If you’d like to send us photos to include in next week’s “pets on furniture” post, please ensure your photos follow our 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. Thanks! (Photos, your name, location and a brief description can be sent to desiretoinspirekim@hotmail.com and PLEASE don’t send me closeups of your pet!)

“This is Saga on her favorite spot.”
– Maria (Sweden)

“It’s my one year old English Springer Spaniel Rubee. He’s hyper so look carefully cause you mightn’t see any other pictures of him sitting still 😉”
– Rokoko

“This is my springer spaniel in my chair that I had recovered with fabric by StudioBon.  (He probably thinks he’s helping me work- the chair is in my office.)”
– Kady

“Here is a picture of my two cats, Mary and Mabel in the living room of our cottage in Muskoka. Mary is on the coffee table and Mabel is lounging on the floor. I’ve also attached another picture of all three of our cats in the same room. Bodoni is on the chair, Mary’s on the table and Mabel is on the floor.”
– Jenny (Toronto)

”This is Troy, he’s two years old and throughout his life we have bought 3 dog beds, that have ended up being bitten and broken by him, I guess he just wants to tell us that he is more comfortable in our furniture. We bought this pair of chairs in a rage of madness, are made of leather and were a bit expensive, but have been worth every penny because our friends like them and feel comfortable in them”
– Teresa (Guadalajara, Mexico)

“Our cats, Six and Buster, are brothers – they love sleeping next to (or on top of) each other on whatever soft surface they can find (bed, blanket, couch, lap).  Here they are curled up on our living room armchair, which goes well with the rusty orange color of their fur!”
– Megan

“Here’s photo of Only napping on lazy sunday afternoon on my favorite side of the bed, on my favorite throw blanket!”
– Ed (Auckland, New Zealand)

“the kitty was snoozing on the bed when kira usurped her. the kitty (always called kitty although her official name is midge/skittles – there was some family disagreement) is a five year-old cat and kira is an eleven year-old siberian husky cockapoo cross.”
– Danika (Edmonton, Alberta)
  

“Thought I might submit a photo of my two cats, Rex and Mona relaxing on a winter afternoon.”
– Aislin

“Here’s my dad’s Jack russell Helga lying on my couch totally exhausted after playing with her Boston terrier buddy the whole day.”
– Veera (Oulu, Finland)

“My house is under MAJOR renovation (thus the unpainted sheetrock walls) and we are doing it all and one day it will be incredible… soon. we think soon.  But I walked by our bedroom one afternoon and found ALL FOUR of our animals sleeping happily on our disheveled bed.”
– Paige

“This is Riley, 2 year old Golden Retriever, and Olive “Bug”, 1 year old lab mix.  As you can see they are best friends who love relaxing on the leather sofa together.”
– Amber

“I love your blog and I always think about it when our pups jump up on the couch for their mid morning nap. Our littlest one is our 4 month old Shepherd-Shelty mix Heidi, “The Baroness” and our oldest is our 2 year old Shepherd-Collie mix Mina. They’re lounging on our outdated black leather couch that will soon be replaced with something wonderful, we just don’t know what that is yet 🙂”
– Aynsley

“This is Madison resting on our sofa, seemingly waiting for a phone call!  The second photo shows more of the furniture:)”
– Gerrie (San Diego, California)

“This is my baby Daisy a boxer mix from St. Louis, on her favorite chair.”
– Karen (St. Louis, Missouri)

“Meet Odilon and Louisa, betta fish that I inherited when my neighbor moved and left them.  I have given them nice new digs, however.  Odilon has a southwestern theme going, while Louisa is pleased with her Mayan ruin look.”
– Melissa (Washington, DC)
  

monogirl	pureEVA
omoo	pearlyqueen
jemerasp	dutchican
Providence Handmade	melanoma

