I’m sure you know how important it is to select your flooring material carefully if you are a dog owner – you have to consider the damage your floors can sustain when the pooches dance, jump and spin with excitement, and you have to consider the damage your dog can sustain from floors that are hard and too slippery, or from claws caught in carpeting with just the wrong loop size. But then there are other considerations – as a floor owner, you have to select your dog carefully. Do you want him to blend in?
White dog on white floor via Design Therapy
Or stand out, like a living, breathing, accent piece?
Black dog for emphasis in white kitchen
Or you could go even further – as in these serious attempts at complete camouflage:
Black and white on black and white - via CupofJoePowell
All he needs is a red nose - photo Martin Bogren
The practicality of the flooring is important, but as you can see, the aesthetics are really the thing. Not sure what floor matches your pet’s personality the best? You need a professional dog designer – I’m thinking of specializing in it, as there is obviously an unmet need out there!
Design Challenge? (photo National Geographic)
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Or at least I’m thinking about it. This is the room I’m working on
Deep Purple
I painted these walls several (too many) years ago, and believe it or not I was inspired by recurring dreams of rich purple and gold (which I suspect were a deep subconscious reaction to too many years of rental house off-whites). Not only did I choose a deep dark paint color, I also went for a velvety matte finish, just to make sure it would suck all the light from the room! The only time of year I actually like the result is now, in the middle of Winter. Partly because the sun is far enough south to sneak in under our overhanging eaves and light up the room, but mostly because there is an apple tree right up against the window, almost totally blocking the light all summer long.
I was amused to see House Beautiful recently touting Pratt & Lambert’s Grape Hyacinth as a hot color for 2010. And here, via Color for Your Home, CMG’s recommendation is Mardi Grape – I’m certainly not going in that direction again:
Tempting though it is to claim that I was just way ahead of the curve when I last painted, totally anticipating the trends for 2010, what this really proves to me is that these “hot color” predictions are pretty meaningless, unless you are going to repaint every year. I certainly would hesitate to do anything as permanent as kitchen cabinets in a hot, trendy color. For me, the one thing that reports like those from the Color Marketing Group do help predict is the colors that will be showing up in accessories and fabrics, perfect for injecting a little fashionable flavor without breaking the bank.
I can’t decide yet what the new colors will be – except maybe I’m going to look to that apple tree (Golden Delicious, no less) for inspiration. I haven’t had any dreams about the colors this time round – perhaps I just need to sleep on it?
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I’m usually pretty tolerant when it comes to design trends – after all, design does embrace fun and fashion, and what goes on between consenting adults and their interior spaces is really up to them (assuming, that is, I’m not the designer). But since it is New Year, and I feel I really ought to make an effort, here are three trends I’d be happy to leave behind in the decade just about to end:
1. Inky dark rooms – inky dark walls make inky gloomy rooms unless you have tons and tons of light, and preferably high ceilings too.
Via New York Home Design
via gomodern.co.uk
2. Unfinished plywood walls and floors. Yes, we can see you are green, but finish the project, please?
Tom Evangelidis via Desire to Inspire
via Sunset
3. Animal skulls on the walls, real or fake (via). Unless you live in a hunting lodge. On second thoughts, even if you do live in a hunting lodge …
Dead animal decor
What about you? Any trends you would like to see die with the decade? Or any you see becoming enduring classics?
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Are yours decked, ready to go? Perhaps not quite to this extent:
photo Chris Everard
I still have quite a bit of decking to do – I like to keep to the tradition of starting Christmas on December 24th, and not taking the decorations down until Twelfth Night. Yup, my Christmas lights are still twinkling on January 5th, even if they are surrounded by all those sad looking trees tossed out for recycling on New Year’s Day.
So while I rush around getting ready to do the decking, here are some inspiring images for you to relax and enjoy. Today, a rather grown-up and restrained Christmas – no tinsel, no gaudy red and green here. I guess there are no children insisting that Oscar the Grinch has to go on the tree, just because he always has! (all photos via)
photo Jo Tyler
photo Jo Tyler
photo Jo Tyler
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This pastel colored, pool-side, outdoor seating area really makes me smile:
A bevy of blobs
Doesn’t this look like a lunch gathering of the one-armed pink-pudding people? Humans would be entirely superfluous, unless seated ever so sedately the other side of the pool.
And if that isn’t a matter-transporter beam in the center of this table, it really should be:
Beam it down?
The work of Doug Meyer via Decorati – isn’t it good to see someone having so much fun with design?
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Definitely not for minimalists, the use of color in this kitchen is absolutely fearless. You’d just have to be happy in this space, wouldn’t you?
Persiljas Hus
Since there’s enough color here for about 15 of the sophisticated, white, Scandinavian kitchens we so often see, I’m going to let this one stand on its own. (link)
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I’ve been busy working with various color projects lately, so instead of kitchens, today I’m sharing these great photographs that show a strong connection between interior and exterior colors:
photo Richard Powers
photo Richard Powers
Aren’t they inspiring? I always like it when a color scheme uses elements of the home’s natural environment – it makes a strong foundation to build on and can unify different rooms. Of course, I don’t know where reality ends and photographic magic begins. In real life, the majority of my clients don’t live in concrete hangars with stunning scenery right outside.
Photographs by Richard Powers via, licensed under the creative commons.
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Is it time to get back in the box?
The best stuff in the world?