Interior Design Sense

Thinking about the future makes you wonder about what we have not seen at this point in our lives. Take for example futuristic home furnishings like the Fusion Table by Sony. Here a computer has been grafted into a coffee table creating a high-tech piece of furniture that is eye-catching and dual purpose. Fusion is set to retail for around $3,000. It will be interesting to see how well it is received. Via – Bornrich.

Post from Futuristic Home Furnishings by Sony

The Folding Dining Table from Italian company Porada is a really interesting piece of furniture. This piece of furniture can be used as a mirror and ganged on the wall when folded, and it can also be used as a neat folding table especially when your dining space is limited. Don’t know how many of you would have the time to fold and unfold this “mirror table” but I thought that is a really cool idea. – Via – Bornrich

This Furniture Friday is dedicated to a very controversial piece of furniture…the skirted table!  It has even inspired a blog/radio show.  I like mine stream-lined with a graphic punch or done-up with dress-maker detailing! 

{Julie Neill}

{Above two photos, Palmer Weiss}

{photo from here}

{Beach Dwelling via Patricia Gray}

Pam Pierce via Cote de Texas

Ballard Party Table

Linen Table Skirts from Wisteria

I think the above three tables are the best options from the big stores.  There are also a few great tutorials on how to make your own out there in blog land… try here, here, or here.  If anyone decides to brave trying to make one yourself, please email me photos!

Last month we presented the SWING CHAIR by Angelo Tomaiuolo, and today here is the Wave Coffee Table ..the perfect piece of furniture to match that chair, a cool and delicate small table thought for modern house living areas. Designed by the same designer Wave is a sensorial coffee table, inspired by the fine lightness of textile works and made for modern house living areas. Its aluminium sheet base, realizable by plasma cutting technology and lacquered in different colours, is suggested by the grace of lace texture works. The counter top is made of clear or translucent tempered glass.

This sleek piece of furniture is the MC1 Recliner designed by Olaf Kitzig. It is built for indoor or outdoor use being constructed of acrylic. The shape itself combines elements of a lounge chair and recliner into a single design. Find the product: here.

Post from Sleek MC1 Recliner by Olaf Kitzig

If you’d like to send us photos to include in next week’s “pets on furniture” post, please ensure your photos follow our basic rules: First, the pet must be on a piece of furniture. And said piece of furniture must be clearly visible in the photo, so it takes center stage rather than your pet. (Think of it more of a photo of a great piece of furniture…and your pet happens to be sitting on it). And second, the photo must be of decent quality. If it’s REALLY dark or fuzzy (from a camera phone) then it may not make the cut. Thanks! (Photos can be sent to desiretoinspirekim@hotmail.com and PLEASE don’t send me closeups of your pet!!!)

***Note: I am out on holidays next weekend for 10 days so there will be no pet posts for the next 2 Mondays, but please keep sending in entries for the Monday after I get back!

“This is ‘Otto’, my french bulldog seating in a Eames Lounge Chair.“
- Juan

“Here are two photos of our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Finnegan, on a French arm chair in our dining room. (I thought it was appropriate to have our pup– whose breed is infamous for its French nobility origins– on a French chair).“
- Jessica

“Big guy on a bench in Santa Fe.“
- Shannon

“Love your ‘Pet’s on Furniture’ special and thought I would contribute two pictures of our cat Heidi doing her favorite thing – napping.=^..^=“
- Doreen

“My name is Ana Hester and I am enclosing a picture of the cat Daragh, surveying the landscape from her perch upon the antique bookcase.“
- Ana

“This is our Cheach, a dilute tortie. It’s rather ridiculous how comfortable she can make herself.“
- Ian

“I wanted to submit pictures of my family’s two dogs. The first is our Chaweenie (dachshund-chihuahua) Peanut. He is tiny but he finds a way to take up the entire couch and use all of the pillows! The next is our Vizsla,Ginger, looking out the window from “her” chair at the kitchen table.“
- Lauren

