Interiors Archives - Page 14 of 21

Go Fug Your Room – Miles Redd Again

January 27, 2010 By Paola 4 Comments

Our old friend, uber-hyped US interior decorator Miles Redd apparently designed this Manhattan apartment for a young couple with kids. And yes, the love children of Marie Antoinette and Santa would probably feel quite at home here.

Miles, honey, there are, however, a few things I feel I need to point out.

a) Just because your surname is ‘Redd’, it doesn’t mean that firetruck red is necessarily the most calming or even attractive colour for interiors. And believe me, interiors containing kids need calming.

b) I know you’re American, but that still doesn’t make firetruck red, cobalt blue and stark white a particularly appealing colour palette. Or were eyepopping primary colours your one concession to the ‘kids’ thing?

c) I know you can’t be expected to know much about kids, but surely even a young gay man about town knows that lots of tchotchkes/knickknacks + silk upholstery and curtains + felt wall coverings does not an entirely kid-friendly environment make. I suspect they have a very ferocious nanny.

Good to see that Miles hasn’t yet given up on hideous animal pictures

d) Have you realised yet that it’s the 21st century? The only thing that isn’t either an antique or some dreadful piece of repro is the kid’s Ikea bed.

Nice Ikea bed. Actually this room isn’t that bad.

I like the walls and colour palette in here. It’s all a bit granny’s old bloomers though.

No, you can’t even escape the red by going to the bathroom. And no Miles hasn’t given up on whimsical animal prints either. But I do quite like the wallpaper.

Miles takes the American obsession with table lamps to new heights by incorporating them in the kitchen. This is the nicest room in the house though.

Elle Decor US calls the apartment an ‘ode to 30s elegance’. I have noticed that in a US decorating context ‘elegant’ does not signify ‘quiet, spare, refined beauty in an Audrey Hepburnesque way’ as I used to think of it in the UK. Instead, it is code for ‘we added as many frills and furbelows and trims and ornaments and shiny things and golden bits and things we think might look French as we possibly could before the credit card exploded’.

What do you all think?

poll by twiigs.com

The Right Sort of Yellow?

January 25, 2010 By Paola 10 Comments

Those of you who’ve spent a long time around these parts will remember that when we moved into our house the living room was painted a rather gaudy egg yolk yellow (with a bright red fireplace, but that’s another story) that turns into a rather nasty mustard-y colour in the evenings under electric light.

For the past three years I have been agonizing about what colour to paint instead. You may remember that I’ve considered every permutation of pink and green but couldn’t find anything that worked.

A big problem is that we’re contending with three very different sorts of light – bright, bright sunlight throughout the summer (the room faces southeast and has windows on two sides); the sort of grey murky gloom that only Seattle can produce the rest of the time and yellow tungsten light in the evenings.

I finally got to thinking that maybe yellow was actually the way to go, just not that egg yolk-y yellow. So I looked for a yellow the colour of lemongrass, just on the cusp between yellow and green.

And we came up with Benjamin Moore’s Cypress Grove – which is a cool lactic yellow, the colour of unsalted butter, in the tin

but ends up having a distinct greenish tinge on the wall.

The green looks particularly pronounced in the soft grey light Seattle does so well.

And it looks sophisticated and interesting in tungsten light

And not too overwhelming in bright sunlight.

What do you think? The Husband loves it but I’m not 100% convinced, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. It seems a little too wishy-washy for me, though I have absolutely no idea what I’d replace it with.

I’m going to keep going with it for the moment as at least it’s hugely much better than what was there before. And it’s difficult to tell as the ceiling is now all wrong and needs to be painted urgently and I think the white of the woodwork is too bright a white.

Anyway, questions for you

– What do you think?

– And would you take that same colour into the seating area or paint the walls there some sort of white?

Ask Auntie P – Where Do We Stand on Feature Walls?

January 21, 2010 By Paola 10 Comments

A real life friend of mine is wondering whether to do a wallpaper feature wall, and I thought I’d put it to you guys as well to see if you could help.

