Sometimes customizing IKEA furniture works

Given the proper lighting, I think something like this could work. Or if you need more openness and less color, remove the back panel altogether. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of how stable these things are. A back panel might be necessary for maintaining structural integrity.


Sometimes, plans don't go as well as expected.
One lantern is cool. Two is less dramatic, but still has sufficient presence. Ten is an invasion. In the case of this photo, an alien invasion. I, for one, welcome our new lightly flammable lantern overlords.

These images lovingly stolen from Apartment Therapy

Trends of 09 part 2

In my mind, the best way to describe this trend is 'plant silhouettes', but I really hate that word silhouettes... I can never spell it right. In any event, the photos will show what it is that I'm talking about:

Mode Wallpaper


TreeBomb Wallpaper


Fern Pillow from Ferm Living


Pine Tree Sticker from Ferm Living

It's a blend of art and nature. However, it's all about the beauty of natural shapes. Keep it simple and it'll work best. Which is to say, I don't like the first two; they seem a bit too busy for my tastes, but sometimes its hard to get a good sense of scale in wallpaper photos.

So readers, what do you think of this trend?


Thanks to:

Desire to Inspire
Wallpaper from the 70s
frivolous necessities(do check this blog out!)

Can multiple patterns live in harmony?

Yes, that green is a teensy bit radioactive-colored, but the yellow tempers it and makes the blueness of the wall stand out more. This goes to show you that perceptual contrast can save almost any color. Though the use of color in the above photograph is skillful, the rug situation is painful. The first problem is that there are four of them. The overall effect is something like this car:

Two coordinating patterns can work together. A pattern with two contrasting elements can work with a more muted pattern. The reason there isn't a lot of theory on two somewhat coordinating patterns mixed with one pattern containing contrasting elements, and one pattern that clashes with itself is that nobody ever thought that it would be seen. Until the design world makes an official proclamation about this situation, I can only offer the following advice about bringing it into your home:
Don't.

This photo brought to you via The City Sage. Check them out, won't you?

Back to bedrooms

We have here three different bedrooms.

Apartment Therapy featured this bedroom a while back as part of a house tour. I love it. I can't stop people from using patterned bedspreads, but I can at least point out how to do it correctly. The walls are a clean color, so the bed becomes the focal point of the room: there really isn't a lot competing for your attention. The blanket adds more color and keeps the room from feeling too dark. At the same time, it covers up the pattern, which keeps that from dominating the room too much. This is how you do it, so take note.

And then, we get to these rooms.

What we have on the walls is the graphical equivalent of an acid trip. Often kitschy, full-wall graphics can sometimes take your mind someplace else. Why you'd want to be taken to a place where you think that your face is melting and strawberries are out to get you is another matter.

Padded headboards are for bedrooms. Padded walls are for asylums.

A thought on patchwork quilts

In these winter months, there's nothing like going to bed under a home-made quilt. Except I live in LA, and it is unseasonably warm here. But those of you fortunate enough to not live in LA get to have nice quilts. But don't quite rush out and buy just any quilt, because some of them are uglier than others. Today, the topic is patchwork quilts.
Now wait a second, you say you openly admit that your favored style is modern, sometimes modern of the mid-century variety. How can you reconcile a quilt with that? Aren't you going to pick on all of them?
Yes, I like MCM and modern design. But I'm not picking on these quilts (or any design things) because they aren't compatible with my favorite styles. I pick on them because they're intrinsically ugly. As in, it doesn't matter how you use them, there is little good about them.
Come on, how bad could some of them be?


Okay, you win


There's nothing wrong with a patchwork quilt. However, these quilts are only as good as the patches they're made of. There are some fabrics which ought never have been made. If the quilt contains any of them, it's not a good quilt.

This (above) is a good quilt. It may be a bit lacking in the color and overall impact department, but it's simple. The 'cabin' quilt from LL Bean (link below) has more color and presence, but I'm not nearly as big a fan of the pattern.

My thoughts?
Keep the colors in harmony. If you simply MUST have big and bold patterns, keep everything else restrained. You can always use pillows to accent.


