Home Decor Envy: Brass Stools for the Kitchen

Photo: Architectural Digest 

"Step inside John Legend and ChrissyTeigen's New York Home"

I know what you are thinking: you too have to have these art deco brass stools for your kitchen, living room, bedroom or office! These gorgeous pieces are designed by Anna Karlin and can be customized according to your own needs. 

Home Decor Envy: The Colorful Living Room

Jamie Drake, the designer who is known for making modern interiors more inviting through color, sticks to his rules and uses a number of hues "boldly, fearlessly and with great flair" to create a lively and warm atmosphere in his new New York apartment.   

Home Decor Envy: A Glass-Walled New York Penthouse

The dream team of Steven Harris Architects and Rees Roberts interior designers have created a gorgeous glass-walled New York penthouse that offers a spectacular panoramic view of the city. Check the rest of the apartment here.

A London Townhouse Goes Avant-Garde

A 19th century London townhouse is transformed into a modern, gallery-like residence by an art collector and her family with a little help from Francis Sultana. More photos here.  

Home Decor Idea: The Black Monochrome Paintings

Ok, so you might not be able to afford a huge art installation like Allan McCollum's 384 Plaster Surrogates cluster of black monochrome paintings which Reed Krakoff proudly shows off on his living room's wall. But you can still create a similar, budget-friendly art installation by purchasing pieces of black, high-quality paper and cheap frames of various sizes and colours, like Ikea's Ribba frames. All you'll need to do is put the paper in the frame, take a hammer and start creating your own piece of art!

Living within Rainbow Colours

Apart from the furniture and the home decor accessories, this Manhattan apartment impresses with its colour palette. Beautiful hues of blue and purple put together with green, turquoise and pink details make the editors of Architectural Digest magazine wonder "What’s the secret behind pairing lavender and orange so artfully? How can a prissy pink look so masculine?". The secret is Jamie Drake, the interior designer who is also known as "the colorist", and who worked with the owners of the apartment to create a gorgeous eclectic Art Moderne apartment in rainbow colours! See the rest of the house here!

Tiles in the Kitchen

Source: Architectural Digest

Turns out putting tiles in the kitchen doesn't look tacky at all! And I love the suede covered stools!

Jonathan Alder Opens His Home to Architectural Digest

If you are a regular visitor of this blog you probably know that Jonathan Adler is one of my favourite designers. And you can guess that seeing Adler's and his partner's Simon Doonan Shelter Island, New York, home being featured in Architectural Digest magazine made my day! The style of the house is a great mix of Adler's own designs like the mustard sofa, the slipper chair and the throw pillows which you can see in the living room and mid-century, vintage items like the George Nelson hanging lamp at the terrace and the Geoffrey Harcourt's shell seat. Powerful colours like orange and mustard yellow are present in all the rooms even though the basic colours are kept in the dark side of gray and blue. All in all a great retro house with a few modern elements all by designed the wonderful Mr. Adler!

How To Do Animal Print

Diane Von Furstenberg's Penthouse

Donny Deutsch's Townhouse

Richard Lambertson & John Truex Apartment 

Animal print doesn't belong to exotic-styled spaces only. Choose up to three animal print accessories like pillow covers or even a carpet for your room to achieve a subtle but eye-catching result. Don't forget that the zebra print is a safe(r) choice since the monochromatic stripes work well with many different colours!

Home Decor Envy: The Guest Room

If this is the guest room, then I would love to be invited, and stay there for a few days...Say 356 days per year?

The guest room is furnished with a four-poster by Christian Liaigre, a nightstand by Dennis Miller Assoc., and a Knoll Womb chair and ottoman; the ceiling fan is by the Modern Fan Co., and the carpet is by Stark. See the rest of the rooms of this very modern East Hampton house here!

Aerin Lauder's Manhattan Offices

Aerin Lauder, the style and image director of Estee Lauder, is moving beyond the family brand into her own product line, a variety of home and fashion accessories, as well as beauty products. Though her new brand, Aerin, will be launching its first collection in a few weeks, Lauder’s offices are an urbane expression of what the brand's style will be. Her offices in Mahnattan occupy a former eight-room art gallery and will eventually house about a dozen employee. In order to create a chic and beautiful working environment Lauder invited her favorite designer, Jacques Grange, to give to the space "an underlying structure that’s clean and inviting...with colors and fabrics and textures to make it look very personal, warm, and elegant.” The result as you can see from the pages of Architectural Digest magazine is just that!

