mirrormirror

Are You Over-Propped?

 

This article which appeared in the New York Times last week has caused a lot of controversy out there in the blogosphere and touches on stuff we’ve been talking about recently.  The author, with a hint of self-deprecation, gently criticises those who style their homes to within an inch of their lives and fills them with ‘props’, such as vintage typewriters which look pretty but which are never going to be used. 

 

 

You used to see it a lot in homes which were styled for interiors mags or had been pulled together by an interior designer and filled with objects, art and even books, which had been chosen for how they looked in the space and not for what they meant to the inhabitants.

But now in these days of interiors mags, design blogs, books about design blogs and, heaven help us, Pinterest, design trends and ideas seem to appear, become ubiquitous and turn into clichés in the blink of an eye. As this also fascinating article in Vanity Fair has it, so many of us now;

‘have become amateur stylists—scrupulously attending, as never before, to the details and meanings of the design and décor of their homes, their clothes, their appliances, their meals, their hobbies, and more.’

There has been an inevitable backlash from bloggers, and lots of heated discussions on Facebook etc. – after all what’s wrong with wanting to create a beautiful and carefully curated living space?

For me part of the key is authenticity – by all means colour code your books if it’s easier for you to find them that way; display your Le Creuset pots with pride if you actually use them for cooking and revel in that inherited Arco lamp that fills you with memories of a favourite aunt. 

And yes, stubbornly continue to enjoy your owls even after 81% of your readers have told you they’re over as a design trend.

But at what point does today’s pretty object turn into tomorrow’s ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster? How do you decide what objects to give houseroom to? And what mistakes have you made – barcarts and globes that just gather dust; trendy paint colours that now make you cringe; objects that you bought on a whim because you saw them in a design blog, but have never really fitted into your home?

The writer of the article lists – extremely weird - design clichés here. Some like the bar cart I can totally understand, but fresh flowers, a cliché? Seriously?

Fancy Hotel of the Week: Four Seasons Seattle

 

When the sun does come out in Seattle there is no more beautiful place on earth.  The unfortunate thing is, that, unless you have your own yacht, there are not so many places to just lounge and enjoy the view.

 

 

Yes, there are the lakes and the cold ocean beaches, but there are very few loungers and margaritas types of places, and, as you have probably guessed, I am very much a loungers and margaritas type of girl.

So when it became apparent on Thursday that temperatures were set to soar in Seattle for the Mother’s Day weekend, we decided to throw caution to the wind and book into Seattle’s Four Seasons hotel for a ‘staycation’.  The Four Seasons is unusual for Pacific Northwest hotels in having an outdoor infinity pool, with breathtaking south-west facing views out over Elliott Bay to the Olympic mountains beyond, which reminded me of the similar views we had from our downtown apartment when we first moved to Seattle.  

 

 

The pool area also features a hot tub and fire pit and is protected on three sides by the hotel and other high rise buildings, so I would imagine that it would still be very pleasant in the cooler months of the year.

The beautiful spring green planting creates a little rooftop oasis and exactly matches the beautiful spring green umbrellas, which looked amazing against the blue sky and turquoise water.

 

 

The pool itself is heated to 85 degrees and also gently salinated, which makes the water deliciously soft and somehow bouncy, and there was plenty of room for the Minx and the Husband to practise their synchronised swimming routines.

 

 

Inside the décor is luxurious, clean and contemporary, with an emphasis on natural stone and woods, soft autumnal hues and organic shapes, with lots of interesting artworks and glass.

 

 

 

In the lobby, slatted wood walls are juxtaposed with intricate stone floors and striped carpets to give a clean, modern almost Asian feel.

Oh and the breakfast wasn’t bad either.

 

 

We were also really impressed with the welcome given to the Minx.  When we booked they asked for her name and age, and there was a welcome pack waiting for her in the room, with a little treasure hunt questionnaire for her to complete.

 

 

It’s the first hotel we’ve ever stayed in which provided a mini kids robe and slippers, to the Minx’s enormous delight and to cap things off, they also gave her a little pink sock monkey, from which she became inseparable. And yes, I do know that my daughter is INCREDIBLY spoiled.

 

Here is ‘Chaussette’ lounging by the pool.

 

We left feeling incredibly relaxed and asking ourselves why on earth we haven’t done this sooner.  Truly that view is good for the soul.  Four Seasons Seattle, we will most DEFINITELY be back.

 

Thanks once again to the lovely Sheri at Pacific Northwest Journeys for arranging our stay.   We paid for the hotel room ourselves.

Go Fug Your Kitchen: Sophie Conran’s Bayswater Flat

 

Sophie Conran is yet another child of British design royalty Sir Terence and his second wife cookery writer Caroline Conran.  Sophie is maybe not quite as famous as her brothers Jasper and Sebastian (whose Notting Hill house has already had the honour of featuring in GFYR) but still has serious design chops as the designer behind the Sophie Conran for Portmeirion dinnerware and a newish range of wallpapers for Arthouse among many other food and product collaborations.

Her Bayswater flat is not really interesting enough for a whole Go Fug Your Room, as most of it is blandly inoffensive and seems to have come straight out of the pages of ‘Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table’.

 

 

Collection of mis-matched white jugs. CHECK.

 

 

Collection of mismatched white vases. CHECK.

 

 

Saarinen Tulip Chair. CHECK

 

 

Arco Lamp AND Arne Jacobsen Series 7 Chairs. CHECK and CHECK.

 

 

Saarinen Tulip Chairs and Tulip Table. CHECK and CHECK.

Utterly hideous pink walls. CHECK. 

Er, excuse me?

Apparently Ms Conran let her daughter chose the wall colour, an evil which has been compounded by picking out the ornate mouldings in stark white, making the whole thing look like a particularly tasteless wedding cake.

So, in the run up to Mother’s Day, I’d like to ask the delightful mirrormirror commentariat two simple questions.  Is this kitchen fugly and should kids ever be allowed to make décor decision not immediately pertaining to their own bedrooms?

poll by twiigs.com

In previous Go Fug Your Room news, around 30% of you liked Adam Levine’s house (and weren’t influenced in any way, shape or form by his cute smile. No sirree). Around 30% of you thought it was fugly and 40% of you were meh on the whole thing.

Go Love Your Room: The House that Houzz Built

 

 

I realise that recent ‘Go Love Your Rooms’ have been rather same-y – white backgrounds, pastel-y accents, eclectic mix of furniture and objects, yadda yadda yadda, rinse and repeat etc.

So loving a very modern house is a bit different for me.  Once upon a time Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen were doing up their long low modern bungalow in Palo Alto and bemoaning the lack of online resources to save and share remodeling inspiration. So they founded Houzz.com. As you do.

 

Warm and cosy

Several things strike me about this room.

Firstly modern houses can very quickly get ‘boxy’ – lots of square furniture in lots of square rooms – but in this house they’ve very carefully added circle shapes to add contrast. Not just with the awesome swing seat, but also by adding the circular tray and the circle pattern on the pouffes.

 

Circles and squares

 

There are still a lot of squares in the room, but they are also made more interesting by playing with scale – the big square picture, the medium cube pouffes, the smaller cushions and the even smaller cubbie shelves inserted into the wall.

Next they’ve gone for texture and comfort.  So many modern houses are beautiful but also seem sterile and cold. Here the cushions, the awesome rug, the pouffes and the swing make everything seem cosy, comfortable and FUN (though the pouffes do look as if you’d have to perch rather than lounge if you used them for seating).

 

The light in this room must be amazing

 

And finally there’s some colour!  So many modern day architects seems to believe that the only colours available are black, white and brown, so the pops of orange, red and purple are extremely welcome.  I like how the books in the cubbies are arranged by colour, there’s so much scope to change stuff in and out of those shelves to create different wall ‘art’.  I’d love to know where their proper book storage is though.  I’m assuming this house has a giant basement where all the crap is stored.

 

Needs more colour?

Pulling out more that amazing light fitting brings more circles and spheres into play, which is good as the dining table and chairs would otherwise be very angular and stark.  I can’t help feeling that the dining area needs something more, maybe even something as simple as a coloured runner on the table.

 

 

I’ve always loved those Ligne Roset Togo couches though I wish in this case they’d gone for the coloured version or maybe a coloured throw. But again, they look so deliciously lounge-y and comfortable.  I like the pops of colour in the kitchen and the shiny black floor grounds the whole space wonderfully.  The row of chairs finds echoes throughout the space too – the row of skylights, the row of vases on the dining table, the double row of book cubbies.

Still have no clue where all their STUFF is though.

 

 

The bedroom is saved from monochrome minimalist boringness by the use of overlapping textures – bumpy mosaic, smooth shiny cupboards and embroidered throws – and by that phenomenal wallpaper. This feature wall – which adds texture rather than grabbing attention -  is one I can definitely get behind.

 

All photos by Matthew Millman for The New York Times

What do you guys think? Too modern, too shiny, too stark?  And tell me honestly, could you actually live like this?  I know me and my family wouldn’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of being this tidy.

Back blogging now. Next time I know to get guest bloggers in to cover the couple of days after a trip when I’ve taken one look at the overflowing cases, laundry basket and email inbox and am lying gibbering in a darkened room.

Five Simple Tips to a Better Architectural Photo

 

 

I thought we’d relax after yesterday’s trip to Vancouver with a little photography.  I was fascinated to see that a full 89% of you who responded to the recent Urtak survey said you enjoyed photography, so I hope this next post will prove to be both interesting and useful to many of you.

I had the enormous pleasure of meeting Michele, a professional architectural photographer, on the Blogging Your Way weekend. Her blog is newish, but wonderful – she has a warm, witty, very funny voice and takes seriously awesome photographs.  And yes, you have to read her blog posts in a Brooklyn accent.

First of all, I’m totally having an anxiety attack because someone reads my blog. And not just someone, but the lovely, creative, funny, and incredibly spirited, Paola. And not only does she read my little photoblog, Tripping on Asphalt, but she likes it enough that she’s asked me to write something for her wonderful blog. I’m melting into a little puddle on the floor. Then she’s all, “Sorry for the short notice, Love” and I’m swooning over the super-cool accent (because, of course, I read her emails with an accent), and in my head I’m all, “seriously, sister; if you’d given me a week instead of 24 hours, I’d’ve died from an anxiety attack instead of getting myself together and writing this post”.

So here we are! My name is Michele, and I began my architectural photography business, Sequined Asphault Studio, back in 2005. I was born and raised in Brooklyn and now live in Connecticut with my very tall husband and my very small dog, who I am trying to teach to work a cocktail shaker. If you’d like to get to know me a bit better, consider yourself warned, but you can read about some of my random idiosyncrasies on my blog, Tripping on Asphalt .

Paola tells me you love photos! So we thought I’d share with you just a few of the techniques I use to create an image; techniques that you can easily steal to make your own photos even better. For the last tip you’ll need a dslr/slr and be able to set it to manual mode, but for all the others any camera will do. Now, I tend to steer away from the how-tos for fear of being Miss Bossy Pants, but for Paola, I’m going to be adventuresome. I humbly present to you, Five Simple Tips to a Better Architectural Photo.