Quilts from Anthropologie , L L bean

Orla Kiely for Target: Yay! (and a little nay)

For Winter 2009 Target is proud to announce that famed designer Orla Kiely will be bringing her touch to Target's housewares department. This is almost old news by now in the design world.
Personally, I'm torn by this collection. I look at a number of elements in the collection and I can clearly see the 1970s reflected. On the other hand... they're just glasses and plates. They're small enough to not have too much bearing on the overall design of the room. Restrain yourself and you'll be fine. And I kind of like the shape of the carafe. And those square plates.
I will say that the brown storage boxes and shoe holders are a no. Brown has been an "in" color for just a bit too long. I also think the apron doesn't look good, but I am yet to find an apron that looks good on me.
This hits Target stores February 1st. Start planning how to incorporate it.
Enough of my babbling, let's look at some pictures:




Photos from Apartment Therapy and Decor8

Wallpaper, part 2 of many

Poor bathroom. You could have had it so much better. Too-small mirror and weird metal cabinet over the toilet are hindrances, but bathrooms have overcome worse to become truly great. Then your owner decided to post up wallpaper that is covered in the flarg flower from planet Zebulon 9. (on Zebulon 9, flowers look at you!)
Bathroom, your owner might be an alien.

Casasugar feels that this style might be a bit much for small bathrooms, and should only be used in powder rooms and half baths. I think they're forgetting a crucial detail: it should only be used in powder rooms and half baths that are on the planet Mars.
This image comes from housetohome.co.uk

Kickin' it old school

And now, a brief history lesson.
the inspiration for this blog is two-fold: First, I must give MASSIVE amounts of credit to James Lileks and his book Interior Desecrations. (Buy it!) Seeing just how ugly interior design was has made me aware that this must never happen again. My aim is purely humanitarian. But if I make a few bucks off this somehow, that's cool too.

This brings me to part two of inspiration: Pottery Barn Teen. I have a love-hate relationship with that branch of the company. Well, actually, I just think that some of the stuff they sell is really ugly.

Which brings me to the product which caused me to start thinking about all this:






















Technically yes, it is a couch. I know it looks like a bunch of cushions that were stolen from a hobo camp. We also have the rug to deal with. Yes, that is a rug, and not a bunch of used mop heads that the janitor at Pleasant View Elementary threw out. Please, shag rugs were only good until you spilled stuff on them, at which point they could never be fully clean again. And please don't tell me that you're buying them for the ironic value: Irony only works if the thing in question was originally good, but has since fallen out of favor. This is like being ironically racist.



And you can still buy the couch here. I'm pretty sure the charcoal gray is the color in question.

Black and white, Part 2

Allow me to demonstrate why black and white color combinations work best with another color in the mix: I present the following rooms that Mobileffe is currently showing.


It's not the warmest-looking room in the world, but it still looks inviting. Still, I'm not sure what to think about the glowing rock-like things in the foreground. They might be radioactive.




There's only one other color here. That's all it takes to make this look work. Some warm wood tones soften the overall appearance, and add a nice organic counterpart.
The dog is another design reminder: if your current dog clashes with your decor, you MUST get a new one. (kidding, kidding)






This room somehow manages to be the chemical opposite of Prozac. Maybe it's the fact that the stripes look like jail bars. Even with the TV, this looks like a room in which fun is outlawed.






Thanks to contemporist for the inspiration.

Elle Decor Jan 2009: A deconstruction (part 1)

I'm not an avid reader of Elle Decor. By this I mean I have never actually read the magazine, and was not fully aware of its existence. So when I was directed to their website, I was pleasantly surprised. They focus on the same kind of design that I like, so I'll half-heartedly consider subscribing, then remember that I'm a poor college student.

On to the magazine.
The hot trend for the month is Black and White. It's a powerful, dramatic combination of colors. A little bit goes a long way.
Here's an example from Design Sponge
this headboard is good.








