When It Could be a Don't No. 16 - Library Dining

 

Some of my favorite rooms are those spaces that provide a good spot to tuck into. Where our nirvana is filled to the brim. Paradise, heaven, tranquility. Planned spaces that define our sanctuary. Let's get back to designing our homes around that. Where tradition is bucked and self authenticity is at the forefront.

In this post I'm calling all my fellow bibliophile because I know you aren't the shy type and will fully understand our great love for books isn't something we hide. Don't confuse this for ignoring the delight of hiding away while we are swept into the lives of our next book's characters. I'm writing about the thrill we get when sharing our latest book with our fellow lovers of literature. So what better way to share than in a library dining room. 

Heightening the experience of book club is a planned library dining room. Where the best real characters in our real lives are gathered over good food to converse about books we have read and books we added to our collections. Books with our handwritten notes, dogeared pages, an autograph from the author. Books that express our journeys and how we found ourselves or lost ourselves.

I have talked in the past about our libraries being wherever our stack of books finds their home; by our favorite chair or on our bedside table. Then we run out of space for those stacks of books and we get creative and they find their home tucked under a bench or ottoman and perhaps even in a dining room's china/hutch - the dishes moved aside to make room for one of the very definitions of ourselves - the books we read.

And then my mind goes to the joy of experiencing a book-themed dinner in the library dining room or the book author's favorite drink or cigar. Creating the feeling that the author is actually in our company, dining with us at our table in our library. Can you imagine dining with Herman Melville or Frances Mayes or Ernest Hemingway? What if Henry David Thoreau or Mark Twain or Bonnie Garmus or Brene Brown were invited to your next dinner party?

As in any design plan, what you surround yourself with becomes an element to your happiness in your home. Your retreat, port in a storm, shelter. If you are a lover of books plan that library dining room, it is both your escape and capture. Escaping from contentment to be captured by intrigue.

Don't get stuck on the formality that the design of a library can conjure up. Just like any other space in your home, the library dining room should reflect you. Just like the books on the shelves in this space.

The library dining room is a hideaway where some of your most valued treasures reside. Yet it is also a necessary functional space as well. Approaching a multi-functional space design plan can be a challenge, but a fun one. It is important to consider all the elements you need in this space just as if they were two separate rooms and then formulate a plan that marries those elements together well.

Just as I encourage the use of our formal dining areas to not be limited to special holidays, I would encourage a library dining room to not just be used for book club. We need to design our spaces so that every space welcomes a cup of coffee to start our day or a glass of wine to collect our thoughts at the end of our day. There are no reserved tables.

Be inspired!

Sources: Architectural Digest, 1st Dibs, Tumblr, Art of Doing Stuff, Vogue, The Nordroom, Markova Design, Laurel Bern Interiors, View Along The Way, Pinterest, Est Living

Translation - Fashion to Home No. 23 - Ralph Lauren 2024 Resort Ballet Reverie: A Pas de Deux with Elegance

This translation of fashion to home is about the soft hues of the Ralph Lauren 2024 Resort Ballet Reverie: A Pas de Deux with Elegance, and the visually striking sculpture like a work of art. The fabrics and their textures and draping remind me of bas-relief delicately detailed plaster. The hues like the chalky, matte, hand-applied texture of plaster work.

The inspiration of the ballet in this collection speaks to me in the graceful flow of the fabrics and wispy details and embellishments. The way the fabrics drape and dance remind me of how neutral bas-relief dances off its surfaces.

This also takes me back to the deeply embossed wallpaper, Lincrusta created by Frederick Walton in 1877 originally finding its place from royal homes to railway carriages. 

Who knew that your favorite ballet could choreograph your design plan? That a story told by dance or through fashion would hold its best performance on the walls or ceilings of your home. That a ballet dancer, a fashion designer, and interior design would all collide in a elegant interpretation.

Inspiration is not always that cartoon-ish shining light bulb above one's head. It comes from truly experiencing all life has to offer with all five senses. Understanding how this experience right now fits into our lives forever and how it is to become part of who we are - that is inspiration. A dance of congruence.

A design's history gets me every time. Imagine that ballet Comique de la Reine first performed in 1581, considered by ballet historians to be the first ballet, having anything in common with a revolutionary product invented in 1877 offering an alternative to labor-intensive plaster work evolving into a runway creation by a fashion icon for 2024. Now you know how my mind works, how inspiration connects the dots in my design mind.

I was not given the talent of dance, I couldn't begin to experiment with wood paste and gelled linseed oil and wonder what could be created if I spread that concoction on a paper base and rolled it between steel rollers to emboss it, I was not give the hands of a sculpturer and I wouldn't dare try to phantom the mind that is Ralph Lauren. But I do live out the inspiration these arts put in front of me and create beautiful spaces.

What will this runway show inspire in you? How will it translate through your innate talented soul? What will you author from it? A beautiful room awaits your dance.

This inspiration is speaking softly, without arrogance while still commanding attention. It's like sitting on the edge of your theater seat with your opera glasses in hand so you don't miss a thing. Even though you know you can't possibly describe the experience you are having in its entirety down to every goose bump. But knowing that you will find a way to relive the experience so it doesn't slip away. That is what you bring to life on a wall, on the ceiling overhead, on a piece of furniture, anywhere in your surroundings so it is forever present in some way for you.

Be inspired!