Tip 1:   Use a Tripod.

I basically can’t talk to you any more if you don’t follow this advice, because everything else I’m going to tell you requires you to put down the camera so that you can be more conscious of everything in your shot. If you’re using one already, 5 points for Gryffindor! If you are not, don’t despair, just give it a go. And don’t break the bank if you don’t have one already. Chances are you can find something in a friend or relative’s basement. If not, get an inexpensive base model and it will serve you loyally.

Now, if you are attempting to get a shot of newly mobile toddlers using a tripod, you will get a headache trying to get them in frame, which will lead to more vodka and less pictures. But a tripod can elevate many types of photography, even, or maybe especially, a basic family portrait where you can mindfully set up your shot and possibly hop in after you’ve set the timer.

 

Tip 2:  Be Conscious of Your Lines

 

 

Now that your camera is on a tripod, look through your viewfinder at the walls, moldings, doorways, bookcases, trees, or anything that creates a right angle or parallel lines within the frame of your photo. Get right up in your viewfinder and position the camera so these lines are as straight as possible. Especially the floor and ceiling. I shoot directly to the computer and can double check on a larger screen, but you can use your viewfinder and LCD screen quite effectively. Most often when things look cockeyed on the screen after I’ve take the time to perfect my lines, I find I’ve been looking through the camera at some messed up angle, so make sure you’re not crooked either.

While you’re at it, analyze the lines you’ve got. If you don’t want to see the ceiling, zoom in and get it out of there. Make sure those lines include exactly what speaks to you to photograph. Nothing more, nothing less.

Tip 3: Consciously Choose Objects to Convey the Mood

My husband, Dug, is convinced that my 3 pound Yorkie, Chewbacca, would make every single photo I take better. (Paola would likely prefer a disinterested cat.) I’ve unsuccessfully tried to explain to Dug that at some point, people might stop paying me for my services if I refuse to take photos without Chewie. To which he calmly shakes his head and replies, “Have they met him?”

But Dug makes an excellent point. Animals warm the heart and can create a more inviting photo. Embrace animals, or items that show personality. Since this shot was taken in my own home, it was super simple to grab Chewie and everything on that nightstand from other places in the house to create a quick scene that reflects me, instead of the clutter that was actually there, which also reflects me, though I’d prefer my used Kleenex and iPhone charger not be recorded for posterity.

Tip 4:  Declutter and Edit Out Objects that You Don’t Want Stealing the show

 

Sometimes there can be too much personality. Go ahead and move stuff out of the frame that's distracting. Declutter. And here we come back to the tripod again. Because once you’ve got the camera pointed at your subject matter, you can keep going back and checking the composition to actively decide what you want in the frame and what you don’t. Get all the crap out of the way because the only thing that matters for your photo is what the camera can see. Armageddon can be, and often is, 2 inches outside of the frame, and no one will ever know.

I loved this bear. I totally wanted to take him home. But if I’d left him in the shot, no one would be looking at the architecture, right? They’d be all, ‘Bear!’ Which was pretty much how I felt all day at this shoot. “Bear!’ We even set him a place at lunch. You can also see the equipment and wiring in the corner behind me that we covered with the homeowner’s cool jugs (now I’ve gone and accidentally made a boob reference and I’m never going to get invited back).

OK, bear with me while we get a tad technical. (and now I’m punning, how unfortunate)

Tip 5: For a Sharp All Over Photo, Set a Large Numbered f-stop

When I’m setting up an overall, wide-angle shot, I want everything as crisp and sharp as possible throughout the entire image. None of the beautiful bokeh, the blurred background that pops your subject, people love so in portraits. To make this happen using only available light, crank the f-stop setting to as high a number as you can go (a higher number is actually considered a smaller f-stop because it means the resultant opening for light is very small), then find your shutter speed through experimentation. You’ll need a much longer exposure, so just keep adjusting your shutter speed to find the right balance of light. Anything moving in a long exposure shot, like an animal, person, or branch in the wind, will end up a motion blur, which can be pretty interesting.

This night shot is an extreme example but the shutter was open for 3.2 seconds and the f-stop set at f/16. Obviously I couldn’t hold the camera still for 3.2 seconds, so thanks to my trusty tripod, that’s 3.2 seconds during which I was sipping pinot noir.

Our time here has come to an end, lovelies. I thank you so much for the opportunity to chat, and thank you Paola for having me as your Guest Blogger for the day! I’d love to hear if you’re able to make use of any of these tips, or if you have any questions I can tackle about the kinds of photos you see on my site or in the design magazines. Drop by any time for a visit.

xoxo MS T

Mad Men: More On Don Draper’s New Apartment

 

 

 

It went a little crazy round these parts when I wrote my recent analysis of Don Draper’s new apartment, so for the 47% of you who watch Mad Men (and for the remaining 53%, why the heck don’t you?), here are some more great articles I’ve found online about his new digs.

Firstly the LA Times did a great interview with set designer Claudette Didul about how she put the look together, and including a list of shopping resources.

 

 

Secondly, the LA Times also did a piece on the reaction to Don’s new pad online and included a link to THIS.VERY. BLOG.  And they called me ‘astute’.  What a remarkably sensible and insightful paper the LA Times is! 

The divine Tula, shopping guru extraordinaire, wrote two great pieces.  One on how to recreate Don’s apartment in your own home and another on how you can channel your inner Megan.

 

 

And the ever fabulous Tom and Lorenzo are again doing their weekly episode by episode Mad Style round-ups, which focus mainly on the fashions, but also on the interiors and sets.  I swear only people who are more insightful and knowledgeable about the show are the writers and producers themselves.

Mad Men: Don Draper’s New Apartment

 

Zou Bisou Bisou.

I don’t think I’m ever going to get that song out of my head.

I trust we were all watching last night?  The big news of course is that Don Draper, apart from getting himself a sexy little package of a new wife -  who I predict is going to be nothing but trouble – but has also got himself a sexy, new, not-so-little apartment.

Don now lives in the big city, away from Betty and her suburban angst and her suburban furniture (remember her er, lovely ‘fainting couch’?) in an apartment big enough that his kids can come visiting and where his wife can host wild surprise parties.

It’s a clever set.  Instead of filling it with mid-century icons such Saarinen tables and chairs and Arco lamps (unlike Roger’s office with its shipped-in style), it just feels very comfortable and of its time, very sixties, but not ostentatiously so. 

The colour scheme of burnt orange and turquoise is kept to the periphery and the accents  -  the aqua curtains, the seating out on the balcony, the orange kitchen cabinets and the gorgeous throw pillows, but the main body of the set is very brown, very boxy and very wood-panelled, with even the pattern on the curtains seeming quite subdued.

 

A little light relief is offered by the white cupboard doors, the white feature wall and of course the infamous white rug, with the occasional dark red painted door or panel, but in general the main body of the set is kept quite spare and neutral.  Even the art on the walls is quite dull and nondescript.

Which makes sense of course if the marriage-threatening surprise parties you hold are such a riot of sixties pattern and colour.  Weren’t the costumes in these scenes just awesome?

I managed to spot a few Sixties icons dotted about – the Catherine Holm enamel bowls, the Eames lounge chair, the Murano glass and the zebra-striped cushion. Did any other Sixties paraphernalia catch your eye?

And I have to give a shout out to the exquisite chandeliers in the entrance way, and that lovely low-hanging blue lamp.  What did you like most about the set?

These images show how the designers had fun with costumes, party accoutrements and accent pieces to create a mood.  I’m sure we’re going to see that mood darken as the season progresses.

I am certain the Husband had eyes for nothing but that glorious aqua Sixties vacuum cleaner in this scene.

So did you watch? Did you enjoy it? What did you think of the new apartment? Any particular objects you were coveting?  I’m enjoying how the new Mrs Draper is quite literally leading Don by the balls.  I’m sure that’s going to end up well.

Zou Bisou Bisou.

Go Love Your Room: Vanessa Bruno’s Paris Apartment

 

This week’s Go Love Your Room – where I take a room, house or apartment and analyze why it really, really speaks to me – features French designer Vanessa Bruno’s apartment in Paris.

I actually blogged about this briefly back in 2007, but it has haunted me all this time and I recently came across a great set of photos.  I thought it would be interesting to examine what I love about it, and see whether it has stood the test of time.

 

The space itself is cheating of course.  It doesn’t take much design talent to make those high ceilings and rustic beams look good.

The sugared almond colour scheme of lilac, celery green and dusky pink is still very attractive and feminine, though a perhaps a little sweet for my taste nowadays.  Though the colours, the sprigged embroidered cushions, the fresh flowers and the garland artwork are unashamedly girly, I love how Bruno keeps everything else spare and plain to avoid it tipping over the edge.

 

 

The low picture shelf is a lovely touch (that Diane von Furstenburg could learn from) as are the rustic wooden frames that echo the beams. And I like the echoing triangles of the side tables and the chair legs. And is that just a plain, pistachio green canvas propped up to give an additional hint of colour?

 

 

Pulling out a bit the red furry (beady?) artwork on the wall is a touch of genius, providing an emphatic focal point,, emphasising the symmetry of the room, dirtying up the colour scheme and providing a much needed touch of luxurious texture.  I also like that, unlike last week’s room she’s used a huge floor rug to cosy things up a little and ground the spindly-legged and rather insubstantial furniture, even at the cost of covering up those marvellous floorboards.

The string of paper lampshades, which Bruno apparently put together herself, is also a fabulous touch.

 

 

The coloured lampshades over the table are clever too, bringing the colour palette into the dining area and echoing the shades on the other side of the room. And I absolutely love how the central one is elliptical and not round to prevent a surfeit of balls everywhere (and that’s never a good idea).

The hefty wooden table and industrial chairs again counteract the girliness and the substantial table legs contrast well with the flighty nature of the surrounding pieces. I’m not sure about having the table and chairs half on and half off the rug though.

 

 

I like here how the sculpture on the secretaire reflects the painting above. 

This room is another study in geometric shapes – it seems I’m a sucker for them – the aforementioned triangles, the square cushions and dining chairs, the rectangles of the windows and the big round balls.  And also a study in contrasts – romantic v industrial, light v substantial, rough v smooth, spare v ornate. 

Though I think nowadays I’d add a bit more punch to the colour scheme and maybe some more graphic elements, I think this has stood the test of time very well and I certainly wouldn’t mind moving in tomorrow.

What do you think?  Too feminine or just right (or not feminine enough?)  Do you think it looks dated? Where can I get a red fuzzy thing to hang on my wall?

See how the sun is streaming into the rooms above?  It’s a photographer’s nightmare, but that’s what’s happening in Seattle at the moment.  It’s going to be a great weekend.  Have fun wherever you are.

