The Greek Key is H-O-T in interiors! From fabrics to furnishings, I am definitely a huge fan of the classic design. One of my favorite furniture pieces is the Cypress cocktail table by Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory Chair (pictured left ~ bottom left of photo). Today, I’ve asked my uber-stylish friend Shelly Rosenberg to give us a little insight into some delicious designs featuring the chic motif.
Shelly’s take on the Greek Key…
Designing is pure joy. I just love the limitless options that we have to choose from. Although many interior designers have a trademark look, I pride myself on collaborating with each unique client and creating their own style. However, there are some classic motifs that I find myself relying on time and again, regardless of replicating a historical genre or redesigning an abode into a super sleek mod pod. My favorite of all time is Greek Key, a meandering deign of lines, graphically and repetitively folding into it self.
Despite its name, the ancient Greeks were not the only civilization to discover this geometrically based design. Similar patterns have been found in the region that is now Vietnam and also in the Native American Hopi culture. This versatile motif can also change shape. We are most familiar with the square or T configuration. But there are also “keys” that resemble waves on the sea and even triangles.
Almost like a maze, this crisp design draws us in and guides our eye along the shape it traces. It looks so elegant on the leading edge of draperies, like I have in my own master bedroom. The charcoal and ivory trim add a masculine balance to an otherwise feminine boudoir. It also looks regal along the bottom of a silk lampshade. You can affix your own Roman border to a simple, store-bought shade, adding a smart sophistication. There are so many fabulous options through your interior designer. Another option I use in a pinch is M&J Trimmings of New York.
Other designers before me have inspired my own work with Greek Key. Local trend-setter, Jan Showers, mimics the lines of fantastic antique chairs by sewing black ribbon onto the ivory linen upholstery in a key style. Fashion icon Oscar de la Renta adorns his delicious cased goods with Greek Key hardware in his collection for Century Furniture (available at IBB Design Fine Furnishings). The one pictured left, in apple green is divine!
Thank you so much Shelly for sharing some fabulous design inspirations with us featuring the Greek Key!
I do not know many interior designers that don’t also love to throw a great party. I hosted one this past Thursday at IBB for STAR Children’s Charities with an ode to their Winter Ball theme “The Magic of the Orient Express”. It was a fabulous time! We had European inspired food & drinks from 6 different cities along the Orient Express. I’ll fill you in more about it later.
Today, my friends, you are in for a really big treat! I have asked my fabulous friend Kimberly Whitman (the quintessential Hostess with the mostest!) to give us her best tips for throwing a house warming party. An obvious expert in this field, Kim is the author of 4 books (The Pleasure of Your Company, Tablescapes, The Wedding Workbook & Dog Parties) & has made numerous national & local television appearances providing her tips from party planning to spring cleaning. She also hosts a radio segment for 103.7 every morning on the Gene & Julie show. Known for being devoted to her community & social events, Kim brought the RSVP social calendar to the on-line world in 1999. Today it is the “Go-To” place to get all of the info regarding Dallas County & Collin County’s social & charitable events.
So, grab & pen & take note on how to throw a smashing soiree that your friends will be raving about!
Hosting a Housewarming Party is a great way to introduce your old friends and family to your new home as well a wonderful way to meet your new neighbors! Moving into a new home or completing a renovation can be exhausting but it is a very momentous occasion in anyone’s life! It should be celebrated! Here are a few simple tips to host the perfect Housewarming:
1. Timing an event like this can go one of two ways. You can either decide to wait until your home is completed and the boxes have been unpacked (give yourself at least a month!) or, if you are simply too excited to wait, host a moving day party or construction party! I was once invited to a demolition party that was an absolute blast! Our friends wanted to build a new home so they emptied the home on the property, gave out construction hats and hammers and told everyone they could go all out in hammering down walls and destroying the place! It was a blast!
2. When sending out the invitation, be sure to include a map as it is often the first time your guests will be coming to your event. I love the adorable maps that are custom created by Daley Harris at www.merrymaps.com. They are so precious and you will be able to use them for all of your future parties!
3. A casual come-and-go open house is the best format for a Housewarming Party. It is easier for guests to drop by at their leisure and celebrate with you at your new digs.
4. If you are hoping to show off your renovations or interior design skills, frame a “before” photo in each of the rooms.
5. Keep your decor simple. Lovely little floral arrangements that complement or enhance your decor are the perfect choice.
