cool spaces

Quick Home Fixes from a Cooled Out Chateau

When we are scrambling to pull their spaces together in preparation for big crowd of family and friends, we take a cue from the unexpectedly chill interiors of this 12th Century château in France…

Geometric Painted Wall: Keep the Pattern, Change the Color

We are smitten with Parisian antique dealer and interior designer Florence Lopez’ website and its many interiors showing her extraordinary use of darkish, saturated color, especially deep blues and greens (all with a little black in them). Of note, this geometrically patterned wall in greens and cream in her showroom and the other iteration of the same pattern

Inexpensive Urban Shelters Solve a Housing Crisis

As apartments in urban areas become prohibitively expensive, young people in Oakland, California have been developing innovative, grassroots strategies to provide homes for themselves, and for homeless people in their communities. The New York Times recently article and slideshow samples new ways of thinking about “home”, “a social experiment in stripping down to the basics.”

A Family Home Full of Heart and Good Ideas

“Something boldly improvisational and cheery going on in this house in Australia” wrote Susan Dworski in an email as she described the home Ruth Bruten, writer of Gourmet Girlfriend blog, shares with her husband and five boys. It is delightfully REAL and colorful, and packed with ideas. Here are Susan’s favorites, and ours:

Optical Illusion Interiors Out of Paint or Tape

Could it be that the great Mexican architect Luis Barrigan created a study with an unexpected, roughly-painted rather expressionistic trompe l’oeil window to brighten a windowless space? It LOOKS that way in this image we found at Aqqindex. It got us casting about for abstract optical illusions we might employ at home, the opposite of the usual trompe l’oeil that…

Laura Handler’s Clever Chic Doorbell Disguise

In the last couple of apartments we’ve had, we’ve suffered —albeit, mildly in the scheme of things— the ubiquitous, ugly, boxy generic doorbell that most building’s management installs. We never really stopped to think how we could make it more pleasing to look at. Designer Laura Handler, who has a brilliant talent for fixing the irritating…

Smudgy Framed Chalkboards + Nudes in the Living Room

This interior by designer and stylist Carlos Mota jumpstarted two great ideas for our space. We wondered: Is that a painting or a framed chalkboard, wiped out in the most purposely smudgy way, with nude drawn on it? We love the idea of a chalkboard framed to be a constantly changing artwork. And especially a nude smack in the…

Copper Pipe Room Divider, Towel Rack, Furniture

Warsaw firm Mamastudio enlisted Polish architect Mateusz Baumiller to design the Autor Rooms in its new hotel to showcase furniture and artwork by Polish designers. The favorite big idea we got out of it: thick copper pipe to create rooms within rooms, like the sleep area at top. It’s a lovely way to define a big space, and…

A Cheap Chic Hardwood Floor Solution

When we saw this Parisian flat in Design Milk, we were intrigued more by the floors than by the slanted shelves built into each “space” of the sprawling apartment. Short lengths of hardwood flooring are almost always less expensive than longer lengths, but, when laid out in the traditional, end-to-end pattern often LOOK cheap and…

Inspiration: Le Corbusier’s Envisions a Paris Rooftop Garden

In the 1920’s, Le Corbusier designed Carlos de Beistegui’s apartment in Paris. The rooftop garden, with a very grand rococo fireplace one would usually find indoors, turns the usual outdoor space on its head. Here, he elaborates on it, with a mirror, candlesticks and an ornate sideboard, on grass.

Pink Inspiration, Erotic and Otherwise

At the ever-inspiring Aqqindex the other day, I came across this sublime pink sleeping nook in Tunisia and thought WANT! I know the influence of pink because of the pink wall in my bedroom: in the three years I’ve slept there, I’ve not grown tired of the hopeful, serene-yet-jazzy vibe it sends me. Then I found…

Home Design in New Guinea Yields Inspiring Ideas

Survival tells us to build shelter, but human nature tells us to make it interesting. The people of New Guinea have been making beautiful homes high in the trees for many years. The tree houses, explored by photographer George Steinmetz are set in open spaces in the forests of Indonesian New Guinea lowlands. Though the…

Martha’s Museum: An Ode to Meaningful Collecting

J. Speed Carroll’s Martha’s Museum: The Precise Placement of Objects, is a film about his late wife Martha’s remarkable, very personal collections in their NYC brownstone. Through Speed’s narration, you enter the many stories and meanings hidden in Martha’s eclectic array of object from all over the world. It is an ode to meaningful collecting, at once a house tour of an original and an example of the way objects resonate with each other to convey unique messages.

Annals of Voyeurism: Skyviewing Shacks, Docks and Apps

The “skyviewing cubes” nestled in a French vineyard that we spotted on YouTube reminded us of the pleasurable practice of checking in with the stars above each night. There are many magical ways to do it both analog and digital.

Material for Making: Raw Copper Sheeting

Jersey Ice Cream Co’s ingenious stove backsplash out of copper flashing made us LUST for copper sheeting, which we imagined cladding our ugly old fridge, making into a headboard, using as extravagant wrapping paper or placemats, wrapping an ordinary chair or table to transform it… among other things. So we checked it out.

AirBNBs Enchanted Treehouses

AirBnb has a the cure to summer boredom; take off to a tree house adventure! If you’re outdoorsy, but not sleep-in-a-tent outdoorsy, a glamorous tree house might be a good fit. There are so many scattered around the U.S. (and other places too, check out AirBnB maps for an area closest to you). Among our…

A Rooftop Porch with Meadows in NYC (Green Roof Primer)

We were stunned by this image of David Puchkoff and Eileen Stukane’s porch and meadow on the roof of their six-story coop building in New York City. Puchkoff devised it as part of a plan to have the porch he always wanted, while creating a green roof. Plants insulate the building from heat in summer and cold in winter, and they reduce storm-water runoff by absorbing rain. The coziness and magic of a country porch IS possible in a city without having to keep a country house. Here’s how.

Yayoi Kusama’s Fab Lessons in Dots

We’ve posted about Japanese artist Yoyoi Kusama a number of times in the past, so taken were we with her view of art as medicine; losing herself in making art — “self-obliteration”— is her way of relieving illness. We have been especially transfixed by her repetitive use of dots in her artwork. In “The Obliteration Room”, currently on view…

Paola Navone’s Wire Crate Shelves

When VosgeParis posted images of a party at designer Paola Navone’s home in Milan, the wire crates affixed to the wall caught our eye. Are they an artwork, or simply vintage crates made into art, on which she arranges objects to her liking? So we hunted for google images for clues.

Unique Logic of Maison Margiela’s White Space

When Fashion designer Martin Margiela’s moved into his 3000 square foot studio in Paris in 2oo4, it was in extraordinary disarray.When Margiela took it over his in 2004, it was in disarray. Built in the 18th century, evidence of its history was everywhere. He preserved a lot of the detail and turned the entire space white. All the furniture,…

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