Displaying posts from May, 2011

This reader request was sent in a while ago by Kristina: My mother is really struggling with adding a wall of built in shelving around her fireplace in her living room. I told her I would try to find some inspiring reference photographs. She wants to add a wall of bookcase shelving around the (brick) fireplace, hoping to put the TV above the fireplace. I suggested some double doored cabinets to put the DVD player surround sound etc. The room has HIGH ceilings so the bookcase wall would go all the way up, pretty vast. There is also a slanted ceiling, which is driving her crazy. I suggested a decorative round piece on the top shelf to tie in the slant. Any pictures would be helpful!! I am so glad Kristina added in that last sentence because despite looking at hundreds of photos of living rooms, I could not find any photos that were perfect for her mom’s dilemma. Instead I grabbed all sorts of photos simply of built-in bookcases/shelving around fireplaces to hopefully help with ideas – and for anyone else looking to provide storage around a fireplace.

the selby

design*sponge

Jerry Jacobs Design

Nathan Egan

Colombe Stevens

Warren Heath

Dana Wolter

Fawn Galli

Insight Design Inc.

John Lum Architecture

Marie Claire Italy

Marie Claire Maison

Markham Roberts

Apartment Therapy

Nathan Egan

New York Spaces

Oak Management

Turnbull Griffin Haesloop

The London Magazine

Wayne Vincent

Amanda Nisbet

It’s all about layering. Starting with a neutral base and adding texture, objets d’art, personal pieces, gallery walls, books, even colour as yet another layer. It’s definitely not minimalism but it is also stepping back from the edge of maximalism, of knowing when to stop. It’s about luxury with the everyday, comfort with contrast. It’s all about adding one more, carefully, just so. Sigh… yes just enough. It’s layers of meaning, of how the client lives. It’s all about interior designer Ashli Mizell.

Last weekend I stumbled upon the website of Max Levy, an architect based in Dallas, Texas and was immediately taken by his creativity. I discovered lots of interesting ideas while perusing his portfolio – my favourite being the watering can drainage system in the first 2 photos. How freaking cute and genius is that?!

A stylish marriage between old and new, vintage and contemporary, dark and light, family space and funky space. A perfect house for stalking. Trouble is I didn’t find it. My stalking stalker Andrea did 😉 For sale here. The architect is John Wardell.

Kim Jeffery is a very talented and relatively new photographer (I aspire) who has a very interesting name (mine is Kim, my husband’s is Jeffrey), has photographed for covet garden (one of my favourite online mags), is Canadian I think (me too!), is a huge animal lover and wanted to be a vet until she was 14 (me too!), and has a few cats (me too!). Seems like destiny that I blog about her and her pretty photos.