“My cat Josie…. clearly, she is the queen of the house.“
- Matt

“here are two shots of my boxer, Stella on our furniture…it is a hard life for stella“
- Stephanie

“While this isn’t a fabulous picture of either Gordo or the couch (which my very dear friend and design guru calls the “world’s most expensive dog bed”), I like the shot because the Gord has gone totally cammo in the granny blanket and throw. She’s like: What dog, where? There’s no dog here. Nothing to look at Pets on Furniture Monday Web Site, you, move along. Go look somewhere else for some Puppy on a Pappasan, there’s no one here…“
- Priscilla

If you’d like to send us photos to include in next week’s “pets on furniture” post, please ensure your photos follow our basic rules: First, the pet must be on a piece of furniture. And said piece of furniture must be clearly visible in the photo, so it takes center stage rather than your pet. (Think of it more of a photo of a great piece of furniture…and your pet happens to be sitting on it). And second, the photo must be of decent quality. If it’s REALLY dark or fuzzy (from a camera phone) then it may not make the cut. Thanks! (Photos can be sent to desiretoinspirekim@hotmail.com and PLEASE don’t send me closeups of your pet!!!)

***Note: I am out on holidays next weekend for 10 days so there will be no pet posts for the next 2 Mondays, but please keep sending in entries for the Monday after I get back!

“Meet Zidane. He’s a 4 year old Boston Terrier and the love of our lives. Sure he snores and farts. But we adore him anyway. Technically Zidane isn’t even supposed to be sitting on our white sofa. But I guess he thought if he sat super still no one would notice he was there. Even though Zidane is the star of this picture, the real talent is davina + daniel, two of the best people and photographers i know.“
- Kate

“Thanks for the invitation. Here is my version.“
- Mona

“attached is a picture of my dog Caramel. she loooves the couch.”
- Mariel

“Beans can often be found on my Plycraft lounge. He really loves modern furniture. And blankets. Mostly he loves blankets.“
- Jaime, Dog Milk

“This is a picture of my ever-growing Isabel. She can’t seem to lay on anything without being upside down. Perhaps the world looks better that way to a cat…“
- Amanda

“My dog Mazie was so excited to be a part of pets on furniture in January that I wanted to send along a picture of my orange cat Gig’em so that he could get in on the fun! Here he is peeking out from his favorite spot behind my Marimekko shams on my ikea Malm bed.”
- Christie

“This is Kitty and his young brother Oliver hanging out in a Bertoia chair. Photo snapped from cellphone, so I apologize if not the best quality.”
- Tiffany
“This is our Spinone Italiano, Al Fresco. Call him Al. In fact, you can call him just about anything you want, but he will pointedly ignore you when he’s on his favorite crewel wingback chair. He ’sneaks’ – as only a 65 lb dog can – up on it, does his customary turn around, and settles in firmly. All because he thinks I am not home to chase him off. Winter finds his sleep a bit deeper, so we can pretty much go nose-to-nose with him and he barely makes eye contact.“
- Margaret

“Here is Captain Jack Sparrow, know to his friends as Jack, and his motley crew of cats, Al, Socks and What’s It, after a hard day of plundering, they take a well earned nap…….on yet another forbidden conquest.“
- Jan

“If you met puggles Seymour + Mona, you would at times confuse them for little people. (Or at least they would like for you to think so.) We mostly think they are little dweebs with big hearts. If they are not in bed cuddled up napping, they are on their favorite chair, sunbathing or sitting at the table waiting for first course. Sometimes Mona gets a little confused, jumps on the table and lays in the middle, like she is the main course. Seymour loves to watch people cook or sit in front of the oven cooking mom’s cookies. He won’t budget if highly anticipates a fresh batch. Good luck trying to break that concentration.“
- Nicole

“I wanted to share a quick snap of my little girl, Maxine, after a brisk walk in Central Park.”
- Jill

I’m so thrilled to post the second installment of “Readers’ Design Dilemmas- Solved!”

