(via Before & After: A Fresh Bathroom Remodel | Apartment Therapy)

I can’t get enough of Carrara marble & black in bathrooms these days. The pink faucet is just an added bonus

(via Don’t Look Down: Elevator Shaft Powder Room Home DSGN | Apartment Therapy)

This might as well be called “interior design for trolls”. People with a fear of heights would really get the shaft in this room… a fifteen floor (!) shaft, to be precise.

(via Vir Stil Marble Vanity by Kallista KBIS 2012 | Apartment Therapy)

I’ve been helping some friends hunt for a house for the past few weeks. We’ve tramped through plenty of houses, mostly newly developed condos. At this point, I could write a book about how NOT to design a condo. I could also write a book about how inflated the real estate pricing in this city is (although most financial institutions and real estate agencies swear up and down that they are not…). 

On one of our trips, we ended up in the Redpath Lofts, once a sugar factory, and now a curiously frigid condo-loft development (complete with private marina on the canal!). The structure had very little charm, and while I’m generally a huge fan of that hard industrial look, there was something deeply alienating about the building as a whole.

The one bright spot? This carpet, which would have had me shrinking in horror had I leafed past it in a sample book. Somehow, in the endless corridors with extremely tall white walls, the bright tv-test-pattern-ness of the carpet just… worked. It inspired me deeply to see a design that loud and obnoxious not only find an appropriate home, but also bring life and personality in an otherwise very sterile environment.

In the end, this carpet is a testament to design risk, both on the part of the person that made the pattern, and the person who chose to install it.

(via Wood Paneling: The 60s Favorite Is Back | Apartment Therapy)

Besides being a testament to the fact that everything old is new again if you just wait long enough, I’m happy to see this article because I’ve always been a huge proponent of wood paneled walls.

When properly contextualized, wood paneling is like any other wooden neutral. It can be ugly or sublime, but that is heavily dependent on what it’s surrounded by. This particular example of wood paneling is extremely successful because it’s apried with clean lined, industrial looking furniture (how sexy is that classic tanker desk in red, right?), instantly toughening up what would otherwise be a little too log cabin-y.

Of all the examples used in the full article, I find it’s one of the very few which manages to not look particularly theme-y or vintage and where the wall is still secondary to the furniture in it, which is key. After all, wood paneled or not, it’s still just a wall, and it should serve as an accent, not as the focus of the entire room.

Wood paneling gets a bad rap because it’s associated with ancient rec rooms, complete with shag rugs, plaid furniture, and other “groovy” leftovers, but properly contextualized, nothing feels cozier. When paired properly with clean lined furniture and accessories, the only thing dated about wood paneling is our fear of it.

Things are looking a little tidier around here… finally, all the formatting that has been mysteriously MIA for the past year or so is back! Seriously, you don’t realize how much you miss bold and italics until they’re gone. Other than this, not much else has changed… I’m sure my posts will still be as infrequent as ever!

Have I ever mentioned this tree? It came to my family as a little spiky branch, only a few inches high, in a brown paper envelope in the mail. We were to plant it in honor of Earth Day, perhaps. My father planted it in my grandparents yard, and now, somewhere around 20 years later, I look at it every day, marveling at the fact that it is as tall in feet as it is old in years.