Real Life Mural: NYC
Photography by Akira Yamada
MURAL ARTIST AMI SUMA had an audience when she was painting Natsume’s bedroom walls in her parents’ NYC apartment. Natsume herself. “She LOVED it from the beginning. She would bring her little chair by and stare at me painting for hours - I really mean for hours! She never got bored. I was totally amazed by her. Her mom tells me she still talks about me a year later.”
But then, it would be difficult not to be intrigued by Suma’s delicate modern take on pink and brown, that was influenced by Natsume’s favourite animals - birds and bears - but also by her parents’ taste. “They left the design completely up to me but just asked me to keep the colour fairly quiet as they had to share the space with Natsume. I didn’t want it to be too childish, so I kept in mind the ‘French shabby-chic / antique’ feeling of the rest of the home, and I tried to keep the silhouettes vintage looking, and the colour minimal and chic.”
Suma pulls it off by pairing soft pinks with beiges and browns “keeping the tones of the colours similar by using soft, antique shades, to calm the pink down a bit.”
Posted 19 October 2009 in Real Life Interiors
COLOUR: The new pink rules
PINK. YOU EITHER LOVE IT OR HATE IT. Either way if you have a little girl in your life, you can’t avoid it. But Gail Taylor of London-based interior design house Taylor Howes has found a way of doing pink tastefully: “It is a tricky colour to use as it’s so feminine,” she says. “But if you use different shades of pink rather than your typical baby pink and combine it with fresh colours such as citrus green or turquoise, it can be really fun and interesting.”
In this UK space for a five-year-old girl, Gail fulfilled the brief of “a multi-functional space that offered work, play and room for sleepovers, and there had to be a piano too,” with an amazing citrus and pink wallpaper, Anichov Leaf, from Designers Guild, and classic Vitra Panton chairs and mini Vitra table. So that the scheme doesn’t look “too themed, meaning less typically girlie.”
Our favourite bits? The built-in beds that make the most of the space, separated by a privacy wall, and the slide. What a way to start the day… Click on the below gallery pictures for a closer look.
*Taylor Howes Design, www.thdesigns.co.uk; + 44 (0)207 349 9017 Read the rest of this article
Posted 7 August 2009 in Real Life Interiors
REAL LIFE, CALIFORNIA: Boodalee’s bedroom
FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOODALEE IS, says his mum, Jeanice Skvaril, owner of the mod graphic bedding company Boodalee, a naturalist at heart. In his newly decorated room in Jeanice’s 1950s California Ranch home, Jeanice has indulged Boodalee’s love of all things natural right down to the view of the camper van birdbox right outside his bedroom window that houses a family of finches.
Boodalee chose the digital print wallpaper himself, pictured left and sourced from Urban Outfitters US store (click to enlarge the picture), so that his room resembled “a jungle” says Jeanice, and the WeeGallery decal graphics indulge his love of “animals and insects.” Jeanice has added her own-range Trees cotton bedding on the bottom of the IKEA bunk. Initially Boodalee decided to sleep on top of the bunk, but he’s now decided to be down low “where Mom and Dad can snuggle him more easily.” And so the top has become a bit of a cool, jungly reading area plumped with Jeanice’s Boodalee-range cushions.
Up here, Boodalee can survey his favourite drawings and pictures on the ceiling, all his animal decals, and spend time poring over his favourite superhero books “although he’s not yet five and can’t even read!” says Jeanice. Read the rest of this article
Posted 2 July 2009 in Real Life Interiors
REAL LIFE, EAST SUSSEX: Florence’s Rooms
WE ARE JUST A LITTLE bit envious of Nubie owner Amanda’s 2-year-old daughter Florence. For this is her bedroom and playroom at her home in East Sussex, filled with goodies that Amanda has sourced for her modern kids’ goods boutique.
“We moved house when our daughter Florence was just 6 weeks,” explains Amanda. “This isn’t something I’d recommend when you have raging nesting hormones plus I was also in the process of setting up Nubie with Mischa my business partner. The up side though was that as we sourced products for Nubie I also took the opportunity to choose things for Flo’s nursery.” The décor evolves around the zebra cot made by ninetonine, which Amanda spotted at the Kids Modern show in Dulwich. “It was love at first sight! Not only is it creative and fun, but beautifully and thoughtfully made, with great detailing such as slanted bars and wheels. Florence just adores it and feeds and pats it.” Read the rest of this article
Posted 18 May 2009 in Real Life Interiors
REAL LIFE EXTERIOR, NEW ENGLAND
SIXX DESIGN‘S Robert and Cortney Novogratz know families (they have seven kids, including two sets of twins) and they know houses (they’ve been renovating them all their married life). And so it was an obvious thing to share their knowledge in a book about renovating chic family homes that is genuinely useful. Our favourite tips from Downtown Chic (released the end of April, see sneak peek visuals below) include getting to flea markets before 6am, because all the best stuff goes before then; probing your local restaurant owners as to where they source their functional, stainless steel kitchens; go to the design fairs which are now open to the public as well as design professionals; don’t overextend yourself on your holiday home and do rent it out to help pay the bills. But although Robert and Read the rest of this article
Posted 26 March 2009 in Real Life Interiors
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