La Terra Cole

I didn't copy every post from Not My Beautiful Home - tempting as it was. Every once in a while I wander onto a blog, get lost in it and everything outside of my laptop screen disappears. Well people, this is one of them. I have that whole "give me an old bottle, three river rocks, a tube of glitter, and some pvc pipes so I can pimp my house" vibe.


I am going back now. Race you there!

Most space saving designs include some secret ingredient for multitasking. The key to making this small space functional is a desk equipped with wheels.



You can see in the room plan above that bookcases or open shelving on the opposing wall will alleviate the chore of moving everything out of the room every time you need to switch tasks. 

Simple accessories, in the right scale, bring in color and personality. 




Living in a small space does not mean you have to live small. Thoughtful rearranging can allow you to do it all.


See this and other space saving room plans at Shelterness.

Photo credit here.

So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious.



They're striving to do things that have never been done before.  



 Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste.


They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.

Over the winter break I plan to design and produce a line of pillows and the theme will be global eclectic. It would be fair to say I had no idea how creative the process can be.














Each item is individually crafted and they only make a few of each, because they like to offer new prints

Color blocking is the coolest of cool fall trends. It's a grown up way of reliving your childhood tendency to wear all of your favorite colors at once. Well, now that trend is all chic and grown up and it has moved indoors.









 You may notice the design are not pattern heavy. The walls, accessories, and floors are minimal as well. The trick to color blocking is to allow those beautiful, bold hues to speak for themselves.

 
Are you color blocking? Comment with links to you blog posts for everyone to see.

It would not be entirely inaccurate to say I am the sort of girl who likes to cut the bull and see a thing through. Case in point: I decided Sunday evening to paint my accent wall black and had half of it done within the hour.



Let me tell you, I L.O.V.E. the color black (or absence of color? whatever). The only barrier to painting was to decide whether I wanted all black walls or black stripes. This photo from Design for Mankind almost made me come undone.





But I had already done vertical stripes in a previous apartment. Soooooo... Viola! Today is Tuesday and I am the proud stunter of a floor to ceiling chalkboard wall.

Hats off to the Joss and Main chic city-style collection, curated by The Decorista.

I recently set up a flavors.me account to stream all my blogs, video, and pictures to one place. The site updater is not the fastest so this blog will be more current. It will allow you to view all my work in one place, though.

It's been a rainy week in DC. Since I was forced to entertain myself indoors, I decided to photograph my current pillow arrangement on the bed. I have had white bedding for nine years. This little sequin pillow is just enough to satisfy my sense of drama.


Hope you all are enjoyed the time indoors this week.

My mode at the moment:








Some days I just want to put on a tutu and biker boots, spike my hair and tell the world to chill the heck out. This quote takes me to that place every time I read it. I hope you will all come along for the ride. Happy Thursday.

Unlike most people, I love, Love, LOVE organizing. And that warm tingly good feeling of knowing where all my stuff is makes the whole shebang worth it. When a friend and I decided to start looking for apartments together I automatically started brainstorming all the ways we could make our separate lives fit into an iddy bitty patch of rented real estate. Meet: the roommate desk.


(the fact that there is a disco ball in this room makes me ridiculously giddy)

Words escape me. I will just let your eyes provide the narrative.

I found this awesome Etsy artist on a random peruse for inspiration. Cool metal cabinets put to a creative new use.














 

All bags are from ASOS except the Peacock Clutch from missibabba

 I have been on the go without much time to post. This bag stopped me in my tracks though.

I have been feeling a little funky this week. I found myself adding patterns, colors, and textures with utter disregard for the traditional laws of fashion (if such a thing is even real). And, you know what? It felt amazing.

I am not the only one advocating for the demolition of these unfashionable fashion rules. Street-style stars Giovanna Battaglia and Taylor Tomasi Hill recently weighed in on their favorite rules to break.


1. Break out your evening wardrobe for day

“I think wearing white lace in the morning looks lovely and that gold dresses and embroidery looks better worn in the day than at night. A silver skirt and a gold-foil blouse, for example, looks amazing,” Battaglia says.

2. Combine contrasting prints freely

“Some say mixing prints is a no-no, but for me and for fashionistas all over the globe this has been a huge trend as of late. As long as the prints work together and don’t compete, you are on your way to breaking one of the rules —  but in a good way,” Tomasi Hill says. Battaglia adds, “One of my favorite things to do is pair up a polka-dot top and a floral-print skirt. As long as you wear something in a bold way, it works.”

3. Do wear black with navy

“Black and brown together — some would say ‘eeeek,’ I say ‘chic,’” Tomasi Hill says. Outfits that mix navy, black, brown and gray??She says thumbs up.

4. Repeat with wild abandon

“Sometimes I will wear the same skirt to work four days out of five, always in a different way. I’ve become addicted to seeing how many ways I can wear it,” Tomasi Hill says. “I’ve often thought I should do this for fashion month as it would certainly cut down on the packing process.”

5. And wear it like you mean it

“During the week, I like to really dress up, especially for work. It puts me in a good frame of mind,” Battaglia says. Taylor also dresses to win: “My first job in fashion was at W magazine. My boss at the time told me to dress for the job you want in the future. I live by this rule.”

Picture from http://staysuckafree.tumblr.com
Interview in Boston Metro 

Yep. That is all I could say as I perused the website of Suno. Ohhh and ahhhs overload.