I saw this home on Yatzer about a week ago and nearly peed my pants. I think I’ve seen it on a couple of blogs already but I had to include it here because I freaking love it. Built in the 18th century, it’s now owned by designers Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci of Dimore Studio, who set up their studio on the ground floor and their residence above. If that was mine I wouldn’t want to ever leave it either. It’s understated level of coolness is mesmerizing. Totally unique and edgy but timeless at the same time. (Photos by Emanuele Zamponi)

Domus Nova is an independent estate agency in London with exceptionally fabulous properties for sale or rent. I was emailing the other day with someone who works for the company (thanking them for featuring our blog in their magazine they print a couple times a year) and begged for photos of a property I fell head over heels in love with that was featured on both their website and their magazine. It’s a fabulous juxtaposition of classical architecture with contemporary and vintage furnishings. This 5 bedroom freehold townhouse located in Notting Hill is to die for, with bold colours and even bolder artwork throughout each space. It’s “vibrant elegance” they call it has me utterly smitten. And for a cool £4,250,000 it can be yours! (I’ll take it!!!)
P.S. I’m hoping to hit them up for more photos of other properties they have listed so stay tuned!

I FINALLY completed work on my dressing room and I thought I’d share it with you all now…there was a slight sense of urgency to this post because if we do the renovations on our house that we’re planning, that room is going to be demolished. *SIGH* For that reason I did not quite finish this room as I would like (ie. I wanted to dip dye the bottoms of the curtains, considered mod podging vintage wallpaper over the table in the center etc.) What’s the point since I have no clue what I’ll do in my new dressing room (which will have more space). So it’s as done as it’s ever going to get. And I’m so happy to have the space for my clothes (and my husband’s), although it does mean we cannot have overnight guests because it’s the only other bedroom besides the master. But a girl has got to have her priorities straight (particularly when it comes to clothes/shoes). LOL

Here are some before/during photos I had to show as this was a quite a bit of work, slowly over about a year. This first photo is the only one I have that shows most of the fairly small room (6’11″x12’6″), taken right after I moved in.

After that I decided to paint the room teal, which turned out to be a dumb idea in such a small room because it became very dark, despite the fact that there’s a fairly large window (I blogged it once here – it was so hard to photograph I don’t have many photos of that first transformation – but some are on Flickr here). With the newest version of the space, the closet was torn out (the doors were heavy pieces of wood that drove me INSANE), the walls were patched up, ugly-ass laminate floor was removed and new maple hardwood was installed (clickable – so thankfully we can reuse if we want in the new space). Here are a couple photos of the closet and floor demo:

And here is a photo of the new floor right after we installed it:

Some new baseboards, paint, rods and shelving installed, curtains (to close off the clothing storage; I kept my existing windows curtains), accessories and voila, a useful and kinda cute dressing room. A whole bunch of photos of the new room are after the jump. But here’s a quick peek:

Sources: white curtains – Ikea * rods and shelving – Home Depot * laundry basket – Umbra * island/table – Ikea (Lyckhem) * flooring – Kultur * light fixure – eBay * Eames Hang-It-All – Gabriel Ross * frame with jewelry – made with vintage frame, pegboard from Home Depot, hooks from Home Hardware * tray on desk – purchased in Mexico * locker baskets, burlap basket, ikat curtain fabric – Etsy * row of baskets inside closet on shelf – Ikea

I work with a guy named Jack (well, I do when he’s not off on parental leave). Jack is married to Shannon. Jack and Shannon have 2 adorable girls (Charlie and Lily) and a dog named Chico. Jack and Shannon happen to be musicians (see previous posts here and here). They live in Morrison Heights (a community of La Pêche, next to Wakefield, Quebec). Jack and Shannon just bought a log house (COOL!). Now they need to sell their house. Jack sent me photos yesterday. I squealed in delight. I had been to their house when their kitchen renovation was completed and it was such an amazing improvement to the former dark, outdated and closed-off kitchen. They’ve renovated just about every other room, which I had not had a chance to see in person. It’s so bright and open now. The house is located on a hill in a forest, with tons of hiking and fun stuff to do (including bungee jumping – it’s so close to their house you can hear the jumpers scream!) I had to share their home here because it’s too damn cute not to, and maybe I’ll help them sell it faster. 🙂

And a couple gratuitous and unrelated to the house photos…one I took of Jack last May jammin’ at the back of our building after work (government employees gotta amuse themselves somehow), and one Jack sent me last night from his phone after a hike in his ‘hood.

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!)

The first is of my cat, Ruby, on our mid-century inspired sofa.  The second is of our big girl, Asparagus, on a chair just nabbed up at the flea market last weekend that is taking a turn with that black and white pillow.  This is pretty much what they do all-day-long.  Ahh, the life of a cat.
– Jenna (Pasadena, CA)

This is my little sweetheart Kaipo relaxing on my favorite reading chair from Anthropologie.
– Shari (New York City)

– Alison

Scout, enjoying the front yard in Sydney’s Inner West. This is how a Federation house should be enjoyed… Ikea provided the chair.
– Sarah

1 – this is sammy, our lab pup on a zebra hide next to a noguchi prismatic table in our home in reno, nevada.
2 – my cat gabby after a haircut
– Vicki

this is bella our burmese cat
– Cheryl

It is hard to find a photo of our house without Suzi and Lennie sitting on furniture but here are a few favourites from previous home. The first is Suzi la sausage as a puppy. I used to get home from work and she would be lying in the sun on the kitchen bench. The second is Suzi and Lennie enjoying the heater…which was a nobo behind the couch. It is at times very tricky moving them off furniture as they assume the dachshund paws in the air Im asleep pose regularly.
– Paula

Here are some pics of my cat on an indian day bed.
– Merel (Amsterdam)

This is Flock (means snowflake in catalán), we were trying to take some photos of my boyfriend’ s new table design, and he decided to participate in the photo shoot as well. Not a bad idea 🙂
– Ana (Barcelona)

Here are some stellar photos of my kitten Fox Lucite. His middle name is a result of his affinity for this lucite end table.  We could have named him Bertoia for his affinity for our Bertoia bird chair too!  The final photo is Fox all grown up in his second favorite chair, a silver leather armchair designed by Kelly Cole of Lo-Fi and Kelly Cole Extraordinarium.
– Kara