Kate Moss at the Ritz for Vogue US

 

I just subscribed to US Vogue on my iPad, and to celebrate I thought I’d share the most gorgeous fashion editorial I’ve seen in a long while.

Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquiere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexis Mabille Haute Couture

It’s not often you get to ogle exquisite interiors as well as exquisite frocks, but Vogue wanted to celebrate the iconic Ritz Hotel in Paris, before it closes for a major refurbishment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giambattista Valli Haute Couture

Armani Prive’

Alexander McQueen

Chanel Haute Couture

Dior Haute Couture

Full editorial here. Photos by Tim Walker.

Fancy Hotel of the Week: The Ace Hotel NYC

 

While in New York I had a great time at the Ace Hotel.  It was fascinating to stay there since we’d enjoyed ourselves so much at the Ace in Palm Springs and I was intrigued to see how their aesthetic would translate to a New York setting.

 

And what they’ve done is very clever. The free-wheeling hippie chick of Palm Springs has smartened herself up for New York and become a little more glam and a little more polished, while still being a bit rough and ready around the edges and retaining her creative rocker vibe.

The refurbishment of the 1904 midtown Hotel Breslin is not exactly to my taste, but it’s hugely clever and hugely comfortable, and, as you would expect, full of thoughtful and quirky touches which add greatly to the pleasure of the stay.

 

 

Our room featured tattoo art (and super comfortable beds) a guitar (of course, every hotel room should have a guitar) and a full-sized fridge, a working record-player and water bottles in the shape of gin bottles (I loved those).

 

 

Downstairs in the lobby everything was dark and a little seedy, with glamorous filmstar lights, polished vintage woods and antique ceiling lights, while the funky graffiti wallpaper echoed the tattoo art in the bedroom.

 

 

Using vintage artifacts and furniture everywhere, while retaining the worn mosaic floors and chipped plaster ceilings made everything seem a little louche and decadent, while being respectful of the building and its history.

 

 

And someone had had huge fun with the graphic design (and having the address written so prominently on the keycard was super useful when grabbing a cab late at night).

 

 

The food was good, the coffee was great, the bar was jumping and staff couldn’t have been more pleasant, helpful and friendly.

All in all a fun, comfortable and reasonably-priced place to stay in New York.  I will be back.

Go Fug Your Room: Adam Levine’s Hollywood Hills House

 

Is the Husband reading?  No? Good. Because here is where I confess to a teensy weensy crush on Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine.

It helps that he looks uncannily like an Australian I had a bit of a crazy affair with (it couldn’t be called dating) before I met the Husband, and I’m also really liking his attitude as a judge on The Voice (I think you really are revealing too much about yourself today, Ed)  – he’s cute and funny and seems to really care about the contestants in his team and about music in general.  I’d been afraid that he’d turn out to be a complete douchebag (how I still love that word) much like the handsome Australian turned out to be, but for me he’s added major charm points.  Oh and I like his clothes.

But we all know that we can’t come to a proper conclusion about a man until we’ve seen the inside of his home, so fortunately Adam Levine’s house in the Hollywood Hills was featured recently in Architectural Digest so I could ascertain whether he was a worthy recipient of my affections.

 

 

Here’s Adam waiting to pick me up and whisk me off.  It’s looking good so far, isn’t it ladies (and gay men)?

 

 

And here’s the kitchen. Some great furniture (a Florence Knoll table and some Jacobsen chairs).  It doesn’t look like he cooks much, but I’d be happy to bake him a cake.  A little bit of colour would be nice somewhere -  this looks a bit like a space-age conference room - and the stylist who brought in the pink orchids obviously agrees.  But overall not bad.

 

 

Oh dear. Purple VELVET?  And the Chesterfield shape looks a bit incongruous and grannyish with all the mid-century stuff going on.  I don’t like the rug either, something more graphic and less Miss Havisham would have worked better.  And the dark drapes continue the ‘conference room at a mid-sized bank’ theme. 

 

 

 

Admittedly it looks a little better from this side. I take it back, the van der Rohe daybed does work with the couch, and the big cushions outside are cool. I still wish he’d change that hideous rug though. Love the floor lamp.

 

 

This really feels like a musician’s house.  Adam comes across as really loving music on The Voice and this feels really authentic and true to him.

However, I could do without more tufted velvet – I love the piece, but not here – and  yet another granny rug, and although I have been known to like black walls in some contexts, this all looks far too dark and louche for southern California. 

Adam, you are disappointing me.

 

 

Guns and Grammys?  Seriously?  I know you want me to know that you’re overloaded with testosterone, but this is all a bit much. I absolutely adore your sideboard though.

 

 

And THIS is the bed you are planning to throw me on to?  Isn’t it, shall we say, a little staid and a bit Hilton Hotel-ish?  More for snuggling up in flannelette pyjamas on your own with a good book, I’d say.  And I’m not sure that black walls, looming portraits of hairy rockers and SKULLS are exactly going to get me in the mood.

I’m sorry Adam, but I’ve just remembered a prior engagement.

So my lovelies, what did you think of Adam’s shag palace tastefully appointed home?  I really wanted to love iy, but to me it’s just too weird a mix of fabulous furniture, chain hotel and trying-too-hard mancave, with a hint of douchebaggery round the edges.  But I have a sneaky suspicion that might be a pretty authentic reflection of Mr Levine’s personality anyway.

What do you guys think?  Is this house fugly? Please post your thoughts about his body in-depth analysis of the interiors in the comments.

poll by twiigs.com

 

An astonishing 74% of you agreed that Ines de la Fressange’s Provencal home was fugly. 

Go Love Your Room: Circles, Rectangles and Stripes Edition

 

One of the things we talked about at the weekend was the idea of constantly exploring and questioning and thinking about your aesthetic and why you are drawn to certain things – using your blog as a way to explore your own creativity and as a catalyst to live your best life.

I saw this apartment a few weeks ago, and it really resonated with me, so I thought I might try and work out WHY I like it so much.

 

This room is gorgeous.  The beautiful focal point of the paintings sort of goes without saying, but the designer has also used texture subtly and cleverly–  the smooth table and hard metals contrasted with soft leather rug and pouffe and the natural wooden floor. 

I’ve noticed in my photography that I’m really drawn to complementary shapes and I love how the designer has used  the large square art pieces to emphasise the rectangles of the doors and walls, while the circle of the ceiling rose is echoed by the cylindrical light, the round table, the cylindrical pouffe and even the spots and circles on the paintings.

 

 

Pull out into the lounge area and you’ll see more use of shape and texture.  More rectangular pictures, more circular tables and a Tord Boontje metal light shade (which I don’t think is quite big enough).  You’ll know through all my ‘Go Fug Your Room’ rantings that I don’t like uncomfortable chairs, and I think the seating in here could be a little more cosy (and maybe a rug would have helped), but my goodness, it’s still a lovely space.

 

 

Looking in the other direction the stripy art picks out the lines of the floorboards (love how they go in opposite directions), and echoes the stripy art and crib slats in the nursery. I also like how the curved top of the mirror reflects the curves of the Eames rocker and stops everything from feeling too square and boxy. And there’s a most beautiful stuffed owl with circular owly eyes.  And we all know how much I like those.

 

 

Rectangular shelves, a round stool and a stripy rug complete the nursery and there are more circles and a whole family of round-eyed owls in the entrance hall.

 

 

 

More stripes in the bed cover and through the kitchen cabinets and more circles through the art, the cushions and in the Nelson coat rack.

Wow. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t noticed how thoughtfully the designer had organised the shapes in the apartment until I was half way through writing this post.  I thought at first it was the colours everywhere speaking to me, but I think it’s the underlying sense of organisation that is making my soul happy (unfortunately this is not reflected in my own home).  This house makes me want to tidy up and buy art.

What do you guys think?  Do you like it or is it too structured and sterile for you?  Does anyone know who did those amazing paintings or where I can buy those FABULOUS owls?  And where do the people who live here put their stuff?

This apartment belongs to Norwegian jewellery designer Stine A. Johanssen. More details are here, translated from the Norwegian.

Teeny Trend: Pixels

 

No, you don’t need new glasses, though I’m curious to know if anyone out there would dare to wear the shoes.

Cushions are available here and shoes here.

Go Fug Your Room? - Ines de la Fressange in Provence

 

Does that title send shivers down your spine?  

Given that Ines de la Fressange is the person I’d most like to be when I grow up, and Provence is the place in the world that I’d most to live (yeah, how original am I ), and her apartment in Paris has already been given the coveted mirrormirror seal of approval,  I can’t express how excited I was to see that my Elle Décor international edition was featuring Ines’ house in Provence.

Until that is I actually opened the magazine. Was this cold, spare, almost industrial, snoozefest of a space REALLY the home of the most stylish woman on the planet?  Or has my beloved Ines been kidnapped by space aliens and replaced by some sort of robot?

 

 

My first issue is with all the white.  I spent one of the happiest years of my life living in the South of France and the light there is warm and golden and oozes like butter, made for the sunset colours of painted plaster, terracotta tiles and warm, rich woods.  This harsh, clinical whiteness might work in Scandinavia, or Britain, or even Paris, but it doesn’t begin to say Provence to me.

 

 

And then there are the chairs.  Is it me, or does every single chair with the exception of the daybed look supremely uncomfortable? Either the sort of chair you have to perch on or a somewhat creaky flea market sofa with the sort of smelly upholstery you have to cover with a throw?

 

 

I could almost cope with the white if it had been enlivened by some brilliantly contrasting colours, but black?  I think black is quite difficult to live with at the best of times, but the black and white, with the stiff metallic lamps and stark, shiny floors, just seems cold, uncomfortable and unfriendly in Provence.  And I can’t even begin to explain how many sorts of wrong the depressingly coloured Union Jack cushion is.

 

 

The kitchen is by far the best room in the house and shows what might have been if more colour had been included.  But it still all seems rather brutal to me.

 

 

But what do you guys think?  Is this house fugly or not? As usual tell us how you reached your decision in the comments.

 

poll by twiigs.com

 

I was astonished to find out that an amazing 74% of you agreed with me about Diane von Furstenburg’s Manhattan penthouse. I do hope you’re not just sucking up. 

What Do You Think? – Open Kitchen Shelves

 

One of the projects we’ve got lined up for this year is remodelling our horrible downstairs kitchen. 

The good news is that we have two kitchens in this house.  The bad news is that they’re each as ugly as each other – the downstairs one is a relic from the seventies, complete with crumbling cabinets, laminate countertops, ancient linoleum, probably an asbestos problem. I’ll show you pictures one day when I’m feeling especially mean.

I’m starting to consider design ideas and am very tempted to include lots of open shelves. They look good and of course are WAY cheaper than cabinets.

From a gorgeous house tour on Design Sponge. My kitchen is NEVER this neat..

I’m loving these open steel shelves shown in last month’s Livingetc. I suspect they only look this good though, because they’re carrying half a ton of gorgeous vintage tea plates and spoons.

