Creating a Home Library You’ll Want to Visit: 5 Inspirations

If you’re lucky enough to have an in-home library, you may find it difficult to create a space that maximizes storage without sacrificing appeal. Celebrate your home library by creating an inspiring space.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Go classic museum. Give your space an art-museum feel by adding classic pieces. This museum bench is an awesome piece that would nicely complement stone flooring. As seen in the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) 2005 Biennial Exhibition, the Case Study Museum Bench was designed and developed at the Modernica Studio in Los Angeles. The Museum Bench is extremely substantial and appropriate for high traffic and commercial use.
2. Bring the world home. Brainstorm creative ways to bring your world travels home. Use your library as a place to display collected art pieces or a push-pinned map. Consider adding to that cultured feel by including a trunk for extra storage. It’s perfect for a small throw blanket or two.
3. Decorate with light. Warm overhead lighting will provide a comforting feel. Lights directed toward shelves or artwork draw the eye to the most inspiring elements of the room. Don’t forget to highlight your favorite hanging art pieces or statues. It’s generally pretty easy to find lights that can be fixed to the top of the shelves, angling over to display shelf contents. Consider LEDs for a bright, targeted, energy-friendly solution. Visit your local library to see how they lit their shelves.
4. Don’t skip art.
   Paintings don’t have to be confined to walls. You can mount these pieces right onto bookshelves. This is a great way to break up the continuous pattern the shelves provide. I suggest using contrasting colors to give it an extra “pop.”
   That look can also be achieved by placing art on the shelves themselves. This is a great way to mix up your collection. My favorite way to place art is in accordance to the way books are organized. For example, the popular “A” and “Z” shelf ends can indicate where author last names begin and end. For a fun option, consider choosing art pieces that describe the content of the books (such as: business, art, fun, reference, etc). If you have kids, consider using their pictures to indicate their growing collection on the shelf. Make it fun for them to interact with reading! Bottom line: Be creative in a way that makes sense for you and your family.
5. Stay alive with plants. Libraries are notorious for feeling dusty, their shelves stacked with titles from countless authors. Add a little life with plants. Large, leafy plants are good options. Of course, ensure the plant you choose has sufficient lighting.
   Unless you’re seriously disadvantaged at keeping plants alive, opt for live plants over their fake counterparts. This will side step the dust and provide a much more vibrant feel.

What have you done to make your home library – of office – more inspiring? Feel free to link to photos to share your space and inspire others!

Moss as Art: A DIY Project

 

 

I just started a DIY project at home with the help of my friendly neighbor. With the growing popularity of a living wall, I wanted to try my hand at creating a simple version for my own home. I love the idea of plants as art and decided to start with easy simple to grow and maintain: Moss.

The Internet popularity of the moss mat has only expanded my interest in this concept. Though not many people have presumably brought one into their home, it’s creative approach has sparked conversation.

“Nguyen La Chanh’s ingenious design is made from a decay-free foam called plastazote, and populated with three varieties of moss: ball, island, and forest. Maintenance required for this little patch of green is limited, as the moss thrives off of the humidity released from daily bathroom rituals.”

 

 

Though I’d like to continue the do-it-yourself experiment into a moss table (as pictured), we started with a piece of art. We decided to grow moss on a piece of plywood to later mount to the wall. Pending any success, we’ll add two more pieces for additional decoration.

I’m no botanist, but I found directions moss-growing directions that were easy enough to follow; then I let some creativity take over. Please let me know what you think!

 

Materials:

• 1’x1’ piece of plywood
• Water sealer for plywood
• Burlap (enough to cover plywood with 3 layers)
• Staple gun
• Moss
• 8 oz of beer
• Teaspoon of sugar
• Blender

Prepping the base

 


Burlap stapled to plywood

 

• Start by treating the wood with water sealant. You’ll need to let this dry, so make sure to get this finished before you’re ready to continue.
• Once the plywood is treated and dry, cut the burlap to fit the plywood. You’ll need 3 separately cut pieces.
• Pull the first piece of burlap tight against the wood so it’s not draping, but allow room for plants to root themselves. Staple the burlap to the back of the plywood.
• Do the same with the other two pieces of burlap, but angle the pieces in different directs to add texture. You should not be able to see the wood when this is complete.

 

Growing moss
This is the fun part so, if you have them, make sure to include kids!

1. Collect grown moss outdoors. We used about 6” worth. Make sure to shake off any loose dirt.
2. Put the moss, beer, and sugar into a blender. Blend until liquid.
3. Pour the mossy concoction onto the burlap. Leave room on the edges.
4. Allow the moss to grow by keeping it flat, moist, and shady. (It’s pretty messy and a little smelly at this point, so we kept it outdoors.)
5. Once the moss has rooted and grown, we’ll be adding trim pieces on the edges to frame the moss!

