Stop Stairing

A client of mine and her husband have an adorable house in the Hollywood Hills that they wanted to update some pretty blah stairs that didn't really say anything about their style nor were they particularly fun to look at. I looked around the house and found some other shapes and patterns that were in other fabrics and things they had and came up with this design for them.

I See The Light

After a long search for the perfect chandelier to go in this Spanish living room with pitched wood ceiling, I found it through www.liveauctioneers.com . This website is different from ebay in that it's a collection of private auction houses from all over the country and Europe that operate independently with their own terms, conditions and buyer's premiums. Although you can have a dashboard with liveauctioneers in which to keep track of the auctions you want to follow, you register to bid with each auction house you wish to place bids with.

The particular auction was with a company called Copake Auction Inc. I won the piece for $20 plus the buyer's 15% premium which brought it to a whopping $23. Shipping crating and sending such a large piece was not cheap, $300. However, that said, it still makes this light fixture a bargain.

This is the way it appeared as a tumbled heap on live auctioneers.com :

Here it is installed

Yeaah! Soo pretty at night

Palette Generator

I just found this useful tool through Big Huge Labs  http://bighugelabs.com

It generates color swatches from any image you'd like to upload.
Using this picture of a rustic cart from an estate sale, I fed it in and got this color breakdown back in swatch form. Love it.

Don't Sugarcoat It

Paws for Thought

Cathy, a very dear friend of mine and fellow painter who works in the television / film industry as a scenic artist, sent me this lovely photo of her hand. A testament to what painting can do to one by the  end of the day.

Living in a Cave

There is a site in Saumur, France where Troglodytes, which means cave dwellers, once lived. These abandoned lodgings are now a museum where visitors can tour the underground space. From the time of The Middle Ages onwards, caves in this region were formed entirely by human hands chipped out of the limestone with hammers, picks and chisels.
The last inhabitants moved out of this extended residence which included a workshop and henhouse in the 1970's. By the time they left, they had heat, hot water and electricity. As amazing as their construction is, as well as the charming hobbit house like appeal they hold, I can't imagine living in a hole in the wall like this.

You better get real close to that fire at night, I have a feeling it gets pretty cold.

Barking Mad for Color

On the subject of trees, I've just come across the Photography of Cedric Pollet who has traveled the world searching out and photographing trees. The colors and textures are inspirational.

The link to his book on Amazon is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Bark-Intimate-Look-Worlds-Trees/dp/0711231370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391794454&sr=8-1&keywords=cedric+Pollet

and a story with amazing examples of his work was run by The British Newspaper The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningpicturegalleries/8186236/The-beauty-of-tree-bark-captured-on-camera-by-Cedric-Pollet.html?image=3