 

 

Source unknown.  Love the juxtapostion of white shelves with dark wood counter tops.

 

 

I could never keep shelves as tidy and uncluttered as these. From a this tour on Houzz.

 

It would be nice to have a least some of my two hundred and fifty-odd cookbooks on display. From The Kitchn.

 

I am, however, intrigued to know what open shelves are like to live with.  How easy is it to keep everything clean?  Do you have to go out and buy tons of fancy plates and crockery to make them look good?  (This is not necessarily a problem).  Is it easy to keep them tidy or do they end up with piles of stuff just shoved on them? What are your tips and tricks for keeping them organised?

Tell me all your deepest, darkest, most sordid secrets.  No one reads this blog anyway.

 

The above is from the Seattle house of the architects we’re hoping to use, which I previously blogged about here.

 

 

This pantry makes my inner Martha squee with delight.  However I have more chance of flying to the moon than achieving such perfection. From here.

Go Fug Your Room? – DvF’s Manhattan Penthouse

 

I hugely admire Diane von Furstenberg’s fashion style and her inspired use of prints and colours, even though, as I don’t have much of a waist, her iconic wrap dress is just not flattering on me.

So I was fascinated to see online previews of a spread in March’s Architectural Digest featuring her incredible penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

 

 

The penthouse, built over DvF’s design studio and flagship store, is absolutely stunning, with apparently incredible views through its transparent glass walls.

 

 

But inside? Well, it all strikes me as just a bit too MUCH.

 

 

Those chairs are gorgeous, the art is apparently priceless, but it all feels as if it just can’t breathe. The backdrop of the leopard skin rug really doesn’t help matters.  And who sticks art, however exquisite, on the windowsill, thereby obscuring the billion-dollar views?

 

 

I love the Andy Warhol portrait, dislike  the table and am meh on the clashing animal prints. Again, I think this would have looked a whole lot better with a more neutral rug.

 

 

I sort of admire her for attempting to recreate a pasha’s boudoir in her big glass eyrie -  just because the structure is ultra-modern, you don’t necessarily have to go ultra-modern with the décor. But I just don’t think this works, the attempted grandeur is overwhelmed by the ceiling and it just looks incongruous.

 

 

Those screens round the bath are lovely, as is the bathtub itself, but I would be terrified of knocking over all those little tables and stools when I emerged dripping wet from my ablutions.  But maybe DVF is not as clumsy as me.

Although I can see that one would want to create private areas in such an open space, overall all the clutter and clashing patterns and different styles and objets seems to fight with the open space rather than celebrating it.  She’s tried to make it cosy, but I don’t think it’s the sort of space that works with cosy.

But what do I know?  She’s is DvF after all.

What do you think? Please show your workings in the comments.

poll by twiigs.com

Hotel Pelirocco – Knitted Hotel Room

 

I nearly put my back out straining to love this hotel room, which has received a bunch of publicity in recent months, but somehow I just CAN’T. 

The hip Hotel Pelirocco in Brighton commissioned fibre artist Kate Jenkins of knitwear and crochet brand Cardigan to create a knitted hotel room, and this is what she came up with.

 

 

The ‘Do Knit Disturb’ room features a hand-crocheted bedspread and curtains, knitted cushions, a crocheted lamp and telephone and other whimsical crocheted artifacts appropriate to the seaside location, such as seagull soft toys, a knitted picture of fish and chips above the bed and a crocheted full English breakfast.

 

 

 

I don’t like it because it just seems so expected somehow – all cosy and grannyish and whimsical and about as sexy as a pair of well-worn bedroom slippers.  Heck, the room is even a tiny single room because of course someone who liked knitting would never have a boyfriend.

 

 

When you think of some of the cool and innovative knitted homewares other craftspeople are making out there, I can’t help thinking that they really missed an opportunity to do something contemporary, textured and elegant; something modern and abstract or even something downright sumptuous and glamorous. 

What do you think?  Do you like it? Would you stay there?  Is it the best job they could have done with knitting and crochet?  What sort of thing would you have done?

Scary Things In Bedrooms

 

Remember when I posted this nightmare-inducing room from MyHotel in Brighton earlier this year? 

 

 

Well, I was reminded of it yesterday when I caught a glimpse of the nursery Christina Aguilera had decorated for her son Max. (I know this is old, but I didn’t see it when it came out).

 

 

That child is going to need years of therapy.  Is this a trend?

Corners of our House - Missoni Cube

 

I thought you might like to see how nice the Missoni for Target cube looks in situ. 

 

 

I am so pleased with it.  It’s sturdily built and covered in printed cotton canvas with a cool contrast piping detail and provided a useful extra bit of seating at a recent dinner party.  If Target manages to get more in stock it seems well worth the money.  In fact I’d go as far as to say that it might even be worth braving eBay to get hold of one (or one of the other fabulous designs). Apartment Therapy agrees with me.

 

 

Unfortunately there’s nothing like putting taking photos of a corner of the house to highlight stuff that still needs to be done. Highest priority currently is replacing the ugly-ass front door and I still need to do something about the jellyfish light fixtures and find a striking bit of artwork for above the sofa.  I’ve also been looking for a throw to cover up the huge telly (given that our basement with TV room remodel is not looking like it will be done any time soon).  This could be the perfect opportunity to actually start crocheting the Babette blanket, instead of just hoarding yarn for it.

 

 

Still, it’s looking a heckuva lot better than it used to.

Missoni for Target

 

So have you got over the much-hyped, much anticipated PR-disaster, retail extravaganza which was Missoni for Target? If you ended up disappointed you may want to stop reading this post now.

 

 

Given the exuberant pattern, colours and Italianness of the Missoni aesthetic, you would be right in thinking that the collection was right up my alley, and I made a resolution to get up early on the 13th and get in line.  I even went through the lookbook carefully to plan my shop, with the fabulous espresso cups at the top of my list.

Of course I forgot all about it (I’d be such a crap fashionista) and only remembered when I got on Twitter at 8.30 am.  I decided to make an unprecedented effort, MISSED BREAKFAST, and chased up the freeway to my nearest Target.  When I arrived at 8.45 am the whole place was picked clean. No womenswear, no homewares, no menswear, no. espresso. cups. Just long lines at checkout of women with their carts piled high with thousands of dollars of Missoni stuff.  I picked up a couple of skirts and sweaters for the Minx, two pairs of socks for me, nearly had a fight with the woman in the check out line who tried to pinch my meagre pickings and returned home feeling that being a shopaholic really is much too much like hard work.

I halfheartedly opened the website and was of course greeted by the irritatingly cute dog.  So I thought no more about it and got on with grumbling about Target on Facebook and Twitter.  And then my habit of not closing a browser window paid off, when the Target website flickered tantalisingly to life around 11 am.  And there was still lots of stuff left because no one else could access it either.  Not much womenswear, not much dinnerware, no. espresso. cups, but bedding and towels, and kidwear and poufs.

So I may have got a little carried away. 

 

 

 

 

It’s all surprisingly well made and extremely good value for money.  I hope Target can find a way to restock in a month or so, as there are still a few bits and bobs I wanted (women’s ballet flats, tumblers and loopy pillow).  Harriet likes it too.

Did you wait in line that morning? Did you get what you wanted? Do you think this has been bad PR for Target? I have to confess to doing what I never do, and resorting to Ebay for the espresso cups which are apparently on their way.

Yellow Goes Surprisingly Well With Everything

 

In her eyewateringly hilarious neo-feminist diatribe How To Be A Woman, UK journalist Caitlin Moran mentions in passing that ‘yellow shoes go surprisingly well with everything’.  And, though I’ve never owned a pair of yellow shoes in my life, I can see that this may very well be the case.

I’m also wondering if that is also case for interiors, but I suspect that is mostly so I can have an excuse to buy this – the IKEA Trollsta sideboard (which is apparently now only available in black instead of yellow, seriously guys, the yellowness was by far the best thing about it).

 

{From Planet Fur via Designer Junk Finder}

 

Perhaps fortunately for the people who have to live with me, we have absolutely no space for this – otherwise I’d be sorely tempted to drag home the black version and a pot of yellow paint.

So is it true? Does yellow go with everything? Should I buy yellow shoes? Do you want to sell me your yellow sideboard? Got any other examples of fabulous yellow accent pieces?

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Hotel Monaco, San Francisco

 

 

For my recent escape to San Francisco, I was looking for a hotel that was not TOO pricey, centrally-located and yet still a luxurious treat.   Through various Seattle foodie events, I’ve had the great good luck to get to know the wonderful Sheri Doyle of Pacific Northwest Journeys, who specialises in travel-planning throughout the Pacific Northwest.  What she doesn’t know about travel throughout the region and booking hotels in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria really isn’t worth knowing.

So I followed her advice and booked the Hotel Monaco (a sister hotel to the Hotel Triton, where we’d enjoyed staying before).  Sheri made the arrangements, got me a great rate, asked if I wanted a goldfish in my room (!), and passed on a secret password which would get me a ‘nice treat’.

The treat proved to be an upgrade to a Junior Suite, the goldfish was delivered to the door of my room with a note telling me his name was Speedy, and I spend the next 24 hours just WALLOWING in the hotel. The staff were all delightful – friendliness and helpfulness personified - which is great if you’re travelling on your own.

 

 

I have to admit upfront that the décor – like the lovechild of a louche gentlemen’s club on acid and a fantasy French chateau - wasn’t really my thing and seemed a little dated, but it was bright and supremely comfortable and had that touch of crazy fantasy that characterizes all the best hotels. You may not want to try this at home, but goodness it’s fun to visit.

 

 

 

My room was very, very, very stripy. No other adjective seems appropriate somehow.

 

As for Speedy the goldfish?  Well, he’s about the weirdest gimmick I’ve ever encountered at a hotel and I only said I wanted one so I could blog about it, but there was actually something strangely companionable about having a fish in the room. And he did have the most excellent manners – no snoring, no farting, very quiet.  I was sad to leave him behind.

 

If ever you’re thinking of travelling around the Pacific Northwest, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Sheri. You’ll end up with a detailed itinerary, the best recommendations out there for accommodation, eating out and things to see and do, and the savings that she’ll get you on room rates will probably more than pay for her services. Oh and she is incredibly organised, friendly and helpful and a pleasure to do business with.

Decorate!

 

 

Holly Becker of Decor8 fame has been an online friend for the longest time. I started blogging a little after she did and she was one of the very first people to comment on this blog nearly six years ago. 

I’ve done her Blogging Your Way course and cheered her on from the sidelines as she has gone on to her incredible and very much deserved success.

Holly is one of those people who is always generous with her time, her encouragement and, latterly, with the enormous reach and power of her blog.  She’s one of those people who always seems to have time for a friendly word or blog comment, however phenomenally busy she is and has created a huge network of friends, followers and devoted admirers across the globe.  And I’m not sure whether she ever sleeps or manages to have any leisure time as her output and the number of projects she’s involved in has always been prodigious.

