Interior Design – Page 4

Cool Wallpaper For The Nursery

February 16, 2016/4 Comments/in Interior Design /by Mila

I am back from Costa Rica. It was a wonderful and relaxing trip. I will write more about it on another post, but, in the mid time, let’s talk about Interior Design.

I am planning to design my kids’ room this year. I want to do it for the #oneroomchallenge on Instagram, so I am starting to gather ideas and make decisions about what I want it to look like.

Here is one of the pictures I have chosen for inspiration:

So whimsical, isn’t? The perfect mix of modern and vintage and it is all in that wallpaper. It is dark, edgy, and magical. It is a beautiful statement for a child’s room, don’t you think? It is also risky because you need to be careful about how to decorate around it. I can think about a lot of pieces of furniture that won’t go with it, but, isn’t a wonderful touch for the room? The wallpaper is called Forest Noire from Nathalie Lété, and they sell it at Domestic in France. Here is a picture of the whole roll.

From this company and designer, I also love the wallpaper called Sour la mer. Here it is:

Very colorful and moody. The only issue is that it is a mural and I don’t see how I can seamlessly attach one roll next to the other. Do you see how the design in both ends (right and left) don’t match?

In any case, the world of wallpaper is full of amazing designs and it is difficult to choose just one. Here are some other options that I am considering. Do you like any of them and, if yes, which one is your favorite?

1. Underwater World – Hygge & West | 2. Mushroom Forest – Anthropologie | 3. Acquario – Cole & Sons

4. Varklockor – Josef Frank | 5. Party Animals – Anthropologie | 6. Serengeti – Hygge & West

7. Alice in Wonderland – Voysey | 8. Mr. Blow – Abnormal Anonymous | 9. Cosmic Dessert – Justina Blakeney

10. Eclipse – Aimée Wilder | 11. Aquatic – Potok | 12. Angelic Forest – Voysey

Choosing A New Ceiling Light Fixture

January 15, 2016/5 Comments/in Interior Design, trends /by Mila

I need to replace my light fixtures through out my house, specially the living room. I still have the ones that came with the house when we bought it and they are… how do I put it?… mmm… repulsive comes to mind.

I want a brass fixture, like everybody else in the world. A couple of years ago, I wanted to buy this one:

Park Studio LA

And I still love it, but, if you follow any design blog in the world, you have seen this fixture (or something similar) in a thousand of spaces. I understand is cute, but I don’t want to jump into this trend wagon too late in the game, like when I bought this Fiddle Fig tree.

Here are other light fixtures I am considering:

Sputnik Chandelier – Lucent Light Shop
Vertex Chandelier – Lucent Light Shop Urchin Chandelier – Dutton Brown The Napoleon Chandelier – Sazerac Stitches5 Orb Chandelier- Lucent Light Shop

This one is a vintage lamp that I think it would look good in my bathroom or hallway. The only problem is that I need to bring it here all the way from France:

Vintage light fixture –French IdyllCeiling Sputnik – Lucent Light ShopLoa Chandelier – Sazerac Stiches

Aurora Pendant – Cedar and Moss Modern Chandelier –Illuminate Vintage

For my living room, I would love to have the vertex chandelier or the urchin. The urchin is so nice, but more expensive. For my bathroom, I would like the vintage lamp because it has so much personality, it is different and vintage… nothing to lose here. For my hallway, I would love to have the ceiling sputnik lamp. Wishful thinking!

What is your opinion? Do you have any favorites from above or other shops?

Thanks for stopping by.

Grey Rooms

December 28, 2015/4 Comments/in Interior Design, Let's visit some homes /by Mila

On the topic of choosing colors to paint a room (or a house), I declare myself to have low education AND no intuition. We painted our home exterior last week and choosing the color was an intense process that showed my ignorance about colors at every turn. I knew I wanted grey, but who could imagine there are thousands of grey colors? OK, I knew there are thousands of grey colors, but I didn’t know that the look of a house, or a room, can completely change from using one grey or another that are seemingly identical.

I wonder if interior designers have endless discussions about color. They probably do. There must be whole classes devoted to choosing a color in interior design school, and, if there are not, they should be.

The biggest difficulty in choosing a grey was that it was hard to imagine how the end result would look like. Even after we painted patches as sample of the different colors on the wall, we found out that the color can completely change depending on the time of the day you are looking at it (obviously), and how big the area you are painting is.

