I just found out that one of my favorite British wallpaper companies, PaperBoy, is now offering their wonderfully wacky prints in fabric too.

PaperBoy was started by a mother (Victoria) who couldn’t find fun, good quality wallpaper for her boys bedroom. At least, wallpaper that wasn’t totally twee.  With her two six-year-old boys as critics, she set about coming up with hand-drawn images that combined classic ideas like dinosaurs and pets, with edgier imagery like graffiti and skeletons.  And thus was born Paperboy Wallpaper. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m big into juxtapositions. Mixing smooth with rough, tall with short, or old with new – it’s the contrast between elements that brings out the best visually in each object.

Here we see a beautiful example of mixing an old decorative style with the relatively new material. Etsy seller, MHDdesigns has taken the flowing, intricate designs of the Art Nouveau period, and married them to the more spare, modern design element of bamboo ply to create this lovely screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting Christiane Lemieux, founder of DwellStudio, at a signing for her new book Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design.

I’ve been meaning to write a review ever since, but I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes off the pages long enough to write something. This book is chock full of amazing and inspiring photographs. The locations run the gamut from a wonderfully cluttered farmhouse in New York State, to a sleekly modern “country house” in Northern California, but all share the unifying factor of being unfussy. These are homes that are truly lived in, in the most wonderfully human sense of the phrase. The people who have invited us into their homes on these pages, have “decorated” for their own enjoyment, not ours, and that’s what makes the spaces so appealing. Whether you call the style “undecorated”, wabi sabi, or simply eclectic, it speaks volumes about the lives of the people who dwell there. Read the rest of this entry »

After a very rainy morning, the sun is out and the birds are arguing over turf singing.  It’s Spring!

So, here are some things I thought you might find interesting to look at this week:

1. If you like the midcentury mod look, you wouldn’t go wrong getting one of these great upcycled clocks from Etsy. (re-nest)

2. This is the sort of question I love to see asked, “is a timeless kitchen possible?” (Shelterrific)

3. Here’s a DIY project I’d love to try. It’s a woven leather stool and it looks pretty sharp. (Craft)

4. Here’s another DIY project that looks much better than you think it would from the description. It’s an egg carton pendant light, and the purple color is what really makes it. Trust me. (re-nest)

5. Speaking of color, here’s another blog post celebrating the beauty of gray, just like my post earlier today. (Wayside Violet)

6. A friend alerted me to this article on a crazy amazing desert homestead. It’s green living at its wildest, in more ways than one, but it’s Benita the Texas longhorn cow that really captured my heart. I couldn’t live there, but I sure would love to scratch her behind the ears just once. (The New York Times)

7. This article asks the question, “Was Frank Lloyd Wright’s Visionary Architecture Sustainable?” (ARTINFO on the Huffington Post)

8. Now I ask the question, “is this new Proto Home really just a modern re-examination of Rietveld’s iconic 1924 Schroder House?”

9. And finally, this Lucky Cat T-shirt is not only adorable, but part of the proceeds from its sale benefit Architecture for Humanity’s Japan relief fund. That’s a win-win in my book!  So go ahead and buy one.  You know you want to.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

This week the task is PLAN!

For those of us who work from home, you know our offices are often the space that we spend the most time in (at least awake time), and usually the messiest and most neglected too. It’s strange how that happens. We keep our shared spaces as neat and tidy as our lives will allow, but our personal and work spaces become cluttered and crowded. I am as guilty of this as anyone.

So, when I set about revamping my office, the first thing that had to happen was purging it, and then a thorough cleaning. This took a little longer than expected, due to my being sick at the beginning of the month, but things are well underway now. The next stage of my little office revamp is to plan out what I want to do. That is definitely the fun part! Here is a peek at what’s inspired me:

This image, seen on elements of style, shows the beginnings of what I’m planning for my color scheme. Because I work a lot with color, it helps not to have bright colors on the walls which might reflect on the paint chips and fabric swatches I’m looking at. However, I didn’t want to have just plain white walls, if for no other reason than the trim is already an off white. A nice deep gray wall, like you see in this room, is just the ticket. However this room is a little too formal for my taste.

Now this office is a bit more like it. While none of the elements for my office are exactly like this (except for the floor), the colors, textures, and general quirkiness are right up my alley. No wonder, because I found the image on a favorite blog called The Steampunk Home.  Just the place for quirky.  The one thing it’s really lacking is that little touch of femininity. Read the rest of this entry »

When I first started doing sustainable design back oh these many years ago, one of the first pieces of furniture I found was a little side table made from bicycle tire rims. And while I still think it was kind of neat, I really figured I was sort of over the whole repurpose bicycle parts thing. That was until I saw this…

This “ReCycled VII Sofa Table”, by Etsy shop ReMainDesigns, has such a beautiful form that it really elevates what most would consider trash into something quite elegant.

