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?

In this posting, I will present some beds that may make you wonder if you are awake or dreaming. At the very least you will fall asleep with a smile on your face

The Floating Bed

I would love to go to sleep in this bed designed by Janjaap Ruijssenaars! Actually, I would love to go to sleep in this room… The floating bed is kept off the ground by enough magnets to keep 900 kg in the air. To make sure that the bed doesn’t float away (because of wind or other things that may rock your bed…), it is anchored to the walls by four cables. With a price tag at over a million dollars (yes, that is six 0’s), I doubt this bed will be more than a dream for most of us. But what a lovely dream…

A cheaper version of the floating bed is this round floating bed, which is a little less elegant and suspended from the ceiling.

The Cocoon Bed

The Lomme bed is a little on the science fiction side. I can imagine storm troopers sleeping in these. Well, at least it would match their uniforms. Talking about matching: you can change the color of the light inside the bed, allowing you to color coordinate with either your bedroom or your Star Wars pajama. The Lomme’s color changing feature is intended for light therapy, and it features a unique light therapy alarm clock.

Jokes aside, I do love the smooth and futuristic design of this bed, and the color therapy sounds intriguing, but what other furniture would it go with? The classic Bubble Chair by Eero Aarnio? Maybe this is a challenge for Julieann, the Tastemaker Diaries’ interior designer?

The Rocking Bed

This bed literally rocks! Getting rocked to sleep is no longer an experience reserved only for babies. This is a rocking bed for adults, and any little motion you make will make it rock (think about it…). Luckily for the easily motion sick among us, you can get stoppers that will keep the bed still. The circular lines really appeal to me, but I am not sure rocking is my thing. I wonder if you can get it to roll around the room if you only rock it hard enough? Hmmm…

The Cloud Bed

Is sleeping amongst the clouds your thing? This clean cut wooden canopy bed has cloud-shaped cut-outs, allowing light to peek in at you as the sun rises.

I think this bed is really adorable, maybe something for a young girl or boy’s room?

The Tree Bed

Would you like to rest among the trees? This wrought iron tree bed with a little birds’ nest nestled at the top is quite whimsical and charming.

If you are the decorating type, I am sure you can finds lots of fun ways to decorate the bare iron branches. The rest of us might find the odd piece of clothing hanging off a branch after a late evening…

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?

In another lifetime I was completely one of those who worked in a very boring looking cubicle, you know the ones with the gray felt and high walls. This would have been a welcome sight! van der Kley designed Globus originally for the corporate office but than saw there was an interest for it in the home, cafe and other lobby areas. You can now use it with your Xbox or even hook up a tv! The “ball” opens in the center to reveal a comfy swivel chair and a sturdy pull down board for your laptop. When not in use it can be closed, locked and with the convenient casters, easily moved from one area to another! Genius! I just love the sleek style and the comfort factor which might just equal more productive employees! Tell your boss you are really thinking outside of the box, actually I would say “ball”! At the moment it is only available in white, but can’t you just see it in fun, eye-popping colors? I am confident in saying this would make those long lay over waits in the airport much more bearable!

Is this something you could see working in yourself?

Among the coat racks found in my stylefeed my current favorite is the Ivy modular coat rack. Besides having great lines and functionality I love the fact that its modular. This allow you to both adapt the size of the coat rack to your needs and to the space it inhabits. If you are a family of 13 you can expand the coat rack so there is room for everyone’s coat. And if your hallway is the size of Taj Mahal you can decorate an entire wall with the Ivy coat rack. No need to hold back!

I also like the curvy and girly Forget-me-not coat hooks by Charlotte Lancelot. They come in white, black, orange, and red.

I have inherited a love for trees from my dad. I do think he would approve of these Hall Tree coat hooks and the Tree coat hanger by Michael Young and Katrin Petursdottir, even though I suspect he would have preferred the prior in wood rather than stainless steel. He loves anything wooden… Maybe Aysia, the Tastemaker Diaries’ in house eco fashionista would agree with him?

Martin Kleinhans’ wardrobe is another modular system for hanging up your clothes. It allows you to organize shelves and hooks as you please on a colorful wall fixture. The smart Hook box does not only provied you with a hook for your coat, but also a box for your gloves and earmuffs, and other items that are hard to hang.