I find her inspirational on so many levels and have always been sad that she managed to skip to Europe not long after I arrived in the US.  We’ve never been on the same side of the Atlantic for very long.

When plans for her book tour were finalised, she invited me to come down and see her in San Francisco. And at first it seemed like a crazy idea to fly down just for a book-signing and a dinner.  But a little voice in my head kept saying ‘why not’ and then Virgin America was offering great deals on flights from Seattle and before I knew it I’d booked flights and a hotel and was lined up for my first night away from the family in ages.

Holly and yours truly

And, all you mothers out there, I seriously don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner. I had totally forgotten the joys of plane travel without a fidgety six-year old; of mooching aimlessly round shops without being in a terrible rush or having to march a six year old to the toilet; of eating a most amazing lunch (thanks Boulette’s Larder) without having to worry whether the Minx had brought her DS or a book.  For 36 hours I was single again, and goodness it was BLISS.

Holly’s book signing was at Anthropologie (beautifully decorated with these garlands and bunting from Paper Source. Note to self, must buy for the Minx) and she was accompanied by Leslie Shewring from A Creative Mint, who had also taught on the Blogging Your Way course.  I also got to meet the very charming Victoria, of sfgirlbybay fame; the delightfully effervescent Alix (who had been a very fun team mate on the Blogging Your Way course) and Dottie from Modern Kiddo; the lovely Maja Brugos from Tikoli and Crystal Gentilello of Rue Magazine among other luminaries of the San Francisco design and blogging world.

 

Leslie Shewring and Alix from Modern Kiddo with Holly

All in all I had a fabulous couple of days and came away tremendously inspired to work more on this blog and throw myself more fully into the design world.  It’s time for this Mamma to have some ‘me’ time. 

Oh and the book?  Well, it’s fabulous of course.  Unlike many decorating books which are all about recreating the author’s own style, Decorate is all about uncovering and developing your own personal style and vision.  It is chock full of gorgeous pictures, inspirational quotes and tons and tons of innovative, accessible and eminently do-able ideas for every room in the house.  The book is sitting on my nightstand and is perfect way to unwind with a little bit of pretty at the end of a long day. And my house will definitely benefit in the long term. 

As for Holly herself, well, she is as warm, charming and thoroughly lovely as her online persona. But then you knew that already.  And also very tall.

And now I really must stop gushing and have a lie down. All this being nice does not come naturally at all.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Melenos Lindos

 

Ha! You thought you’d got away with no more Greek holiday snaps. Unfortunately it remains my intention to bore you all into submission. After all, what else is a blog good for?

I mentioned that we liked to stay in little unassuming hotels while in Greece, but we decided to break that rule for the first few days by booking into the Melenos Lindos, high in the acropolis of the ancient town of Lindos in Rhodes. This hotel gets so many fabulous mentions, that it seemed churlish not to try it out.

Images from hotel website

Unfortunately they contacted us a few days before we left and said that there had been a double booking and they had no space for us.  They pulled out all the stops to secure alternative accommodation (which, thanks to its enormous swimming pool and spacious grounds was actually much more suitable for the Minx) and offered us a free dinner on their beautiful outdoor dining terrace.

Architect Anastasia Papaioanou and Australian artist-designer Donald Green worked together to recreate a traditional  multi-levelled, multi-terraced Lindian mansion, decorated in a timeless way using traditional local crafts and antiques.

Here are some of my photos from our dinner, supplemented by the couple above from the hotel’s website, as I didn’t have my wide-angled lens with me.

Enjoy the spectacularly pretty.

Fancy Hotel of the Week - L’Auberge Del Mar

 

We wanted to go to Southern California this year to a) escape the miserable Seattle ‘spring’ (I use this term loosely) b) visit my elderly aunt in Dana Point, an hour or so’s drive south of LA and c) take the Minx to Disneyland.

I was told by friends on Twitter and Facebook that Del Mar was fun and it was suggested that we try the newly-refurbished L’Auberge Del Mar. When we discovered that my very favourite discounted fancy hotels travel site www.luxurylink.com was offering a deal, our fate was sealed.

And we had the most wonderful time.

L’Auberge Del Mar is a historic hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean and right on Del Mar’s attractive main street.

The hotel was completely refurbished in 2008 by interior designer Barclay Butera who has done a great job bringing a historic building bang up to date.

We were lucky enough to have a room overlooking the main courtyard of the hotel, which was been designed as a series of little ‘rooms’, cabanas, terraces and courtyards centered around the small but luxurious pool and jacuzzi area. There’s the kicking Bleu Bar, a scenic terrace for breakfast and informal suppers, cosy hidden cabanas and even space for weddings, all with an ocean view.

 

The themes of the décor are soft and muted sage-y greens, brown and white stripes and the most breathtakingly lush white planting – white roses everywhere you turn, undulating seas of fragrant jasmine, and hedges of rosemary and box.  

To be perfectly honest we hardly left the hotel all week.  The place comes into its own at night, when the surfers come in from the beach and le tout Del Mar comes out to party. We dined one evening in the hotel’s top notch restaurant Kitchen 1540, where the cured meats, golden beet salad and frozen key lime pie will live on in my memory. We drank superlative cocktails at the Bleu Bar every night. The hotel is beautifully lit with fires and burners everywhere to take the chill off the evening air as the sun sets over the ocean.

The internal décor is luxurious too – all sage greens, soft browns, seashells and comfy seating.  I loved the ridiculously rococo shell-encrusted side tables, the beautiful mother-of-pearl smothered lamps, the green toile cushions and the enormous shell planters full of orchids.

There were little touches of wit and humour everywhere – the wait staff had foodie quotations printed on their tee-shirts and Sofie, Kristy the Marketing Coordinator’s pretty little dog, had a sign at the front desk telling us when she was ‘working’ and available for cuddles. 

 

 

Finally, and most importantly for us, L’Auberge trod that extremely fine line between being super relaxed and kid-friendly (with unbelievably kind staff and a great kids’ menu) and sophisticated and happening enough for grown-ups – thanks to a fabulous bar, gorgeous spa and secluded lap pool. The Minx adored it and the Husband and I are longing to return.

Truly I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Pirates Ahoy!

 

I’ve been receiving lots of lovely comments and emails – thank you all -  about the Minx’s new loft bed and slide (it was featured on Apartment Therapy’s Ohdeedoh kids’ site yesterday – hi Ohdeedohers!) and had been feeling smugly pleased with myself. 

 

 

Until a week or so ago, when a friend posted a link on Facebook and my smugness instantly evaporated. Now, this is what you call a loft bed and slide.

WARNING: Don’t read this with any trainee pirates, or trainee pirates at heart, anywhere in the vicinity of your computer.

 

 

The pirate ship was custom built for the six-year old client and features a rope bridge leading to a specially built ‘jail’. See that rope to the left of the crows’ nest?  Slide down it and you end up in the closet below.

 

 

And as a final piece de resistance, see that intriguing orange hole in a secret hallway closet?

 

 

 

Well that turns out to be a DOUBLE. STOREY. SPIRAL. SLIDE acquired after the refurb of a local community centre.

 

 

Full details of the design and construction on MyModernMet.

Please don’t show this to the Minx.

Fancy Hotel of the Week–MyHotel Brighton

 

Last week I was idly flicking through pictures of the MyHotel in Brighton, the English seaside town known affectionately as ‘London-by-the-sea’.

Designed by New Yorker Karim Rashid and opened in 2008, the design brief was apparently to create a space ‘where Freddie Mercury might meet the Maharishi’. 

I really wanted to hate it after reading that, but unfortunately I just can’t.  From the photos at least it’s a shiny, sexy, glamorous, somewhat pretentious shag palace, perfect for all the London media types that Brighton attracts and the sort of place that I adore staying in. 

I’m sorry, just shoot me now.

 

 

I was very much enjoying my wander through Rashid’s trademark colours, curves and kitsch (and fishtanks) until I came across this picture.

 

 

Isn’t this the scariest, most nightmare-inducing hotel room you’ve ever seen? Imagine waking up and seeing that across the way. They’ll be decorating rooms with clowns next.

Things I Am Loving – pEIpod Pet Bed

 

After six weeks the kittens are starting to calm down a bit - in fact they’re not really kittens any more but rather small cats. Which is just as well, because they were turning me greyer than the Minx ever did.

 

 

By the same token I have calmed down in the purchase of expensive cat accessories, though I did want to share one last extravagance with you.

The pEipod (‘ei’ means ‘egg’ in German) is an egg-shaped plastic pod available in two sizes,  three colours – pink, mint green or ivory -  with a cotton padded cushion in your choice of either pink or yellow. So you should be able to find a combination which suits your decor.

The bed is suitable for small dogs, cats or even bunnies.

 

 

Ours has become one of the most commented upon bits of furniture in our house and I’m loving how it looks in our living room.

 

 

The best news of all, given how much it cost,  is that the cats actually use it all the time – one or the other can generally be found sleeping there.  Might even have to get two.

 

 

 

The pEIpod is available from here for $129.

Go Fug Your Showhouse – Elle Decor

 

Elle Decor recently created its first showhouse in a San Francisco suburb – working with ten different Bay Area interior designers to ‘turn a classic 1920s Mediterranean-style home into a showcase for contemporary style’.

 

That’s some beautiful house isn’t it? Unfortunately these designers seemingly run the gamut of decorating styles from boringly humdrum, via fussy and old fashioned through to suicidally depressing, and managed to transform the house into something not only monstrously ugly, but, to my eye at least, not remotely representative of San Francisco style.

I’m really interested to here what Bay Area peeps in particular think of this. 

 

 

The living room was created by Gary Spain, and all the heavy, gloomy clutter, weird artifacts and strange cross-cultural references makes it look like a junk room at the British Museum.  And those dark wing-backed chairs would make even the Dowager Duchess of Downton uncomfortable.  In fact the whole thing looks about as relaxing as a dentist’s waiting room. Like the black fireplace though.

 

 

The TV watching area of Erin Martin’s media room below at least has some wow factor – I like the screen and that curved chair -  but all the darkness is making me want to switch on my lightbox.  Does all the black really say San Francisco to you?

 

 

The other end of the room with its huge spider (is that what it’s supposed to be?) light fitting  and hideously uncomfortable seating area and mirrored fireplace is, however, the stuff of nightmares.

 

 

If the unremitting terror and gloom is getting too much then you can always escape to Will Wick’s library. Except that is probably the most scarily gloomy and depressing room of all. AND it has a zebra-stripe rug. Seriously didn’t that decorating ship sail a very long time ago?  But no matter, it also features a helpful saw thingy in an alcove, making it super easy to kill yourself, or at the very least add authenticity to games of Cluedo.

 

 

Steven Volpe’s dining room is another unremittingly cheerful place – you can just hear the stylist yelling for ‘oranges’, ‘maple leaves’ ‘ANYTHING’  to relieve the gloom.  But at least you know that extra light bulbs would make a thoughtful hostess gift.