But when you see the rest of the room in context, the effect is a bit overwhelming

The red wall almost makes the room work, and it adds a great deal of much needed warmth. Something to keep in mind is that the black and white combination can get very cold very quick.






Second thing to consider is to keep it clean.
Consider these 3 patterns:










The middle pattern has a clean aesthetic that the others don't. And because of the stark contrast with black and white, design elements are emphasized: clean designs look cleaner and busy designs look busier.

Keep it warm, keep it clean and don't over-do it. Those are the 3 keys to making this trend work.

Inspiration

Now this is not a recent photo. This is from the horrible 70s. However, it's being used to illustrate the idea of covering the walls with fabric, as an easy way to It's an inspiration.

Really, the only thing this pattern is inspiring me to do is go drive out to the country, find a field of flowers and DESTROY ALL OF THEM. This fabric has ruined an entire species of plant forever. Even looking at it makes my allergies flare up.

In all fairness, the idea is sound. Please look at Monika's Post at Apartment Therapy for tips on how to use this technique.

Bathrooms of 2008

In lieu of actually looking over all the bathrooms of the world and finding examples that properly reflect the times, I've decided that commentary on the tastes of others is much more satisfying. This is not to say that their personal opinions are wrong; they're just (in my opinion) bad. Consider me the devil's advocate for home design.
So, without further ado, I present a counter-analysis to some of Desire to Inspire's favorite bathrooms of 2008


If Satan's cathedral had a master bathroom, it would look like this. There really isn't too much wrong with the bathroom until you get to the paint. That color, that sheen, and the juxtaposition with the blue floor just goes to show you that it only takes one thing to ruin a room.







If you tried to play 'one of these things is not like the other', your head would implode. Now, I know that nobody in their right mind would attempt to assemble this bathroom for the real world. (Well, David Lynch might)
I like the red cabinet, I like the juxtaposition of the sink and mirror, and I'll tolerate the tiles in the bathroom. I just don't like the combination of those elements.









Tip: Using mirrors can help make a small bathroom look bigger. Painting the walls this color just makes it weird. It's like you polished the entire 1790s so hard the finish came off.














I cannot in good faith allow this wallpaper pattern to propagate. While the color is nice and works with the other tones in the room, it will age gracelessly.

Wallpaper, part 1 of many

Please, do not do this to a room.

Wallpaper is like the Force: it can be used for good or for evil. This room comes straight from the mind of Vader himself. The print on the wallpaper is bad enough, but the wainscoting also needs serious explaining. We could pretend that the wallpaper was put up after the wainscoting, in a fit of extreme emotional duress, but the sort of person who would willingly combine those two colors on a single piece of wood trim should not be trusted with small children.

Also, is it just me, or does the wallpaper print look like it's staring at you?

Wallpaper: Basso and Brooke for Graham Brown

the robins egg blue and brown dilemma

The robin's egg blue with brown is one of the hot combos of fashion, so how does one sensibly incorporate it into home decor? These examples come from Target's Fall 08 line-up, which are sadly no longer on sale, but the lessons from this post remain valid.
This is a very good way to incorporate this color scheme.

the patterns work well... large enough to be interesting, but simple enough to not be gaudy. the other benefit is that the pillows come separately, so you can have one color dominate, and the other accent, or throw in a neutral color to prevent either color from dominating.





This attempt doesn't work.

The problem is that you're locked into the amounts of blue and brown. were it a solid blue, it could provide a nice contrast, but the brown comes in this tacked-on element that doesn't really stay true to the lines of the piece. I also think the drawer pulls are too small compared with the rest of the piece. were they just a little bit larger, the look would come across better. I do like the way they break up the boxiness of the dresser.

One further reason to go the route of the pillows rather than the dresser is that color combos like these are notoriously short-lived: they've got a half-life like a radioactive particle. When trying to incorporate colors that are right of the moment, it's better to go with something that's easy to change. in 2 years' time, that dresser is going to be a two-tone anchor weighing the rest of your room down.
Pillows: Victoria Hagen for Target
Dresser: Dwellstudio for Target