My Latest Design - Patricia Gray Inc

This is a sneak peak of the family room and eating area for a home that I have recently completed for clients; a Doctor and Lawyer and their two daughters.

Jonathan Adler bowl, faux ostrich ottoman



Painting above sofa Linda Chartier
Painting to left of fireplace Patricia Larsen
Faux ostrich ottoman custom Patricia Gray Inc
Fireplace Screen handmade wrought iron Patricia Gray Inc
Candlesticks Jamie Young
Sofa Cushions Aviva Stanoff
Photography Roger Brooks
Occassional tables, accessories, faux zebra carpet Peridot

Window Blinds

As an Interior Designer I am always on the lookout for new and unique products. So when I came across these blinds that Suntwist, a French company, is manufacturing I took notice. Leave it to the French to reinvent the wheel for the standard, quite boring horizontal blinds. I normally do not use this form of window covering, but the following are some examples that have really captured my interest.

Sandblasted Acrylic - these would be wonderful in a contemporary setting. I can imagine that the quality of light they let through would be quite amazing.

Faux embossed reptile - How great these would look in a Den.

Leather Look at the detail they put into the grommets

And they are hand stitched on the underneath. A very luxurious window treatment indeed!

Edelman Leather & my 100th Post

This is my 100th post and I wanted to do something special to commemorate this event. When I started blogging, I had no idea where it would lead me. I have met such wonderful people through the experience of blogging and learnt so much in the process. I tried to find a cake with a 100 candles, but instead found this gorgeous yellow cake (continuing on my Yellow kick) with maybe 100 daisies thanks to Sarah Dennis from Toast and Tables. The following is an special interview I had with John Edelman of Edelman Leather fame. I learnt that they pay homage to a few great design Icons of the past in their continuing tradition of excellence.

Edelman Leather
Interview with John Edelman, President

I understand that Edelman was established in New York in the 50’s, and is still a family run business and that you started out supplying the Fashion Industry. Could you tell us a little about the legacy of your family business?
My parents Teddy and Arthur Edelman joined my grandfather’s business in the early 50’s which was called Flemming Joffe (Joffe is my grandfather’s name). At that time they were tanners of reptiles, primarily for the shoe industry.

I heard that Andy Warhol did drawings for your company in the 50’s before his rise to fame. Could you share some of how this came about?
After a few years of joining the company, my grandfather retired and my parents needed a graphic designer. They put an ad in the New York Times and this nice little guy showed up with white hair. He didn’t talk too much and they liked his work. He was a working graphic artist and was unknown then. He came to work for my parents and that’s why many of his early pieces look like shoes with reptiles. He subsequently went on to become very famous, but this was before he did anything that he is now know for. My parents have a very large collection of Warhol paintings. We still use some of the early pieces he did for us. "This is a Chair" is one of our favourites and has been the theme for our Company since it was created in 1952 or '53.

You are known for your exquisite leather products. What are some of your more exotic products?
We work primarily with cow hides which are hand worked and embossed in different patterns and textures. We refer to them as unendangered species and we have over 40 different patterns. A few are: crocodile, ostrich, shagreen, and wild boar. The only “exotic” skin we use is Python.

Note by Patricia: Shagreen is a fascinating texture inspired by Jean-Michel Frank. A sharkskin (stingray) grain engraved on vegetable-tanned leather.

Why Python?
It is not endangered and it is big enough is for upholstery. Usually 30 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide.

You use Swiss cow hides. How do these compare to other hides?
Our cow hides are from Southern Germany and our calf skins are from Switzerland. They are the best in the world. They use no barbed wire, no branding and they even clean the animals off at night to prevent staining.

Your leathers are advertised as being “100% GREENGUARD certified”. Could you tell us what that encompasses?
We want to be as green as possible. Our product is a by product of the meat industry, so we are actually recycling before we get started. We use all water based finishes and solvents to finish the leather. And all the tanning products are recycled to be used again. Greenguard certifies that we do not have any harmful off gasing which in turn qualifies us for LEED certified jobs.

