delight in the details

i enjoy the nitty-gritty as much as the big picture, but sometimes {just sometimes} the details can get me really pre-occupied. i'm knee-deep in tons of detailing for a residential remodel and i may not come up for air until the end of the week.....so i'll give you some idea of the types of lovely details i'm steeped in for your viewing pleasure until i re-appear.

{photos from my wanderings around the internet saved for months in inspiration folders ~ if you recognize one let me know & i'll happily credit you}

warm & white in the kitchen

a misnomer floating out in the world is that clean, bright, white and contemporary automatically means cold and stark and uninviting. i often find myself convincing clients of the virtues and softness of white more often than trying to convince them to use color. these days anyone who receives pottery barn catalogs seems to feel very comfy with color {which is most of america 3 times a week}, so actually i find it's the lack there of that tends to scare people more. i can better understand that fear in bedrooms & living rooms where people really want to feel extra cozy & warm. but when it comes to kitchens i tend to err on the side of lighter & less-is-more. and, no that really doesn't mean sacrificing warmth or coziness. allow me to show you several examples of contemporary-leaning kitchens, each with a nice blending of white and warmth ~ and enjoy the fresh, clean, bright uplift they offer.

light up your life

{top lamp: the horizontal bands of three colors are rich and luxurious on the tall striped cylinder lamp. a great focus for any room, it has a retro feel but is just as comfortable in any contemporary environment.
lower lamp: the stork has delivered an illuminating dividend, the baby anne ~ a silk shade and a hand-spun aluminum base with a copper-fade finish make up only one combination among multiple finish choices. designed & sold at babette holand. }

{barbara barry has expanded her prolific licensing empire. her first design for this company, the lotus table lamp stands 33 inches high on a white plaster round base with a hard-backed silk shade. offered at visual comfort. }

{nature meets artifice with the splitlog faux-bois sconce. also available as a pendant, its semicylindrical diffuser is digitally printed using a cool new process that embeds the image within the surface of the acrylic material. choose from five different wood patterns: sepia bark, fence, knot, mossy bark, and woodgrain. designed & crafted by cp lighting.}

{light and carbon aren't just the building blocks of life, but of this hanging lamp, as well. thin sheets of carbon fiber {or, alternatively, white synthetic resin} slot together to create the elegantly scalloped multi-tier shade by karboxx. also offered in table and floor lamp versions. found on lapere inc. }

{inspired by a collaboration with wire sculptor rodger stevens, orrchadia is a delicate mobile of light offered by mmckenna. hung with insulated wire, its 16 miniature incandescents—each the size of a grain of rice—are suspended within ring-shape printed circuit boards ~ here three mobiles are shown}

{in a word: glamorous. the tresor suspension lamp by terzani is finished in silver or gold leaf and holds hundreds of scattering metal "coins" to form nine discs arranged like latitudinal slices of a globe. all reflect a worldly light from nine halogen bulbs or a single vertical fluorescent tube}

d&d argentina

loving interior design and dreaming of going to argentina just came together in one for me at this fabulous interior design e-zine from argentina: diseño y decoración

it's crammed full of fun information ~ even if it is all in spanish {the english version is kind of wonky}. there are extensive archives with articles on subjects as diverse as islamic art, feminine fashion and minimalism; interviews with argentine designers and architects; details of competitions, courses and exhibitions in argentina and internationally. plus there's a ton of photography eye-candy to entice even if you can't understand much of what they've written {or don't have an awesome translator like i do ~*j is my hero!}

it's well worth a visit evrey now & again to see what is going on in contemporary argentinian interior design.

a.i.s. {all inclusive sink}

i've been looking for something like this in a bathtub for a client, but i'm pretty impressed with the sink i found instead. it's sold by moab 80, an italian plumbing fixtures design & manufacturing power house. this is a sink without a faucet. that's right ~ no faucet. instead it has water flow channels molded directly into the sink. i really like the sleekness of this, but i wish they had put the control cube at the back or on the side panel instead ~ making it less conspicuous. the standard version comes in white corian but you can custom order it in any corian color.

instant decorating

i like rachel ray's relaxed, fresh, accessible style of cooking and communicating so it's no surprise her ideas for instant decorating are just that!

for my sangha

"rejoicing in ordinary things takes guts. each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us we enter the sacred warrior's world....

gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. one inspires us, the other softens us....

a further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us....

the truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new....

now is the only time; how we relate to it creates the future. in other words, if we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. what we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now."

~ pema chodron

{photo by rosakranse}

jefferson's contributions

in 1962, president john f. kennedy hosted a white house dinner for 49 nobel prize recipients at which he famously said, "i think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the white house ~ with the possible exception of when thomas jefferson dined alone."
born on april 13 in 1743 and died on july 4 in 1808, thomas jefferson helped shape the new american nation and also shaped some of the country's most distinguished buildings.
jefferson thought classical architecture was the perfect model for democratic architecture and the american republic. it was jefferson's idea to model america's famous capitol building after the roman pantheon with a circular domed rotunda.

jefferson modeled his own home, monticello, after villa capra rotunda by the italian renaissance architect, palladio.

his design for the virginia statehouse was based on a roman temple in nîmes, a building he was thrilled to see when he was our ambassador to france.

his design for the university of virginia was based on classical pavilions which used different classical orders as models for the students at virginia.
jefferson thought that classicism promoted virtue. hopefully virtue will soon be restored to the white house with the changes in november. but for today i'll just focus on being grateful for the contributions of thomas jefferson to so many aspects of our nation's development.

information and photos from:

http://en.structurae.de/index.cfm
http://www.greatbuildings.com/
http://www.monticello.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page