Source: Ralph Lauren, Vogue, Runway Magazine, Moda Operandi, House & Home, Alberto Pinto, Lincrusta, Wall Street Journal, Spruce & Pine, Samantha Farjo Design, Windows Weak, Lushome, Pigmentti, Architectural Digest, Theodore Alexander, Pinterest

Be Inspired No. 96 - Foraging for Branches in Design

I recently came across an inspiring story about a photographic project and book by the Scandinavian artists Riita Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth called Eyes as Big as Plates. It's about an ongoing project that pays tribute to Norwegian folklore. The photographs conjure up so many questions and forces one to say, "tell me more". The concept is that you can provide as many answers as you wish.

This photograph of a woman with a millinery made of branches is a favorite of mine. The woman who resembles a wind goddess turns out to be a Norwegian in her 90s called Agnes, who made her first parachute jump at the age of 85 (her second was a 90th birthday present). “Floating through the air was pure joy,” she told the artists, so they all decided she’d dress as the “fabled north wind”. (BBC)

This inspires me to give new meaning to foraging and how it connects to design because an interior designer is truly a forager of provisions for a well-designed room. A wanderer, explorer. And a room that pays tribute to nature is a celebration of pure form.

One way to bring our foraging basket to the design plan is with branches, whether in its natural form right from the tree itself in a vase bursting with buds or showcasing its beautiful rawness after blooms or artfully duplicated with other materials.

The beauty of branches is a pure definition of hygge. Though stately in its stature it still remains content in its simplicity.

As in any design element, restraint is important. More is just more. I am often reminded of Coco Chanel when I review a final design plan, "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory." 

Chinoiserie is another great way to introduce branches into a design plan, it's timeless incorporation of branches and nature into this artistic tradition pays honor to the ever renewing of nature. I love the upward and outward reach that the branches create in Chinoiserie design adding the feeling of wanderlust and exploration into a space.

I'm drawn to branches in design - it causes me to pause and drink it in. It belongs and doesn't apologize for that fact. 

This also reminds me of a recent event that I hosted at a small business during an art and wine walk.  I decided to feature sparkling wines for the tasting at our stop and and in the kitchen created some tasty accompaniments to serve. We invited a local artist to be our guest for the day and she brought a blank canvas with a photograph of a tree that was over 100 year old as inspiration for a fresh painting. As she was painting she shared her tree inspiration to our guests who couldn't help stay just a bit longer than at most stops (the wine was flowing and the strawberry jalapeno salsa and other appetizers were pairing quite well). 

The 100-year old tree was a tree she saw in California on a golf course and she herself had laid under it and looked up at a starry night.  Proposals happened under this tree, weddings happened under this tree, and many other stories one may never know. She painted the tree without its leaves and its branches stretched out every which way but down. Its branches reached towards what I interpret as hope, future, the beauty above and around it. Inspiration is everywhere. Even in a photograph that inspires one to share and paint its story.

Whether you pay tribute to branches by forcing blooms in a vase during early Spring or celebrate the bare branches in other art forms year round, welcome to foraging in design.

Be inspired!

Sources: BBC, Neiman Marcus, House & Home, Domaine, Atlanta Homes Magazine, Bennett Leifer Interiors, Apartment 34, David Wiseman, Eyes as Big as Plates, Zoffany, Pinterest, Flower Magazine

Interior Design Reference No. 2 - Scalamandre Tigre Silk Velvet

 

In the 1960's Old World Weavers launched the Tigre Silk handwoven velvet, first woven in Italy on an 18th Century loom and is currently made in the United States by expert weavers. This handsome woven velvet is a longstanding icon of Scalamandre. 

This timeless silk velvet in it's ivory, gold, and black colorway is a statement maker in both traditional and modern interiors. In many well-designed rooms it can be found in small to grander doses. When you hold this fabric in your hands you know it is like no other, not only in it's pattern design but far more in the dense weave expertly accomplished by a time-honored traditional weaving process. It feels like a blanket.

The Tigre Silk Velvet is definitely a pattern on pattern layering necessity while still holding its own in a more neutral design plan. It gives a playful vibe that I love when used to upholster very ornate furnishings, classic and timeless without stodginess. 

In 1910, Elsie de Wolfe began using leopard print as an accent in rooms of the rich and famous and not too many years later it started emerging in the fashion world. Christian Dior is credited as the first designer to put leopard print on the runway in 1947. Animal prints are a love or hate pattern, but for some it is not so much a dislike as it is a brave step. A secret love of sorts, until a designer adds it too a plan and the love affair begins.

The iconic Tigre Silk Velvet is the "once upon a time" opening to a room's design. A story that lasts over many generations. Classic, yet perceived as having a chic, hip granny when discovered in her wardrobe or a vintage piece of furniture she bought that way and never changed over time because it always fit into no matter where it called home.

Animal print coordinates with any color palette so if you decide you just have to have a pillow made from it or cover a bench with it - you will never lack for finding a place for it.

Oh, back to holding this fabric in your hands - wait until you turn it to the backside and take in the intricate detail of each thread's placement and marvel at the craftsmanship. It is a wonder to behold. Tigre Silk Velvet is not inexpensive so consider it an invest of a classic when you are including it in your design plan. And take care of this element because it is yours forever until you gift it to the next lucky person. 

Yes, another interior design reference story to bring into your home or admire in another's. Scalamandre's Tigre Silk Velvet is a icon to be sure.

Source: Scalamandre, Instagram, Alexa Hampton, Veranda, Architectural Digest, Melanie Turner Interiors, The Peak of Chic, CNN, NW Interiors, Pinterest