Planning a bathroom is perhaps one of the most challenging areas in Interior Design. The difficulties are connected with usually small dimensions of the space, rigorous technical requirements, practical and aesthetic needs. Bearing in mind the following considerations will help you to plan functional and beautiful bathroom. 1) ERGONOMICS Ergonomics is the science studying interaction…
Kelly Hoppen, whatever she does: decorates the houses, creates new lines of interior products or writes a book, makes sure she does it well. The book that I’ve just read “Kelly Hoppen Style: The Golden Rules of Design” must be on the shelf of every Interior Designer. Some might like Kelly Hoppen’s style, some might…
It’s been a while I didn’t write anything in my History of Styles folder. My latest post there was dedicated to Rococo, and I thought it might be a good idea to go deeper and explore the style which is closely related to it – Chinoiserie. As usually, a little bit of history… At the end…
Do you remember Gil Elvgren pin-up girls? Our friend gave as a wonderful gift – a calendar with Brown & Bigelow reproduction paintings. My husband and I got so used to the company of these pretty girls that we felt really pity when year 2012 was over. That’s when we decided to make a do-it-yourself…
FROM RUNWAYS TO OUR HOMES Looking at spring collections of top fashion houses it looks like all designers just fell in love with black and white geometric prints. Without doubt, it has become the hottest trend of Spring 2013. Judge yourself: Black and white has always been a classic combination but this season the striking…
Luxury belongs to those ephemeral terms such as happiness, beauty, style, which are quite difficult to explain and even more difficult to define… So many times reading design books and magazines I have noticed expressions “luxury lifestyle”, “luxury living” and “luxury homes”. But what exactly do they mean? What are the indispensable attributes of luxury…
Quba is the ancient carpet producing province in Azerbaijan. Some of the finest authentic handmade carpets are made here. During our last trip to this region we had a chance to get to one of the mountain villages to see the process of making flat-weave rugs called Soumak (Soumakh or Sumak). Flat-weave rugs have appeared…
In my latest posts I talked a lot about Gaudi’s architecture, Jugendstil in Riga, Modern buildings in Baku. Perhaps you already understood that Art Nouveau is one of my favorite styles and in this post I will write about its use in Interior Design. The “New Art” appeared at the end of XIX century and…
Plain off-white lampshades may look so dull. My table lamps in the bedroom already started to irritate me, because the fabric on them was scratched, stained, dusty and so boring. I decided to refresh them by doing this easy do-it-yourself project. For those, who are like me, live in a rented apartment, it might be…
As soon as people start blogging they become very enthusiastic about it. It is so exciting to check out the statistics of visits, receive “likes” and comments, get new followers. For some bloggers it is closely related to their business and they expect to convert subscribers into consumers of their products and services. Some people…
Barcelona… I like to taste this word again and again, softly clamping my tongue between the teeth when I pronounce “c” like Spanish people do. This city so impressed me with its unique identity, cosmopolitanism, rhythm of life, delightful food and outstanding architecture… This is the place where one of the greatest architects of all…
Wrought iron is one of the most elegant and beautiful elements in interior design and one of my most favorite too. It appeared many centuries ago and became especially popular in the XVI – XIX centuries. The design of wrought ironwork is always changing according to actual trends: it can be flowery or minimalistic, traditional…