My dream home

Patrick Flynn is a designer/project manager at envelopeA+D, an architecture and design firm based in Oakland, California and he emailed us thinking we'd be interested in a project the firm recently completed (it was featured in the NY Times yesterday). Interested??? I almost passed out when I saw the photos. This home is so unbelieveably cool and funky and creative and plucked right out of my dreams. I am completely smitten with it. The Victorian duplex is located in San Francisco, and is owned by Claire Bigbie (an interior designer who now designs for the firm) and her skateboarder boyfriend Jay Shapiro. It was renovated to house a creative studio for Claire on the main floor and the living quarters upstairs. I adore absolutely everything about this home, including the incredible blue-black exterior (used to downplay the Victorian embellishments). Thanks so much Patrick for sharing this with us! Every photo below is going in my inspiration folder, and I imagine in many of our readers' folders too.

Amanda Martocchio

Amanda Martocchio Architecture and Design is a firm based in New Canaan, CT that embraces sustainable design and new technologies. Amanda's designs are classic and very much timeless, with modern touches to keep the spaces current. Perfection I'd call it....in particular some of the bathrooms featured below. (I've already saved them to my inspiration file for my future bathroom renos).

Gluckman Mayner architects

When you live in a house totally devoid of any architectural interest, you can easily develop quite an appreciation for the work of great architects, such as Gluckman Mayner Architects based in New York City. Architecture can be very effective when it's done simply. Take the facade of the white house below. LOVE THAT.

Carter Williamson encore

See - if you ask nicely and wait patiently sometimes wishes come true. Websites get updated or redesigned. Australian architectural firm Carter Williamson design fabulous modern homes, clean and minimal. They turn their backs on the bustle of the outside world and address the private areas within without losing that inside/out feel. And their kitchens! We've featured them before and Shaun Carter has even sent us photos as they updated their website. Now the site is live and there are so many more wonderful images and a wonderful look at work in progress and concepts. Time to revisit and be inspired.

Lar Doce Lar

Talk about colour and vibrancy! Talk about the exciting design scene in Brazil today! It's fun, slightly irreverent and hot, hot hot. These photos are from an exhibition/show house, “CasaCor Peru” created by Rosenbaum Design in Lima, Peru to celebrate Brazilian culture.

But perhaps the work that I am drawn to the most on Marcelo Rosenbaum and his design team's website is "Home Sweet Home" (Lar Doce Lar). This is design for the real people, not the "chic and thin". Since 2006 Rosenbaum has transformed homes that many of us would call slums for television. A better take on the genre than many. I've included some befores below but take a close look at the projects. You'll be inspired.