Elaine Griffin continues to answer our readers’ most pressing design questions from our Design Rules book giveaway.

Enjoy all her fantastic advice!

Wondering how to know where to hang mirrors in living spaces?

- Beth

What are your thoughts on hanging a mirror over a mantle, where is it too high for someone to actually see any reflection in it? Should it be treated as art and just admired for its innate beauty, or is the whole point of a mirror to see a reflection?

-Sarah

Mirrors are in the Top 5 – no, make that the Hall of Fame! – of decorators’ sleight-of-hand tricks.  They reflect the light (so locating one strategically near/opposite/catty-corner to a window[s] is always a do) and seem to visually increase the room size, too.  And they’re also just plain cute, to boot.  What’s not to like!!!

Think of framed mirrors by size and also shape.  The statement-sized mirror (2 – 3 feet wide and up) is perfect above a significantly-sized item (sofa, dining room sideboard, etc.) or prime piece of interior real estate (above a mantle (no matter how high – you don’t need to actually see the reflection), at the end of a hall, in the foyer).

Round mirrors and sunburst mirrors can have either convex or flat surfaces; larger ones are great alone, and smaller ones in multiples of three or more (odd numbers always look best in multiples, dahling – an old merchandiser’s trick!).

Mirrors should be proportionately sized to the piece of furniture that sits below them – filling at least two-thirds of the space, as a rule (unless you’re combining a smaller mirror with other framed art, in which case it becomes just another piece of art in the vignette).

Horizontally-oriented mirrors rarely look great above mantles, BTW, because those spaces typically are vertically-shaped rectangles (although circles work well there, too).

Pier mirrors were traditionally stationed between windows in Georgian homes to increase the light.  Another decorator trick, which works with any style interior, is to mirror the upper three sides of the recess of deeply-recessed windows – it triples your light.

I’m wild about the modern, oversized floor mirrors that Room & Board and Crate & Barrel have perfected!  They’re great across from dining tables, in particular, and also across from windows.

What are the rules for mixing patterns?  I always have trouble with this!

-Julie

Julie, if you think of mixing patterns in a room the same way you’d mix them in an outfit, it all becomes easier!  The loudest pattern dominates (let’s say a big floral print, for example – and we’ll put it on the curtains).  Adding a stripe is next somewhere (sofa? rug? chair?), but you should add only one – if you put it on the sofa, have a tone-on-tone texture (that means a solid color but with a texture woven into the fabric, or a two-tone motif  woven into the fabric, like a damask) on a couple of armchairs adjacent to the sofa.  You can add a fabric with a subtle motif as a contrast somewhere (like on little chairs or dining chairs) in there too – a check would be darlin’ (as we say in Dixie!), or something similar and subtle.

The rule for mixing patterns:  one stripe, one floral, one plaid, one check in one room . . . but only ONE of these can dominate.  After that, you can have ONE that’s second-in-command (visually speaking! LOL) after the Power Pattern.  Everything else is discreetly complimentary to the first two.

Handcrafted in India, this Pink Pearl Inlay Chest of Drawers took many weeks to build and implied the work of a team of people to build. It is an interesting piece of furniture if you are interested in handmade designs or if you are planning on integrating it into a simple environment with few other flashy colors around. It goes well with black and white or other shades of pink, preferably ones that mellow. The pattern is complex and features leaves and flowers. It has a total of four drawers, which is more than enough storage space for an item of this kind. Mother of pearl pieces were embedded individually into the wooden frame and each drawer can be pulled by a bone. The costs? – £1695.00, available here. So? Do you love it or hate it?

If you’d like to send us photos to include in next week’s “pets on furniture” post, please ensure your photos follow our basic rules: First, the pet must be on a piece of furniture. And said piece of furniture must be clearly visible in the photo, so it takes center stage rather than your pet. (Think of it more of a photo of a great piece of furniture…and your pet happens to be sitting on it). And second, the photo must be of decent quality. If it’s REALLY dark or fuzzy (from a camera phone) then it may not make the cut. Thanks! (Photos can be sent to desiretoinspirekim@hotmail.com and PLEASE don’t send me closeups of your pet!!!)