Oscar de la Renta's Dominican Republic Boutique

A few months ago, the famous fashion designer Oscar de la Renta opened his first shop in his native Dominican Republic. “The inspiration came from a very small potting shed in the garden of our home here,” De la Renta says of the chic hexagonal emporium. For de la Renta both decor design and fashion design should be connected, and that's the rule he has followed in his new boutique store; his silver-plate bowls are washed with enamels as colorful as the blouses on display, and the Austro-Germanic-inspired armchair he created for Century Furniture complements a body-skimming caftan draping a mannequin. According to the famous designer, “there should be no difference in taste levels between the clothes you wear and the things you live with”. I couldn't agree more with this statement. More photos here.

An Acceptable Shade of White

When Emily Summers, a Dallas-based interior designer, and her investor husband, Steve, decided to restore their midcentury modernist-style house they interviewed quite a few architects before choosing Lance O’Donnell, a talented designer who according to Summers is “a true modernist who understands all the great Palm Springs architects”. Among the many changes he proposed, O’Donnell painted the building twice to achieve an "acceptable shade of white—Benjamin Moore’s Silver Satin" and Summers was more than happy with his decision: “I knew the house was going to have white walls and white terrazzo floors and everything in it was going to be light and fresh and crisp”. Read the rest of the article here.

Mixing Patterns

Photo: Architectural Digest

The bedroom of the designer Richard Mishaan is the perfect example of how to mix completely different patterns and colours and achieve a coherent and beautiful look for your space! Check the rest of his home here!

The Newsstand - Home Decor Magazines: April 2012

Clockwise from top left:

 Elle Decor (US edition), Elle Decoration (French edition), Lonny, Living etc, Dwell, Vogue Living, Elle Decoration (UK edition), Architectural Digest

Home Decor Envy: A Gallery-Like Living Room

Source: Architectural Digest

An understated white fireplace surround blends into the gallery-like living room of a New York City apartment decorated by Penny Drue Baird of Dessins. The rectilinear two-shelf mantelpiece complements the bold artwork and provides additional space to display sculpture and objects.

Home Decor Envy: The Nussbaum Apartment

The editor of Martha Stewart Living magazine, Darcy Miller Nussbaum, is known for her exquisite taste in ribbons and stationery. But what we discover through the pages of Architectural Digest's February 2012 issue is that she also has a great taste when it comes to home decor. With the help of David Mann of MR Architecture + Decor, Nussbaum has created a wonderful art deco space with plenty of minimal yet luxurious silver and gold details. I fell in love with every single room I saw on the pages of the magazine!

Photography by Nikolas Koenig

A Living Room Ready for Valentine's Day

Brooke Shields' Manhattan apartment seems to the perfect place for spending a cozy and warm Valentine's day! Architectural Digest has picked the apartment of the famous actress for its March issue which is out on the newsstands now, a few days before Valentine's day. Her Greenwich Village townhouse was renovated in collaboration with designer David Flint Wood and MADE architects. 

Shields, says that she toured brownstones all over Manhattan "looking for 'the one'. About four years ago she was shown a derelict (though landmarked) four-family brick house built around 1910, with a ramshackle ’60s addition. “It needed a complete gut,” she says, “but after a quick walk-through, I could see our future there. My bathtub in a niche by a window. Our daughters’ playroom on the top floor. A light-flooded, parlor-floor kitchen with a big hearth and a balcony. That kind of instant certainty is rare for me—I’m a Gemini—but for once, I was sure.”

The Newsstand: December 2011

Not all magazines adopt a holiday-style magazine cover for their December 2011 issue, but the ones that do definately invite me to buy them!

The Newsstand: November 2010

Fashion bloggers and fashion lovers constantly post about the latest fashion magazine covers; who is on the cover, a model or a celebrity? who is the photographer? what is text about? have the fonts changed? what colours have they chosen? Apparently the same topic is not that interesting to the interior design fans. Although the community is very active (there are many, many blogs, a lot of magazines and plenty of related forums),home decor magazine covers are almost never a topic of discussion...This monthly post titled "The Newsstand" will be featuring the latest home decor magazine covers in an effort to finally bring them to the spotlight! 

From top left (clockwise):

• Elle Decor - The cover features a photo from the LA based designer Suzanne Rheinstein's home
• Dwell - Live/Work (I'm sure that many Etsy sellers will find this issue interesting)
• Interior Design - Bright colours in the kitchen of modern apartment in Tribeca, NY
• Architectural Digest - Feautures the actor Rob Lowe at his Californian dream house
• Lonny - one year anniversary issue with Celerie Kembell