Have you ever experimented with anything like this? How did it work out?

I Love Contemporary Patterned Rugs, but How Do I Make It Work?

Do you find yourself in love with a patterned contemporary rug but uncertain about how to incorporate it in your home? You are not alone.

Contemporary rugs look awesome but can be hard to work with. The large scale patterns and multiple colors might clash with other pieces in the room. Might I recommend trying to pair a large printed contemporary rug with a solid colored sofa?

Solid Color

Now, the best part about contemporary rooms is that the sofa doesn’t have to be the typical beige or white. It can be a vibrant solid color; green, red, black, etc. Pick one color found in the majority of the rug and make that same color your sofa fabric!

When using chairs in a room, I would typically recommend a patterned fabric. However, this might pose a challenge when working with a patterned rug. Instead, try repeating the same solid color fabric used on the sofa. Popping the colors in the rug with patterned throw pillows on the sofa and chairs can be a great accent.

Common Patterns

Always use patterns that correspond well together. Keep everything geometric or swirls or circles; otherwise the patterns may start to fight each other.

Artwork for Accent

Next, why not repeat the same type of pattern and colors found in the rug with the artwork. But here is where you can start to bring in some other elements into the space. For example, some contemporary flower prints will work great with a geometric patterned rug!

Mirrors

If more than a couple pieces of artwork are needed in the room, why not try a contemporary mirror? There are some really neat mirrors out there, such as what I call the “sunburst mirror,” a small, round mirror with pieces of metal coming out from the center. Some will even have tiny round mirrors at the end.

Simple Accessories

For the finishing touch, keep the accessories simple, such as large coffee tables books, a simple floral in a contemporary vase, picture frames or a large bowl with fillers such as coffee beans and candles.

Do you prefer a contemporary or traditional design for your home? How have you blended patterns and color?

Wow, Look at the Mural!

Do you have a large wall in your home and just don’t know what to do with it? Maybe it’s in your entrance foyer, or a curved wall that aligns itself with your staircase? Do you find yourself wondering how in the world you are going to hang wall art on that? Or is it a wall in your bedroom, living room, or dining room?

A large span of wall can cause us frustration and can leave us confused. In order to fill the large space with artwork, you will need to come up with a theme, find all the items to purchase and then finally hang everything up. Is it really worth it? It may not be. And if this is the case, my recommendation would be to think about having a mural painted in your home.

Murals today aren’t like the murals we used to see 10 or 15 years ago. They can be creative, simple, complex, vibrant in color or black and white. That’s right! Today’s murals might be as simple as a favorite quote painted on the walls of a long hallway with small illustrations.

Possibly your child’s room needs some added pop and you don’t want to hang artwork in there for various safety reasons. What about an animal mural on the wall above your baby’s crib? Or do you have a little boy who loves sports? Illustrating their favorite team’s stadium on the wall behind their bed is sure to bring a smile to their face! If this doesn’t fit your child, maybe you happen to have a little girl lost in the world of fairies and princesses, what about painting a fairytale forest theme on the wall across from their bed? This way they can fall asleep dreaming of becoming a princess or having a fairy godmother that grants all of their wishes!

Is the children’s bedroom not what you are looking for? How about a mural of a favorite vacation spot, such as the ocean, a village or a building? Large entrance foyers can be a perfect place to have a mural such as this painted because we typically find a large span of wall in a foyer and do not have enough artwork to fill it up!

One final place you may be looking for something on your wall would be in a large family or living room. Why not try a simple modern mural of a tree, building, or an abstract in black and white.

Murals are a creative, one-of-a-kind way to express yourself in your homes. Find a local artist to help illustrate your dream for many years to come.

Do you have a mural in your home? Did you paint it yourself? Where did you place it? Share your stories and ideas here!

Are We Designers or the Design?

I was reading an article the other day and it stated that according to Dino Dini, a video game developer, “design underpins every form of creation from objects such as chairs to the way we plan and execute our lives.”

I was fascinated with the concept. I had always thought of design as part of an applied arts. As a group of friends were discussing this concept, a friend stated that even some of the holidays we celebrate have been designed. Some were created to bring awareness (Earth Day, Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc) and others were made for what seems to be commercial purposes.

During the discussion, we talked about design as a process, which typically includes research, discussion with one or many, rethinking, more interaction with other “designers,” the putting forth of a concept, more discussion and redesign and finally implementation.

When we spoke about interior design, engineering design, graphic design and even the concepts of branding, we found that each of these required a great deal of time and interaction between the designer and the client or clients. There was a need to “get it right” for others or for it to be commercially successful. There is also the need to understand the limits of budget, time, the material or technology available to implement the concepts or ideas.

The discussion about art and Pollock’s work, where design might be for one’s self, led to fields such as culinary – where the infusion of flavors and spices may be as subjective as the art to the artist. 