Tell us about this wonderful Crypton finish you are using. I had a demonstration of the cleanabilty of stains on white leather by Matt Buckley, your National Sales Manager, and I was excited that it opens up new ways in which light colored leather products can be used.
Most people try to protect their leathers by adding more paint to the finish so it’s less natural. We worked for over 3 years with Crypton. Now Crypton is the leading company for protecting fabrics against stains. We worked with their technicians to develop a formula that impregnates the hide, to stain resist from inside the hide. So we don’t need to add any extra finish, we don’t lose any of the hand at all, but we can repel stains. If it does get a stain on it, you can use our cleaner that we have developed with Crypton.

You also have a furniture line.
This is a new addition and we really did it as a service for Interior Designers. We picked classic Jean-Michel Frank pieces that were super simple, super clean; what we call ‘a canvas for our leathers’. So it goes back to “This is a Chair”. You take the basic club chair and every product you put on it makes the chair look different. If you put it in red Python it looks one way, if you put it in yellow Ostrich, or Metallic it looks another way.

So you said you use classic Jean-Michel Frank pieces.
He was Ann Frank’s uncle. He emigrated from Paris to Argentina to escape the Germans. He finally went back to New York when it was safe and did a beautiful apartment for the Rockefeller's and decided that design was dead and jumped off a building with no patents on his work or designs. We found the world’s greatest restorer of his pieces based in Massachusetts who had 30 years of catalogued restoration of his furniture. We had him make us models to the exact specs of the original Jean-Michel Frank pieces. We have 10 pieces in our line. The Upright Chair is an Iconic piece by Jean-Michel Frank - he invented the club chair. We also do a parsons table. He (Jean-Michel Frank) did the Parsons table when he was at Parson’s. It’s not very well documented, but that is what we have learnt.
Upright Chair
X-tra Bench
Parsons Table

The following are a few of the Interior Designers that use Edelman leathers in their work. Photos from the Edelman web-site.

Vincente Wolf Shrunken Buffalo

Orlando Diaz-Azcuy Royal Hide

Emma Jane Pilkington House and Garden Nov2005 Royal Hide

House Beautiful March 2003 Bunny Williams Royal Suede

Robert Passal House and Garden Oct 2005 Royal Hide

Steven Gambrell His own home Elle Decor March 2005 Cavellini European Hair on Cowhide

Diamond Baratta Elle Decor Custom Royal Hide

Vantullis Interiors Cavellini Exotic Cow Rug

Interior Design for Your Home

Interior design is the process of shaping the experience of interior space, through the manipulation of spatial volume as well as surface treatment. Not to be confused with interior decoration, interior design draws on aspects of environmental psychology, architecture, and product design in addition to traditional decoration (Wikipedia).

Interior Design - Home
Decorating a home is about finding a comfortable balance between the different furnishings in the space such as living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. By reading my interior design articles, hope you will be able to put together an entire room or an entire home and have the design flow well throughout the home.

The common step for you to start interior design for your home are :

Choose either a theme or a color scheme

If you have been choosed some furniture or other decorations item to fill your house, then these items may have to set the color scheme for the room by selecting the paint color or wallpaper for the walls, After that time for you to focus on the floor. To get an idea about your floor, you can go to flooring stores. Otherwise, you can put carpet to make your design more beautiful and the room will look more put together also you will be able to see exactly where the decorations need to come into play within your interior design.

Decorate the walls of your space room

This will include such items as photographs, art, and also the window coverings. The window coverings become a major aspect of the interior design, choose your style and model according to your demand. The entire interior design of your room reflects your personal style and who you are as a person.

Interior Design for Dining Room

Dining room is a formal room dedicated to the serving of meals or eating. Now, We'll talk about how to get and create beautiful and nice Interior design for dining room.

A dining room can be such a fantastic place to entertain, but it can easily be underused if you often eat in the kitchen or in front of the telly instead. Ever wondered why the red color is a popular color for design of restaurants and dining rooms? It's easy to be answer, because it stimulates the appetite. Other colors to get your mouth watering are orange and yellow.


When you make design for your dining room, the dining table and chairs are also very important as a central feature. Antique tablecloths and dresses can be cut up to make colorful napkins, and the napkins should be folded neatly and placed in the center of each setting. You can choose from many selection or style of dining room furniture sets.

