Things We Love: Food

How could I round out a series on what we love without including a passion for food?  Food is more than the spice in life; it can be some inspiration to enhance your living space. 

Italian and French cuisines are two popular décor themes for kitchens.  You can easily find a slew of wall art pieces, figurines, and dishes that showcase European flair where you cook and eat.  If you want to take it a step further, Italian style kitchens can be accented with stonework countertops or backsplashes, cooper cookware, and an oversized stove vent that is a focal point of the room.  French style kitchens often feature wood beam ceilings, off white cabinetry, and plates, molds, and platters hung directly on the walls.        

For smaller scale décor items, attractive wine bottles, copperware, displayed platters, and grapevines can create little vignettes on top of upper cabinets.  Footed cake stands and serving bowls can hold fresh fruit like apples, oranges, and citrus on a countertop or kitchen island.  Fresh herbs like basil, thyme, rosemary, and mint in small pots can be grouped together in a kitchen windowsill for live plants you can use in your cooking.  Oversized, decorative flatware, pizza peels, and dishes can be featured as wall hangings.  Foodies can frame the covers of food related magazines and hang them as a collection.  Even nice knife blocks, storage canisters, and upscale spices on display add to the look of your cooking space.

Sometimes setting the table with restaurant practices in mind can be a sweet addition to a good meal.  Cloth napkins do not have to be reserved for a holiday.  Use a saucer for dipping oil and some dried minced garlic to go with your bread.  Pass the salad bowl around instead leaving it in the kitchen.  Light a candle or two in the center of the table.  Buy a couple of tall, pretty glass bottles, fill with filtered water, and keep them in the refrigerator to be able to serve cold water at the table during mealtime. 

Secretly or not, most people love food.  So why not let that be shown in our kitchens and around our tables?  We can dress up more than our plates with inspiration from the foods we crave as we really lay out a mouthwatering spread.           

 

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star February 24th.

 

 

   

Things We Love: Travel

Pack a bag, get away, and bring back more than a souvenir.  That is what we can do when we really take in the scenery, the culture, the atmosphere when we travel.  Traveling can have a huge impact on design, whether that be what we fill our homes with, how we dress, and what we serve up around the kitchen table.  

Where we travel often says a lot about what appeals to us already.  Avid beach goers, for example, who enjoy the sand and surf, could easily be drawn to the use of light blues and khaki shades, white woods, and shells and grasses in their décor scheme.  So whether you rack up airline points, are a road trip veteran, or simply enjoy other locations vicariously, tune into what appeals to you and see if any of those elements could find a home in your home.

Metropolitan ventures could leave you wanting sharp lines, leather finishes, nailhead detailing, and the use of metals.  A coastal cottage retreat might inspire some natural jute rugs, indoor/outdoor accent pillows, Adirondack chairs, and white wainscoting on the lower portion of the bathroom or dining room walls.  An escape to the Far East could be filled with bold colors in jewel tones, elaborate fabric prints, ceramic figurines, and the use of lattice in lanterns or room dividers.  A European excursion might bring back a desire to create an alfresco dining space, display a museum-quality piece of local art, or make some countertop upgrades in your kitchen.  Some time away to relax in a spa setting may leave you wanting to deck out your own bathroom with plush, white towels, dimmable lighting, teak accent pieces, and pretty serving trays for soaps, a rock display, or rolled guest towels. 

In addition, really going somewhere could bring home photos aplenty that could be framed as a collection or turned into wrapped canvases for display.  When you love the look of an area, remember to take photos that do not feature people.  Use scenery and cityscape photos as art.  Take a stack of souvenirs, like brochures, coins, ticket stubs, maps, or trinkets, and arrange them in a shadowbox to hang on the wall, stand in a shelving system, or lay on a coffee table. 

Use a love of travel and destinations to inspire some elements of design and décor in your space.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a world traveler or a travel magazine enthusiast, you can still bring home a little piece of the world at large with some larger than life designs.       

 

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star February 17th.     

 

      

 

Things We Love: the Movies

Ah, the movies.  Just a touch of old Hollywood glam or a moving love story, and women swoon.  Or if you’re like me, you feel inspired, too.  Just looking at a Nancy Meyers movie set design makes me want to shop.  And decorate.  The movies can be a prime place to get inspiration that can in turn impact the look of our home.  So pass the popcorn, and pay attention to what you would deem motivating that could add a little flourish to your space.

Set designers, with all the resources at their fingertips, can create warm, beautiful scenes of inviting living rooms, posh master bedrooms, and vacation spots you would want to frequent.  We can’t necessarily match their finished product – or their budget – but we can pull elements from what turns our heads and apply that at home.  The next time you sit in a theater or have a pajama Saturday with a string of your favorite DVDs, get inspired for some redesign or revamping.

What draws your attention in a movie scene set in a home, restaurant, business, or other location?  It could be paint on the walls, a style of cabinetry, a stand-out piece of furniture, eye-catching fabrics, lighting, fixtures, wall hangings, rugs, or a general décor theme.  Now there’s a difference between loving it and loving the idea of it in your own home.  If you feel inspired by something you see on the big screen that you could picture in your space, figure out a way to incorporate a similar element.  That may mean picking up a paint brush or recovering some cushions.  Or it could mean splurging on a planned purchase or just keeping a theme in mind when out shopping for knick knacks. 

Movies can transport us for a couple of hours.  But there is also something a little magical about how a really good movie can impact us.  And I love that we have the opportunity to peer into someone else’s world in a movie and bring a little something back.  And for me, that played out yesterday in my own love story as I went from Miss to Mrs.  That’s right: the design I have in mind now is joyfully wrapped around all the ways in which a newlywed can make his house their home. 

 

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star February 10th.

 

 

 

 

                

Things We Love: Personalization

In honor of the upcoming celebration of love, Valentine’s Day, we’ll devote February to acknowledging those things we love most that influence the look and feel of our home and our sense of design.  This week, let’s give a nod to what makes us unique – the ways in which we personalize. 

The possibilities are limitless when we consider all the ways we can add our own touches to our homes.  Some pull ideas from television, magazines, and online, and some just have that creative flair to institute their own concepts in décor.  Whatever the motivation, personalization is expression.  It reveals something about you in what you put out there, so let YOU shine through.  Use a color palette that reflects your favorite shades in anything from wall colors to fabrics to dishes.  Put your own stamp on things by incorporating your monogram or initials on decorative pillows or shams, or bath towels or welcome mats, and have a custom address stamper made for a consistent return address on outgoing mail.  Play up your curb appeal with larger, modern house numbers installed on a stand-out color door to set you apart from the neighbors.   

Change some lighting options in your home by adding in more lamps for warm light or turning current fixtures into lights that dim.  Lighting expresses mood in a room, and having options never hurts.  Show off your hostess skills by decking out your guest bathroom and bedroom with more amenities than non-hotel guests expect, like dressy shower gel, black washcloths for eye makeup removal, allergy sensitive pillows, and a soothing sound machine.      

If you have an artist side, devote wall space to your own artwork or photography.  If cooking is a passion, be known for setting a beautiful table with scrumptious dishes for a regular weeknight and not just a special occasion.  If you are an avid reader, display your hardback collection proudly by using stacks of books throughout your home in decorative settings instead of filling one stuffy bookcase. 

You know what makes you stand apart from the rest.  Now revamp the ways you can let that show in how you decorate, organize, and run your day-to-day home.  Celebrate your many options for personalizing and loving the space you live in.  

 

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star February 3rd.