As an example of what I am explaining, I found in the Internet a lot of grey rooms to share. You will be able to see that a slight change in grey can make a huge difference in the mood of a room. Also, you can see how some grey colors can be bluish, pinkish, reddish, etc. It was strange to see that, when choosing a grey, sometimes my husband would clearly see blue where I saw bluish grey.

So, here are some pictures that will get you inspired and will prepare you for the difficult task you will have ahead in case you are planning to paint your house. Thoughts?

Huffington Post / My Unfinished Home Fashion LandscapeKeltainen Talo Ranalla / The Designer Post Lovely LifeSmart Furniture – Smile And Wave Mark & Spencer Home Furniture – Pinterest For Me, For You Design Sponge – SF Girl By BayMy Domaine Living Illusion – A House In The HillsBrit + Co The Visual Lamp – Solid FrogDeco Peques Indulgy – Mozaico Pinterest Homedit – Ideas To StealGreige DesignVtwonen

Let Us Be Inspired By Spanish Interior Design

December 11, 2015/6 Comments/in Interior Design, Let's visit some homes /by Mila

Spain has great designers that we don’t get to see in the US. In my opinion, the Spanish interior design scene is one of the best scenes in the world. For example, the Architectural Digest from Spain is full of innovating, risky, colorful and edgy homes. I love it and have a subscription to it (the website is not as good as the paper magazine). Even if you don’t understand Spanish, images speak more than words in the design world and inspiration is everywhere.

The last time I was looking into Spanish blogs, I found Casa Decor and designer Beatriz Silveira. She owns the design studio Batik Interiores in Madrid. Her designs are elegant, colorful, and full of vintage finds. My favorite kind of interior design. Please, take a look at the pictures below and put attention to the details: aqua verde chairs in the dining room, accentuated by the colorful chairs at the ends of the table; brass lamps; vintage furniture; gold wall decorations; unique plant vases; and velvet, so much velvet. Beatriz has a great attention to detail and mixes old and new pieces perfectly. I love it all.

In the future, I will find other Spanish designers that are more edgy and controversial to share in this site, but, for now, I wanted to ease you into the beauty of designers that are far away and can be a wonderful source of inspiration. Let me know what do you think.

A New Perspective On Your Gallery Wall

November 23, 2015/10 Comments/in DIY, Interior Design /by Mila

There are plenty of instructions on how to create a gallery wall on the web. Usually, these instructions involve a lot of buying, measuring, and planning. My problem is that, sometimes, I can’t plan or measure everything in advance when it comes to decorating. Most of the time, I don’t even have all the art I am going to use at the beginning of a project. I like to collect my pieces slowly by going to thrift stores, estate sales, and flea markets, and that can take months!

This is what happened in my bathroom. I knew I wanted a gallery wall that would cover all the wall, from top to bottom. I knew I wanted an eclectic collection, and I knew it was going to take me months to find the right pieces, so, when we moved into our house a couple of years ago, I had to start the gallery with 7 pictures that I brought from my previous home. That was it. So I assembled them the best I could in the middle of the wall and moved on from there.

Most of the advice on the Internet also tells you to keep a general motif and keep frames kind of similar. Well, that advice doesn’t always work. I feel it is OK to be creative and take risks, depending on the look you want to go for. I knew I didn’t want to have a clean look in my bathroom. I wanted and eclectic and vintage look.

After two years of mellow search around vintage shops in LA, this is the result: My last two pieces were the motel photo and the palm drawing on the top right. Once I scored those, the wall gallery (and my heart) felt complete. What do you think?

As you can see on the pictures, I have lots of frame types. I even have gold and silver frames on the same wall (this is when an interior designer has a heart attack on the spot). There are also spaces that are not filled with art, but, for some reason, it works (for me). It is unorganized and unusual. It doesn’t follow designer rules like these ones, but I do get a lot of comments on this gallery wall. People seem to like it. It cozies up this corner, don’t you think? Usually bathrooms are so boring, but this gallery wall spices things up. My favorite picture on the wall is the one of my grandparents, dad and uncle (on the left below). That green glass head was a flea market find at the Rose Bowl.

At times, it was tricky to find the right piece that would fit exactly into a certain space, but, for me, this unconventional way of creating a gallery wall worked. What about you? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.