Got a problem? Need some help? Just standing there shaking your head? Don’t know what to do? You’re not alone. Send us a link to photos of your design quandary and let the Desire to Inspire design crew help you …. that’s you lot… the readers! You are coming up with some stellar ideas each week so it’s time to do it all over again. This week is just a little different. Instead of room photos Brigida has sent us photos of what she has in the room. Can you make help her pull it all together? She is wrestling with a rug dilemma.

First I want to tell you that I love your blog.  I would really appreciate if you could help me with some ideas about how to combine rugs in the dining/living room. I have a rectangular open plan living room/dining room, where I want a more contemporary decoration.  Three of the walls are white and one was painted in a greyish chocolate brown. In the middle, separating the living room from the dining room, there’s a rectangular column in a almost black grey.  The furniture is in dark wood (wenge), the dining table is white (lacquered) and the chairs are camel brown, similar to this one.

The sofa (with chaise long) has a sand colour, something like this, but lighter

and in the living room I have something like this

and a wenge center low table.  I also have in the living room a Corbusier chaise long brown/white/black pony like this one.

I wanted to bring some colour to the space, so I bought this gabbeh rug – the colours are more vivid than in the picture to put under the white dining room table.

I want to put a rug in the living room, but I don’t know what colour will go better. I thought in a dark grey rug but don’t know. Can you please give some suggestions?

Interior stylists are jacks (or should that be jills) of all trades. They need imagination, creativity, lashings of DIY nous. Fearless with colour, queens (or should that be kings) of quirky. Not only on trend they often set them but always they create just what their client wants which is always just what we never realised we are craving in our lives, our wardrobes and our homes.  Sidsel Zachariassen of Sidsel Z has that beautiful boho scandi vibe we can’t get enough of at the moment but mixes it up with the saturated colour bursts we have come to expect from Danish styling. Her work is real and personal. I want to curl up on that porch, whip up a cook’s dream in her kitchens and pad across white, white floors in her homes. Nothing is overly precious but always beautiful.

Cool, dark, sexy. Like a cold drink on a hot, hot day. A cave to escape the blaring sun. A shed sitting on a sunbaked Australian plain. A refuge from the harsh elements. A home. Another short listed entry in the 2011 Australian Interior Design Awards, Hill Plain House, Victoria by Wolveridge Architects. I would enter the dark side. Yes for this I would.

Don’t know if it’s the light. Not sure if it’s the juxtaposition of modern with old, the organic patterns with the solid man made, the too cool with the warmth of well loved homes. The composition. The story told through the lens. I love these shots for Marimekko by Finnish photographer Kaapo Kamu. Fun and light hearted. Simple but stylish. I think it’s the mood he has created through the light. Real life. Beautiful.

Every so often an email lands in my inbox from perhaps the cruelest man I know. Chris from Welcome Beyond dangles dream designs in front of me and it is all I can do to stop myself from hocking everything I own, jumping a plane and escaping to the hand picked boutique vacation properties that litter the pages of their website. Chris has cruelly tempted me again with a Spanish beauty and oh the temptation! Alemanys 5…  “located in the core part of Girona’s medieval quarter, within the scope of the first wall and overlooking the Plaça de Sant Domènec, is the property Alemanys 5, whose original building dates from the Sixteenth Century. Its recent restoration integrates old and new, where sober and clean lines look for the enjoyment of essential elements such as space, light, shadow, fire, stone, water or silence.” Two apartments, “El Badiu” (The Veranda) and “El Jardí” (The Garden) designed by architect Anna Noguera. Thanks Chris for the link and double thanks for the extra photos. I’m packing as I type!