Barn conversion inspiration

Penny wrote us recently with what I'd have to say is the toughest request yet: "In the next few months, I am going to begin renovating a big barn on my property in France to turn into a "great room" (kitchen/living room). I have been trying to collect photos from magazines with modern kitchens/living rooms in renovated barns, but I have only come across a few. Do you have any such photos that you could post on your blog?" The simplest answer to Penny's question is no. But what I did find are photos of lofty spaces that are multi-purpose, that might help with ideas on layout. Penny - are you ever lucky! A barn conversion would be a blast! Hope this helps get your creative juices flowing.

Åsberg Interiör & Styling	Eugeni Pons
fernlund + logan	Film Locations
Gorlin Architects	Nelson Kon
New York Social Diary	The New York Times
Philippe Starck	Shoot Factory
Style at Home	Toshiko Mori
Urban Spaces	William Hefner
House of Pictures	Lagerlings

Favourite living rooms

Jo thought it would be a great idea to post our 12 favourite rooms. She posted hers here, and didn't follow the 12 rule, and I'm not one to follow rules either. Plus, I am feeling guilty for all the posting Jo did while I was moving. So for the next few days I thought I would post my favourite rooms organized by room type. This one features living rooms.

Nicholas Haslam

Jonathan Adler

IFI

Domino

Jeff Andrews

Mark Christofi

Domino

India Mahdavi

Kenneth Brown	Paul Costello

Dog on a chair and a couch

Audrey sent us an email that I wanted to share: "I've been reading your blog for a while and thought I'd contribute a 'dog on chair' photo of my Boston Terrier, Edward. Edward is actually a girl, named after a female computer hacker character from the anime, Cowboy Bebop. The chair she's sitting on I found at a yard sale for $7! The other photo is of our living room." LOVE Edward, LOVE the chair and LOVE your living room! Thanks Audrey!

Dealing with a TV in your living room

David, who has a 32" flat screen TV, sent us an email about a design dilemma he has and it goes a little something like this: "Why does it seem that no one in the magazines or design sites has a TV? We have a micro-sized house with one living area. We like to watch movies every now and then on our couch in said living room, but we don't want the TV to be the focal point of the room. We feel like a grouping could be done that would minimize the impact of the TV while still having it across from the couch, but I can find no inspiration in magazines or online to help me find the answer I seek."

I personally think flat screen TVs are kind of nice to look at and don't need to be distracted from, but hey, I see David's point. My favourite is when the TV is positioned in a convenient place in the room in terms of design aesthetics, but you can't view it easily from any given chair or couch. I saw this exact scenario this afternoon on an old episode of Home to Stay. Gimme a break people!!! So I went digging around my photo stash and came up with some photos to help David and anyone else out there with this common problem. Hope this helps. (I added a photo of my living room - I found that by filling the wall around the TV with photos, the TV was way less obvious.)

kontakt Magazine	Christopher Gaona
Form Architecture	Domino
Studio Ilse	Kenneth Brown
Robyn Karp	BKSK Architects
fernlund + logan architects	Jerry Jacobs
The Lawrence Group	Pappas Miron
PointClickHome	Domino
Nicholas Haslam	my living room

Black and white living rooms

I cannot begin to express how much I love black and white colour palettes. It is just so classic and modern, and easy to switch out accent colours if you tire of things easily like I do. So here are some photos of black and white living rooms.

Bernstein & Andriulli	Riehl Designs, Inc.
Domino	Ghislaine Viñas
Studioilse	Tocar Design