It is the same with fashion designers. When they create, it tends to be a design based on a client. It can also be an individual creative process of creating from the stimulus or combination of materials. Is this creation then redesigned using more mundane materials so it can be commercially reproduced?

The discussion was not finished – it may never be finished – but it certainly had all of us thinking of design much differently than when we began the conversation. In our lives, are we the designers or are we the designed or some combination?

Wow, Look at that Sink!

Are you thinking about redoing the sink or vanity in your bathroom? What about your powder room or half bath? This is typically the bathroom that all of your guests use when visiting your home. Selecting a decorative vanity or sink is a great way to impress guests. 

Artwork

When walking into a half bathroom, the first thing you typically see after the wall in front of you is the sink. Start by selecting a beautiful piece of artwork to hang on that wall and then concentrate on what you can do with the vanity or sink.

Pedestal Sink

A typical powder room or half bathroom may have the sink of the side of the door swing and a toilet located behind the door, when it is open. If you focus on the sink, the answer is easy – select a decorative pedestal sink! I recommend choosing one with just a little bit of room on the sides of the bowl? There is nothing harder than trying to put your makeup on or doing your hair without a place to put items down on. Some pedestal sinks today have built-in decorative towel bars.

Pedestal Bowl

But maybe you would like more of a vanity. Wood is a great choice here, but make sure there are cabinets or drawers built in. If there is not, you will have to find creative ways to store toilet paper, tissues, soap, etc. Today the majority of people select a vanity where the bowl is recessed inside the cabinet. Consider a pedestal bowl. They look really trendy, but beware when trying to get ready in the bathroom that those high sides of the sink could get in the way. If you are simply going to be washing your hands in there, it is one of the most fashionable choices available!

Cabinet

When selecting a recessed bowl, I suggest an antique wood cabinet base. The decorative details on the sides or doors will provide an impressive effect from the moment guests walk in. Often the counter and bowl will be a slate, tile, or granite material to offset the decorative details in the base cabinet.

How have you spiffied up your bathroom sink?

Art and Environmentally Conscious – Lumicor

Design solutions come about in unexpected ways. That was the case when I discovered Lumicor. The company creates innovative translucent materials encapsulating textiles, metals, papers, foliage, and imagination. I became aware of Lumicor when choosing wall scones for a client’s office. Lumicor products blend handmade paper with two sheets of resin to creat what the client described as “glowing art.”

They create from what we discard. The elements in architectural resin panels are made from recycled glass, organic and recycled fabrics, and botanicals harvested from sustainable crops.

The Lumiclear product has the same translucency as glass but is half the weight as the same size panel and has 10 times the impact strength. It can be formed into unique and complex shapes. So instead of using the same old 2 x 4 lighting fixtures, consider a luminous ceiling with the color and textures that reflect your style.

Or perhaps you can use panels between areas in your facility that allow the light to meander through the panels, creating subtle divisions that also have texture and color. By adding decorative elements, you can create a phenomenal countertop for a kitchen that is durable, non-porous and resistant to UV damage.

In their creation of architectural resin panels, Lumicor has also established a reuse protocol that saves more than 21 million gallons of fresh water each year by using a closed loop system. They also reuse the heat created in the manufacturing of their products to heat their facility.

Beyond all of this, Lumicor has developed a network of recycling facilities around the United States. When I look for companies that push the envelope of innovative products, it is nice to know that some care about our resources and are as innovative in their manufacturing processes as they are with their materials.

Would you consider using this product as a countertop? Have you found a company that is innovative in design and regarding resources?

Lighting Portrays History and Artistic Collaboration

So many times we hear about downtown area falling into neglect. We hear of abandoned buildings not transformed and given a second life, but destroyed for something new to be build where an architectural relic once stood. That the dirty gritty industrial sites that are located next to waterways are not the type of sites that can be reborn.

While the city of Buffalo abandoned grain elevators stood empty, Quebec City used their elevator complex as a giant video screen. In celebration of their 400th anniversary, they told their history in a unique and special way. As part of their celebration, they created a light and image show that was forty minutes in length and was projected onto the surfaces of their grain elevators in the Port of Quebec. .

There are 81 grain elevators in the Port of Quebec. The elevators measure 600 meters long by 30 meters tall. The technical sheets says it took twenty seven video projectors, 329 speakers, 574 lighting fixtures using LED’s, 2 lighting boards operating in redundancy, 1.4 kilometers of fiber optic cables, 6 km of DMX cables and 4km of power cables in addition to 160 aluminum supports fused to the membrane of the roof of the grain elevators. It created what has been described as a sensory experience with an animated mosaic that will include engravings, paintings, photos and videos. This visual work of art was divided into four time frames representing the four centuries of Quebec’s history including the waterways, the age of exploration and discovery, road building, clearing and developing the land, the railroad and industrial expansion, and the age of air travel and the development of communications

The men that made this phenomenal project come together were René Lussier, who composed the soundtrack, Robert Lepage and Ex Machina, whose theatrical work is world renown and includes a permanent Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, and Martin Gagnon’s lighting firm Ambiances Lighting and Visual Design, established in 2006. The firm believes that lighting is essential in human perception of their surrounding environment and their experience. It was the close collaboration of these three and hundreds of designers, technicians and work crews that made the science of lighting become art for approximately 5,000 people a night.

