Displaying posts from August, 2012

Rustic barn meets exuberance and style. Quirky meets practicality. Concrete and chandeliers, modern art and aged oak beams. A barn conversion in Burgundy by Joséphine Gintzburger is pastoral perfection. It’s rough luxe and bucolic drama and all the modern comforts. A weekend retreat to be shared with family and friends.

Silvia Rademakers is an interior designer based in Barcelona whose work I discovered the other day when I blogged this home (she was the designer). Her spaces are understated yet very eye-catching, neutral without being dull, and modern yet liveable and certainly cosy.  

If you’d like to send me photos to include in next week’s “pets on furniture” post, please ensure your photos follow my basic rules: First, the pet must be on a piece of furniture. And said piece of furniture must be clearly visible in the photo, so it takes center stage rather than your pet. Think of it more of a photo of a great piece of furniture that you want to show off…and your pet happens to be sitting on it. And second, the photo must be of decent quality. If it’s dark or fuzzy (from a camera phone) then it may not make the cut. Photos, your name, location and a brief description can be sent to desiretoinspirekim@hotmail.comand PLEASE don’t send closeups of your pet! Thanks!

I would like to submit the two attached photos. One is my dog Toki, lounging in her favorite spot on our Dwell comforter, and the other is my sweet old tabby cat, Dezzy, (not a fan of cameras) looking at me suspiciously from atop a guest chair I refinished.
– Lauren

P.J. was visiting with his mom & dad recently.  Whether home or afar he is the king of the castle.  Here he is atop our gateleg table.  He certainly does exactly what he wants!
– Robin (Port Stanley, On)

The first photos were taken in a very small room where I spend my days… usually with all three pets jammed in as well. The room started off as a small library, but has slowly morphed into my home office. It’s surprisingly comfortable, despite its lack of size.  I plan to replace the desk with something painted as soon as the budget allows.
Winter is on top of Home Depot tobacco stained pine bookshelves. He’s not really allowed up there because he tends to knock things over and munch on the plants when he wants my attention, but I’ve learned to pick my battles.
Cotton can always be found under or beside my chair as I work – I could never sit on a chair with wheels because of him. I hope it’s OK that he’s under the furniture and not on it, but at thirteen years old, he no longer has the energy to jump up.
Tallulah, the self proclaimed fun police, likes to sit perched on the chaise lounge where she can watch over everybody in the great room. There, she has a clear view of most of the house and can make sure that there isn’t any fun happening that doesn’t involve her.
– Janice

This is Poppy Popadopoulos. She is a grumpy rabbit who lives in Sydenham, South London, and she pretty much hates everyone. Much to her annoyance, everyone loves her. And she’s not scared of that fox.
– Amy

Here is Morty making himself comfortable on our Koda Wood chairs and in our green side table.
– Javier and Molly (Phoenix, Arizona)

This is Coco who has decided that the new chair is hers and hers alone. She is jealously guarding it from an attack by Pepper the Italian Greyhound.
– Lynette

Innovative use of space, fluid, adaptive. It’s open and shut. In and out. Across and away. Changing over time and across needs. Simple, clever, stylish. London-based architectural firm Openstudio. Of course you will remember the last project here. “Le Cabinet”, Leinster Square won the Apartment Therapy Award for the “Smallest Coolest Apartment 2007”. A perfect little puzzle box of an apartment. A mere 26 square metre footprint. Now that is clever!

Take a disused water tower on an old manor house’s estate, a local council who had no need for it, a landscape designer who had a vision and an architect who made it happen. 6 storeys of bachelor pad now rises from the grounds surrounded by woodlands and encroaching suburbia. To complete the unlikely dream a meandering brook runs by the foot of the tower. A switcheroo on the Rapuntzel fairytale, the landscape architect now sits in his tower perhaps waiting for his princess? The Water Tower at Brasschaat, just outside Antwerp by Crepain Binst Architecture.