Renovated Spanish barn

Isn't it gorgeous? Very well converted into a house without losing many of the features that make it unique but at the same time making it practical and luminous. I'm loving all the lush vegetation, stone walls and floors and wooden beams. I also like the fact that the colour palette goes beyond white and earthy colours (seen too many times) to introduce a bit of lilac and red.

For more pictures go here.

Rose Uniacke's House

Very rarely I like the way a whole house is designed and decorated but this one is an exception so that's why I decided to share it with you instead of just picking one or two pictures to add to Pinterest.

Rose Uniacke's house in London has got everything I like, from highly decorated plasterwork to some modern touches and period furniture. But what I like the most is that nothing is over-the-top or feels pretentious despite the original grand features of the house.
The walls and ceilings have been left in different stone colours (adding to the monastic feel) but bright tones have been introduced with soft furnishings and the use of gold and marble. Personally I would have added a more colourful rug in the bedroom and painted the ceiling in a slightly darker colour than the wall to bring it down and make the room feel cosier.
I think the rest is absolutely fantastic and she has achieved a very relaxed feel in her house despite being located in the busy city that is London.

The beautiful photographs were taken by Henry Bourne.

 Source

Colour at home

For some years now the Scandinavian style has taken center stage in the design industry. I admit I am an absolute fan of its simplicity and purity in design without forgetting practicality.
But while that is all very well balanced and often pretty too, I have started to find myself a bit bored after seeing too many all-white interiors (walls, ceilings, flooring, even furniture, all white!). It's true that you can introduce colour with accessories but I think the all-white scheme leaves a feeling of things not being quite finished yet, like you have just primed the walls but still need to paint the top coats (in another colour than white, that is).

So since I started working in the paint and wallpaper industry I have decided that maybe it's my turn now to share with the world a bit of inspiration on colour schemes that include colour because pure white can't really be called a "colour" as it hasn't got any hue.

I will start with the introduction of black, that dark colour (although again black is the absence of all colours) opposite to white. If the use of dark colours in interiors can often be daunting, the use of black as an accent wall or mixed with white can give your house a very contemporary look without you having to sacrifice brightness.

 

Marlien Rentmeester's home

This is a good example of how to use a bit of black. The horizontal stripes work particularly well in a hallway as it gives a sense of length and direction towards other rooms (just make sure your ceiling isn't too low or it could look like a box).

 

If you want to make a space more interesting and show a feature like this mezzanine level with a spiral staircase then painting it black or dark grey is a good way of doing it. The good thing about black is that it goes with everything.

                                                                                                   Home of Bernadette Pascua and Andrew Stinson

To make a room feel more intimate and cosy without introducing any colour that might then narrow down your choice in furniture or accesories, then black again is the answer. Just make sure you have got plenty of light so the room doesn't feel like a cave!

So I think this is a way to make a boring room look interesting and feel contemporary.

What do you think of black now, as daunting as before or not?

If you liked this post you might want to follow my board Colours in Pinterest.

x

 

Molly and Robert's House

 This is Molly and Robert's house in Kansas City, Missouri; isn't it beautiful? They did all the decorating by themselves which is really impressive, as none of them is a interior designer (Molly is a personal wardrobe stylist and Robert is a painter). I leave you with a few pictures of their house and if you want to read the full article just go to Design*Sponge.

 One day I will have a velvet armchair!

 Can I have that lamp, please??

 I love the colour combination of this room

 I wish I had the space to do this!

You can find these beautiful towels in Anthropologie

Final project

Sorry about the delay posting this but last week was hectic and involved flying to Ireland at the last minute!

Well, this is it! The final plan, elevations and product boards. Plan and elevations were painted with watercolours and crayons (our tutor was old school so no computers involved). Normally you wouldn't paint over the original drawings, but we had to, which led to disaster in more than one occassion (see kitchen floor)!!

The photograph doesn't show it but the walls are light grey (Blackened by Farrow & Ball).

   

Product board for the living room (Dinesen flooring and Turner painting, because there was no budget!).

The boards don't show all the furniture that goes into the space (there is loads!), they are meant to give a general impression of how the space feels and looks like.

  

Product board for the kitchen. The wallpaper only covers the wall than runs in front of the Andy Warhol zebra painting next to the dining table (see on the plan) and the rest of the walls are painted in light grey. The floor is covered in grey Montauk slate and the Mobalco kitchen and dining table are white glossy.

I feel like I learnt a lot in 12 weeks, thank you Richard and Chelsea College of Art and Design!

Interior Decoration Project

 The colour board used in the living room, the kitchen and the dining area, plus some samples of fabrics.

I love the velvety yellow one, but sadly I didn't get to use it in the end.

Last Wednesday I presented my project and said goodbye to the Interior Decoration course I've been attending at Chelsea College of Art & Design for the last twelve weeks (yes, time flies!). We went for lunch with our tutor and I had a beetroot and goat cheese salad (unthinkable a few years ago when I didn't put on weight no matter what! ahh those good old days...).
We were meant to present our project to another teacher but she was unable to come, which meant I just presented it to our tutor and the other two students (less embarrasing haha). He said some things might have been better if done in another way and that he would add a few other bits, but in general he was pleased with the result saying that I have a good eye for mixing patterns and that my level of drawing and detailing was very good (yay!). Now I can frame my certificate! haha just joking

 Original plan of the apartment.

 A 1:50 scale plan of the apartment. We had to focus only on the living space (kitchen + living room). A lot of things have been changed from the original plan although I ended up expanding the kitchen a bit more on the 1:20 plan.

 First elevation (view from the left side of the sofa cutting through the whole apartment). I know one of the chairs is not meant to be there, but I did change that before inking and painting ;)

 

 Second elevation (view from the same place as on the first one but looking on the opposite direction).

I ended up doing two elevations instead of one because they really help to realise about the scale of things and their position within the space.

Hope you liked my hard work! :)
Next week I will post the final result and the product boards.

Have a lovely weekend.x

Eccentric

Found a rather eccentric 1930s Art Deco apartment in West Hollywood. A bit too much for me, but the colour palette is absolutely beautiful.
What I have found during this weeks is that chosing colours that complement each other and work together within a space is not as easy as it seems. Here bold colours have been introduced on the walls keeping the furniture in neutral tones and occasionally using texture and pattern to make it pop out. This apartment for me is all about happiness and life.

Project Ideas

  I saw this table at Skandium and fell in love! I have chosen a smaller size to use as a lamp table nex to the sofa.

 Okay, four weeks left!!! But don't panic, just choose furniture, flooring, curtains, wall colours, lighting, window frames, kitchen layout... oh dear! But it's so much fun at the same time (until the teacher tells me everything's wrong? Hope not).
So you see I need to write about it to relax (women of a certain age will use the word "therapeutic"). I have chosen a few interiors that have inspired me and from which I have taken certain elements to add to my project. In the next few days I will show you the project's plan and elevations.

Moroccan pouffe for my client's cat.

Black slate tiles for the kitchen floor (the furniture will be mainly bright white).

Long see-through white curtains for the living room. A plus if they are like in this picture longer than the wall.

Antique blanket trunk as coffee table.

This is a similar layout to mine (sofa facing two armchairs, with rug under the coffee table and side table with TV.)

Fashion + Interior Design #2

 Colour trends in fashion applied to interior decoration + the cutest little animals! Is there anything better? Model Cara Delevingne (face of Burberry) looks beautiful in this editorial lensed by Nick Knight. 

The name? 

Pussy Cat.

Image via creamylife