Renovation week 29 | still painting....

While the painting is still going on everywhere in my house. I went ahead and picked this color called Deep Space to paint my hallway/mudroom and love love love it! It transitions from grey walls in the kitchen to this dark walls. Super cool! My theory was right. You can never go wrong with dark color.

No change to the dog. End report. 

Renovation week 28 | painting continue...

They told me painting would take about 2 weeks to finish because there are a lot of prepping involve especially for lacquer paint on my cabinets. So this week progress is just some primer. I actually love the matte look of the primer!

In the kitchen
My open shelves have just been installed. Oh have I told you about the drama I had with these? OMG it's so annoying. Before I end up with the shelves I wanted. Flash back to what happened last week. My contractor misinterpret the design on the blue print and gave me something looking like a cabinet with no doors. I made them rip it out because it's so ugly. 

Exterior

They are still prepping mostly. They are now putting finishing details like wood frames around the windows and doors. I specifically asked them to match the detailing to the existing part of my house. It seems pretty straight forward and you think I wouldn't have a complain during this process. Oh no you are wrong! Here comes another problem....

The new window frames that go around my windows are much larger than the window sill that came with the windows. Now they have to add a little piece of wood to extend the sill. If you look up close on above photo, you'll see a little line there. I'm surprised not even the window guy thought of this. So for those of you out there, you need to order the window and make sure they also match the size of the sill to your existing. 

Almost there...

Monday

Pretty make up by Eva Gerholdt

model: anja

photographer: Andrea Hübner

Premier Blue

"Premier Blue"is hitting the market today. At 7.59 carats and brilliant-cut, it's considered the world's biggest blue round diamond. Blue diamonds seldom hit the market and have been coveted by royals and celebrities for centuries, while a round cut is rarely used in coloured stones because of the high wastage.  It's estimated to sell for more than $19 million at an auction in Hong Kong.

photo via ahametals

Monday

Poodle Caterpillar photo via flickr

Wednesday

Blinded by colors...It's my usual Wednesday. So many colorful things to design, so little time. 

image from Populaire via thescoobygang

Director: Régis Roinsard Writer: Daniel Presley, Régis Roinsard & Romain Compingt Starring: Déborah François & Romain Duris

Friday!

Some people go the beach, but others prefer polishing crystals at home...

photo by sticky bee

Glass Gem Corn

Pretty! I can't believe this is real. Read more here 

Glass gem corn via motherearthnews and imgur

Lunchtime!

via fffound

Cute car

via chivethethrottle

Monday

Aw...it's Monday again.....

sad poodle looking in to the mirror via master-of-photoshop

Grace Jones

This iconic photo of Grace Jones was taken by Jean-Paul Goude. It's kinda cool to see that it was manually retouched because they didn't have Photoshop at the time. 

photos via 78s

Avantgarde sculpture

A cool type sculpture. It can be viewed from many different angles. 

Avantgarde sculpture by Damien Roach.

Bonsai Tree Houses by Takanori Aiba

Artist Takanori Aiba worked as a maze illustrator for Japanese fashion magazine POPYE since late 1970s. The following decade he worked as an architect and finally in 2003 decided to merge the two crafts—the design of physical space and the drawing of labyrinths—into these incredibly detailed tiny worlds. Using craft paper, plastic, plaster, acrylic resin, paint and other materials Aiba constructs sprawling miniature communities that wrap around bonsai trees, lighthouses, and amongst the cliffs of nearly vertical islands. More work from Aiba here

via thisiscolossal

Kate Moss covers

While I was brouwsing away, I came across this comprehnsive collection of Kate Moss covers. A piece of fashion history worth sharing, isn't it? 

The first ever Kate Moss cover. 1990, The Face magazine.

Kate's first Vogue cover. 1992 British Vogue. 

2009 Paris Vogue. 

2013 Esquire Cover is Kate's First Men's Magazine Appearance In 17 Years. (her last was Arena, in 1996)

images via huffingtonpost and katemosscovers

Fabulous side of Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas has just played the best role of his career in Liberace. He's really convincing, you should check it out.

Michael Douglas on New York magazine cover. Photography Martin Schoeller  Design Director Thomas Alberty via coverjunkie

Renovation week 27 | picking the paint!

Here is what so called the fun part where we get to pick colors. I'm not so sure it's that fun for me. It's quite difficult to guess how the color would look in an actual space. Below is our inspiration for the bedroom walls. I don't want any strong color. I just want something light and classic. I'm trying to make my life less complicated here. We don't have any furniture yet so we don't want any color to dictate our furniture and bedding choice. My theory for picking colors for this house is that we use light colors in smaller/darker rooms, and use dark colors in traffic areas. 

In the mean time we try to make this process as painless as possible. The key is to go in to the store and pick out only a few colors you like and quickly leave. If you stick around you will get so overwhelmed. It's easy to get side track when there are too many options. That's me getting blinded by so many swatches. 

We picked out some swatches and tested on our master bedroom walls. They look like all white swatches but on the wall they turn out so much darker don't they? We are most likely to go with Cloud White here because it has less tint out of all the choices. 

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

Happening at the same time at our kitchen... We have our cabinets painted Simply White. This was an easy choice for us since we know we want all the cabinets bright white but still has a little warm tone to it. I think this color is perfect because it's not too yellow and not too white. We also picked Shore LIne for the wall color. I think this color is matching the color of our countertop really well.

Master bathroom cabinet, we are going with the darker one for a contrast. And hopefully it will hide the stains well since this would be our main bathroom from now.

Lanvin Autumn/Winter 2013

At 2013 Lavin ready to wear collection, the highlight of the show was the jewelry. I especially love the bee brooches and necklaces. As a storyboard designer, I'm often asked to design storyboard with crazy looking jewelry implicating words that emphasis on a pop culture phenomenon such as "bling bling". Yet I find these new take on oversized jewelry refreshing and exciting.

photos via highsnobette