Do you have a lamp that provides light but no pizazz? Is it time to give that lamp a little pick me up? While perusing the fairly new online shelter magazine Nesting Newbies, we came across this quick and easy way to update a lamp by transforming a blah lampshade with fabric and ribbon.
Inspired by San Franciso's Universal Café and its "elegant austerity," Sergio and Suzanne Feld set out to renovate their cramped and dark kitchen in their 1905 flat. Suzanne contacted Larissa Sands of Sands Architects (the team behind the café's design) for help. The result of their design is a wonderfully modern, clean and industrial kitchen.
I recently stumbled upon the home of Swedish decorator Mia Lundström via the Style Files and instantly fell in love. I normally struggle when mixing styles and periods. While I appreciate a medley in other people's homes, I always fear my attempts are unsuccessful and looked forced. Mia however has found the perfect blend of textures, colors and periods as it all works effortlessly.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a natural born renter. I've never actually thought what the perfect bathroom would be; I've just thought of ways to perfect my existing bathroom. For my dream bathroom, I wanted to start with a bold statement and add from there. Since my aesthetic (in design, fashion, interiors) tends toward modern, clean and basic with a couple of accent pieces thrown in for good measure, the rest of the design is geometric and neutral.
When I play board games, I have a tendency towards impatience and apathy when games drag on too long. Hence, I've never taken the time needed to really learn and appreciate the game of chess. Things would most definitely change if Rachel Whiteread's Modern Chess Set found it's way into my home. Well, that's assuming I get to play the side with chairs as pawns.
Please indulge me as I publicly proclaim my adoration for a chair. I, Jessica Watson, love the Amore Mio chair. This likely was inevitable since the chair is so favorably named "My Love." Can you really blame me though? American Black Walnut, rich teal fabric, beautiful lines and oh, that use of negative space! My knees are buckling.
Thanks to Victoria over at sfgirlbybay, we discovered this delightful online resource for lovely designs from independent Swedish designers. Featuring a new designer each month, items are sold in limited editions (at really reasonable prices) for that month. One must act fast though as designs frequently sell out. We cannot wait to get some of their products into our home.
While I am fortunate to have some built-in storage in my bathroom, I have the unfortunate compulsion to buy every single product known to man. Oh, you mean that will defrizz my hair on days when the humidity is precisely 72.3%? Need it! For those afflicted with the same product disease (or just low on storage space), here are ideas to regain some space.
During last month's celebration of all things do-it-yourself, we posted a fun dandelion project involving twigs and yarn. Well, in that same vein here's another DIY using twigs and colorful bundles of thread, but this time using 3 foot long pussy willow branches and little colorful balls of felt.
Since this month is all about kitchen and baths, we decided to peruse to archives of the San Francisco House Tours to find some of our favorite bathrooms from the last year or so. Granted, our bathroom aesthetic tends toward something clean, crisp and light filled with a few unique details thrown in for good measure. Still, we tried to cast a wider net to capture a range of styles. Links to the full house tours are after the jump.
With all this talk of bathrooms this month, I am itching to update my space. But considering I live in a rental and lack unlimited dollars to fund an overhaul, I've been looking for ways to make a large impact with minimal work. Luckily, Style at Home recently released a list of 50 inexpensive ways to perk up your bathroom.
We featured the colorful, whimsical style of Turkish wallpaper company Studio Nommo in 2008, but since they recently released some great new designs we thought it was worth a revisit. With designs ranging from subdued and muted to loud and bright, there's bound to be something for almost everyone.
We love anything patterned, graphic and design-y (yes, that's a technical term). And we have a perfect wall in our entryway for one of these single color letterpress prints. But beyond the subtle, pleasing pattern in these prints, we love them for an entirely different reason...what was used to make the patterns. Can you guess what it is?
We recently came across this graphic black and white kitchen. Our initial reaction was that while it was a fun way to add some character to the space, we'd probably grow tired of it in a year or two. Well, Suki from the fabulous Finnish blog Varpunen (featured here in January) is one step ahead of us.
Name: Emily Baker & Meeko Mendez
Location: North Beach, San Francisco
Size: 850 square feet
Years lived in: almost 1 year
Emily and Meeko, just married last October, moved into their first apartment together in North Beach about a year ago. As exciting as that was, combining lives, stuff and styles into a small apartment proved to be challenging as both were moving from much larger spaces they shared with roommates. Emily and Meeko also both work from home so the space had to not only reflect their combined likes, but also be functional and organized.
© 2010 Apartment Therapy