 

 

The house’s vampires should avoid the breakfast nook decorated by Palmer Weiss, as here at least the sun is visible and the chairs are lovely.  But the birdcage light, ferns on columns and busy curtains make this look contemporary to 1911 rather than this century.  Or is Downton Abbey spearheading an Edwardian revival?

 

 

And I’m so relieved to see a little bit of colour in this home office designed by Kendall Wilkinson, that I’ll forgive it its totally impractical and uncomfortable seating.

 

 

 

I suppose Jay Jeffers master bedroom is not too bad in a personality-free luxury hotel sort of way.  I do like the artwork above the bed and the interesting bedside lamps. Note that the turquoise bench at the foot of the bed provides a little pop of colour, but mysteriously disappears in the image below.

 

 

While the Dowager Duchess would be right at home in this guest bedroom by Suzanne Tucker. Contemporary style, really? Really?

 

 

The decorating cliches are back in force in this room for a teenage girl, with more zebras, and a brightly coloured Moroccan pouf. And I’m sorry, but covering up a stunning De Gournay wallpaper with framed pictures of RPatz has to rank as one of the worst possible decorating crimes against humanity.

 

 

So what say you?  Does this house showcase the best contemporary design in San Francisco and the US? Or is it just fugly? 

 

poll by twiigs.com

 

Pictures from Elle Decor, Casa Sugar and Merida

The Minx’s Bedroom

 

Pssst!  Want to peak inside the Minx’s newly painted bedroom?

 

 

In the end we decided to go for a Maxtrix loft bed with girly playhouse panels and a slide.  It’s not as cool and funky as those other loftbeds, but it was within our budget and has potential to be raised higher with a desk underneath when the Minx is older.  The full interchangeable Maxtrix system - comprising beds, slides, ladders, playhouse and castle panels, desks, shelving, trucklebeds and underbed storage is available here. We ordered online and were delighted with their quick delivery and excellent customer service. The bed arrived in eleven separate boxes, so you need to have someone who’s handy with a screwdriver in the house, but is sturdy and well made for flat-pack furniture. Most importantly the Minx and her friends absolutely adore it.

 

 

The colour scheme for the rest of the accessories is a bit more pastel and girly than I would necessarily like, but it was somewhat dictated by the pastel bed curtains. I was ecstatic with how well her old accessories fitted into the scheme.

The cool lights above the bed are from Ikea, the sheer curtains with pink ribbon details are from the Land of Nod, the quilt and pillow is from Pottery Barn, the green circular rug and the daisy rugs were, I think from Target, but I can’t find them online, and the family portrait was commissioned from Auntie Cookie.  The knotty pine chest of drawers was bought at a junk shop in the UK years ago though we added glass knobs from Chloe Alberry on Portobello Road. The embroidered sampler above was picked up on Ebay.

 

 

 

 

The chandelier was another Ebay find. You can’t see very well, but it has little green and pink glass daisies on it and it makes a super cool shapes on the ceiling. The pink daisy flowers make everything glow pinkly when lit.

 

 

 

 

The pink rocking chair by NurseryWorks came from Tottini in Seattle, though I don’t particularly recommend it as it has a very violent and potentially dangerous rock.  The daisy cushion came from some sidewalk sale and the pistachio green beaded cushion featuring a fluffy Westie with a pink diamante’ necklace is from mirrormirror. The fairy wings are from the Minx’s extensive collection.

 

 

The Minx is a voracious reader, so underneath the bed we put the mattress from her old bed, her Land of Nod bookshelf, various blankets and cushions and another Ikea Smila Blomma light, this time in white.

I love this because it hides the not very aesthetically pleasing bookshelf (we’re lucky enough to have a separate playroom for her, so toy storage in the bedroom is not an issue). 

The Minx just told me that she loves it because she gets to read in peace without having to listen to me yelling.  The cats also love it, but they haven’t told us why.

 

 

It also glows very excitingly in the dark.

 

 

Before pictures are here.  

Things I Am Loving - Aviary Wallpaper

 

Phew! I think I’ve just about got the Oscars out of my system.  I was on the brink of comparing Nicole Kidman to an armadillo, but stopped myself just in time.

In other news, Liberty London Girl just tweeted about the fabulous wallpaper in the bathrooms at the Soho Grand Hotel in NYC.

 

 

It’s called Aviary by F Schumacher, and the pattern was designed by Saul Steinberg, who was a cartoonist for The New Yorker in the 1950s.

Here is is in situ at the Soho Grand.   I may have to stay here next time I’m in NYC, just so I can sit in the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

This wallpaper needs to be in my life somehow as a matter of urgency.  Time to work on the downstairs bathroom? It’s also available at Decorator’s Best.

{Found via Liberty London Girl’s Tumblr.  Additional pictures via Remodelista and Tea For Joy}

Funky Loft Beds

 

For the past few months we’ve been in the market for a cool loft bed for the Minx.  The problem was a familiar one – all the beautifully designed loftbeds that I actually LIKED were phenomenally expensive, while the ones we could afford were all cheaply made, old fashioned, plain ugly or only available in Europe.  Why does great design have to be so flipping spendy and why is all the funky stuff in the US imported from Europe in the first place? Where are the American designers doing cool contemporary design for kids?

Here are some of the beds we loved and had to reject because of cost.  Next week I’ll post pictures of the bed we finally chose.

This is the Alex Loft Bed system by DucDuc. It’s available in a range of cool colours and is American designed and made, but you’ll have to fork out $2,850 for just the top bed and armoire before adding a the desk or a bottom bed etc.

 

All you get for $2,850

 

The felt-covered  German-made Perludi ‘Amber in the Sky’ is also rather splendid, and available here for a cool $2599 (down from $3,450).

 

 

 

 

The Azor loft bed below is also imported from Europe but comes in at a slightly more reasonable at $2150, including, I think, the desk.

 

 

My absolute fave was this picture I found on OhDeeDoh. The link is now broken, it looks like the bed was also super expensive, and I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else,  but I love the diagonal footprint, so am adding it here to sigh about what might have been.

 

 

Did I say my most favourite? Actually that accolade probably needs to go to these Tiramolla loft bedrooms from Tumidei of Italy which I believe are available through Roche Bobois. I didn’t even bother to enquire as to how much they cost (I’m sure the answer would be ‘your first born child’ which would rather defeat the object) but they sure are molto bello.

 

 

Images from the Minx’s new bedroom coming early next week. I know you can’t wait.

Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival

 

So the week before last I headed up to Vancouver BC with three friends – Viv from Seattle Bon Vivant, Tracy from AlDente and Mari  -  to attend the first ever Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival.

 

 

This was, of course, just an excuse, for four greedy women to spend 36 hours eating their way round Vancouver, ably abetted by Stephane Mouttet, the charming and hugely knowledgeable concierge at the Shangri La hotel.

Having had such an enjoyable time when we stayed there last, I recommended the Shangri La to the others and it was such a relief when our stay was even better than I had remembered.  If there are friendlier, more helpful, more informative hotel staff anywhere in the world, I’d love to meet them.

Our first stop on the Hot Chocolate Tour was Thomas Haas in Kitsilano. Haas has world-level patissier credentials, most recently as Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons in Vancouver and the sumptuous chocolates and exquisite pastries in his shop were metaphorically, and probably literally, to die for.

Their hot chocolate was the best we tasted on the tour and the almond croissant was the best I’ve ever had anywhere in the world – the perfect combination of crisp savoury outer shell, perfectly toasted almonds and dense squidgy, not too sweet almond filling.  The macarons I brought back for the Minx (who has expensive tastes) were as good as Laduree.

 

 

Later that afternoon we visited Mink Chocolates and indulged in yet more hot chocolate and a decadent individual chocolate fondue. The speciality here is individual bars of premium quality iPhone-sized ganache-filled chocolate with super cool names, such as Ruby & Tawny Are Friends, Open In Case Of Emergency, Pas De Deux or Mermaid’s Choice and funky colourful packaging.  Their striking beauty, and the individual bold statement chocolates in the shapes of hearts and lips, reflect owner Marc Lieberman’s fine arts background – he does all the graphic design himself, as well as develop the chocolates.  I bought a stack of chocolate bars for the Husband’s Valentines’ present and can confirm that they are  pretty darn wonderful.

For supper Stephane at the hotel recommended ReFuel, again in Kitsilano, which specialises in fresh local ingredients and did fabulous things with charcuterie, marrow bones, BC spot prawns, chalkboard art and funky light fittings at a very reasonable price.

 

 

Another highlight of the trip – though my photos unfortunately didn’t turn out too well -  was our trip to Bella Gelateria. We had every intention of trying the hot chocolate but after James the owner talked to us at length about the wonders of his pistachio gelato, made from specially-ground paste, using pistachios from the slopes of Mount Etna, we changed our minds. I consider myself to be something of a pistachio gelato connoisseur – it’s been my flavour of choice since I was a kid and I’ve eaten it all over Italy - and this really was incredible.

Finally here are a few more photos of the splendours of the ShangriLa, featuring their signature chandeliers, their smiley staff, an immense afternoon tea (with OMG! REAL clotted cream) and a doozy of a breakfast, including my first ever taste of congee, which I adored.

 

 

And a couple of pics of the incomparable Stephane at work, who did so much to make our trip one of the most fun and memorable I’ve taken in ages.  Merci beaucoup!

 

We had a lot of fun posting pictures and tweeting and checking in from all Vancouver on Facebook and Twitter and will definitely be back again next year to check out all the chocolate stops we didn’t make it to this time round.

If you’re on Twitter you may want to follow @thaaschocolates @ShangriLaBC @bellagelateria @CityFood_mag @refuel_bar @minkchocolates or my lovely friends and travel companions Viv @bonnevivante, Tracy @choicemorsel and M @bitterbiscuit.

And of course I can be found at @mirrormirrorxx or on www.facebook.com/mirrormirroronline

Goldilocks and the Sky Blue Ceiling

 

Welll, that was trickier than I thought it would be.

Last Friday the walls of the Minx’s room were painted in Benjamin Moore’s White Vanilla and from the picture rail upwards in BM’s Morning Sky Blue. However, when it was done, the ceiling read much lighter than the tops of the walls and looked more like a greyish white than a true blue. 

So then we painted just the ceiling and not walls in the next darkest colour- Benjamin Moore’s Tear Drop Blue. And this time the ceiling was very obviously a darker blue than the tops of the walls.

So finally we mixed Morning Sky Blue and Tear Drop Blue in about equal percentages and again painted just the ceiling. And this time it was just right. 

 

 

It’s interesting how the angle of the light changes everything. 

Here’s a reminder of what the room looked like before. That purple (chosen by the previous owners) could look very dark and forbidding on a gloomy Seattle day, such as we have very occasionally in the winter months (hahahahahahahahaha).

