, I wouldn't recommend that anyone else actually waste the time to see it but the reviews are fun to read.  The most accurate one reads {and I loosely quote}, "watch this drama if you are stuck on a plane for 20 hours and feel like being angry for 15 of them."

Watching the first few episodes I kept thinking I should know where they were shooting the show and then I saw the doors.  I don't pay too much attention to Tory Burch {I feel like she has giant logos on everything and I'm not into that} but I do like the interior of this store.

Apparently the upstairs of the Seoul store was made to look like her apartment.  I really like the orange lacquer everywhere and the lattice pattern on the railings.

There's also the sitting room with the purple and white which gives your eye a rest from all the orange.  These sofas magically changed half-way through the show from the darker purple with white trim to a white with purple stripes. I think I prefer the lighter sofas.

Some of her sketches even make it into a few shots.

As a side note, I kept wondering why they were all talking into their iPads, but it turns out Samsung makes giant smartphones now.  My phone is the same flip phone the main character used when he was poor....it seems to make appearances now and then in different dramas so it must be the director recycling phones.

On the first show I was thinking the phones were hugely oversized and awkward like Zac's phone below.  After seeing them a few times and thinking about it, they make sense.  You can't really do anything comfortably with a tiny iPhone so a larger one would be so much nicer.

via Huffington Post

Was anyone else silly enough to follow this whole drama?

Tiny Living Spaces

I really like small spaces and their potential for so much.  Tommy Smythe's 180 sf {former} apartment packs a whole lot inside.

via Canadian House & Home

via Canadian House & Home

via Canadian House & Home

I'm not sure if I could live without an actual dining table, but if it had a nice porch or outdoor space of some sort I think I could make it work.

Spring Cleaning

Despite the fact that it was technically still winter until yesterday, I've been in the mood for spring cleaning these last few weeks.  I recently took so many clothes out of my dresser that I'm surprised it's still packed full {it's the dresser equivalent of a clown car}.

Canadian House and Home

Next up is the closet.  Mine is about as wide as one of the shoe bays in this amazing closet above, but I can think about how great it would be to have a whole dressing room.

Botanical Prints at Home

After yesterday's post on J. Crew's botanical artwork, I thought I'd show a few images of the same thing in a residential setting.  Some of you said you didn't think you could do it on your own, if you read on past the first picture, there's something you might like.  I may post a tutorial on how to make some pictures of your own but I recently started working a job where I'm away for over 12 hours a day so free time is a bit scarce these days.

Smaller galleries images are very nice but I liked the impact the three larger prints have in this living room.

Steven Gambrel

If you'd prefer to print rather than purchase or DIY your images there are some free image sources where you would have to invest in the printing yourself but the images themselves are free.  Here are my favorites:

Missouri Botanical Garden's Digital Library has scanned rare botanical books of all types.  You are able to download the books you are interested in as a PDF and you can print what you would like in the size that works for you.  I love the medical texts and the colorful illustrations of the plants with all their parts broken out and think these would be beautiful printed on a high quality matte paper {the colored images remind me of my Audubon's Birds of America book}.  Just be warned that they are good quality scans but some of the pages are crooked and may need to be rotated {I think I rotated a couple before posting them}.

 

Another good resource for not only botanical prints, but many prints in the public domain, is Vintage Printable.  A quick search on the site for botanical returned 26,000 results.  They have not only floral illustrations as the Botanical Garden's library holds, but also some watercolors and floral arrangements.  You may have to play around with the images a bit on this site {the gray picture originally had a black border} but it's up to you to decide what you like and what you don't.  The site was a bit slow to load and use for me but they have so many images it's worth the wait.  They also have many horizontal prints if that is the direction that works for you.

They have a large selection of other categories as well.  I took a look in the Architecture and Landscape section and found a lot of old photos of Manhattan and the two below that I really like.  The first image, with the bathtub stuck in the air shaft, makes me laugh and the second one is beautiful with the lightening over the Eiffel Tower.

