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 closeups of your pet!)

This is Missy sitting on my son’s tiny arm chair I’ve just reupholstered.
– Catherine (New Zealand )
I was so excited to receive our first “real” bed this week from West Elm. Bye-bye steel frame, hello soft plush tuffted headboard and comfy colorful bedding.  Our sweet puppy Cammie, a pit bull/boxer rescue, agreed, immediately showing her approval!
– Dharma (Arlington, Virginia)

I have attached Maggie. She is an English Bulldog that loves to sleep in our bed. Can’t get her out.
– Theresa (San Francisco)

This furry little has been staying at our house while another friend’s house is being renovated. He thinks he can just sleep in my favorite chair all the time. But it seems like most cats are like that.
– Danielle

I send you two pictures of my cat Azul in the living room of my apartment.
– Sonja (Netherlands)

The picture shows shows our Labrador Retriever, Mica, and our Yorkshire Terrier, Bailey, sleeping on our favorite couch, with some winter sun filtering in to warm them. Bailey likes to climb up and nap on top of Mica. This was not a posed photo.
– Don (Tucson, Arizona)

Here’s Suzy, our beloved 10 month-old tricolour, rough-coated collie, sitting on the new futon cover, watching me at the computer while I scroll through desire to inspire.
– Lindy (Gatineau, Quebec)

This is Baci…helping me in my office…
– Susan

Yesterday afternoon I should have been studying French, finishing up my Christmas shopping or doing some laundry. Instead, I went to Ikea. And why is this exciting (according to the title of this post)? I am fortunate to live in a city that has had an Ikea for as long as I can remember. The only problem is it was SMALL. Trips to Ikea were successful if you were able to pick up half the items on your list (and of which the large items you had to drive a few minutes down the road to a second warehouse to pick up). Very frustrating. Yesterday was the soft opening (to friends and family) of the LARGEST IKEA IN CANADA – here in Ottawa! A very kind reader of ours named Erica, a kitchen designer at Ikea, sent me an invite so my husband and I went to check it out. It is HUGE – triple the size of the old store, which only had about 15 decorated showrooms, and now has 55. The restaurant holds 640 people and serves booze! Other reasons why I am excited – I finally got to see a Docksta table in person. (The old store has NEVER carried it). And about 10-15 years ago the old store decided to stop selling fabric. Now Jo doesn’t have to ship me some from Australia. The store officially opens on Wednesday and I guarantee it will be insane. 

Neko sent us an email with a link from a story that was featured in The New York Times about a year ago that I had to blog about since Jo and I love featuring conversions here on DTI. This one is pretty freaking cool – not our typical church conversion. It’s an apartment located in Seattle, 462 feet above the city, in a pyramid atop the Smith Tower occupying the 37th and 38th floors – a total of 1750 sq ft. With views this spectacular, who cares what the apartment looks like??!!

AC sent us an email this week to let us know about the architecture firm he works for based in Bristol, UK called moon. I really admire their work – it’s real world designs that are fairly simple with brilliant little touches here and there. My favourites: kitchen cabinet wrapping into the dining room, desk nook, wall cut-out for projector screen, funky round door handles (!!!!!), wrap-around bathroom cabinets, glass stair partition, funky uneven stairs…

Think I can convince my husband that we need one of these suspended wood stoves in our third floor office/media room? Love the wood cart too!

via John Werich