The fun and colorful Pulpo Drop coat rack by Julian Appelius would make quite a statement in a bold hallway, and a row of BASTIS hooks from IKEA would brighten any child’s room at the great price of $1.99 a piece. What kid wouldn’t like to hang their clothes on a dog’s butt?

Mr Mrs Hangup and Fifi & Fafa wall hangers are great examples of his and her hooks. My personal favorite is the latter with their clean lines and not-so-subtle gender attributes. Lets face it, us girls have twice as much clothes to hang anyways.

The HANG wall hooks from Seletti come with instructions, so there should be no excuse for not hanging up your coat. Another favorite of mine: the Footprint shoe rack by Charlotte Tangye come in both children and adult sizes and leaves no doubt what its for.

Fellow Stylefeeder member hzwicker, a favorite on my watchlist, shared this bird coat rack by Icelandic Stella Design with me.

Do you know of a decorative, interesting or fun coat rack/hook/hanger design? Please post a comment and share with the rest of us

Egg Chair by Arne Jacobsen (1958), LC4 Chaise Longue by Le Corbusier (1928)

Noguchi Coffee Table by Isamu Noguchi (1944), Monte Carlo Bench – Eileen Gray (1925)

If you are lucky enough to find an original, and have the money to buy it, I truly envy you. But for those of us who are not so lucky, there are companies offering replicas of these modern classics for a cheaper price, so we can still enjoy owning one.

If you have a favorite modern classic, please let me know about it in the comments

First let me make one thing clear: I am not talking about a regular personalized photo-mug or mouse pad that you can order from any online photo printing service. Think bigger and bolder! I am talking about making your photos the focal point of a room, proudly displaying your best snaps and giving them the attention they really deserve!

Your Photo Blinds

Don’t have a room with a view? Do something about it! Get your favorite photo printed on window treatments like blinds or shades. Balcony Vacations is one of the companies who offer this service, and some of them do customized sizes as well. With the daylight spilling through your blinds and illuminating your photo of a French meadow you can bring a little piece of nature into the city and pretend it’s summer all year long…

Your photo Table

Desktop Design is an Austrian firm that produces tables with photo and graphic surfaces. They provide a collection of high quality photos to chose from, but are also open for you sending them your photo or pattern to include in a table top. Their tables come in different sizes and you can choose between aluminum and wood materials. FYI: their website is only in German…

Your photo Tiles

Tired of those pale pink tiles in your bathroom, or the decorative village motif tiles in the kitchen? Why not replace them with one, or several, of your own wonderful photos? Fotokakel is a Swedish company who transfer high resolution photos onto glass tiles. They offer a library of photos to chose from, but are also open for you supplying your own photos. You can have your photos converted into one tile, or blown up on a set of many tiles. So now you can have your own photo of reef fish, shot while diving in Fiji, covering your shower walls. FYI: their website is only in Swedish…

Your photo Wallpaper

Wallpapers have been in for a while. Why not truly own your walls by marking them with your own photos? There are several companies that offer to turn your photos into wallpapers. Of the ones I have looked at ID-Wall is the only one publishing their prices, while the others say they will send you a quote based on your online inquiry. I personally have mixed feelings about photo wallpapers, but like anything else it can be pulled off with good taste and an eye for composition. It will certainly add character to your home!

Your photo Lighting

According to the Swiss company Anathome these ultra-flat LED panels, covered with prints, veneer, wallpapers or fabrics, will be in production soon. I expect they will let you customize the panels with you own photos. Anathome’s concept is modular panels (Yay, I love modular systems. Its like LEGO for adults!), and besides the announced LED panels they do regular wall panels and other surfaces customized with photos or other types of finish.

Prefer graphic designs over photos? I bet all these products can be personalized with your own high resolution design as well as photos. Go crazy with creativity

My style can safely be called eclectic. The kinds of things that catch my attention are interesting and pleasing to the eye, make me smile, and have that unexpected extra dimension that gives them character. This includes modern furniture, ethnic antiques, artsy wall decor, silly gadgets, stylish recycling, and ingenious designs. I blame traveling and having lived in a handful of different countries, picking up aspects of various cultures and making them part of who I am.

Almost everything you’ll find in my Stylefeed are things I would love to own if I only had enough money to buy them and enough space to put them in. But who needs 27 beds, 54 lamps, and 32 couches! In future posts, I will share some of my favorites with you, and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do!