Said friend is doing up a sixties cottage in Northern Ireland and is wondering whether to do a feature wall with wallpaper.

First up, I much prefer feature/accent walls with wallpaper rather than paint. A painted feature wall often looks like you’ve just run out of paint. But wallpaper feature walls are a good way of using pattern without getting too overwhelmed, and can let you indulge in expensive wallpaper on a budget.

For me a feature wall can be great as long as they’re used sparingly and for a reason. I grew up in London suburban semi-detached house with psychedelic seventies feature walls in every room, and that was definitely overkill.

Feature walls draw attention, so I think the key point is to think about what you’re drawing attention to and whether it’s actually worth focusing on. And of course they’re great ways of injecting colour and pattern into a room (though they might make it more problematic to use colour and pattern in other ways such with curtains or cushions). And you can use them to delineate space – such as separating out a dining area.

Here are some feature walls which I think work.

From Elle Deco UK (Jan 2010). I absolutely LOVE this New York loft. The feature wall here draws the eye upwards to emphasize the ceiling and injects a splash of beautiful colour. But note how minimalist everything else is.

From Ideal Home (Nov 2009). It delineates the dining area beautifully. But again everything else is incredibly spare.

From Graham & Brown’s website. This is quite subtle and mostly adds texture rather than emphasis.

This accent wall from Living Etc is reflected in a mirrored wall. It probably looks like a brothel in real life. But everything else is plain, uncluttered and subservient to the paper.

This comes from Decorpad.com though I’m not sure where it was sourced originally. The feature wall is nice, but it’s starting to clash with all the other clutter in the room.

This last is fabulous. It works because it is subtle despite the scale of the pattern, and again because everything else is kept so neutral and uncluttered. {From Colour Me Happy}.

What do you think? Would you do a feature wall in your home? If you’ve got a feature wall, do you have any advice for my friend?

Small But Perfectly Formed

January 20, 2010 By Paola Leave a Comment

As you may have noticed I’ve become slightly obsessed by all things tiny and dollshousy recently, so I was thrilled and delighted to see a dolls house, would you believe, get a full editorial spread in last month’s Elle Deco UK.

Of course in order to hold its own against the fabulous full size apartments on show, this was of course no ordinary dolls house. It’s a pretty vintage 1960s house full of lovingly collected vintage furniture and showcasing miniature versions of designer Deborah Bowness’s handprinted trompe l’oeil wallpapers, put together by Bowness and her friend Emily Chalmers of East London vintage store Caravan.

I sort of want to move in immediately.

Today I Am Mostly….

January 18, 2010 By Paola 3 Comments

…painting the living room.

Actually that was yesterday. And yes, we need to discuss paint colours as a matter of urgency, probably tomorrow.

Go Love Your Room? Jean-Christophe Aumas

January 15, 2010 By Paola Leave a Comment

I’m genuinely torn about this apartment which I found in last month’s Elle Deco – UK (yep, I’m only now getting the chance to go through my Christmas magazines, so look out for lots of ideas for Christmas decorating and table settings etc in the coming weeks). The apartment belongs to French art director Jean-Christophe Aumas, who creates window displays and events for big names such as John Galliano, Chloe and Diptyque.

At first I didn’t really like very much – the colour scheme, all baby pink, acid lemon, teal, black and grey and red seemed incoherent and unpleasant and the whole thing felt somewhat bitty, disjointed and just plain messy.

But the more I looked, the more quirky, fascinating details I saw. I love the way he plays with and echoes geometric shapes,

the blocks of colour, the way he hangs his pictures and sets his tables on an angle to reflect the diagonals in the herring bone flooring, the interesting objects such as the domes on the mantelpiece, the light fittings, the three triangles painted where the wall meets the ceiling, the turquoise shower, the brightly coloured accessories.

I wouldn’t necessarily want to live here, but I’d love to visit and look around and pick up the objects and ask where they all come from. It’s interesting and fascinating and quirky, and for that I forgive it much.

What do you think?

poll by twiigs.com

By the way, this has reminded me how much I love the Alexander Girard wooden dolls.

