A Look at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show

New York again hosted the annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show last weekend in March 20-23^rd.  Designers exhibited furniture of exquisite craftsmanship and truly unique work. 

A River Runs Through It

Shown above is Greg Klassen’s River console.  Each of his furniture is a piece of artwork and no two are alike.  Klassen hand picks woods from the Pacific Northwest with an exciting grain pattern and melds green-blue glass through it.

Origami Project

The GJ chair from Lange Productions of Denmark caught my eye.  Made of laminated wood, the chair reminds me of a wonderful origami work with its turns and folds.  More Lange furniture are available from Karkula.

The Geode Nightstand from Tucker Robbins also shows off an exciting dimensionality in its surface.  Each drawer has a slight pyramid front and is made of cerused oak.  This casepiece looks at home both in a city apartment as well as in a beach cottage.

Skyline

Reflecting an edgy and cosmopolitan look, the Kyan console combines the industrial trend with a more refined touch.  The Kyan draws its inspiration from the Beijing skyline - its name the Chinese word for skyline. The console is one of many exciting pieces at Brabbu Design Forces.

How to Design Small Spaces at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House

Writing Room by Stephen Mooney

Who says small can’t be beautiful and spectacular?  We have examples here of exquisitely designed small rooms in a New York City townhouse. As we all know, every large city has its share of challenging small spaces but interior designers know the secrets to transforming problems to winners.

The Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club hosted their annual decorator show house and invited top interior designers to revive a Federal-styled townhouse in NYC’s Upper East Side. The townhouse like many a home in New York had a few small, narrow rooms that were problematic to interior design.

In our first photo above, Palm Beach designer Stephen Mooney had to overcome the problem of a very narrow room.  By applying a sunny yellow color scheme and cream colored furniture, Mooney achieved a bright and cheerful space for the client to do some work in.  The designer also chose small-scaled furniture: a small desk and chairs, narrow console table, as well as small light fixtures, accomplishing a beautiful and highly functional space.

Home Office by Barbara Ostrom

Designer Barbara Ostrom also had to deal with a tight space – an alcove of about 6 feet wide by 6 feet long.  She created a home office, complete with built-in bookcase.  Ostrom also applied a light color scheme – all white with a pale yellow sisal carpet by Stark – to keep the room bright and airy.  She then installed architectural woodworking and an archway above the desk, giving the room distinction and an elegant focal point. The desk is from Dakota Jackson and the Reagan Hayes desk chair is upholstered in a leopard print Scalamandre silk.

Sitting Room by Felicia Zwebner

Almost an afterthought is this very narrow room designed by Felicia Zwebner.  Most people would probably just use this room as storage space but Zwebner imagined a luxurious and intimate sitting room – great for quiet reading or creative thinking!  To create this jewel-like space, she chose a golden wall covering from Stark and an ochre marble from Artistic Tile. The monochromatic color scheme helps create an illusion of a larger space. She also added a round mirror from Vaughan to provide reflection and depth to the room. 

Interested in learning more about interior design?  Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design.  At Sheffield, you will learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Spring Decorating is a Breeze

Bright colors are popping out all over the place – in fashion, in jewelry, and in home décor.  I’m sure you’ve already been blinded when you walked into a store and saw all that orange and lemon yellows glaring at you.  Fashion is one thing, but living in it at home day in, day out is another.  By choosing just the right amount of pops of color and mixing it with neutrals, you’re going to achieve a refreshing spring like home without all the blinding headache.

In our first interior above, we’re highlighting the color of the year, emerald, with the Murphy mid-century style sofa from Room and Board.  Our pops of color appear in deep reds, salmon pinks, and sunny yellows.  Essentially this room has a complementary red-green color scheme but reinterpreted into today’s color vibe so it doesn’t look like your grandmother’s living room. 

To successfully carry off the bright pops of color, we toned it down with a soft muted green upholstery and brown woods as in the mid-century coffee table by Pierre Jeanneret.  The Glass Pebble table lamp from Palacek shimmers in blue-green hues.  The three-drawer Ermitage chest is from Grange and the baroque Barcelona mirror is from Joss & Main. 

We brought in touches of spring with yellow oncidium orchids and a beautiful 18^th century porcelain vase from Bardith Antiques. 

The second room above is awash in a citrus color scheme of soft yellows, sage greens, and chartreuse. The design features two current trends – the artisan look and the botanicals passion.  The Evie two-drawer chest from Joss & Main shows off the artisan touch – the chest was stripped down and hand-painted with tree branches and birds.  The Safavieh rug and the Simon pillow also reflect botanical prints.