 

 

There’ll be more updates from the Minx’s room as we piece it all back together and assemble her super duper big girl loft bed.

Downton Abbey – On Location at Highclere Castle

 

Late last autumn the UK part of my Twitter feed started buzzing with chatter about Downton Abbey, a new ITV period drama, set in the halcyon years of the Edwardian era just before the outbreak of the First World War.

 

 

We managed to er, acquire it just after Christmas and loved it, though it hit every single ‘missing England like crazy’ button I possess.

It’s a typically English class-ridden frothy costume drama, about the fictional aristocratic Crawley family and their servants, with a fine, witty script by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park); Maggie Smith, being Maggie Smith at her most imperious; a stellar cast of well-known British actors and ridiculously exquisite costumes.  It’s currently being shown in the US, and the US part of my Twitter feed is now similarly alive with love for it.

The star of the show though, is Downton Abbey itself, or more properly the splendidly overwrought Highclere Castle in Berkshire, the seat of the Earls of Carnarvon, which was rebuilt in 1842 in High Elizabethan style, by Sir Charles Barry after he’d finished building the Houses of Parliament.  The gorgeous park is by Capability Brown.

Here are some of the spectacular locations – the costume designers and camera folk must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven.  Literally every frame is a visual feast.  The last episode airs on Sunday in the US, but I think it’s available to download from iTunes and from PBS.org.  A new series is coming this autumn.

 

 

 

 

More stunning photos of the locations are here. 

Lundby Advent Calender – Days 3 & 4

 

Mrs Lundby was treated to a new pink dress on Friday.  It’s exactly the same as her old dress, only a different colour and a lot cleaner, so we do still have the ‘falling down and revealing her perky plastic bosoms’ problem. But I don’t suppose Mrs Lundby would want it any other way.

 

 

Here she is relaxing by the pool. Unfortunately she can’t kick her shoes off as they’re painted onto her feet.  I did think this dress was somewhat unsuitable for a Swedish or indeed a Seattle winter, but the Minx insists that the whole family lives in Australia, which is why they are still enjoying the pool at Christmas time.

Saturday brought two bottles of bubble bath and a little rubber duck, so here we see one of Mrs Lundby’s many and various slightly demented-looking children (whom the Minx refuses to name) taking a relaxing bath.

Lundby Advent Calender – Day 2

 

 

Here’s Mrs Lundby relaxing after a hard day’s shopping, though she’s only managed to fit two Christmas presents in her oversized Christmas carrier bag.

Mrs Lundby is very Swedish as her pale blue boob tube slips down at every opportunity, revealing some very perky breasts (plastic always helps I find). She is also probably very cold but we couldn’t find her jacket this morning.

It’s DECEMBER Already? – Lundby Advent Calendar Day 1

 

Could somebody PLEASE tell me where this year has disappeared to?

I realise that after all last year’s fuss about the Lundby Dollshouse, I never, ever showed you around. For all mothers of small girls out there, I can confirm that no toy of mine the Minx’s has ever been played with quite as much as this one.

Friends, even boys, other parents and babysitters are all fascinated by the resolutely unchildlike nature of it all and the stunning attention to detail. The Minx plays with it even more now than she did a year ago and every time I go into her playroom I find that the dolls have been arranged into yet another vignette.

This year Santa is going to have no trouble at all as the Minx has given him firm instructions to get her the accompanying Gotland Summer House.  It’s available quite cheaply in the UK from Amazon (the Husband brought it back with him after his recent trip) and unfortunately more expensively in the US at Cheeky Monkeys. I don’t know why Lundby doesn’t distribute more widely in the US.

But I digress.

 

 

This year, after much hunting online, I managed to track down a Lundby Dollhouse Advent Calendar. They were made in 2007, so difficult to get now, but still on sale at Cheeky Monkeys.  It promises clothes, accessories and Christmas decorations for the Lundby family and the Minx and I were beside ourselves with excitement to open door number one this morning. 

I thought it might be fun for you guys to see what’s inside, and show you round the house at the same time.

Today we she got a small wall clock, which has been (somewhat wonkily) applied to the wall of the main bedroom by the Minx.

 

Go Love Your Trailer Park – Hicksville Trailer Palace

 

You already know how much we love Joshua Tree, but the person who decided to build a trailer park motel there with themed trailers, secluded swimming pool and recording studio (just in case you have an album to make) was clearly a genius. Hicksville Trailer Palace, I salute you!

 

The Fifi would definitely be the Minx’s trailer of choice, though the Husband would need to keep a firm grip on his masculinity. Though glowing wig heads would make up for all the frou frou I suspect.

I could live out my fantasy of living in an Airstream in the Integratrailer, though the interior does seem a little subdued. It apparently comes with its own alien communication system though.

 

And I also like the look of the Lux, which apparently comes with its own library of horror movies, which I would NOT be watching stuck in the middle ofJoshua Tree. At night.

 

   

The other amenities look more fun than normal camping too.

 

And can you imagine how spectacular it would be sitting out under all those stars?

 

{All images from www.hicksville.com and their Facebook page. Found via the Divine Ms T at Whorange}

All About Me – Jonathan Adler Mod Model Pillow

 

One of the things I enjoyed most on our recent trip to San Francisco was visiting the Fillmore neighbourhood (thanks Victoria SFGirlByBay for the recommendation!).

 

 

It reminded me a lot of my adored Notting Hill (still my spiritual home) – the quirky restaurants and shops, the people milling about (unusual to see in the US), even the colours of the white stucco buildings.

Fabulous interiors stores included Nest, Zinc Details and Jonathan Adler. Yes, I finally got to visit an actual real life Jonathan Adler store, as such as thing has not yet materialised in Seattle.

I was doubly thrilled when I got there as they now have the ‘Mod Model’ cushions back in stock.  I’d added her to my Christmas list two years ago, but she she sold out too quickly, never to return until now. 

I’ve thought about her a lot in the intervening two years, so this time we snatched her up even though she is fiendishly expensive. I’m a great believer in buying stuff you’re slightly obsessed with, whatever the cost.  It works out more economically in the long run than buying a lot of cheap stuff that doesn’t quite float your boat. Or that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Here she is on our new sofa. She is very charismatic – like a portrait whose eyes follow you around the room.

 

 

I thought you might also like to see some pics of the Minx really, really, REALLY enjoying shopping at Jonathan Adler. (Though we already know she is a great fan of JA’s hubby Simon Doonan).

 

Go Fug Your Room? – Paola Navone

 

Oh we haven’t done one of these for ages, have we? So let’s get our bitchpants critical thinking caps on and get to work.

 

 

My first name, courtesy of my Italian mother, has always been a source of great consternation to me – as so few people in either the UK or America have any clue how to pronounce or spell it (for the record, say ‘Pow-la’ in your best Italian accent and you’ll come pretty close) and I’ve had some pretty creative versions of both over the years.

Because my name is so unusual in English-speaking countries (Paolas are ten a penny in Italy) I’ve always had a soft spot for famous Paolas such as er, Queen Paola of Belgium and Italian product designer Paola Navone.  In the latter case, it’s not just because of her illustrious name, but also because she designs some super cool stuff.

So I was very excited when September’s Livingetc featured her Milanese apartment – an old Parmesan cheese warehouse that was apparently in miserable condition until Navone recently rescued it.

 

 

The problem is that I’m not exactly thrilled by the interior design. The overlapping blues and greys, are beautiful in and of themselves, but there’s just too darn much blue everywhere and, coupled with all the hard tiling on floor and ceiling, it just looks so cold and uncomfortable, like living inside an icecube. 

That might be appropriate in Morocco, or Greece, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Milan, and in winter it is often as dank, cold and foggy as Sarah Palin’s brain.  The ceramic Moroccan stools;  smooth, shiny Moroccan pouffes and Asian ceramic busts only add to the chill. Am I the only person who wants to add some snuggly orange cushions or thick, shaggy deep red rugs to the mix?

Also, and this is probably just me, there’s just a bit too much Moroccan going on in here.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Moroccan design in and of itself and I love combining elements from an eclectic mix of cultures in a single space, as Navone mostly does to great effect. But the pasha’s boudoir above has strayed into ‘theme-bar’ territory and the Asian busts just seem incongruous and out of place.

 

 

But the real story here is the monotone colour. The blue is absolutely unrelenting, permeating every room in the apartment, though she goes wild and adds a little green to the kitchen, which, I’ll admit, I would kill several close family members to have in my house.

 

 

 

In isolation, each of these rooms is beautiful, as are many of the pieces in them. It’s just that the whole just seems so chilly and hard and the monotones are just well, monotonous.  I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the stylist had to, both literally and figuratively, turn the fire on, so as to liven up the spread.

 

 

 

poll by twiigs.com

 

You may be interested in Paola Navone’s other houses. Her Greek island home, which is a study in white,  is here and her stunning Paris apartment, which is mostly white, with pops of colour, is here.  I am obviously not remotely insanely jealous of anyone who has homes in Paris, Milan and Greece.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Hotel Triton, San Francisco

 

One of the very nicest things about the Husband’s job is that he occasionally gets to travel to San Francisco on business, which makes it much cheaper and easier for us to organise a long weekend.  So that’s where we were at the beginning of the week.  Yep, lucky doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The Hotel Vitale was fully booked this time, so we instead got a room at the fabulously located Hotel Triton – just steps from the Chinatown gate and three minutes walk from Union Square.  It’s a smallish hotel with limited amenities and doesn’t even have a restaurant, though it shares its building with the excellent French-style brasserie Cafe de la Presse, which serves thick frothy cappuccinos and French patisserie as good as any I’ve had in France, as well as authentic-looking French brasseries staples such as French onion soup and croque monsieur. 

 

Architecturally the building isn’t anything to write home about but, boy, have they made the most of what they have – going wild with vibrant pop art wallpapers, crazy colourful upholstery and weird and wonderfully shaped accent pieces (though the rooms themselves are a little more restrained).

It was as if it had been designed by Mondo from Project Runway while high on the waccy baccy (and speaking of whom, what the bloody hell happened last night?)

Needless to say the Minx and I both adored it – particularly as the reception area came complete with Romy the very cute puppy, whom the Minx insisted on ‘training’ by throwing his ball around the lounge, chasing round all available pillars and grossly overfeeding on dog biscuits.  The little rubber ducks in the outside water feature were another Minx-friendly addition.  Such a kid and dog friendly design hotel is a rare gem indeed.

 

 

All in all we loved this enough to go back, despite a mix-up at the beginning which meant that the kid-friendly room we’d booked was not available when we arrived amid torrential rain and all very tired after an early start. 

To be fair to the hotel they did offer us one of their ‘celebrity suites’ – the Haagen Dazs room, but it didn’t have a sofabed for the Minx (why don’t all hotels automatically put sofabeds in all their rooms?) And also, to be honest, my waistline does NOT need a hotel room where the key attraction is a huge freezer full of unlimited FREE Haagen Dazs.  You however, may disagree.  The Minx probably would too if she’d had any idea what we turned down.

