Design Vie

Wallpaper has made its comeback and can be a truly stimulating layer for any room. De Gournay has been outfitting walls for the past few decades with 19^th century hand painted designs. However, its anything but old and tired. De Gournay’s wallpaper ranges from chinoiserie, panoramic scenes to textured coverings. Panels can be completely customized with colors and scenes as they are made to order. Yes, they are pricey but with the staying power of three centuries, I don’t think you will tire of it anytime soon. Check out de Gournay’s interesting story here with Claude Gurney’s vision. Here are a few images of the stunning wallpaper.

i love the movement in this wallpaper

how cool is the Haymarket Hotel in London - i want to stay here on my next visit

the Shooting Room at the Haymarket Hotel again

a bathroom fit for a queen

Ahhhh…moving to a new place. So much excitement for what your new place will become and so much work to get it there!

Everyone has gotten a new apartment at some point in their lives and with that they wondered how do I make this rental great?  Key word being rental.

Here’s some pics of my empty canvas, albeit not empty anymore, but this is what I started with. What I love out San Francisco apartments are the high ceilings (everyone I have lived in has had high ceilings), architectural detailing, with lots of other quirky characteristics. Even though it is a rental there is a lot you can do.  My favorite -

-switch out light fixtures.  Buy an inexpensive (or expensive! you can take it with you when you move out!) fixture from a thrift shop or your favorite retailer. Sometimes your landlord will even have a handyperson who will swap it out for you. This will take it from a rental to a home.

What would you do with your rental?

Master Bedroom

Living Room

Butler's Pantry

Dining Room

April showers bring May flowers – and Spring Cleaning! Its that time of year to purge purge purge! And open the windows to let some fresh air in. Nothing can do as big of an improvement to your space as cleaning it.

Also, note that in those beautiful interior shots that you see, it has not only been heavily staged but also heavily purged! Take the above photo for example – you don’t see any messy papers (my #1 culprit) or tennis shoes lying around. Now, I know we can’t constantly stage our home and take out the everyday things we need like: TV’s, alarm clocks, and radios but what we can do is keep the clutter at bay and our things organized. I could use my own advice – I have never been a natural neat freak but have always wanted to be one, which is probably why I am writing this post.

Check out this Retrograde blog post, the main thing that was done in one of the rooms was just cleaning up.

Here are some tips for spring cleaning –

1. Take it one room at a time. Don’t try to do it all on one day.
2. Put on some music! I don’t think I can ever clean without having music on.
3. Move! Nothing forces you to purge like moving. I don’t think I ever accumulated anything in college because I moved every 9 months it seemed. We recently moved and while it was pppainful, it forced us to purge a lot of things, despite the fact that we were getting twice the square footage! I didn’t want clutter to be the defining element in the new place.
4. Put things in organized piles, then go to Target, The Container Store, or your favorite go-to place to purchase coordinating storage for them all.  Its much easier to identify what you need once your things are sorted.
5. See what $100 can get you at Ikea. Check out this great Lonny post (“Just Give us 20 Inches”) on what they were able to do with 20″ of space.
6. Try purchasing inexpensive bookcases and covering them with cheap panels/drapes. Not only do you get another layer in the room, but you have easy stow-away for often accessed items. These inexpensive rods from ikea could easily be attached to a bookcase.

Add another one to the list – a design blog.  Oh so many design blogs out there – why one more?  One more because this will be an inspiration home for me, a place where I can sort out my ideas and force me to document my ideas and thoughts

Who am I?  I am an interior designer living in San Francisco, CA where inspiration is everywhere in the everyday.  This is a new venture for me as I previously worked in finance but had the crazy idea to quit my job and go back to school to study interior design.  I wrapped up school at The Fashion Insitute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) last year in San Francisco.  Originally from a small corner in Southeast Texas, I love all types of design but find huge inspiration from Kelly Wreastler, Abigail Ahern, Michael Taylor, Sister Parish, Dorothy Draper and all of our local San Francisco talent.