6. Set up a self serve champagne and white wine bar near the entrance. Avoid red wines or any cocktails that could stain your new carpets and fabrics!
7. Instead of a big buffet in the dining room or kitchen, set out small trays of bite size foods in each of the rooms of the house. As your guests wander, they can pick up a nibble in each room. Be sure to provide napkins and a place to throw them away in each room. That means you could need up to ten napkins per guest so be prepared!
8. If you are a guest, take a gift. I like to take something for the home such as a new candle and a cool set of matches or a design or entertaining book. My book, Tablescapes: Setting the Table with Style would be the perfect choice .
9. If you are a host, provide a party favor for your guests. I love the labels and tags from www.myownlabels.com. Check out their recipes and ideas for great suggestions and be sure to share your new address on the label so that you friends will be guaranteed to record it in their address books.
Thank you Kim! What wonderful tips & advice! Now we are all set to show off our homes to our friends with a fun house warming party. Be sure to check out her books! Tablescapes is one of my favorites. The photography makes you feel like you are part of the gorgeous atmosphere depicted in each setting idea. My daughter absolutely loves the Gingerbread House featured in her Holiday Dessert Buffet party.
For more tips form Kimberly Whitman, follow her fabulous blog!
For today’s lesson, I went straight to one of my most stylish & knowledgeable friends on the topic of modern design, Maybelline Te of Snug Furniture. She also writes a super fun design blog called Froulala. Snug Furniture is an ultra-hip new modern furniture line that just hit the markets this year & with great enthusiasm I must add. I’ve asked her to give us an insider’s look at the history & a lesson in modern & contemporary furnishings. She really offers such a wealth of information, that I will be breaking this post up into 2 lessons. So, without further ado, I give you the fabulous
Maybelline Te….
Is it often asked what is the difference between modern and contemporary? Where does modern and/or contemporary begin, end, or continue with layers of periods referenced or layers taken off to simplify? With my brilliant pocket guide, Design: A Concise History by Thomas Hauffe, I hope to be your design detective for the day by showing how both periods came about and are still continuing to inspire us everyday. I hope you are sitting snugly in a comfortable chair with your cup of tea or coffee and that I don’t bore you with all the history.
1890-1914
The road to modernism started in the late 1800s when architectural methods paved the breakthrough of modern design. Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art was influenced by Japanese art, spared use of ornamentation, and preferred black and white. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was the main figure during this period. He is known for geometric forms, shallow board-like construction with graceful horizontals and verticals.
photo from michaelnassar.net
Vienna Modern was formed by Gustav Klimt (known for The Kiss), Koloman Moser, and Otto Wagner, the father of the Secession. Wagner’s severe and classical style is evident in the architecture of the Vienna Postal Savings Bank, built in 1906. One of my favorite works from this period is by Josef Hoffmann who created this brooch which I saw during an exhibit at Neue Galerie, New York.
The oft quoted “Form Follows Function” was coined by Louis Sullivan, who was the architect of the Pirie Scott department store, built in 1899-1904 in Chicago. A known colleague of his is Frank Lloyd Wright who was known for his severe geometry in architecture and furniture. Other known schools of thought such as the German Werkbund, Bauhaus and the School of Design in Ulm were borne out of the basic maxim of Sullivan’s, form follows function.
Droog’s Red Blue Chair Lego interpretation of a 1918-1923 Gerrit Rietveld Red and Blue Chair
1915-1933
Revolution and the Avant-Garde
The period between the two world wars brought about socio-political transformation which resulted in futurist and cubist forms. Russian suprematism and constructivism are important factors in product design. Eli Lissitzky and Wassily Kandinsky somehow influenced Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld.
1915-1933
German Neo-functionalism
The Bauhaus School led by Walter Gropius was about necessity not luxury. Famous names are Marcel Breuer. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier. Alvar Aalto. Such simple forms were later known as International Style in 1922 onwards.
Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer 1925-1926
manufactured by Cassina
I had the chance to visit the chapel and its windows with its different colors created a spiritual cast in the serene and raw interiors.
La Chapelle de Notre Dame du Haut Ronchamp by Le Corbusier
Photo by Alamy
Maybelline will be back next week to “school us some more on modern & contemporary design. Until then, you can find her on twitter or at Sung Furniture.
Tomorrow, my good friend Maybelline Te of Snug Furniture will be guest blogging for me & giving us loads of information on modern & contemporary design. Today, I want to give you a peak into her stylish world in her own words.
