An eclectic Victorian home in South Africa

When an interior designer in South Africa gets to finally purchase and design his own home, you know he's going to go a little wild and push some boundaries. This 100+ year old Victorian in Robertson, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, is everything it should be, thanks to the talent and audacity of Etienne Hanekom. Bold, eclectic and fun. I absolutely love everything about this home (minus the mounted taxidermy), especially the mix of classic and modern, and dark colour palette. Via VISI, photos by Jac de Villiers. 

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A to-die-for home in Paris

I mentioned in my last post that my favourite interiors are those that cannot be replicated, that are edgy and eclectic and have a retro vibe. Add in some bold, mostly dark wall colours and I am on cloud 9. If the space is in Paris with gorgeous original architectural details then you it can't really be beat. Which is why I had to share this home in Paris I found on Elle Decoration Sweden. It has EVERYTHING. Photos: Gaelle le Boulicaut

My living room makeover - part 2

The left side of my living room looked like this right after we moved in. This is a very long and narrow space (23'x11') so while it's easy to break it up into different zones on each end, it gets a little tough fitting in a really large sofa and TV cabinet and not having everything running along the walls and ending up with a boring layout. And while you may recall I had received a new sofa not that long ago, my choice of wool fabric was really not smart in a house with a bunch of cats so I moved it upstairs to the storage room and may use it when we convert the space into a library. Since then I did however score the rug of my dreams and that caused an entire re-arrangement of the space and I bought a few new pieces to go with it. 

This rug is Fool's Paradise by Marcel Wanders for Moooi Carpets from The Modern Shop. It is soooooo gorgeous, and pretty much ideal in this house of many pets because it is essentially commercial grade and very low pile so it will stand up to wear and tear and fur and constant vacuuming. The flower photo printed on it is SO sharp and the colours are incredible. I opted for round instead of rectangular (and the smaller of the 2 sizes) because I didn't want to emphasize the long and narrow shape to the room. Even though my sofa is rather big and bulky, by placing it on an angle in the corner it makes it look SO much smaller and really opens up the space.

I had to find a new chair to work with the rug, and came across this Victorian grandfather chair at Yardley's Antiques. I love the competing florals together. The glass sculpture on the pile of books and glass vase on a stand are from West Elm. The gold with marble top table is from Homesense. The star light under the table is from Gaslight Electric Sign Co.. The antique fireplace screen turned artwork is from Highjinx. The light is the Flos Aim pendant designed by the Bouroullec brothers. 

This is a REALLY old chair, and I need to find some trim to cover those staples. 

The vase and lidded bowl are vintage. That's a watermelon peperomia plant. The leaves are adorable. 

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My living room makeover - part 1

Last week I shared my dining room makeover here and here, and today I wanted to share my now dark and dramatic living room. I have featured little bits and pieces of it over the past year or so but I never had all the finishing touches done (like trim, and painting out the fireplace tile) until recently. It was finally time to snap some photos and do a little feature on the blog. This is now my favourite room in the house and I am really stoked at the result, even if it will never REALLY be finished because as I mentioned last week, I'm always on the hunt for that "perfect" item. Ok, so here is a before shot:

This photo was taken right after we moved in. Gross taupe walls, even grosser yellow/orange oak floors, mahogany varnished trim and terracotta coloured dirty fireplace tiles.

Everything has been replaced, re-painted or re-stained. The floors, like in the dining room, were stripped and re-stained with Minwax's Classic Grey. The walls are Farrow & Ball's Downpipe with Plummett on the ceiling. These 2 colours are incredible and in my top 5 colours of all time. Especially Downpipe - it can look green, yellow, blue, black depending on the amount of light coming in the room. 

Sources: The unit next to my desk is vintage Marc Held for Prisunic, manufactured by Flair. Vintage Panton S chair by Vitra. Ikea Alex desk. Artemide Tizio lamp from GR Shop. Vintage Jieldé wall mount light via eBay. Tall plastic plant stand from Plust Collection by Euro3plast from Alteriors. Console table legs by Pretty Pegs. Table top by Daff Design. Featuring former ferals Bernie and Frankie. 

This vase is from a local shop now closed, and used to be a really bad minty green. I spray painted it glossy grey. Funky little dried pineapple flowers from blumenstudio. 

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My dark workspace - a sneak peek for tomorrow

Happy Thanksgiving fellow Canadians! I am going to use this day off from my day job to tweak some photos of my living room/workspace and share them on the blog tomorrow. Because I am short on pets submissions for today's post this photo acts as a sneak peek for tomorrow as well as my entry for Monday's pets on furniture. That's former feral Frankie in the window (that table was built espeically for the cats to bird watch) and his brother Bernie streaking across the space.