A permanent lighting installation, the Aurora Borealis, is in place and again utilizes the old port grain elevators. This show is a movement of light reflecting the beauty of nature inspired by the aurora borealis. The show will run every night from dusk until 11:30pm from now until 2013. Would you attend a show like this if it were in or near your city? What do you think of the use of architectural buildings for this kind of artistic presentation?

Creative and Inexpensive Recycling Projects for Interiors

I think one of the healthiest things you can do to better the environment is using what you have to create something new. Why recreate the entire wheel when you can simply patch it? As garage sale season is around the corner, it’s about time we discuss a few recreation techniques. These are just a few ways to turn a recycling project into a critical part of an interior.

One of the greatest “finds” can be old paintings. These could come from a garage sale, but why not your grandma’s basement? Anywhere you can pick up there are multiple parts that can be used from one find. The actual canvas can always be repainted, but if you are not a Picasso, there are other solutions for reinventing the canvas.

You can always try strip pasting on for size. You could use newspapers, old wrapping paper, paint samples – anything that you can cut into strips and has color. After cutting strips that vary in size you then layer them on the canvas and use simple glue that dries clear. You brush it on in layers until the entire canvas is covered in the desired material. You can either reframe this masterpiece or hang it with no frame.

The frame can always be reused as well. An easy repaint job can make a world of difference. If you are lucky enough to find multiple frames that have different sizes, shapes and textures, you can make them more uniform by painting them the same color. A neutral in a metallic, black or white would work best.

So, now from one “found” piece, you can create many inexpensive new art pieces for your space. Maybe even an entire accent wall! Old mirrors with frames could be used as part of this collage as well. It all depends on what kinds of garage sale finds are available this season.

Another neat piece to keep your eyes peeled for are old records (LPs). Old records, I think, can make the coolest accent wall. You will need many of them, and make sure you are not just going to hang a Beatles White Album on your wall without a frame like I am proposing. Depending on the size of your wall you will need quite a few albums, so if you can find them for five cents a piece you are in good shape. Use goop off or another sticky remover to take off the label.

Pick out some nice looking screws or nails, meaning the head is a good size and attractive shape. From there just arrange them on the wall and make sure all the edges touch. The neatest part about this design is the negative space versus the positive space. Meaning the space between the albums can become the focus, the skewed diamond shape.

Depending on who holds the garage sale, you should be able to take recycled objects and make them something worth while. How have you used recycled objects in your interior?

Ways to Impress Your Guests From the Start

First impressions can be extremely important throughout your lives. This includes you home! The entrance into our home is the first place your guest sees when they arrive. If its family, friends, your boss, or you are trying to sell your house, this is a key area!

Always keep this area picked up! Nothing says “Hello” like a pile of papers, shoes, or clothes that are waiting to be taken upstairs and put away.

Rugs: If you have a grand foyer, there are several options that might work for you. Most importantly, select a nice entrance rug. This is the very first thing that someone will see upon entering your home. Make it a nice. I would recommend darker colors so the dirt doesn’t show.

Seating: Give your guests a place to sit down and take off their coats and shoes when they arrive. Appropriate seating in a foyer will vary according to your space. If it’s a large open area, try fully upholstered armless chairs – this allows for comfort and flexibility. If the space is smaller and tighter, try a wooden dining chair and add an upholstered seat to soften up the space.

Console: I highly recommend a console. This is a great location for dropping your keys, mail, and other misc items you may have in your hands when first arriving home.

Artwork/Mirrors: Hanging a large picture or mirror over the console can make a grand impression. Make sure the picture or mirror doesn’t hang over the edges of the console – this will make the weight of the room seem uneven and top heavy! I personally prefer the mirror for last minute hair and make-up checks before leaving the house.

Lighting and Foliage: A lamp on the console would be great in the evenings when you may not want the chandelier on but would still like to be able to light the space.

Accessories: Try offsetting the lamp with a floral – for some reason they look really good in an entrance. Maybe it’s because flowers are often brought as a sign of appreciation for loved one. Offset the remaining space on the console with a small mint dish, picture frames, a book, or figurines. For the finishing touch, try a decorative coat rack so your guests do not have to search around in the closet.

How have you decorated your foyer? What do you think is the most important room in the house for impressing guests?

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