How to make the modern or contemporary design style work for you:
I ask myself this same question when I design furniture or do interiors. I am sitting in my Eames Lounge Chair with my feet on the ottoman as I write and look around me. To the left is the Snug Pugella sofa with some laundry waiting to be folded, to my right is a Century bed in bent ewe wood with aluminum frame with unmatched Anichini and Sferra bedding, in front of me is a Spectrum Limited lucite cocktail table with YSL coffee table books, on my feet is a well worn Persian rug, to my back is a whimsical old Marge Carson elephant bar table and stools (back when elephants were all the scary rage!). I live with what I love and what currently works for my lifestyle. This may change in a few months but being a furniture girl at heart, I stick to good quality furniture and surround myself with things that warm my heart. Life is too short to wait for the so-called dream home or the right time. This is the feeling that inspires me to curate and design for Snug Furniture. A Snug Life is expressing the juxtaposition of old and new, interesting textures and materials, high and low in ultimate comfort for your current life.
If you have yet to be informed, let me dazzle you with some exciting news… Wallpaper is back & with a vengeance I must say! I asked my good friend Shelly Rosenberg to give us her take on some simply stylish wall coverings.
Shelly’s take:
I have always had a soft spot for anything Asian. And now, I have discovered the best reason to fawn…the Chinese invented wallpaper! The first rice wallpapers go back as far as 200 BC!! The Orient has a unique form of ornamentation. The motifs are often serene and organic. I especially love the subtle suggestion of movement in the two modern patterns below.
In honor of our 2010 Color of the Year’ and this month’s feature, I will delight you with a bit more of turquoise and her cousins… Any powder room becomes exquisite wrapped in a Tiffany-box blue floral like this one above. And can you imagine the pleasure this dogwood scene would give guests in your dining room?
As much as I adore the traditional elegance of a tried-and-true paper, there is much fun to be had in this medium. Choose any era in modern history and you can have a paper that speaks its language! I grew up with a very chic mother who had our entire home wrapped in the ever-popular 1980s flamestitch! And it’s still HOT!
I take great interest in watching as we, designers, evolve our past into exciting new movements. Take a traditional and fancy object, break it down into its most simple form, and voila! You have a paper that exemplifies our yearning for simplicity. Is there a more endearing silhouette than the chandelier?!
Many of you are nervous to commit, I know, but the pleasure is so beyond what the hesitation is worth! Why wallpaper? It can anchor an entire design scheme- take a little piece that makes you swoon and have your designer build a room around it! Have an architectural element that has you baffled? Disguise it! If you just cannot use the paste, frame a fabulous find and stare at its beauty! Search the web for examples of designer wall coverings, like I did for these photos. But, find the best and most unique eye candy through your favorite interior designer. Delicious.
Posted under Designer Friends by admin on Tuesday 11 May 2010 at 7:50 am
Hello my fellow design lovers! I have a big treat in store for you today! I’d like for you to meet Meghan Blum, the newest guest blogger to join the Designer Detective team. I first met Meghan at a blogger breakfast hosted by Hickory Chair last fall. Her sweet personality and well put-together style made it hard not to love her! We chatted for quite some time & I decided that I would have to insist she come on as one of my guest bloggers.
Meghan is an Interior Designer with The Mansion in Des Moines, Iowa. She works on a vast array of projects but is primarily involved in residential design. She enjoys helping clients through the design process & showing them how to live a better life in their home. Meghan’s love for design has inspired her to write a blog of her own to express her passion. Her blog called Living in Style is devoted to doing just as the title states, living a stylish life. Being a designer she is surrounded & inspired by beautiful objects, interiors, & lives & hopes her blog will help you live a stylish life.
Stay tuned for Meghan’s first post later on this week on her “Five elements to a well designed room”.
Posted under Designer Friends by admin on Wednesday 10 February 2010 at 6:04 am
Yesterday, I introduced you to my fabulous friend & our first guest blogger, Shelly Rosenberg. Today, she shares her fresh take on the 2010 color of the year featuring our good friend & jewelry designer, Elizabeth Showers. Enjoy!
Fresh is the new fix in an economy that has us feeling deep blue. Take it up a notch with a hue to good to be true! Who says? Pantone, the Oz of the color wheel, gives Turquoise the title: Color of the Year, 2010! We need vibrant, chin-to-the-sun fun. Let’s walk like Egyptians and embrace this historic tint they honored for it’s restorative and healing power.