Another popular trend is the craze for Chinoiserie.  We introduced Asian influences with a Chinese cloisonné dragon bronze urn from Avalon antiques.  Rounding out the room is the chartreuse Mimi chair from Christopher Kennedy and a fun cable pouf from Overstock.

With just a few touches, you can refresh any room with the colors of spring and sprinkle it with the latest trends.  Try it!

Interested in learning more about decor? Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design. At Sheffield, you'll learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Vertical Lift: Green Walls around the World

(Worth Avenue - Palm Beach, FL, courtesy GSky)As any city dweller can tell you: space is at a premium.  Green space – where plants can live – is even harder to find.  Developers prefer to utilize most if not all of their land for residential or commercial use. Of course there are the mandated city parks – but they are few and they could be located too far from you to enjoy on a regular basis.  Why not integrate green space right into the fabric of our lives – literally into the walls where we live or work?

This is exactly what Patrick Blanc, French botanist, has been accomplishing all over Paris with his vertical green walls.  Below is an example of his work at the Parisian store, BHV Homme.  The choice of plants and its artistic arrangement become part of the exterior design of the retail store. 

(BHV Homme Paris)Another beautifully designed green wall is on the Saks Fifth Avenue store located in the shopping area of Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Florida – see first photo above. GSky planted an abstract design using grass, jasmine, palmetto, philodendron, and axillaris, to name a few.  Below is the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia, another GSky project, with a wall of various plants running across the first level of the building. During winter time, the plant wall system contains temperature sensors that shut down the water supply when the weather hits the freezing mark. 

(Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, courtesy GSky)Besides providing a beautiful focal point, green walls have many practical benefits for both the owner and the inhabitants of the building.  Green walls save energy and keeps air conditioning costs down.  Reduced air conditioning usage will in turn reduce the emission of greenhouse gas – a plus for the environment. 

The plants also improve air quality by producing clean oxygen.  They also attract urban wildlife such as birds and butterflies and restore natural habitats that were destroyed by the construction of the buildings.  The green walls reduce city noise by providing sound insulation too. Finally, greenery can extend the life of the building and prevent cracks by protecting its façade from acid rain.

(Athenaeum Hotel, London)Green walls can also be edible. You can plant salad leaves, herbs, vegetables and fruit.  Green Living Technologies founder George Irwin worked with Urban Farming - an organization whose mission is to eliminate hunger - to create living green walls in Los Angeles that would feed the homeless. Volunteers were chosen to help install and maintain the living walls.  They have produced a diverse crop from tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach to strawberries and baby watermelons. 

Peter Blanc said it best:  “The plant wall has a real future for the well-being of people living in cities. The horizontal is finished — it’s for us. But the vertical is still free.”

Interested in learning more about green design?  Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design.  At Sheffield, you will learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories. 

Gold Coast Mansions: Coe Hall

(Reception room at Coe Hall)Deep in the famed Gold Coast lies a grand estate that even Jay Gatsby would feel at home in.  The estate is the 400+ acre Planting Fields in Oyster Bay, Long Island, with the mansion, Coe Hall, as its magnificent showpiece. 

Coe Hall was the home of Englishman, William R. Coe and his wife, Mai Rogers, whose combined fortunes arose from marine insurance and Standard Oil. Coe brought a little of his English homeland to America by building an Elizabethan stone country house amidst landscaped garden walks.    

Walker & Gillette designed the mansion of limestone, displaying beautiful carvings throughout. Inside, they built wooden beams interspersed with Romanesque arches over the Gallery and the hallways.

(Coe Hall, courtesy of Planting Fields)Below are two photos of the Gallery, looking at opposite ends. The painting of the English Lenthall family is by artist James Weesop from 1645. The tables and chairs are reproductions of early 17^th century furniture with the seating reupholstered in modern fabric. Behind the furniture is a coromandel screen with pearl inlay from China. The trophy heads of the stag and gazelle hanging on the walls were brought back by W.R. Coe from African hunting trips. 

(Gallery, courtesy of Coe Hall)

(Gallery at Coe Hall)

(Library at Coe Hall)The round Reception Room below exudes warmth and elegance.  The style of the room is the classical Louis XVI. The lyre back chairs are designed in the style of Sheraton. Covering the double length windows are Scalamandre draperies.

(Reception Room at Coe Hall)W.R. Coe's first wife, Mai Rogers, gave him three sons.  Below is a photo of what Mai Rogers' bedroom looked like in her day.  The centerpiece was a wall to wall hand-painted mural of a fantasy in nature.  Unfortunately the mural was destroyed in a later fire. In 2010, the mural was reproduced by artist Polly Wood-Holland. Presently, the bedroom stands empty but with the second photo you can see unobstructed the beautiful mural that graced the walls. 

(Mrs. Coe's bedroom - Present day)