“Here’s a picture of my bulldog magoo.“
- Andrew

 ”This is my Birman, Charlie-Anne. I was actually trying to take a ‘before’ picture of this sewing bench, since I was about to reupholster and refinish it. But Charlie just assumed I had my camera out to snap some glamour shots of her, so she hopped up on the bench and struck a pose.“
- Cathy

 ”This is my dog Venus, a 4-year old black lab. Her face is too cute to tell her to get off the furniture. This white couch is “her” couch. ( : “
- Rachel

 ”A friend of mine sent me your site, and I have the great photo of my 120 lb. Weimaraner, Murphy, curled up on my grandmother’s chair. I couldn’t resist. It’s my favorite chair and his, which means we have it out sometimes to decide who gets it. He usually wins. Most mornings, he’ll sit on it (like a normal person, of course) and look out the window at all the commotion on the street. If he’s not on the chair, he’s either laying by our little space heater or trying to sit on someone’s lap. Yes. He also thinks he’s a lapdog. But that just makes us all love him even more!“
- Sarah Brown

“These are my two dogs, Ringo ( rat terrier) and Bonnie ( Pembroke Corgi). There are two chairs. They belonged to my husband’s grandmother and I love the fabric.“
- Jessica

“Here are some pictures of my Pomeranians taking a nap in our livingroom…“
- Marcela

“I thought I’d send a couple pictures of our dogs on the couches (even though they technically aren’t allowed on the furniture!) for your pets on furniture posts. The first is of our dear Oliver. One night I couldn’t find him and after searching everywhere I found him fast asleep on the couch in the living room. (In the dark he looked like another pillow). The second is of both our dogs, Oliver and Roxy, enjoying the late morning sun. You can even see our bearded dragon, Aladar, in this photo!“
- Nicole

“Here is a picture of my Maltese X, Oscar, in his favourite spot. Hope you can include it in your post. The throw rug on the couch is a necessity, as cream couches and dogs aren’t a great mix! And here’s my cat, George, on the same couch. Apologies – it’s a bit too close and doesn’t show as much of the couch, but I love the way he’s tried to tuck himself under the throw!“
- Melinda

“Here are a couple shots of my cat, Ivey. I recently rescued her from a barn (a coyote had eaten some of her companions!), and prior to about three months ago, she had never spent a day indoors. As you can see, she’s adjusting just fine! The first shot showcases her larger-than-life ears, although the rest of her is getting larger, too, thanks to the amount of time she spends lounging on “her” bed. In the second shot, she shows off her inventive way of sitting on the couch. Not exactly demure, is she?“
- Sara

“I am sending you a photo of my very photogenic and value neutral cat Keats who I am sure would love to do a proper sit-down pose in his favorite IKEA Tullsta chair, if he could bring himself to actually stop and sit down for one second! Alas, there is too much exploring that needs to be done, and he rushes on…“
- Yelena

“One of the great mysteries of cats: Why do they lay on hard surfaces when there are so many cozier spots in the house? Here’s Sadie on our farm table. I like the second shot better, but she has the glowing eyes in that one.“
- Leanne

“During our recent spate of massive snowstorms, my cats Coco and Tommy kept warm by cuddling on the couch.  And yes, the reason for that imperfectly-fitting slipcover is because of how much they scratched the original couch!  Oh the sacrifices we make for these animals…“
- Katie

“Attached is a photo of my cat, named Mouse. She’s a former stray who I adopted last April when she was just a fur, bones and a skinny gray tail. Since she’s not allowed at my table, Mouse has figured out she can both watch me eat and beg silently by sitting patiently at my desk. Her tactic seems to work – maybe because her eyes match my dad’s old childhood desk so perfectly.”
- Julia