Interior Design and Decorationwww.lightaslife.com

This is the first page of my brand new blog! Finally…

I have to give away that I am pretty excited starting up this blog.

I would like to thank my 13-years old son for assisting me doing this (for me not so easy) job.

Please, I’ll ask you my apologies for my incorrect writing English sometimes…

I promise to do the best I can to express me in English ( my native language is Dutch).

Because of my summer holidays break, I would like to write you about the things that keep me busy for this days.

My family and I do not go abroad this summer, right now we are enjoying our house and the beautiful region we’re living in!

So in the mean time, I like to invite friends and family for a drink or a meal.
That envolves a good table decoration, don’t you think?

So I would love to share with you some pictures of my table decoration…

Did you notice the grape vine-leaf decoration?

Well, I’m proud to say that we have our own grape-vine in our garden.
After a few years in a small basin, we planted him 2 years ago against the wall of our oranjerie, and look at him now! Gorgeous, isn’t it?!

There are a lot of bunches of grapes. So I hope that we can eat them within 2 months. I will tell you!

Second thing I love to do in summer holidays is to go to a summer party!

A few weeks ago, we went to a party at my sisters and had a wonderful day.
Again, I share with you some pictures! Enjoy!

The Great Room designed by KA Design Group at the Hampton Designer Showhouse was also one of my favorite rooms. I think mostly because the design is what I wish we could have done to the Hamptons house I worked on last summer. It’s full of really great textures and colors that act as a wonderful backdrop to the drop dead gorgeous art! According to the designers Kenneth Alpert and Andrew Petronio, they designed the Great Room in a style that is the “softer side of modern.”

I really love the center table in the room that seems to anchor the room and can be used for meals or games as well as display.

The color scheme is chocolate brown and white with pops of pink. The walls are a beautiful Venetian plaster that reflects the light while the chocolate brown upholstery on the chaise chairs has a great nap that absorbs light. The pink curtains are a hot pink taffeta that help set the stage for the “eclectic blend of modern antique furniture.”

Here a small Julian Opie sculpture perches a top a marble topped side table.

My absolute favorite aspect of the room are the three large Bing Wright photographs that extend the room like windows. The wicker furniture also reminds you that you are near the beach.

The designers were able to borrow an amazing collection of art from Salon 94 including two Marilyn Minter photographs, one of which is seen in this vignette.

You can see an example of another natural and traditional material used in a novel way in this room. The grass cloth was cut into squares to cover the cover ceiling and is juxtaposed with a very modern light fixture.

This room is probably not what people would immediately think of for a beach house but it illustrates that there are different styles for different people. I like to think of this room as what an art collector who lives in Manhattan might want live when they are away for the weekend. And you can certainly take a lot of great ideas from this room for your own home. Bon Weekend!

Photos by Heather Clawson

We interrupt our Hampton Designer Showhouse coverage to update you on what ‘s been going on with my bachelorette pad. I was there today to accept delivery of the new faux-bamboo etegere that I found last week at Elizabeth Bauer. The original plan was to replace her existing short bookcase with a taller one and we discussed the Oly Stella Shelf but this one was less expensive and works perfectly with the artwork. Sometimes it pays to wait until you find the right piece.

A few people have been asking me to post more about my work and I’m going to make more of an effort going forward but it’s hard to show photos if you have any hope of getting a project published. Someone actually stopped by the bachelorette pad today to scout it for a photo shoot so hopefully you will be seeing the entire finished apartment published in a few months. I don’t think this photo will ruin anything though because we still need to buy accessories and I will restyle the bookcase. A decorator’s work is never done!

bachelorette pad before

Lujo: En Casa Cor 2006, escritorio con todo lo necesario para los momentos de relax. Mesa de cristal, televisor y alfombras.
Algo que sí le parece esclavizante es hacer un escritorio en casa para acondicionarlo y llevar el trabajo de la oficina allí, pues eso nunca funciona: no hay desconexión total y no se disfruta con la familia. Por eso echó a volar su imaginación en el ‘escritorio relax del dueño de la casa’, para el último Casa Cor. Fue pensado para una pareja joven, unos magnates productores de cine. Allí todo es muy moderno y fastuoso, la mesa de cristal con base de acero, la alfombra de lana de oveja de Nueva Zelanda, el piso de concreto estampado y los adornos hechos por artistas. La iluminación decorativa es notoria porque este lugar fue creado más para disfrutar que para leer y trabajar.

Imagenes y fuente de: Caretas.com.pe
via Decoracion del Hogar

Sometimes it is the smallest rooms in a showhouse that make the biggest impact and that is definitely the case with designer Katie Ridder‘s butler pantry and bathroom in the Hampton Designer Showhouse this year. She is lucky that she had her own great line of wallpapers to choose from but how many people would really wallpaper a butler’s pantry in real life? Usually they are such a small room that they get overlooked in the design process but with this bright cheerful paper, it becomes a jewel box.

One of the other designers in the house mentioned that she at first felt sorry that Katie Ridder got such small rooms but clearly she managed to do a lot with the wallpaper and accessories.

When you walk down the hall, the room makes you smile as you walk past it.

It’s hard to photograph powder rooms well but you can get a sense of how cute the sailboat paper looks in a house by the beach! Small rooms are great places to make a big impact with wallpaper and take chances with pattern because there is less of a chance of a homeowner getting tired of the design since they see it in small doses.

Photos by Heather Clawson