High - Low Decorating

Homegoods, (HomeSense in Canada), TJ Maxx, Ikea.... or  Kravet, Elte, Century Furniture? It all depends on your style, your budget, and your desire to be design-forward or design successor.  It can be a real high vs. low price game, and what you get for your money can seem very similar or very obviously not of the same quality.


How about a show of hands for those of you who saw Meryl Streep turn up the bitchiness in "The Devil Wears Prada"? My hand is up, right here!  Aside from the parallels I was able to draw (too well, in fact) to a superior in my own work history, there is a particular scene in which Ms. Streep's character gives a sharp-tongued lesson in where the items that fill our big-box retail outlets come from.  Those shelves lined with items which we might perceive as being worlds apart from high-end exclusive designers are in fact, derived from their trend-setting designs.  As an example, watch the annual Academy Awards ceremony and then notice how many of those red carpet gowns are "knocked off" by mass retailers within a week.  The same applies to interior design products.  Our furniture styles, accessory shapes and themes, and color schemes are all very much derived from what the industry Gods have created and presented a season or two (or three or four) earlier.


All of this leads me to my point today: high or low?  Do you buy the item with the discount sale sticker from the liquidator or do you shop at the design center and exclusive showrooms for items to decorate your home?  As my husband likes to say, "how you do anything is how you do everything", so I'm probably not going out on a limb here to say that if you enjoy bargain shopping at Nordstrom Rack for last season's hot jeans style and finding them at $100 less than they were in the Nordstrom, you are likely using the same savvy shopping methods to outfit your home.  And in contrast, if you enjoy wearing pieces that most people have not yet seen in North America because Milan Fashion Week just unveiled a particular new trend a couple of months ago, you are probably someone who prefers uncommon objets d'art and choosing furniture styles which express your preference for exclusive style and quality. Neither approach is right nor wrong - they simply are whatever fits you and your budget.


To give you a quick visual example, have a look at the photos below.  Master designer and potter Jonathan Adler started this current trend displaying a cluster of small ceramic vessels.  Ikea now has it's own version for a fraction of the Adler pieces.

 Jonathan Adler 

The bottom line is to buy the best quality you can comfortably afford while getting the style that best expresses the look and feel you are after.  And remember that it is "buyer beware" out there, and if it seems too good be true, it probably is of course.  Happy shopping!

ec.lec.tic

Eclectic style: this is often used to describe rooms that are a bit of a mish-mash of styles. But exactly what is it meant to be, to have "eclectic design style"? 

Webster's dictionary defines eclectic as deriving ideas, style or taste from a broad range of sources.  It is basically a very 'collected' look, many layers, with pieces from varying points in time.  It is an accumulation of items that cannot be easily fit into any one design period; it is neither truly contemporary nor traditional, but rather a blend of all of it.

These photos of Soho House hotel in New York are a quintessential example of an eclectic approach to decorating: carved antique European beds, mid-century modern sofa seating, and dramatic velvet drapery in the aqua color that is very "of the moment" in 2010.

If you are looking to create a look that has your "fingerprints" all over it, eclectic style is probably where you are trying to fit.  Nothing "doesn't go", it's layers are developed over time and utilize pieces that are thoughtfully chosen but not because they match - more because they don't, which makes them all the more interesting and noticeable.  This is a style you can truly have fun with, because the rule is that there are NO rules.

I LOVE LAMP!

I LOVE LAMP! (that's a little humor for any fans of the Anchorman movie out there).  But I really do love these lamps by Arteriors.  A lamp can seem very utilitarian by it's very nature, but don't forget it's an easy way to add a lot of style, a lot of punch, and a lot of whimsy to a decor very quickly.  These ones are just as sculptural and artistic as they are functional - doing a lot more for your design scheme than just adding light to a dark corner.  Do you love them as much as I do?

Patio Furniture Pods

Welcome to spring! Here in California we spent some time this weekend laying by the pool, soaking up the sun's rays (cuz even Californians get pale skin during the winter months, and who doesn't want a LITTLE bronze glow on your arms and legs by the time the summer clothes come out?).  So, naturally, the decorator in me turns to thoughts of.... patio decor!


Most people these days are working with really limited outdoor space.  Even if you are lucky enough to have some square footage surrounding your house, it's often a lot of landscaping and a little patio or deck area to entertain.


I came across these very cool patio furniture "pods", so the furniture grouping is literally stacked into one of those Russian-nesting-doll-looking configurations.  I've always had a weird affection for those little nesting dolls, so much so that my sister recently sent me a set of measuring cups in the style of those adorable cherub-faced trinkets, so maybe that's part of my attraction to this product, besides the obvious space-saving benefits of this patio puzzle. I found these particular ones at www.chairsource.ca.
 www.chairsource.ca

It's made of weather-resistant material and I think it takes on an almost-sculptural, definitely conversation-worthy quality when it's assembled into it's pyramid for storage.  Unpacked, it's instant style and party - and with the first day of spring already behind us for 2010, who isn't looking forward to the summer soirees just around the corner?

City of Light

You've probably all heard of this nickname for Paris... the City of Light.  Well for me, on my last trip there, it was the City of Lights! As in LIGHTING, fabulous, unusual, 21st century lighting.

I had seen this not-very-obvious but still incredible little light fixture in an apartment that my uncle had rented for a couple of weeks. It was subtle, very small in scale, and a wall sconce - so if you weren't paying attention to it (easy to do since it is a clear acrylic mounted against a grey wall in this case), and especially if the fixture wasn't turned on so you could see how the light projected a chandelier's shadow on to the wall - you'd have never been able to appreciate the design. It was pure glam, fun, and eclectic - take a look!

We poked around a few lighting magasins in Paris to see if we could find the same fixture, but realizing the difficulty of getting it properly re-wired for North American electricity made it not a worthwhile souvenir afterall.  Luckily I have just found that a store local for us in the LA/OC area of California is now carrying this fixture - the store is Room Service, which I've blogged about before.   Start dreaming... where could you fit in this bit of fun in your design???
http://www.roomservice-la.com/