 
A dining rooms should be light and airy, try to make the most of natural light. If the room is naturally dark, have pale or neutral blinds rather than curtains on the windows, which will only block the light even more.

Other important thing to create your design look great is if you can put some accessories, because it will add your dining room overall beauty and utility.

Interior Design for Dining Room

Dining room is a formal room dedicated to the serving of meals or eating. Now, We'll talk about how to get and create beautiful and nice Interior design for dining room.

A dining room can be such a fantastic place to entertain, but it can easily be underused if you often eat in the kitchen or in front of the telly instead. Ever wondered why the red color is a popular color for design of restaurants and dining rooms? It's easy to be answer, because it stimulates the appetite. Other colors to get your mouth watering are orange and yellow.


When you make design for your dining room, the dining table and chairs are also very important as a central feature. Antique tablecloths and dresses can be cut up to make colorful napkins, and the napkins should be folded neatly and placed in the center of each setting. You can choose from many selection or style of dining room furniture sets.

 
A dining rooms should be light and airy, try to make the most of natural light. If the room is naturally dark, have pale or neutral blinds rather than curtains on the windows, which will only block the light even more.

Other important thing to create your design look great is if you can put some accessories, because it will add your dining room overall beauty and utility.

Interior Design for Living Room

Living rooms are mostly used with a family to sit together in which the family lived - multi-functional space for relaxing, watching television, reading, listening to music and entertaining guests. Interior Design or Interior Decorating idea for living room are base on the room size, kind of use, and also how much the budget was plan.

There are some of design model for living room such as formal living room, modern living room and standard living room. Interior design for formal living rooms and modern living room usually use rich and more expensive material and a strict symmetry, and also may use bright spicy colors and variety of textures to create unusual look.


Bellow are some tips to help you how to start design or decorate your living room ;
1. Determine design style or layout your living room.
See as much as possible home decorating magazines such as Asian design style, Europe design style, Franch design style, then decide which one you like. You can mix them to create a style that is your own.

2. Choose a beautiful or nice color for the wall.
Many people shy away from saturated colors, but these are the very hues that can make a dramatic statement about your personality. A bold wall color for your living room it will make spice up your space then the other rooms, You can use accessories to tie the color into the rest of the room.

3. Antique or unique furniture for living room
Try to choose matching color between the wall and your furniture items, so the room will look like beautiful and nice.

4. light for your living room
Make sure your lighting is adequate, but not overpowering. Don’t use florescent lights as they are very harsh, and a living room is all about mood. Another lighting aspect that is often overlooked is the use of candles, there are many of candles and holders in different colors and sizes to help achieve your living room decorating ideas.

5. Art & Accessories for your living room
By putting art on your walls to bring the room together and adds a personal touch, choose painted canvases which can make them look great all on their own, or a framed print in shades that compliment your color scheme. Other thing you can put your family pictures, some accessories you can add them around the corner of living room.

Start to re-design your living room now, make your self and your family members enjoy to stay on your own home.

Interior Design for Living Room

Living rooms are mostly used with a family to sit together in which the family lived - multi-functional space for relaxing, watching television, reading, listening to music and entertaining guests. Interior Design or Interior Decorating idea for living room are base on the room size, kind of use, and also how much the budget was plan.

There are some of design model for living room such as formal living room, modern living room and standard living room. Interior design for formal living rooms and modern living room usually use rich and more expensive material and a strict symmetry, and also may use bright spicy colors and variety of textures to create unusual look.


Bellow are some tips to help you how to start design or decorate your living room ;
1. Determine design style or layout your living room.
See as much as possible home decorating magazines such as Asian design style, Europe design style, Franch design style, then decide which one you like. You can mix them to create a style that is your own.

2. Choose a beautiful or nice color for the wall.
Many people shy away from saturated colors, but these are the very hues that can make a dramatic statement about your personality. A bold wall color for your living room it will make spice up your space then the other rooms, You can use accessories to tie the color into the rest of the room.

3. Antique or unique furniture for living room
Try to choose matching color between the wall and your furniture items, so the room will look like beautiful and nice.