And that’s not the only fun thing made from bicycle parts I found in their shop.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello dear readers!  Every day I find out about at least five or six things that I think you would love to know about too, but there is only so much time in the day for me to write.  So I am wondering, if I wrote one regular, more in depth post a day (as I try to do now), and also did one or two really quick posts, (with maybe a photo, short blurb, and link), would you read the extra posts?  Or is a short post just too little information for you to bother reading?  I’m very curious to know what you think.  Could you take a minute and answer the poll below for me?

Happy Spring everyone! Ours started out with a bang last night – literally. At 4:30 AM my family awoke with a start as a huge clap of thunder echoed overhead. For the next 15 min. we got to enjoy quite a light and sound show, which even included some hail (to the delight of my nine-year-old).

This morning it’s all sunshine and fluffy clouds, which is the perfect setting to think about springtime. In celebration of the change of seasons, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of my favorite floral prints in organic and sustainable fabrics. Enjoy!

Plover Organic, Pink Roses – 100% organic cotton

WonderFluffShop (Etsy seller), Aqua Daisies – 100% organic cotton Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it’s been a wonderful week here at The interioREvolution, in no small part because it was my birthday yesterday! My husband took me out for a lovely dinner and then to a play set in an Irish pub, and what could be a better way to spend a St. Patrick’s Day birthday than that?

Meanwhile, as usual there is plenty of fascinating stuff going on in sustainable design that I thought you might be interested in. Here’s what I’ve been reading about this week:

1. The process of dying silk fabric uses an awful lot of water. What if you could dye the silk before it is even spun by the silkworm? That’s what researchers are working on right now, by feeding fluorescent dye to silkworms. (Treehugger)

2. One of the biggest obstacles to using LED lighting is the initial cost. New research may be able to lower that cost by 75%, making LEDs comparable in cost to the much more popular CFL and incandescent bulbs. (Treehugger)

3. A big factor to consider in creating a sustainable product is the efficient use of material. This hardwood flooring company reduces waste by using a computerized analysis to calculate the curves and irregularities of uncut logs in order to create flooring using no straight lines. The curved edges of the pieces fit together like a puzzle. (Boing Boing)

4. Here’s an interesting look at some DIY lighting projects. (Design Sponge)

5. I don’t know what this midcentury modern wall sculpture is actually made from, but it reminds me of dried slices of citrus fruit. What do you think those funky circles are? (Standard)

6. Here are four good sources for paraffin free candles. (re-nest)

7. In this interview, furniture designer Leon Wong discusses why he encourages people to buy modern wood furniture for Earth Day. (Maneuvering Life With Style)

8. I thought I would close with this video interview with Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair talking about how they are already helping  Japan rebuild. If there is anybody who can inspire architects and designers to go out and save the world, it’s him. (seen on Inhabitat)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

I’m writing this while wearing my favorite old Pogues concert tee, so I’m green in more ways than one today!

This week’s goal is Clean!

When last I showed you a peek of my very messy office, I told you that I would be purging it that week. However, an upper respiratory infection put the kibosh on that for a bit. So yesterday, my intrepid intern Gina helped me get caught up in the purging AND cleaning department.

See, we’re making some progress.

Purging is going well, although the desk and filing cabinets are still waiting for their new homes. There are several piles of things to be sold in a garage sale or donated to Goodwill, and mountains of old paperwork are awaiting scanning, shredding, or enshrining as needed.

The cleaning effort involved much vacuuming, mopping, wiping of surfaces, and general decluttering. Of course, this is what’s going to happen with each and every room that I work on this year, so I thought I would use my cleaning post each month as an opportunity to spotlight one specific area of “green” cleaning.

Today, I thought I would share with you my favorite book on non-toxic household “recipes”, Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living, by Annie Berthold – Bond. This book is not just on cleaning your home, it also has natural formulas for everything from skin care to pest control.  Lot’s of them.  I love it!

Since one of the things I want to do in this room is let in more of the beautiful natural light, I thought it would be a good idea to thoroughly clean the windows. However, we weren’t able to get to that yesterday, so tomorrow’s the day, and I’m going to try the “super-duper dirty window cleaner” from “Better Basics”. I’ll let you know if it works. Meanwhile, here’s the formula if you want to try it yourself:

1/4 teaspoon washing soda
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 teaspoon liquid soap or detergent
2 cups club soda

Dissolve the washing soda in hot water, then pour into a spray bottle. Add liquid soap and club soda. Shake well, then spray windows and wipe clean.

Next week I’ll begin the planning process. That’s when things should really get fun!

If you want to get caught up on what this is all about, you can read the original Week #1 post here.