2012: March 2011

High vs. Low

I am always impressed when I see a high-end designed room created for less. While, I think you can usually tell which is high-end, I'm amazed with the resources available on a low-budget and a person's creativity. Creating a room on a low budget without compromising style is a talent. Check out this room created on both a high and low budget....

No. 1

No. 2

In your opinion, which is the high-end room and why?

To see more high vs. low rooms, go here.

Spring is Here!

Okay, so it's not exactly warmed up yet, but the snow is off the roads. Which means biking is a lot more fun again. I actually like this time of year, because cool temps are more comfortable for riding. Though in Boston, the wind can really get stirred up in the spring time--today, riding up Commonwealth Avenue, up Beacon Hill, the wind was definitely not my friend. Nor are the potholes, which can get pretty serious after a long winter like we just had.

Oddly, the main challenge for me in biking isn't from winter, it's from spring gardening. I just can't effectively carry some of the more serious loads of compost, soil, or long poles/trellises with my bike.

I'm also looking at a farm business training class that starts next fall, up in Lowell. The good news is that I can get there by commuter rail, and I can ride my bike to the train station, and bring my bike on the train, so I can get to my destination at the end. But the trip is still going to eat up a lot more time (probably) than it would if I had a car. Luckily, it's not that long of a class, about six weeks, so I can swing it.

If, however, in the following year, I wanted to rent one of their incubator fields, to set up a mini-farm, I'm not sure if I could manage it. It might be possible to do it without a car, but it'll take some serious planning.

I've got to see if I can find any blogs about farmers who aren't Amish and who manage to do without a car, if that's even possible. I think the guy who writes the Tiny Farm blog didn't have a car for a while (but he has a tractor, or borrows one). Or I just need to find ways to keep farming close to home (like I have been, but land in Boston is very hard to scrounge).

Lauren Muse of Muse Interiors

This past weekend my one of my favorite Aunts visited from Texas. It's one of those relationships where you laugh 90% of time - she's a hoot and I love her. Anyway, I took her out to Woodbury, CT known for their beautiful antiques. While out there, I picked up a copy of this month's Connecticut Cottages & Gardens and saw a feature of a beautiful home done by Lauren Muse of Muse Interiors. I was impressed. UPDATE: Christine has brought it to my attention that this is Sue's home from the blog, The Zhush! To see more photos of her home, please go here.

Do you notice the painting above the fireplace? It's by New Orleans artist Amanda Stone Talley.

I love a bathtub right smack in front of a large picture window. I also like the Dash and Albert rug paired with the Mismosa pattern wallpaper by Cole & Son for Lee Jofa. Of course, how could you not notice the monogrammed towels from Leontine Linens.

I believe this is a different home - love the striped walls and the turquoise tufted ottoman that sits underneath the console.

Love this sunroom below- a mix of wicker, rattan and bamboo with vibrant patterns. To see more of Lauren's portfolio, go here.

I also would like to thank the very talented Jenny, from Little Green Notebook, for the kind shout-out today! I'm sure everyone in blogosphere has seen her blog, but if for some reason you haven't, you're missing out!! Go there now!

Mary McDonald on OKL

Did you get a chance to preview Mary McDonald's tastemaker tag sale on OKL this past weekend? Wow! I saved nearly every photo for inspiration. She is so insanely talented....

I'm dying to get her book, Mary McDonald Interiors: The Allure of Style! Here are some of her pieces on OKL that caught my eye!

While, I don't have $800 to spend on a console, this would be such a fun DIY project. I love how the stripes add so much whimsy to the console. If you'd put this in your entryway, you'd be making one dramatic entrance!

How fun would it be to add these identical raspberry lacquered gray flanneled wall chairs next to a console in an entryway! I am dying over those matching decorative pillows!!

This used to be in Mary's Kings Road guest house! I love the cast brass legs with ribbon detail. So unique.

Did you notice that this was her chair used in the domino picture of her office?

Boy, do I love these bamboo demilune tables - what a find!

And, I also had to throw in these painted bamboo chairs - how fun would these in a sunroom? Heck, I'd even use them in my living room!

Honestly, I could have added every piece of furniture she had for sale in this blog post - it is that good. It is no wonder that every item is sold out! Wouldn't you just love to go shopping with her?

Spring Fever

If you haven't heard of Party Resources, you're missing out. Kate has a wonderful blog which is all about entertaining and all the beautiful details that really make an event so special.

Today, you can find me over at Party Resources guest blogging!

Dialogues in Design (poster by Jessica Jenkins). Forthcoming presentation at the RCA (tomorrow, 8th March, 4.30 - 6pm).

I'm doing a 20 minute slot on airspace design.

Interior Design 101

Think grammar school. Pencils, check. Erasers, check. Graph paper, check. Tracing paper, check. Architectural scale, check. Glue stick, check. You get the picture! I finally bit the bullet and enrolled in an interior design class at a local college. I think this is the first time I have taken a class and really (and I mean really) just enjoyed it. It felt natural although intimidating because I have no experience, but that is why I am there, right?

The last 30 minutes of class, our instructor handed out her favorite design shelter magazines and told us to browse them and rip out anything that inspires us. I was like, for real? I mean this is what I do for ultimate pleasure and now I get to do in class!! Love it!!