4. light for your living room
Make sure your lighting is adequate, but not overpowering. Don’t use florescent lights as they are very harsh, and a living room is all about mood. Another lighting aspect that is often overlooked is the use of candles, there are many of candles and holders in different colors and sizes to help achieve your living room decorating ideas.

5. Art & Accessories for your living room
By putting art on your walls to bring the room together and adds a personal touch, choose painted canvases which can make them look great all on their own, or a framed print in shades that compliment your color scheme. Other thing you can put your family pictures, some accessories you can add them around the corner of living room.

Start to re-design your living room now, make your self and your family members enjoy to stay on your own home.

Yellow Sunset

Have you ever seen a yellow sunset? I have seen sunsets all over the world, but never a yellow one. My girlfriend Ann just returned from a 10 day camel safari over the sand dunes in Morocco. I am so envious. It has always been my dream to do this. Have you ever seen the movie Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'Toole, riding on a camel through the Arabian desert with the Bedouins? Ever since seeing this movie, I have wanted to be in the middle of the desert on a vast expanse of rolling untouched sand, draped in exotic Bedouin garb, riding on a majestic dromedary camel. Soon.

Sunset in Morocco Ann Ponds

PostScript Dec 13 2007
This is a picture of a yellow sunset in Puget Sound sent to me by Paola

Blogging Statistics

Franki of Life in a Venti cup is off to Vegas for the "Blog World Expo". Imagine a convention devoted entirely to Blogging. And if that is not enough I was amazed to read these statics on the convention's web-site.......

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
• Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 9% of Internet users say they have created blogs .
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
• over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online .
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .
  
  The statistic that really captured my attention is that "blog readers average 23 hours online each week". Wow. What do you think of these statistics, and do you think that Blogging is here to stay??
  
  Photo Patricia Gray

Interior Design for Bedroom

The bedroom is a space that inside the house which We spend the most time in. Weather its good or not, like it or not, but We need to sleep to be able to function. So, why We don't make it our personal haven with the use of interior design or interior decorating.


Interior design for bedroom are depend on individual style, who will use for such as the children, adult, new married, or may its preparing for your guest or family when they wan to stay on your house for few days.

To make nice bedroom's design for the children you need to remember that the rooms for children should reflect their interests, such as color of wall, toys, furniture elements and also the picture. Creative flooring patterns can also be a good starting point. Try to make an easy or simple design layout, give them space for play on their room. Choose the right light for children, Kids have slightly different lighting needs from adults.


Bedroom design for an adult we can create a modern or trendy color for the wall, with nice room's decorating will help them feeling confident to stay on their room. The idea of having a themed bedroom which includes matching furniture, walls, linen, etc should not just be limited to a child's bedroom but it can also be done to an adult room as well. Important thing about decorating and interior design for adult's bedroom is express their personality, Generally adult bedroom themes to be more general or abstract rather than specifically based around a certain theme.

Romantic bedroom is the most common use for new married, Pink color more favorite in this situation. Beautiful room's furniture with modern style will make them enjoy the bedroom design.

Interior Design for Bedroom

The bedroom is a space that inside the house which We spend the most time in. Weather its good or not, like it or not, but We need to sleep to be able to function. So, why We don't make it our personal haven with the use of interior design or interior decorating.


Interior design for bedroom are depend on individual style, who will use for such as the children, adult, new married, or may its preparing for your guest or family when they wan to stay on your house for few days.

To make nice bedroom's design for the children you need to remember that the rooms for children should reflect their interests, such as color of wall, toys, furniture elements and also the picture. Creative flooring patterns can also be a good starting point. Try to make an easy or simple design layout, give them space for play on their room. Choose the right light for children, Kids have slightly different lighting needs from adults.


Bedroom design for an adult we can create a modern or trendy color for the wall, with nice room's decorating will help them feeling confident to stay on their room. The idea of having a themed bedroom which includes matching furniture, walls, linen, etc should not just be limited to a child's bedroom but it can also be done to an adult room as well. Important thing about decorating and interior design for adult's bedroom is express their personality, Generally adult bedroom themes to be more general or abstract rather than specifically based around a certain theme.

Romantic bedroom is the most common use for new married, Pink color more favorite in this situation. Beautiful room's furniture with modern style will make them enjoy the bedroom design.