Posted: May 1st, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, home, humor, innovative design
Priceless … design with a sense of humor. It’s not everyone who is able to design products or spaces which are both beautiful and playful, make you smile but can also be taken seriously for their aesthetic. When done well, I’m in love. So check these out.
1. The Bird Poop Chandelier by Wyatt Little. As the mother of a five year old boy, if I never heard anyone say the word poop again it would be too soon. But I love this light fixture. I am also partial to all fixtures and accessories that feature birds (yup, that would make thedesign fetishes deer, owls, birds and mushrooms and I’m sure I’m forgetting something – I am generous when it comes to my obsessions). This particular fixture rocks.
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Posted: April 28th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, other stuff | Tags: crafts, decorating, design, home, popular culture, shopping, spring 2012
As a dedicated lover of shopping for things to make life more beautiful, I was extremely sad to say goodbye to Domino magazine (especially when they fulfilled the rest of my pre-paid subscription with something I had absolutely no interest in, but that’s another story). But the mourning is over and Domino is back. I think more than being a commentary on the home design business, the relaunch is an interesting commentary on the state of publishing and more specifically of magazine publishing. Everyone knows that with consumers turning toward online media, they are leaving paper behind and leaving newspapers and magazines struggling. That results in a game on the part of publishers that’s fairly interesting to watch, the game of trying to figure out how to stay alive, stay relevant, carve a niche that can’t be filled online.
In one such effort, Conde Nast shuttered Gourmet magazine, only to relaunch it as a mobile app with only a limited number of special issues available at newsstands. Their strategy with Domino is somewhat similar. Sadly, that means that it is not the return of the Domino that many of us knew and loved. The new Domino will consist only of a limited number of special issues available exclusively through newsstands. The first issue, entitled Domino Quick Fixes, on newsstands through mid-July, is a thick book and sells for $10.99, and like most special issues has fewer ad pages than the typical monthly magazine. The next issue is due this fall.
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Posted: April 19th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: decorating, design, home, shopping, trends
Say what you will about her, but I tell you, my girl Martha always comes through. Whatever else you may think, there’s no denying the girl knows how to do things right (or how to get someone else to do things for you … but still right). My new obsession in kitchen style is whiteware. It seems to me that one major advantage of adorning your kitchen with serving pieces, bowls, vases, out of porcelain, glass, white glass and crystal (or any subset thereof) is that in addition to looking clean, sleek and classy, chances are pretty good that whatever the decor in your kitchen right now, the new items will work with it, so you don’t have to go throwing away and replacing everything right away. You can replace your possessions slowly over time, and if the trend changes before you finish replacing everything, chances are your whiteware or glassware will still work pretty well with whatever the new fad is. After all, style is important, but versatility can be helpful.
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Posted: March 24th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, environment, fashion, popular culture, trends
In case you missed the announcement, the Pantone color of the year for 2012 is Tangerine Tango (Pantone 17-1463). I never tire of professing my love for all things Pantone, no matter how sick everyone is of hearing it, and yet even I find the color of the year thing a bit odd. I have always found trend forecasting to be a curious art, and Pantone’s nearly universal ability to define color is nothing short of phenomenal. For years now Pantone has been declaring its color of the year, but it seems like this year Tangerine Tango is getting more than the usual coverage.
Lest you think Pantone’s choice of color of the year is random, let me assure you, it is not. The Pantone color of the year is meant to capture the zeitgeist of the times. I do believe that color is a powerful tool, that it can shape our mood and behaviors, and yet I find the claim that I single color can encapsulate the essence of a society at a particular moment is kind of ridiculous. But maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about — it happens on occasion. In 2011 the color of the year was Honeysuckle (Pantone 18-2120). The press release announcing the 2011 color of the year explained the choice saying , “In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues.” Fair enough.
So this year it’s Tangerine Tango. This deep red orange is meant energize and reboot society.
