The Tastemaker Diaries » decor

Gift ideas for design lovers

Julieann — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:08:36 +0000

Are you one of those people who can go into a book store and literally get lost for hours? If you are, welcome to the club! My weakness is the Design/Architecture aisle; there is so much inspiration I can easily pass hours there. This seems like the perfect time of year to share a few of my favorite books, since I’m sure some of you have some design lovers on your list. What could be better than an inspiring book as the ultimate present…if your giftee is anything like me, you know they will continue to look at your gift for years to come!

Don’t forget there is still another fantastic option for any design lover on your gift list! A magazine subscription is really the perfect gift, at least for me. I love running to the post to pick up the latest Living Etc, Domino or even W (as we know home decor follows fashion). Below are a few of my monthly reads!

Do you have a favorite design book or magazine? If there are books on your list this year, what are they?

Dressing up the folding chair

Julieann — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:30:45 +0000

The holidays are fast approaching and company is coming for dinner! As a city girl who rents and has a small eat-in kitchen, there is not always enough room for all those gorgeous upholstered dining chairs I would like to have, so I must make do with the folding chair option. Ever the girl who needs to be different, I have been scouring the internet to find ways to glam up these ho-hum chairs and look at what I have come up with: The ever popular (for good reason) removable decal! By using them on the back of a chair and not the wall you can create a chair uniquely your own.

My favorite find is from Blik: the “Chair Back” decal! I love all the different styles and they are available in a range of colors! At a price point of $30 for six decals, it’s certainly an easy way to update those once boring chairs!

Next, we have numbers and letters from the Etsy store TastySuite! A fun idea to label each person’s chair with either their initial or a number. You could get really creative with the numbers and subtly let someone know they are #1 in your life. Who knows, by Christmas they could have moved down the list and you could subtly give them a new number. Cheesy, I know, but fun!

I am also loving the Damask Accent pack from Wall Slicks. They are shipped in one big sheet, but depending on the size of your chair, you could use a small 5″ Damask or take a larger one and cut it in half! They give off a more sophisticated feel and could be great to use after on the wall in a hallway or bathroom. That’s the great thing about removable art…you can use it someplace else after the guests leave and the chairs go back in the closet (or under the bed).

Now if a dishwasher could magically appear I would be a real happy city girl!!

Crate and Barrel picks for fall

Julieann — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:41:46 +0000

The new Crate and Barrel arrived in the mail today and I took a rare moment to sit and flip through it! Here are a few great finds for fall.

The Allegro Settee is a great deal at $499 (though it does say assembly required, which might mean nothing more than screwing in some legs) and looks substantial at 54 inches wide. It appears to slant back ever so slightly, which I like in a settee. I prefer it in the Mocha Micro. At this price, it would be a great piece to reupholster after a year or two if you get sick of the fabric! Stack a few brightly colored pillows on it and you have a unique new settee.

Another piece which caught my eye was this magazine rack. Goodness knows I can use all the help I can get in corralling the piles of magazines I have! I like the faux leather which is different than all the metal ones we see out there and the ivory stitching is a nice detail. At $21.99 it is available in green, red and white. Now if they had purple or orange, it would be ever so trendy.

The Alpha coffee table is a unique piece with its vintage looking printers blocks. It is a great conversation piece and could be the highlight of any living room. At $899, it’s not necessarily inexpensive, but it is a piece I would suspect one would keep for a long time!

What home decor pieces are you liking for fall?

Class up your joint with wall graffiti

Dina — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:57:10 +0000

It’s staring at you: a big blank wall, just crying out for a pop of color or a dramatic piece of art. If only you had the funds to buy a huge canvas, or the creativity to paint one yourself.

We had this problem when the StyleFeeder team moved to our new offices in lovely Cambridge, Massachusetts. Luckily, fellow Tastemaker Julieann had clued me in to a company called Wonderful Graffiti. She had used their wall decals for some of her interior design clients in the past and raved about the ease of application and graphic impact. So we decided to give their products a try.

We sent the Wonderful Graffiti designers our wall measurements, an approximation of our paint color, a file of our company logo, and some quotes we wanted to use to dress up the barren wasteland that is our conference room. We sent some proofs back and forth, and next thing we knew, several tubes of decal goodness arrived in our offices.

The first one was a bit challenging to apply, but once we had the method down, the rest went up with no issues. Check out these quotes on the wall of our conference room:

And the StyleFeeder logo dressing up our reception area:

For a few hundred bucks and a little elbow grease, we had professional looking corporate identity (much more affordable for a start-up company than expensive signage) AND some snazzy-looking conversation starters in our conference room. And they’ll come right off the wall when we leave, so our security deposit will remain intact.

Check out some other real-life applications in corporate, retail and home settings here. If you’ve got a corner that’s got you stumped, or you’re a renter looking to add some color without the ability to paint or wallpaper, Wonderful Graffiti might be for you!