bad bad magpie

mammaamericana

Wellsie

Lady Harvatine

*Yellow House*

bassoonreed

Futuregirl_LeahRiley

maistora

shannonemiller

sweet sweet life

pinkpaisley

bluemoonart

Here’s a reader request that came to us a little while ago (sorry, I wish I had time to do these posts more often) from Michelle:
“I’m currently having my kitchen re-designed and built from re-claimed wood. The texture of these re-fashioned door fronts is incredible. The process is an evolving one and will eventually involve a re-do of the kitchen island as well. I plan to put a small stainless sink (round) in the island. Back in April (I think) you had a photo of an island done in re-claimed wood with chrome carts placed underneath for an wonderful mix of industrial warmth (** photo below from nuevo-estilo.es). I have purchased an old (100 years + door with the original blue paint) that will be cut (yes, it will hurt to cut it in half) and used as each end of the island (the short ends). Beyond this plan, the rest of the design is an open book. I wonder if you can post some island inspiration that will help and that might allow me to think outside the box even more when it comes to how to best utilize the space inside or under the island effectively (storage & cost that is).”

I went through my stash of kitchen photos and grabbed a bunch of kitchen islands that I find intriguing. Hopefully something will inspire you Michelle, although maybe just shoving metro carts under it is a quick/simple/cheap solution. (I’d like to point out that I noticed a few islands with storage for wine which is awfully smart considering I hate most wine racks and have my meager wine collection stashed under my kitchen sink).

CountryHome	CountryHome
Sunset	Sunset
Sunset	Sunset
Sunset	Mark Olson
Hus & Hem	Hus & Hem

Sköna hem
Domino
Eric Roth
Eric Roth
Jason Loucas
Light Locations
Sunset

SunsetSunsetSunsetnbdarchitects

I’m loving the portfolio of Washington, DC based photographer Stacy Zarin Goldberg. Her photos are striking and energetic but what immediately caught my eye is that she clearly loves utilizing her client’s pets when she shoots interiors. SO CUTE!! I also have to mention the funky artwork in the first photo – love the scale but not sure if I want those dudes watching me as I sleep.

Marija is an architect and interior designer from Lithuania who remodeled her apartment last summer and wanted to share it with our readers. The space is only 60 square metres and due to the economic and real estate crisis, her grandiose plans needed to be downsized so she opted to spend only 700 EUR and do the work herself (well, with one visit from an electrician and one from a carpenter) – in six weeks. I am blown away by every single thing she has done to her place and the little touches here and there that came it really special. It’s a spectacular transformation and I am excited to show it to you all. I’ll take you on a tour of Marija’s home room by room, in her words.

The living and the dining room. I peeled away the prior floor sheets and I painted the floor boards in white and ivory colour strips according floor board step – that visually made space wider and brighter; renewed and painted the ceiling; two doors leading to bedrooms were repainted in black chalkboard paint. I also decided to have a ‘window sills’ above the window and two alcoves in opposite wall – now their serves as an exposition space for wooden sculptures  storage space and a curtain-rods holder for curtains to mask the storage in alcoves and decorative curtains beside the window.

The kitchen. In the kitchen, I had to peel off four layers of old vinyl coverings:) The unimpressive back wall of the TV table that did not fit anywhere I covered by the plexiglass cover and applied a wall décor sticker and it has transformed into my favourite kitchen island. The similar sticker appeared on the entrance door and small refrigerator. The rest of the doors of the room were painted black with chalkboard paint to be covered by chalk drawings.

The bedroom. When I started removing the old wallpaper, I found out fragments of previously used paints that seemed to me very attractive. Thus I scrubbed two walls to uncover the previous décor. And decorated the other two walls (which were built in later years and there was no hope to find any interesting decors on them) with diluted cotton and silk wallpaper mass. I also renewed the ceiling and painted the floor boards that were previously covered by carpeting.

A child’s room. In my son’s room I also renewed the floor, the ceiling and the walls, though for wall decoration I’ve chosen a simple method – I painted white the existing brownish rugged wallpaper. Instead of the carpet we used a stencil of a stylized whale while my son got creative and decorated the legs of the old stool in the same manner.

Marija also included some photos of her bathroom, one of her amazing light fixtures and a floor plan.