“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”
With Tangerine Tango, it seems that Pantone is striving to break out of the constraints of the fashion, design and trend worlds, and to reach out to the broader masses. Everybody is talking about it — the Chicago Tribune, Britain’s the Independent, the Washington Post. One of the opening spreads of the April issue of In Style magazine offers a range of ways to incorporate this all important color into your wardrobe or home decor.
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Posted: March 20th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, design | Tags: decorating, design, home, photography
So, today I need your help. For starters, let’s lay out the situation. My husband and I purchased our current condo in very large part because of the master suite. The house was converted into condos and the master suite occupies what was once the attic — the entire floor — and is pretty stinkin’ awesome. I hope that doesn’t sound boastful. Obviously we had nothing to do with its greatness. It merely showed us to be the suckers that we are because we paid more for the condo than it was really worth in large part because of that master suite. The bedroom itself feels like something of an escape. There are three skylights (and four windows and a glass door) so the room is always flooded with light, and it has its own little balcony. But the pièce de résistance is the master bath. It’s huge. Because it is in the attic, the ceiling cuts in at all sorts of annoying angles which make it extremely difficult to make good use of the space, and at least once a week cause my husband to crash his head into a pitched wall. But it is dramatic and the odd shape prevents you from putting much furniture in it which means that it always stays a bit sparse and beautiful. My thought, when I saw this bathroom, was that it looked like a spa. Large tub with jacuzzi. Skylight over the tub/shower. Marble tiled floor and shower. Large window and lots of sunlight. Beautiful light wood his and hers double sink with a granite countertop, and a mirror covering most of the wall over the sink. I imagined that any time I went into this bath, I would feel like I was on vacation — preferably in the tropics — and promptly bought a little potted palm to put by the window to complete the illusion.
What I didn’t bank on was that because this room was poorly insulated and in the roof, it would be absolutely impossible to heat in the winter. And, in addition, since the house is poorly insulated and the pipes run up the outside walls, and the master bath is on the uppermost floor of the house, and the hot water heater is perhaps significantly smaller than it should be, it is also nearly impossible to get warm water up to the room in the winter. But living with Boston winters (okay, clearly with the exception of this winter), the need for the tropic escape is strong enough that I’m usually able to overlook these minor inconveniences and submit to the illusion.
I recently purchased a photograph for the bathroom and hung it to the right of the his and hers sinks. This is the photograph:
Jeremy Kohm, Casino Employee's Day
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Posted: February 20th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, home, innovative design, shopping, trends
Do you remember when wallpaper became “out”? I can’t put my finger on the precise moment, but I know when my husband and I bought our first apartment I was horrified by the fact that there was wallpaper in almost every room and could barely see past it. First thing, long before we even moved in, we had to rip off a century’s worth of wallpaper — countless layers — replaster and paint. And suddenly the apartment looked like home. The difference was night and day.
But over the last several years, wallpaper has been staging a comeback, and there are some pretty incredible choices out there. I am confident there are people with a flair for design who could pull off wallpapering an entire living room in some completely over the top print and have it look unbelievable. I tend towards the more cautious. My feeling is that small spaces offer the perfect opportunity to try outrageous things. Don’t be a wuss. It’s just a matter of finding the perfect wallpaper and just the right little corner to play in. The possibilities are endless (literally, since there are even design your own wallpaper options out there at this point).
If you’re looking for over the top, Flavor Paper (even the name is great, no?) is the place to go. I am loving the blurred photographic print wallpaper. I can’t quite imagine how it would read when actually hung on the wall — hence the small room, you can always change it if you’re not happy as long as you haven’t broken the bank with your initial investment.
Aspen Grove designed by Boone Speed at Flavor Paper
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Posted: February 5th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art | Tags: art, artists, decorating
For all of those little spaces where you’d never think you needed to hang art, I love little quirky drawings. There is something so charming and intimate about them. For the last three years, artist Jason Polan has ben working on a project called Every Person in New York. So far, the project includes drawings of over 16,000 people. 20×200 has a series of 10″x8″ prints from the project. They are perfect for hanging in the bathroom. I know, that sounds insulting – your art belongs in a bathroom. It’s really the opposite. Actually, I think the bathroom is the perfect spot for delicate drawings that don’t demand attention on a larger wall, but hold up well to close and thoughtful scrutiny.