The instructor, an established interior designer, shared a lot of 'sound' advice and many of her sources or as she calls them her "secrets". It was fun and I'm looking forward to going back next week.

For homework, we need to pick a room in our house that we want to re-do and the sky is the limit (in terms of budget). Do you know how foreign that is to me? I am so use to sourcing items that are budget friendly, I think I am going to get over-whelmed with all the beautiful and amazing furnishings out there.

All photos from At Home in Fairfield County

But, hey, I'm not complaining. This is going to be so fun!! I picked our dining room!! Woohoo...

Government Pipeline and Storage System (GPSS)

With all the panic about the vulnerability of North African and Middle Eastern pipelines and related infrastructure, I thought I would post some notes on the British Government Pipeline and Storage System (GPSS). According to the Oil and Pipelines Agency (OPA),

‘GPSS consists of some 2,500 kilometres of underground cross-country pipelines of differing diameters, together with storage depots, salt cavities, associated pumping stations, receipt and delivery facilities and other ancillary equipment […]. Most of the storage depots are connected to the pipeline ringmain, which in turn is supplied by the majority of the major refining centres and port areas in England. Other self-standing pipelines and depots are situated elsewhere in England and Scotland. The GPSS receives, stores, transports and delivers light oil petroleum products for military and civil users’.

However, according to Alan Turnbull (of secretbases.co.uk),

‘…the whole of the MoD's GPSS network is controlled from the Defence Fuels Group at West Moors near Wimborne, Dorset. It is a tri-service fuel storage, distribution and training centre, designated the Defence School of Petroleum and also known as the Defence Petroleum Centre’.

As an integral part of the infrastructure of national defence, GPSS has few visible or geographical manifestations. In this respect, it remains very much a part of the hidden military geography of the UK. Many large storage depots only began ‘appearing’ on Ordnance Survey maps within the last decade in response to a softening in the British government’s attitude to potentially sensitive geographic information. Recent aerial and satellite photographs reveal field-sized enclosures, sets of uniformly circular mounds and undulations suggesting buried tanks and sub-surface facilities. Some are quite pronounced such as the one at Killingholme, Humberside, within the Lindsey Oil Refinery complex, while others are small and barely discernable even from the air. Similarly, Padworth Common (which is adjacent to AWE Aldermaston), is studded with subtle undulations, tiny out-buildings and slip-roads that seemingly lead to nowhere. Like many military establishments they are accessed by prior invitation only. Rusty fences and padlocked gates usually prevent any unsolicited attention and some sites seem thoroughly neglected despite occasional visit from private security contractors. The existence of GPSS storage depots is not a secret but it is one of the most visually unobtrusive and least known aspects of military planning or infrastructure. The closure of a number of RAF and USAF airbases during the 1990’s means that some GPSS terminals, pumps stations and storage depots are actually not in use. These sleeping sites, while still owned by the MoD and maintained in some capacity by nebulous public and private sector organisations, hint at fluctuating levels of obsolescence in the British Defence Estate.

Much of the information about GPSS in the public domain relates to Health and Safety since the environmental cost of accidentally hitting a high-pressure aviation fuel pipe-line with a mechanical digger, for instance, would be enormous. For this reason the path of the pipe-lines are marked at various intervals by six-foot white posts crowned with slightly improbable yellow and black striped roofs (beautifully photographed by Patrick Keiller's in his recent film 'Robinson in Ruins'). These discreet markers pepper the edges of roads and byways like government issue bird houses or Beatlesque periscopes spying on passing surface dwellers. They barely hint at the complex infrastructural network beneath, stretching across the country and supplying major military bases with the fuel required to train aircrews and fly to war zones around the world. GPSS is the ‘hidden’ arterial system for the British defence capability, a buried network pumping fuel to sites around the country.

Vacay Awaits!

Over the past few weeks I have been on and off-again feeling blah. I'm still not completely over my illness and I am completely fed up with this cold weather. How is this for a happy and cheery post? So after a good deal of searching, we have finalized plans for a week vacation in Florida at a beachfront condo just north of West Palm Beach. I can't wait to get my body temperature above 90 F!

It's not until April, but now I've got something to look forward to - and I just now got to get back to feeling 100%. And, my apologies for the lack of design content lately. My creative juices have been dried up by my upset stomach and low body temeperature! I think I am almost back - bear with me!! Cheers!

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano China Limited Edition

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano China (2009)

Lu Hao has blended traditional design elements with Ferrari's innovative styling to create a truly unique vehicle using a 'cracked' glaze pattern which is elegantly coloured, with clearly defined cracks etched at different depths. This one-off model represents an even more exclusive version, thanks to a very special exterior finish which draws inspiration from Ge Kiln porcelain of the Song Dynasty. The one-off incorporates a number of the features of the China Limited Edition cars, a very limited series of less than a dozen cars finished in two-tone Rosso Fuoco with silver roof and characterized by unique Chinese design elements.

This exclusive car follows the announcement in September of a small series of specially-designed Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano China Limited Edition models which won wide acclaim. Ferrari announces the creation of a unique one-off Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano China Limited Edition, signed by Chinese artist Lu Hao, which will be auctioned on the 3rd of November, 2009 at a special Gala Auction Event hosted by Ferrari in Beijing.