Inspiring places: Houzz

I shared with you before my thoughts about Pinterest and Housetohome.

Another website that I absolutely adore is Houzz.

Houzz was created in 2009 by a couple struggling to describe their interior design vision to architects who were helping them renovate the house (More NYTimes.com).

Currently Houzz hosts around 1 million photos uploaded by design professional, so the quality of most is excellent.

The number of categories is vast. You can browse by room, style but also by product with a link to where you can buy it. Genius!

I was playing with their app yesterday, and loved it. You can apply the filter ‘MetroArea’, which selects the city the pictures are coming from. Great feature narrowing down the vast number of relevant results.

Also, you can create your own Ideabook for your next redecorating project.

Have a go, and let me know how you get on.

Five shades of grey

We want to transform one of the reception rooms into a library (we are both undeniably bookworms). Between us we probably have hundreds of books read and collected over the years, which are still unpacked as they are waiting for the shelves they can rest on.

We agreed that ‘the library room’, as we call it, is going to be S’s room, so he is going to design it. Thank God we’ve got a very similar taste.

The main colour of the room is going to be grey. But which shade to choose?!

The shortlist consists of five shades of grey.

The room’s general style is going to be a combination of a traditional Victorian Bibliotheque and a contemporary reading room.

Source: beautiful-libraries.com via secretgardenhome on Pinterest

Source: twinsgarden.blogspot.de via secretgardenhome on Pinterest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more images please check my Pinterest board.

Let me know what you think. Which shade of grey shall we go for?

Bests

Mon

Everyday can be your inspiration

Have you noticed that when you are redecorating your home everything inspires you? I can’t stop thinking of different design ideas, products, textures, colours and so on. Everything is an inspiration!

For the past 10 months, I’ve been taking photos of everything that catches my eye, so I can use it later, remind myself where I’ve seen it and, frequently, look for a cheaper, thrifty alternative. Or even consider making it myself.

I can’t stop myself looking around and catching things with my phone camera.

Just to give you an example, I went to the business meeting in so cool and trendy London Shoreditch yesterday, and these are my finds:

Streetart. Steve and I collected lots of pictures of urban art over the years, from Banksy to El Bocho. From London through Berlin to Rio de Janeiro. New street artists emerge all the time. Why not to frame what you find and put it on your wall?

Offices of forward thinking companies like Future Foundation offer an inspiration as well as their furniture is sourced at the design-oriented retailers like Heal’s etc. . I love the wall design, the coat rack and the folk placemat.

 

Independent design stores such as SCP East. I couldn’t give it a miss; it was on my way home. I probably took  30 photos there, so don’t worry, I’ll share more of them with you in the nearest future. For now, my favourites in store: Terence Woodgate Josiah pendant lights and Eames chairs (I love them!!!).

My advice is to have your mind and eyes open all the time, as you never know when you find something. Let the world inspire you!

A light in the dark

More inspirations from John Lewis. This time it’s going to be about floor lamps.

The first one is John Lewis Elliot floor lamp in red, with a price tag of £160 (I could probably save for it in few months time).

The second one is absolutely beautiful, but far above my budget: John Lewis Pavilion floor lamp for £300. Maybe one day.

Cushion deal

Thanks to our friend Tomek, our great, contemporary sofa bed from John Lewis made it upstairs. I let the boys do the hard work of dragging it up the stairs.

The sofa looked a bit bare, so we went bargain hunting today, and got three stylish cushions in Dunelm Mill, which complete the look perfectly. The Cassette Tapes cushions were only £5.99 each, and the one in a middle was only £3.99.

I strongly believe one should never pay over £10 for a cushion.

The wall is on fire

And here it is. George’s creation in its own glory!

Love my feature wall

My beautiful, eye-catching Graham&Brown wallpaper is up thanks to George.

It looks amazing, doesn’t it!

We went for Ikea 365+ BRASA light, which complements the look.

Fireplace is being made and the chimney breast is colour tested (Pea pod silk emulsion from Crown).

Are you feeling excited as I am!!!

Storage solution for small bedrooms

Our master bedroom size and layout did not allow us to have a bedside table on each side, and as I’m a strong believer of symmetry (in a relationship as well), we had to come up with a bespoke design.

First of all we decided to upcycle our old queen size bed. As the bed was dark wood (unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from before), we painted all the wood white, and then removed the old, shabby looking wood headboard.

After doing some research online, I designed (using some pictures from my creative visualisation board) a bespoke shelving unit/box. Our multi-skilled DIY expert/carpenter Steve’s dad George kindly agreed to do the job (easy for him, impossible from my point of view).

As George knows best, we went for an MDF based unit placed next to the wall directly behind the bed. The width matched the width of bed, and in order to maximise space, I asked for two shelves on both sides, so we could have extra storage apart from the top of the box.

The top was meant to be not too high allowing us to reach for a book or switch on/off the night lamp.

The only thing missing from this cleverly designed unit, was a HEADBOARD.

The hole in the wall is gone

The office/guest bedroom is slowly taking shape. As with all the rooms in this house, we had to strip the carpets and wallpaper (that’s a fun exercise, not!)

One of the first tasks we’ve done was replacing the window and removing a fitted wardrobe to expose a fireplace. We are still planning to have a fitted wardrobe, but only in a left corner of the room. George (Steve’s dad) agreed to build us a wardrobe (George can do anything!) as per picture below.

It turned out that one of the walls had to be replastered as well as the ceiling. We went away one weekend, and Steve’s parents took over redecorating…when we got back, the room was ready to be painted.

I picked the wallpaper at Wallpaper direct, and, I’m afraid, it is going to dictate the colour scheme (green) and the overall design (modern, Scandinavian).

Currently, we are looking for a fireplace surround visiting salvage yards and antiques fairs. However, ebay is pretty good source as well; much cheaper than former mentions. We would like to find something similar to the one we have got in our master bedroom. Wish us luck!

Magazines, and more magazines, print and online

In the past 8 months I must have read every single magazine available in the UK market. Those below are my favourite, and I was lucky enough to get a subscription from my friends recently.

Also, check the website http://www.housetohome.co.uk/ for advice and insirations. I especially like Room Fast Finder.

Another great website I discovered recently is: http://www.houzz.com/. Use it for idea books.