The last resource I love is the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery.  Here you can actually order digital files or prints from them or you can download and print yourself if you are using it in your home.  They have tons of botanical prints and I love looking through the vintage poster section.  Best of all, they have penguins.

image via NYPL

I think you can get pretty far with these sites, but does anyone else have any great image resources?

White and Colorful

I stumbled upon the bright and colorful home of Taylor Tomasi Hill on Vogue.com the other day and thought it was worth sharing.  This Eskayel wallpaper I posted on last spring is a showstopper on it's own but here is a nicely muted, but highly patterned, backdrop to the bright orange chair.

via Vogue

My favorite part of the article was the living room.  It's white with areas of intense color spread throughout {there's that red and blue combo again}.  Interiors like this are so easy to change up if you get bored with colors easily.  With a new rug and coffee table it could look like a whole new place.  That striped sofa with the low rolled arm looks really inviting and comfortable.

via Vogue

If you'd like to read the article yourself, here's the link.

Red & White

These pictures are from a Christmas article at Real Living Magazine but I thought they were also appropriate for Valentines Day.

via Real Living Magazine. Photography: Tony Amos. Styling: Sarah Ellison.

via Real Living Magazine. Photography: Tony Amos. Styling: Sarah Ellison.

Another one of those LED-word signs {also seen here and here}.  Maybe this is the new neon?

via Real Living Magazine. Photography: Tony Amos. Styling: Sarah Ellison.

{originally found via Poppytalk}

Blue Velvet

I know, I know, enough velvet already....but I just can't resist.

via Style by Emily Henderson {photographer: Tery Lyn Fisher}

I have a bunch of meetings this week and one the end of last week so I spent all last week working, working, working.  I wish my chair was this comfortable but instead I have this one.  I love it and it's comfortable but it's not a cushy arm chair, and I still have to redo the red vinyl fabric {that's on my someday list}.

Red Velvet Sofa

I'm like a kid at Christmas these days.  On this coming Tuesday, it will have been 8 weeks since I dropped my sofa off at the prison and I can't wait to get it back.  I literally check my email every single hour.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the chocolate brown velvet I chose.  However, when I saw Daphne Guinness's sofa, I couldn't help but think how great my sofa would have looked in a red velvet.

via Architectural Digest {photographer: Thomas Loof}

Oh, and if you have $14 million you can buy this apartment, it's for sale.  Perhaps I should start checking the curb in case the sofa is left there during the move??

Scarves As Artwork

Inexpensive original artwork isn't always easy to find. Personally, I have a hard time finding inexpensive frames that I like {funny thing is, I can easily find tons of expensive frames I love}. Many times, the intricately detailed frames I come across at thrift and consignment stores have large chips in the carvings and aren't worth buying. I have plans to eventually frame my old drawings from design school since I spent many, many hours slaving over them and can't bear to throw them away but that is going slowly while I hunt thrift shops for inexpensive frames in the right sizes.

I also think that framing scarves would be a good, inexpensive way to go. Those Vera scarves pop up now and again and can be pretty inexpensive but unnamed brands of scarves can have amazing designs as well. Brimfield and other antique shows have a bunch of options, I bought a vintage embroidered table scarf a few years ago for a pretty low price and they had handkerchiefs as well.  The best part is, on smaller items, you can find cheap frames at craft shops and IKEA that will frame them quite nicely, and the scarves should take center stage so simple is better.

via Skonka Hem

via Canadian House & Home

via Martha Stewart

A nice piece of vintage fabric could also do the trick but the cost to have this custom framed could get very pricey.

via Elle Decor {photography: Simon Upton}

White Interiors

I actually LOVE winter.  Well, I love it as long as I don't have to shovel or drive in the snow.  Watching the snow come down fast and furious on Saturday I came across this house featured in House Beautiful that has a look makes me want a bit of summer {or spring} right about now.

Design: Bill Ingram.  Photography: Simon Watson

Design: Bill Ingram.  Photography: Simon Watson

Design: Bill Ingram.  Photography: Simon Watson

images from House Beautiful via Two Ellie