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Posted: January 15th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art | Tags: art, artists, British style, decorating, sculpture, shopping
It seems like every day there’s a new online site for buying art. And suddenly incredible art, from both established and emerging artists, is available to the average would be art collector. Not surprisingly, since they are the most easily and cheaply reproduced art forms, these sites generally deal in prints and photographs. Which is lovely and all. Really it is. I’ve bought photographs from 20×200 and had plenty of fun doing it. But I think for a low to moderate level art lover, who is really just amusing or pleasing himself and not actually trying to assemble a valuable collection, other kinds of objects can be a lot of fun.
My inlaws recently purchased a video by an artist with whom they and we are enamored. And it’s awesome. But unless they figure out a good way to install it and run it on a video loop, it has the drawback that you actually have to take it out and play it in order to interact with it at all. It’s amusing, and great at parties, but obviously somewhat limiting. But contemporary art objects come in a number of great forms which include, but also move beyond conventional sculpture, and a few of these online sites do offer some great objects at moderate (or at least slightly more accessible) prices.
The Saatchi Gallery, long an established and well respected fixture in the art world, now has an interesting online shopping gallery. The works range in price from a few hundred dollars to you-really-don’t-want-to-know-how-much-this-costs. At the upper edge of my sense of what-is-reasonable-but-sadly-more-than-I-can-spend-on-art is this incredible plastic figure by Mattia Biagi:
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Posted: January 11th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, economy, environment, fabric, furniture, home, rugs, shopping
Oh crap. So, yesterday’s post has made me rethink my entire new year’s plan. January 1 arrived and I was overcome by the need to do a complete overhaul on our house. One major problem with having strong feelings about the aesthetics of things – you get tired of them really fast. As much as I might like to, I’m not completely redoing our home every year or two, so I came up with a list of fairly low cost projects that would give some of the more tired parts of the house a very necessary facelift.
Item 1: Re-do the mistress of the house
AKA, lose ten pounds. Fortunately, that one’s free, although significantly easier said than done.
Item 2: Re-cover dining room chairs
This is what our dining room chairs look like right now.
I can’t believe I just showed you that. The point is, as one might imagine, under the circumstances my husband is more than happy to let me give a go at upholstering them myself. I found a how to video that looks pretty doable, so it seems worth a shot. Clearly we don’t have much to lose.
There is a gorgeous fabric that I have been eyeing for ages which I thought I would use. I saw it in a different colorway on a chair in Elle Decor a number of years ago and have been looking for an occasion to use it ever since.
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Posted: January 10th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: architecture, decorating, design, designers, environment, public art, public spaces
Different strokes for different folks I guess. My grandmother’s favorite expression – “that’s what makes horse races” – comes to mind. In case you couldn’t have guessed by now, I have fairly strong feelings about eating spaces. I prefer clean simple spaces in cool tones for a kitchen. I’m convinced that in warm colored spaces – especially yellow kitchens – one tends to overeat. I see this as an obvious point, although I’ve been told by people I know (even people whose aesthetic tastes I respect) that they prefer warm colored eating spaces, so clearly this is a matter of personal taste. I do get the warm, dimly lit, cozy restaurant thing, and enjoy it for a night out. So even though this elegant restaurant model goes against my aesthetic inclinations, I am open-minded enough to see the appeal and enjoy such restaurants. But this amazing new (relatively new) restaurant, Twister, in Kiev is beyond me. Cool design, no doubt. I don’t mean to disrespect the design team’s creativity – because it’s a phenomenal space that surpasses anything I could possibly conceive. But how this is someplace anyone would want to eat, is beyond me.
The dining section, which was apparently modeled on the idea of tornados and rain, is straightforward. The metaphor seems a little strained if you ask me. But the space is lovely and pleasant enough.
But the bar …
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