In the end we got the more spacious kid-friendly room we wanted (space is such a premium when there’s three of your in a room), the hotel apologised, we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our stay and I’m happy to recommend the hotel as a great place to stay in San Francisco.

Enjoy the crazy pretty.

Go Love Your Shop – Kate Spade Pop-Up Shop

 

The Kate Spade brand is not well known in the UK, but that should all change with their new month long pop-up shop in London’s Covent Garden.

If ‘mirrormirror’ were ever to turn into a physical bricks and mortar shop then this is exactly how I envisaged it in my mind.  In fact forget about shopping, I just want to move in and live there.

Of course the stunning Georgian house with a its gracious staircase and light, bright rooms provides the perfect backdrop to all the pretty – does anyone fancy lending me £10 million?

 

 

More pics here and fab vid below.

Have any of you Londoners been yet?

Go Love Your Office - Etsy HQ

 

Once upon a time when the Internet was still young and I was working as a management consultant, I remember musing with a few folks that it would be a great idea to set up a ‘shopping engine’ for craftspeople and artists to give them a standard template shop under one umbrella and save them the hassle of setting up their own websites and doing their own independent marketing.

Yes, things would be very different round here if I’d held that thought and founded Etsy, rather than just sitting on my arse.

Perhaps I would be working in gorgeous offices such as these. Etsy’s HQ in Brooklyn has been designed by Hangar Design Group to reflect the quirky, colourful, handmade nature of the brand and decorated using many pieces commissioned or bought from Etsy sellers. 

 

 

Those lamps are incredible, does anyone know where they were sourced? I’ve been searching everywhere. And I love the crochet granny blankets on the wall.

 

 

The combination of geeks and gingham is such a winner I find.

 

 

Junkprints installed the record wall

 

 

The desks are all handmade. And see the ‘Craft’ area to the left below? Every office should have one.

 

 

Plush toy makers Zooguu designed the individual phone rooms. This has made the Husband and I are consider installing a British phone booth door chez nous, though for the full authentic touch I hope the room beyond stinks of stale urine and cigarettes.

 

 

 

Seriously, there are about a thousand fabulous ideas to steal in all this, though I am left wondering whether all the geeky programmers feel comfortable in this space – in the startups I’ve worked at, the geek squad seemed to think pizza boxes and beer cans were decorative objects.

{via SwissMiss}

Brunch at the Corson Building

 

A few weeks ago the Husband had a rather big birthday, so in the course of what felt like weeks of celebrating we went for brunch at the Corson Building here in Seattle.

The Corson Building does its best to feel more like an underground dining experience than a standard restaurant. There is a changing calendar of events and no fixed menu, just whatever the kitchen feels like cooking that day from fresh seasonal and local ingredients, many picked from the kitchen garden.

The building itself is old, quirky and beautiful, the likes of which you see only rarely in not-very-historic Seattle. The food is by and large delicious, though be warned that you don’t get traditional egg and maple syrup-laden brunch fare (much to the Minx’s chagrin).  Instead are salads and cake, yogurt, cheese and fruit, with a small menu of main dish options – I had a roasted tomato tart which was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a long while.

But for me it was all about the space and the decor – the prettiest restaurant in Seattle and the sort of place where you could point your camera in any direction and feel like you’d painted a watercolour.

Sit down and enjoy the pretty.

 

Things I am Loving – Living Dolls House

 

Once up a time Canadian artist Heather Benning, then the local artist-in-residence in Redvers, Saskatchewan, decided to create a real-life dolls house art installation.

She acquired a derelict, isolated farmhouse on the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border, rolled up her sleeves and set to work.

 

 

She had the interiors painted in 1960s pastels; furnished the house with vintage 1960s furniture from the time when the house had last been inhabited and loved; and had huge plexiglass windows installed to one side.

 

And created the house of many a grown-up little girls’ dreams (except perhaps for the huge Plexiglass windows).

                                                    THE END

{From the Jealous Curator, via sfgirlbybay’s Tiwitter}

Things I Am Loving – Mary Katrantzou Spring 2011

People often say that what’s seen on the catwalk will show up pretty soon in interiors, but it’s not so often that interiors inspiration shows up on the catwalk.

Greek designer Mary Katrantzou gave her first stand-alone collection at London Fashion Week, taking as her inspiration old pictures from The World of Interiors and Architectural Digest.

 

 

Katrantzou heightened the colour and symmetry of the images in creating her digital prints, ending up with surreal but stunning patterns, colour combinations and abstractions.

She then went a step further by embellishing her prints with interiors-inspired accessories – chandelier necklaces, pelmet shoulders and curtain-like drapery, though it does start getting a bit silly when she goes into lampshades-as-skirts.

I adore these to pieces and would wear one of those little suits in a heartbeat if I were much taller, younger and skinnier and had been invited to a swanky gallery opening or some such. I’d also love to be able to buy the prints themselves to hang on the wall, or maybe made into separates or bags. And I bet Katy Perry is wetting her knickers just looking at these pics.

Magical stuff.

 

 

 

The whole collection is worth looking at here. I first found it on my beloved TLo. {All images by Yannis Vlamos / GoRunway.com via Style.com}

Oh and it’s lovely to see from all the London Fashion Week reports, that the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo is being put to good use. I loved that architecture.

Go Fug Your Room – Sebastian Conran

 

Or, when designers don’t decorate.

I opened my new copy of Livingetc with some excitement as the front cover promised me an ‘at home with Sebastian Conran’.  I knew he had one of those huge Victorian wedding cake houses in Notting Hill and this would surely provide some great material for a ‘Go Love Your Room’ post.

For those of you in the US who may be unaware of them, the Conrans are pretty much design royalty in the UK.  Designer Sir Terence Conran founded the Habitat chain and the Conran Shop, has published a series of seminal works on interior design and owns a string of beautifully-designed, fabulous food-serving restaurants in London. He almost single-handedly dragged Britain out of the chintzy Fifties into the fab Sixties interiors-wise and has been a giant on the UK design scene ever since.

His children from various marriages are also successful designers and foodies in their own right – fashion designer Jasper, Notting Hill restaurateur Tom, interior designer and foodie Sophie and product designer Sebastian.

Sebastian is well-known as a product designer, probably most famously as the design brains behind Nigella Lawson’s Living Kitchen range, though as you can see from his website he has a number of great products to his credit.

 

 

 

And there’s no denying that he’s got some great STUFF.  Wink chairs, Le Corbusier lounger, antique rugs, Arco lamp, interesting art, iconic Sex Pistols  and the Clash poster artwork (designed by Conran as a student).

 

 

  

 

 

AND there’s no denying that he has, as you’d expect, paid a lot of attention to detail. The units, for example,  are painted in a colour Sebastian created from a gouache of stainless steel, “I wanted a shade that had the same tonal value as the metal to give cohesion to the mix of materials”.  A lot of remodelling has been done – hallways widened, door frames raised, huge French doors installed at the back and the sightlines adjusted to make sure the vistas through the house were perfectly aligned.

 

 

And yet, and yet, I can’t help feeling that this looks a bit like a student bedsit, with white walls, mismatched chairs, posters on the walls and rumpled rugs (albeit a student with access to a phenomenal amount of money).

Everything seems somewhat haphazard and studiously UNdecorated – no interesting curtains or cushions (except in the bedroom and you can bet they belong to the stylist), no unifying colour scheme or much colour of any description, no flashes of wit, no striking arrangements, no interesting light fixtures. It’s the home of someone who celebrates form and function over everything and as such seems both curiously sterile, strangely uncohesive and not particularly comfortable.

What do you guys think?

 

poll by twiigs.com

 

 

{All images and Sebastian Conran quotes from Livingetc August 2010}

Things I Am Loving - Moomin Wallpaper

 

 

 

The Minx and I spent a lot of time on our recent holiday reading Finn Family Moomintroll (which was aces, just as cool and fabulous as I remembered it) and I’m wishing I had the courage to decorate my kitchen with these gorgeous wallpapers from Photowall (though it looks like you’ll need to grapple with Swedish to buy them).

 

 

As an aside, can anyone recommend good chapter books for a five year old ? We’re currently hugely enjoying Junie B Jones, who regularly makes us cry laughing, but I’m finding it difficult to find books suitable for a fluent reader, but age-appropriate in content (and no, not the vile Rainbow Magic fairies, which the Minx utterly adores, and which I couldn’t loathe more if I tried).

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Hotel du Clos

 

 

On this particular trip we didn’t set out to stay in fancy boutique-y hotels  - our criteria were mostly cost, space for us and the Minx and proximity to beautiful locations, but we really lucked out with the first hotel we stayed in, booked at the very last minute through Splendia, a website specialising in characterful hotels.

The Hotel du Clos is in the little postcard-perfect village of Le Rouret, about 15 minutes from Grasse and 25 minutes from Nice and the bustle of the Riviera, and so a perfect place to relax after our long transatlantic flight to Nice (via Amsterdam).

 

 

 

The hotel – and this is the reason I loved it so – combines the very best in traditional French charm and style with the odd touch of whimsy here and there, which made everything seem lighthearted, modern and fun and added oodles of character. Though frankly the buildings were so beautiful that additional character seemed almost unnecessary.

The rooms are each individually decorated, the staff were absolutely delightful and extremely welcoming to the Minx, and the same people who own the hotel also own a fabulous Michelin-starred restaurant, five minutes away in the village. So, I really can’t recommend this one highly enough.

 

 

 

The bedroom featured the most beautiful fireplace and was  decorated in those overlapping shades of dove grey that the French do so well.

 

 

 

 

  I loved the wall sticker of ‘books’ stacked up on the bedside table

 

 

 

 

 

the Roman faces fabric on the cushions and curtains

 

    

 

and the Perspex angel light fitting above our bed (with another angel peeking out in the bathroom).

 

 

 

The traditional Provencal garden – fragrant with roses, jasmine and lavender -  was a big hit with a certain someone, who particularly loved the fabulously UNtraditional sculpture lurking among the olive trees.

 

 

 

We ate epic breakfasts every morning on the beautiful terrace

 

 

- the fromage blanc with rose syrup was a particularly big hit.

 

 

 

In the mornings when I woke early through jetlag, I would knit on our balcony shaded by an ancient olive tree and listen to the sound of church bells and the kids singing in the school next door. 

 

After breakfast we would head to the small but delightful stone pool, made particularly elegant by the use of very dark green tiles, which made it fit much more naturally into the garden landscape.

 

 

And we all appreciated little touches such as the antique jelly moulds used as keyrings (and were sad not to get one of the three bears)

 

 

and the papier mache cow in the reception area. 

 

More photos from the Hotel du Clos, Le Rouret and Grasse, on my Flickr here.

I’m back. Sort of normal service will be resumed, though it’s school vacation and a busy time for ‘mirrormirror’ so other things also need to take priority. I’ve been missing you though.