Energy is not all it’s got- fashion says it’s hip and haute. Dive into your favorite mags and notice it in the most delicate of porcelain, sleek urban furnishings, punchy textiles and the most exquisite bijoux!
Bling is the thing for our beloved local designer, Elizabeth Showers. Her designs celebrate the most refined version of this gem. Her work has been featured in O Magazine, Town & Country and Vogue and is treasured by A-list celebs. In a word, her art is simply stunning. This designer aims to “empower all women to feel beautiful.” Aligned with her trademark logo, The Hope Star, her affair with turquoise offers inspiration to us and integrity to a stone often overlooked.
A sampling of some of the magnificent turquoise jewelry by Elizabeth Showers.
So taken was she that her new ride is now all the rage. Years ahead of the curve, London’s Mini Cooper is fashion forward…In her limited edition, Elizabeth cruises in style. Here, the plucky partner to our featured shade is brown- in yummy shades of chocolate and toffee! Pleasure and sophistication coexist with Elizabeth at the helm.
Check out Elizabeth’s fab jewelry up against the chocolate brown interior with turquoise stitching of her tres chic Mini Cooper! Can you say hot???!!!
Elizabeth Showers showing off the super cool interior of her Mini Cooper! This is a girl on top of her trends!
Detailing of the turquoise stitching on her leather interior.
I’m so excited to introduce you to the Designer Detective’s first guest blogger ~ Shelly Rosenberg! I met Shelly on a design trip in New York. We immediately hit it off & have since become fast BFF’s! Let me explain why…
Shelly Rosenberg is certain she is a renaissance woman in every sense of the word. Any of her associates can tell you: public relater, interior designer, writer, political advocate, singer and salesman- this artist revels in it all. A colorful, southern upbringing developed Shelly’s ability to float easily though numerous trades. Her natural talent to motivate and inspire, coupled with a passion for creativity, has led the mother-of-two through a varied and successful career. Her sense of style and cunning eye has earned Shelly projects with top designers, boutiques and showrooms. She has stylized events from political fundraisers to A-list soirees. Shelly’s passion for the innovative is reflected in her current focus of joining the blog-o-sphere, writing and sharing her vast experience and exploring the next “next”!
Look for Shelly’s first post tomorrow. She’ll be giving us her take on the 2010 color of the year, turquoise, & also introducing us to a fabulous jewelry designer that is more than ahead of the curve when it comes to trends.
Posted under Designer Friends by admin on Monday 18 January 2010 at 1:00 pm
Lisa Capdevila has been an interior designer for 19 years.She received her degree from California State University of Northridge.Lisa’s portfolio contains a broad range of projects from high end residential to hospitality design.She says that over the years she has learned that design has no boundaries and gathers most of her inspirations from fabrics.“Placing the right fabrics on the right pieces is key to creating a warm home environment”.
Prior to joining IBB Design, Lisa worked for the world renowned Hendrix/Allardyce firm in Beverly Hills, California.It was there that she learned to push the envelope with creativity while working on many home interior projects for celebrities.While working under Barbara Barry, Lisa gained the knowledge of her distinct design style of elegant simplicity featuring many monochromatic design schemes.
Lisa contends that, “Whether 35,000 or 3,500 square feet, a home should be a client’s haven where they can relax and enjoy every inch of the space tailored just for them”.
She recently completed a project that changed her life in more ways than one.My Friend’s House, a shelter for abused children and teens, is now open after four years of design and planning.The 10,000 square foot facility will shelter children ages newborn to teen who have been removed from an unsafe environment.
Click Here for a photo slide show from My Friend’s House.
The Greek Key is H-O-T in interiors! From fabrics to furnishings, I am definitely a huge fan of the classic design. One of my favorite furniture pieces is the Cypress cocktail table by Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory Chair (pictured left ~ bottom left of photo). Today, I’ve asked my uber-stylish friend Shelly Rosenberg to give us a little insight into some delicious designs featuring the chic motif.
Other designers before me have inspired my own work with Greek Key. Local trend-setter, Jan Showers, mimics the lines of fantastic antique chairs by sewing black ribbon onto the ivory linen upholstery in a key style. Fashion icon Oscar de la Renta adorns his delicious cased goods with Greek Key hardware in his collection for Century Furniture (available at IBB Design Fine Furnishings). The one pictured left, in apple green is divine!
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