Sunday dinner at a sexy Italian restaurant? Count me in! Bar M in Sydney, Australia is designed by Jason Mowen and is an an incredible industrial space with tons of exposed bricks (SWOON!). Super sexy with red leather banquettes, a gold and brass bar, and projections of stars like Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Dean Martin, Danny DeVito and others grace the walls. And bring on the pasta!

Leslie Jenkins of Jenkins Interiors lives in a beautiful 1940’s home in Tyler, Texas and it showcases her signature style of marrying contemporary furnishings with rare artwork and European antiques (that she sources herself on buying trips abroad) and the result is elegant without being overdone or too precious. I admire her use of colour, again not overdone and used in just the right amounts.

I just can’t get enough of Italian design firm Marcante Testa. They absolutely blow my mind with their use of colour, materials like brass, wood and marble, and their attention to detail of every square inch of their spaces. What I would give to be a fly on the wall in one of their design sessions. I mean, read this description and you’ll see what I mean. For this apartment, set within a building from the late 1960 on Corso Sempione, the Turin-based duo has applied its immediately recognizable style to reinterpret a typical bourgeois Milanese home in a highly original way. The floor in “Cipollino Tirreno” marble extends from the entrance hall to the living room, even being used on the walls and “closing” at the ceiling to frame a view of Milan that appears almost like a meditative landscape. Moving towards the dining room, this material gives way to “Verde Alpi” marble, which becomes a “carpet” on the floor for the dining table, a wallcovering, and even furniture itself in the form of a shelf on which to place objects. The floor in “Cipollino Tirreno” marble extends from the entrance hall to the living room, even being used on the walls and “closing” at the ceiling to frame a view of Milan that appears almost like a meditative landscape. Moving towards the dining room, this material gives way to “Verde Alpi” marble, which becomes a “carpet” on the floor for the dining table, a wallcovering, and even furniture itself in the form of a shelf on which to place objects. The cement tiles, the original wood floors updated with resin coatings, the colored metal structures for the doors in wire mesh glass, along with the materials used for the custom furnishings (laminate in the kitchen, the bath furnishings and the storage cabinets) reference the period in which the building was first constructed. They also “dampen” the high notes of more precious materials, such as the brass, marble, and the wallpapers and the fabrics of the wardrobe doors in the master bedroom. In this way, the interaction of materials, forms, colours and surfaces, as manipulated by the designers, is transformed and creates unexpected emotional reactions in the viewer linking the contrasting styles of everyday and sophisticated, high and low, past and contemporary.

Photos: Carola Ripamonti
And other features on Marcante Testa here and here

Loving this mudroom/living room/kitchen/dining redo in a Massachusetts home by ID8 Design Studio. Super casual for family living, but super stylish and fun. And the cat matches. 🙂

(Photos: Joelle West)

I was perusing the portfolio of Sashya Thind Fernandes’ design firm ID8 Design Studio and was blown away by all of the fabulous kitchens so I thought I would do a post to highlight them. Each one has something unique that really adds drama – whether it be a green tile floor, tiny glass tile backsplash, wood accents, a graphic cement encaustic tile floor, brass hardware and trim, boldly veined marble….it all works so SO well.

Photos: Joyelle West, Tamara Flanagan