Ring

This has nothing to do with the apartment, but it does have to do with a design aesthetic. I found a picture of this ring oline and I really love it. I think I'd like to have my wedding ring look something like this. I love the combo of gold and gemstones.

Terrarium

I'm always trying to grow tropical plants in my apartment and it never really quite works out. I recently had a thought that a terrarium or a bell jar would not only create the humid, warm environment that the plants need year round, they would also make interesting, unique and living accesories to a room. This one pictured is a bit pricey, but I really love it. I have to keep my eyes peeled for a cheaper version.

In bedroom news, I think i might have finally bought a bed and a chest of drawers! Yay! No more air mattress!

Ashtray

Unfortunately, living in New York, you have lots of friends that smoke. I knew that if I wanted to entertain, I was going to need an ash tray for my smoker friends. Of course, no dinky ash tray would do. I found this ashtray at a Brooklyn antiques store. I liked the shape and scale of it and knew instantly it was what I had been looking for. The mud brown color, however, would never do. I looked to the color of unrippened fruit and found the spray paint I could match most closely to it. In the after shot, you can see a little framed picture with lots of color squished in it. This is my color inspiration for the main room. I've been drawing the accent colors I want to use from it. It's a vintage postcard showing the ancestry of the Swedish Royal Family. I picked it up in Stockholm and fell for it. It has a bizarre melange of colors that work well together. This unrippened yellow green is the color of the garlands decorating the distinguished Swedish portraits.

Tree: Part II

Here are some images of the progress in black paint after the pencil sketch. I added some birds on the bottom of the cliff and some rocks falling over - the beginning of an avalanche? In my design I have also tried to almost completely ignore the corners in the walls and roof and just painted the tree as if it wer eon a flat surface. I'm very happy with how it's coming along, it's quite the scary tree isn't it?

Vintage Chair

During my days off last week I also repainted the chair pictured above. My roommate and I went antiquing in Brooklyn and I fell head over heels for this little beauty. I loved the lines of the chair and the houndstooth fabric was very well preserved. I debated as to whether paint it in black or white and in the end decided on black because the white might have made the beige on the fabric look dirty. The key to success on projects like this is the taping. I took extra care to make sure that none of the fabric was ruined.

Tree: Part I

My first major project at Three Graces was the defination of the dinning area. The Living room, Dinning area and Kitchen are all in one big open space and so I wanted to create a way to more clearly delinate one area from the others. When I was watching my all time favorite movie "Gone With the Wind" I was so inspired by the screen shoots of these vivid sunsets and then the silhouettes of Scarlett and Rhett/ Ashley and a huge large oak tree. When she returns to Tara after the war, that same oak tree is seen in silhouette again with Scarlett, but this time around the tree had lost all of it's leaves and was scraggly and Scarlett had lost her gorgeous flowing dress and was in rags. Further inspiration came from the artist Kara Walker, who I am sure was also inspired by this classic ante & post bellum film's use of silhouettes. She had a recent exhibition at the Whitney. She manages to convey such depth with the starkest and most simple of silhouettes. I wanted something similar.

I took two days off of work to give me a nice long weekend to work on this project. I was hesitant at frst, but after i put down the first pencil marks the feeling of drawing on a wall was so liberating. I found myself reconnecting with my artistic self, something I hadn't done in a long time. I went to a Fine Arts High School, so I did a lot of painting and sculpture. In college I did printmaking and book binding. It had been a while since I had drawn or painted anything and I had never done anything to this scale. I started out with trying to just outline the silhouette of the tree. That proved too difficult. I ended up just drawing the tree, with perspective, shading and all. It was much easier for me to visualize the mass and volume of the tree. It also allowed me to make sure that the proportions were correct and that it looked at least somewhat realistic.

My aim was to create a tree in this corner that would envelope the dinning table and four chairs. I imagined a tree that was growing at the edge of a ravine, maybe somewhere on the grounds of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Catherine had often sat there and looked over the rocky wind-swept landscape. Bent and knarled, I wanted a tree that was somewhere between life and death. I wanted it to be ambiguous as to whether it was a tree in winter, a tree about to bloom, or tree that had long since been dead and would soon tumble off the cliff.

Above are some pictures of my intial sketches. I tend to drag my hand as I draw therefore smudging a lot - the walls became pretty dirty. I had a great time, listening to good music, having a beer and drawing on the pristine white walls. It was one of the most relaxing days I have had in a long time.

Red Molding

I will soon post pictures of the actual apartment, I promise. I just have all of these ideas and I want to use this blog as a sort of Idea/ Mood board so I am trying to get them all up before I forget them. There is a long corridor in the apartment and along one wall I was considering putting up red molding like in the picture above. I really hate the furniture in the picture above (save for the coffee table, hanging lamps, and cool lion's head above the fireplace). Focus on the red molding on the white walls. Maybe in a different color? My roommate likes the idea of them being red.

Wallpaper

I've recently become slightly obsessed by wallpaper. I just love the variety of moods and effects that one can acheive with it. I have this nook in my bedroom that I plan to place my bed in. I want to wallpaper the inner walls and drape the edge of the nook, creating a false canopy for my bed. I've always wanted a bed a la Napoleon, and now I figure is a better time than any to have one. Since my roommate's veto cannot extend into my bedroom, I can have full creative freedom and create a space that is truly dramatic and spectacular to be in. Here are some wallpaper samples that I've been toying with. N.B., the space that I plan on wallpapering is not very big, so the wallpaper will serve as an accent in the room. That's why I think it should be something particularly stunning. The samples I've placed here are all very different. I guess it all depends on which direction and vibe I want the bedroom to take. Suggestions?

This picture to the left is great! I found it on http://soulpretty.blogspot.com/ which is one of the many home blogs I read. I've always been a fan of white and I think this room does a great job of making the different shades of the same color work well together. Even though the room the all white, it still feels warm and inviting - showing the depth that the often misunderstood color has. I also love the picture rails and the chrome accenting on the chairs. I could do without the shag carpet.

3G

I recently decided to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn. What could have caused me to leave the island and venture into a borough? An apartment. Not just any apartment, a beautiful blank slate of one - 3G. My roommate and I searched high and low for an apartment, never able to quite decide on one. Once we saw this one we both new instantly. We wrote checks, uncorked champagne and clinked glasses to our beautiful new apartment, Three Graces.