Wow, the moment of change is upon us! Late last night we signed on the dotted line and sold our sweet little condo. Woo! And now my stomach is twisting and turning with all the stuff we have to get done to be out of here in a very short timeline. And through all that anxiousness, we have to start looking for a house. And we have to make a very big commitment. And designers are notoriously bad at committing to anything for themselves. So this should be interesting.

In the meantime, I'm turning to my photo inspiration archives to help me see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm afraid I don't know all the sources for these images, some of them are pretty old.

from The Brick House

from Emersonmade's home at design*sponge

from design*sponge

by Tommy Smythe of Sarah Richardson Design

Okay, that actually makes me feel worse.


For the palette of the new house, I'm thinking a foundation of soft greys and browns. I want the living room to be a tones of charcoals and blues, and I know I want a room with that hit of bright yellow. Stay tuned!

I've been feeling less and less inspired by many of the homes I find on the web these days. So many interiors that I am coming across seem to feature the same sort of ideas over and over again, and not much is looking unique anymore. I have seen so many cluttered, collection filled, flea market sourced, filled to the brim with tchotchkes homes that I can't stand it anymore. Plus: white walls, yep, painted floors, yep. I get it.

(And here is where you can call me a complete hypocrite, because chances are I will paint walls white, and try painted floors too. So bookmark this post. I promise.)

It was such a refreshing change to see this beautiful interior from Tamizo Architects Group in Poland. I love the restrained palette of white and black, with the pale natural wood tones. I love how graphic the space is, but remains soft with the sheer curtains. For me, this is a perfect play of contrasts.

The design also perfectly balances the weight of each element. I love the tension of the large black light shades over the dining table.

Those stairs are simply sublime.

I also think that it is a great showcase of how black can be used in an interior and not swallow the space in its darkness.

To see more pictures, or learn more about Tamizo Architects Group, see here.

via Notcot. Photo's all by Tamizo Architects Group.

So it seems that the whole summer blogging thing really went to the dogs hey?

So to mark my return to regularly scheduled blogging, I thought a dog themed post would be appropriate.

My husband's favourite filmmaker is Wes Andersen, and he has spent many hours watching and rewatching this man's works. So when it came time for us to name our new puppy a few years ago, it wasn't surprising that he turned to those films for inspiration. And so now we have our Margot, named after Margot Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums.

I have always wanted to get a painting commissioned of Margot, and am forever saving links to artists who I might want to contact eventually. Then earlier this week, I read this post by Jenny, who not only wrote about a great dog portrait painter, but also reminded me of Richie Tenenbaum's art wall, which was full of portraits of his sister.

It was then that I decided that I wanted to pay a further homage to the film, and make a little art wall of portraits of our Margot. I will keep you up to date on the progress. In the meantime, here are some artists who I would love to have make paintings for us.

Robert Clarke

Tali, who has etsy shops here and here:

Lisa Brawn:

These two tiny house have me thinking a lot about what space we really need for living. Both are roughly the same tiny square footage, but both have dealt with the interior in vastly different ways.

This beautiful little Victorian retreat in the Catskills is a great example of what you can do with a space so tiny, and yet fill it with personality.

Sandra Foster took an old 9' x 14' hunting cabin and hunted throughout upstate NY to find salvaged materials to use in it transformation. Old wavy glass windows, screen doors, and handmade scroll trim were all added to the existing structure to create this sweet little Victorian sanctuary. More amazing is the fact that she did all the work herself, and it cost her a whopping total of $3000.

Crystal chandeliers, billowy white textiles, and stacks of old books and china were the final touches to add that sublime and romantic feel. I'm sure that stepping into this place is like stepping into a fairytale. You can see more at the New York Times.

Or there is the opposite approach.

This 130 square foot cabin called the Signal Shed was designed by architect Ryan Lingard to sit in the wilderness near Joseph, Oregon. It was designed as an affordable and sustainable shelter, to meet all the basic needs of an outdoor adventurer. It can be used year round, and is complete with a wood fired stove and portable toilet.

The house is built on a raised platform, so as to disturb the site as little as possible. It is built of entirely wood, with a cedar siding and shutters to close in all the windows during colder months. Total cost for the shelter itself was only $10,000. Not too bad for a fully functioning home away from home.

The interior of this cabin is very utilitarian, with wood floors and plywood finished walls. Can you see they are even eating off of slices of tree trunks as plates? It's very basic and simple. Sunset has more pictures and info here. You can even buy the plans if you want to build a shelter of your own.

So which would you choose?

Last fall my sister and her boyfriend moved into their first home, a small townhouse style condo. At the time we had great thoughts of decorating, but time and money prevented us from doing much. Tomorrow morning she boards a flight to Mexico, to spend a week on the beach. And my mum and I have some grand plans of our own.

My sister talks of decorating, but she has never seemed to find the energy to follow through with her ideas. So we are going to sneak in and get it going. We've decided to make over their bedroom while they are away!

My sister would love the room to be a dark grey colour, so that is our jumping off point. She is very feminine and I would love to do a ridiculously girly room for her, but her boyfriend would not really appreciate that I think. While I would love to do grey with great pops of magenta, I think we will stick with a bright turquoise and other touches of blue, to help make the colour scheme more friendly to them both. So I turned to Domino for some inspiration:

I think you will find that the common theme with these images is a very tonal palette of blues and greys. As they are a young vibrant couple, I want to punch up some of the colour saturation and contrast, and make it a bit more playful. I can't wait to get started.

Image Courtesy of Roz Savage

Earlier this week I tweeted this, after hearing an interview on CBC radio:

Heard a story on the radio about woman who wrote two obituaries for herself. She changed her life to make it like the more exciting one.

I wanted to tweet it so I would remember it for later, but really that tweet barely summed up anything, which is the problem with 140 characters, I guess. So here's the full story.

The woman is Roz Savage, and at the age of 34, she was a management consultant and an investment banker. While on a train that year, she wrote two obituaries for herself. One was a reflection of the life she was currently headed for, and the other was her dream obituary. She realized that while she really wanted to fulfil the dream obituary, her current life was headed in the opposite direction. So she made a drastic change.

And now, almost 10 years later, she has become the first woman to row solo across both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans with plans to row the Indian Ocean next year. She has written books about her adventures, and is also in demand as a motivational speaker. She's also taken up running, and has run both the London and New York marathons, placing in the top 2%.

You can read more about Roz and her incredible story here.

These are some links I've found over the last couple of weeks that I kept meaning to share, but somehow forgot about.

Days with my Father

A photo journal by a man about his elderly father. Very beautiful. via @lushpad.

Fools Rush In by She and Him

Levi's Jeans have invited several artists to record some of the music that inspires them. This is my favourite, but all of the recordings are great.

Sophia Coppola's new film, Somewhere

I love the direction of Sophia Coppola's films, and this one is no different. I love the soft etherial quality they all have. Plus, she does killer soundtracks. Can't wait to see this.

Tandoori Spiced Halibut Filets

by Gordon Ramsey of course. I've had the tandoori paste in the fridge for weeks now, and we are still using it for different things. So good and easy for a summer evening meal.