design yummy enough to eat

top image: watermelon blu dot strut tables in powder-coated steel

bottom image: duravit vero washbasin; reminds me of the ice cream in the middle of an ice cream sandwich.

new home

It's been a busy March. My girlfriends and I kicked it off by hosting a baby shower for Michelle at her lovely home in Dallas. Last week we celebrated Match Day for med students all across the land. Envelopes passed out, "one, two, three," presto, they learned where they'll spend the next four years. (Stephanie got Dallas, and Heidi got Chicago.) On Saturday night before Easter, I got a little good news of my own. All week I'd been on the fast track of applying for pre-approval on a mortgage and bidding on my first home. At around 11 o'clock I got the call. Crazy.

Welcome to my house.

It looks like this on the inside.

Except, my fireplace is actually charcoal grey. I'd like to hang my Rebecca Miser on it. No flat screen TVs for me.

The floor wants this on it in black and white.

Madeline Weinrib

The bathroom wants these on it.

Walnut Wallpapers. Little Whales.

The dining room needs a change of light fixture from this glowing Frisbee thing . . .

to this.

Ochre Furniture

Wouldn't this be a lovely banquette nestled next to the dining table? My table actually looks almost like the one in the above picture.

Ochre Furniture

The rooftop has a terrace.

I'd like to turn it into something like this.

Until next time.

these are the chairs

I bought my first dining room table three summers ago at this relatively new mom and pop hardware store in Austin. They utilized half of their floor for furniture that mixed a certain ranch grandiosity with Crate and Barrel contemporary. The table is a large rectangular slab made of rosewood, from the rainforest I later discovered (felt like I'd committed a sin upon learning that). The large slats are bumpy instead of smooth, and show the grain beautifully outlined in black where the mahogany stain set in. It looks a little like a farm table in that regard but with formal turned legs. I got this beauty at a sale for half its original price, making it doubly delicious.

There wasn't any way that I was going to purchase furniture showroom chairs of brown or black leather. I wanted something to contrast the slightly rustic, formal feel so that each element would stand out.

It's been three summers, and today I found them (thanks to a random blog find: Silk Felt Soil). Phoebe from that site posted these earlier this month from a fantastic design website entitled StudioIsle. The shots above are from a restaurant in London called Cecconi's. StudioIsle revamped the restaurant and how. The only problem is that these chairs are not for sale that I can see. Perhaps the designer custom made them for Cecconi's. If you know the name of the style these chairs are designed in or have seen anything similar out there I would greatly appreciate your pointers.

pretty things

Thank you to blog friend Maryam at My Marrakesh for adding me to your blog list! Good lady that you are . . .

So, a young gentleman named Joseph is helping me come up with a new blog header to freshen up the place. I told him that I wanted hues of orange sherbet, persimmon, and buttercream. Sounds yummy. Then I thought some more on it. It need not be too modern. I like bold graphic designs, but then, it must also convey a sense of handmade. I like designs that are layered on top of one another to create dimension, and then, I like those that are simple line drawings with a touch of whimsical yellow, like on Happy Cavalier. Oh man do I love that blog header.

I send Joseph images every week or so, a hodgepodge of others' blog heads, photographs, posters, and wallpaper snippets. And that has me thinking about wallpaper. My thoughts on it have changed from yuck to wowza like most of us who have an eye for the pretty. But even if I see the most delicate and beckoning image of a ginkgo leaf, let's say, if it is repeated exactly the same like a grid, I don't want it in my house. I would go crazy in a house of grids. It conveys a uniformity that doesn't ring true to my insides, the wandering nature of my thoughts and desires. Now here are some papers up my alley:

Oh beauty!

I detect a theme after this exercise. It has to do with night. Only one bright, sunny one in the bunch. Okay, from left to right and so forth:

Takes me into a fairy story. Midnight Butterfly. Johanna Basford Designs

Looove it! Amour Plantarum. WerningWallpaper manufactured by Boråstapeter.

You could melt into the bindweed. Bindweed 108. Ferm Wallpaper

The brightest thing I've ever seen. Leaf Turquoise/Gold. Jocelyn Warner

The green is almost neon. That does it for me. Victoria and Albert Museum. Hand printed flocked wallpaper with leather decoupage. Linda Florence