If only they didn’t cost $160 EACH. Or a mere $1,600 for all eleven. Ha ha ha. If you’re feeling disgustingly rich, then go buy them here.

Today I Am Mostly…

January 15, 2010 By Paola 1 Comment

…lighting candles

Actually this is me playing around with the January challenge for Holly Decor8’s Interior Styling group on Flickr. The challenge is as follows:

‘ Put 3, 5, or 7 of your favorite things on a tabletop. Only 3, 5 or 7, no more, no less. Arrange them in a triangle style – highest in the middle and work your way down. Try using a framed picture leaning against the wall for the middle, or a tall vase, lamp, flower arrangement, or anything else that is tall and centered’

The weather has been horribly grey and rainy for the past few days here in Seattle, so I decided to play with candlelight instead. I don’t think this really works for the challenge as the area I was styling (our built in bookshelves ) meant I had to take it from the side. And it has absolutely no ‘wow factor’ .

This interior styling malarkey is really difficult. What would you do to make this photo better?

While We’re On The Subject of Granny Squares

January 14, 2010 By Paola 3 Comments

I came across these fabulous pictures in Holly Decor8’s Interior Styling pool and had to share them with you.

I am now having to sit on my hands I’m so desperate to start crocheting a granny square garland. What a great idea. And absolutely gorgeous styling too.

{Idea and pictures from Dottie Angel. This is why I’m learning to crochet. I also want those knitting needles – does anyone know what make they are?}

Gigantic Granny Square Afghan

January 12, 2010 By Paola 5 Comments

Today is the Minx’s fifth birthday. And so of course she comes bounding into our bedroom this morning full of energy and excitement and shouts about presents.

For some reason it seemed particularly dark and I felt even crapper than I usually do when it’s time to get up, but it had been raining all night, which would explain the darkness, and when I asked the Husband what time it was (he keeps the alarm clock on his side of the bed) he said ‘oh, it’s twenty past seven’. I felt so dreadfully unrested that I asked him to double check but he reassured me about the time and we hauled ourselves out of bed and downstairs to begin the unveiling of half a ton of Disney Princess/Calico Critters/My Little Pony crap tempered with the occasional improving book.

This process had been going on for about ten minutes and I was just about to start making birthday waffles when I happened to glance at the clock on the VCR. Which said 3:52. Yes, my Cambridge-educated Husband had got his long and short hands mixed up and we’d all got up at 3.35 am. And of course after that the Minx was so excited it took her ages to go back to sleep, and she woke up again for the final time at 6.30 am.

So if you thought that today there would be a moving eulogy to my five-year old daughter or even any substantive blogging at all, then, dear readers, you are very much mistaken.

Instead here are a few pictures of the Gigantic Granny Square Blanket I crocheted for the Minx’s new dolls house.

She had expressed some disappointment that the blanket provided (a thin scrap of dark blue jersey) was too small for the sofa bed, so I decided to make the dolls their very own gigantic granny square afghan. I was very pleased with how well the yarn went with the decor and it seems that the (rather creepy) dolls are too.

This is another step in my ‘teach yourself to crochet’ campaign. After a few false starts I can now granny square along fabulously thanks to the Purl Bee’s excellent instructions. I’m almost tempted to start on a full-size gigantic granny square blanket just for us.

The yarn is the scraps from my first ever pair of socks. It’s fascinating to see how differently the yarn works up in different patterns.

Calling All Stylistas

January 9, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

While we’re in a photography frame of mind, I just wanted to highlight Holly Decor8’s Interior Styling group over on Flickr. She also talks more about it here. It’s a place to post up any pictures of corners of your home that you’ve styled and photographed and is hugely inspirational.

Anyone can join the group, and it includes some professional stylists, though be aware that Holly is curating the pool quite strictly and also making sure that images reflect her own particular aesthetic, which of course might not be yours.

Holly is also posting up a styling challenge every month which I’m hoping to do. January’s challenge is already up for the group, so make your way over there to check it out. I’ll post up my offering when it’s done.

Do let me know if you’re also going to take part. I’d love to see what you come up with.