This stunning wooden briefcase is designed by Japanese designer Takumi Shimamura. I love wood-accented accessories, but I have NEVER seen a briefcase made out of wood, let alone so sleek, modern and one-of-a-kind! This talented industrial designer used an ecological, thinned Japanese cedar with a water- repellant finish. It’s large and wide enough to accommodate most laptops, has sturdy canvas edges, double zippers, and inner pockets. These are hand crafted in Japan and each one is as unique as is the cedar tree it came from, and for $299.99, it stacks up nicely with more traditional versions.

The next company I want to introduce you to is as clever as their slogan: Craft meets Technology. Dbclay is a company from Portland, Oregon that creates unique wallets called pocket art. They are true innovators in the design world. Db developed a custom textile and a proprietary printing technique that takes conceptual art and photographs and transfers it onto their eco-friendly Tope fabric. Tope is strong, durable and water resistant ,and is the only product of its kind on the entire planet! How many companies large or small can say that? Cool and eco-friendly, now that’s a combo I can live with!

This ode to the 70’s design is actually a copy of an old wooden box transferred onto their Tope fabric.

I also love the Madras model, particularly the contrast of the gold wheat against the blue horizon in this photo series.

CYBEROPTIX TieLab hails from a top-floor studio in downtown Detroit. Their designs reflect their environment and background in industrial/electronica music. The founder, Bethany Shorb, created the costumes for Skinny Puppy’s 2004 world tour and is a performer herself. Their aim is to take the ‘old establishment’ tie and turn it into a subversive anti-establishment one, and I think they’ve definitely succeeded! Cyberoptix uses eco-friendly waterbased inks on their 100% silk charmeuse and microfiber ties, like their best-selling Exhaust Pipes design.

In this design, they took a Victorian skeleton key and repeated it into a tartan design….genius!

Another company that creates sublime, hipster ties is Sovereign Beck. Their designs aren’t for the faint-of-heart and definitely speak for themselves:

The Beetles design on the left and the Overlap design on your right, both sell for $90.

22designstudio is composed of a group of young designers from Taiwan. This masculine ring is one in a series made of cement and stainless steel. These young artists use environment, texture and human behavior as their design inspiration. The exterior was drawn freehand by the designer. The rough uneven cement outside is a great counter-balance to the smooth stainless on the inside.

I hope these pieces are either inspiration or motivation to look outside the box when it comes time to add an accessory or two to your wardrobe (or to help your guy update his look). Happy Hunting!

On our way to visit the castle in the city, we found out about AnneMette Kissow’s lovely ceramics store, and after a nice chat with her, we left with one of her cute vases:

Really, it is worth exploring her site!

At Royal Copenhagen, I bought two colorful mugs that are perfect for tea, hot chocolate or coffee, with a silicone wrapping for insulation.

Perhaps names like Iittala, Lotta Jansdotter, Marimekko, Erik Magnussen and Anne Black will be familiar? They make a wonderful community of Scandinavian-inspired designers. Have a look, there is a lot to choose from.

In dinnerware:

Trays:

Cups:

Bowls:

Bread Basket:

Carafes:

Aprons even:

My favorite teapot at the moment:

Convinced about the beauty found in Scandinavian design?

How fun are these “lighting sculptures”? The artist Jeff Kott’s fixtures are exactly the bit of whimsy I am constantly looking for!

First off, I absolutely love that they are recycled wine bottles and are so appropriate to use in the kitchen, possibly above a sideboard in the dining room, or multiples hung up high down a long entry hallway (the possibilities are endless). Secondly, it seems we are all looking to be more eco-friendly and design savvy at the same time, what a combination here. It’s as if they are art. Two versions are available, the “2 Stripe” or the “3 Stripe”. The 3 Stripe colored option seems to be a bit warmer to me. My favorite is the soothing glow of the burnt orange, yellow and green, I imagine the light dancing off warm honey or caramel colored walls in such an interesting way.

If you don’t have the need or space for the lighting fixture, why not consider the carafe or one of the very cool vases! The double vase is especially interesting and would be a unique housewarming gift for anyone…especially the wine lover!

To top it off (no pun intended), re:modern isn’t just a fabulous woman-owned company; as stated on their website, they donate “a portion of all net profits towards causes in support of the arts, community, and environment”. So raise a glass to reinvented products and to an amazing company!

Enjoy the weekend!