Black & Spiro Today

Here is our current window display at Black & Spiro {above}. It's very bright, I must say, even for me! It's been a crazy week here at B&S. Usually the September school holidays are a quiet time for us. It is usually a time we call the lull before the storm with the onslaught of Christmas coming! However, for some strange reason these September holidays have been crazy. Lots of deliveries arriving as you can see below. A few clients will be very happy at the end of this week once they receive their beautiful armchairs!!

A Summer Table

This lovely table setting screams Summer to me. I love the fresh green and white colour palette. I also love the little succulent arrangements. They actually reminded me of the lovely succulent arrangements Chelsea over at Frolic created recently as below.

image 1 - victoria pearson via brown turtleneck sweater,

image 2 - frolic

Bathroom Shelving & Stools

The concept of open shelving in a kitchen or lounge room is often talked/blogged about but I do also like the idea of open shelving in a bathroom. These images above, which I have saved in my files, certainly show this concept very well. I like the idea of soaking in the bath tub looking at my beautiful things in the shelving surrounding me.

Another great idea for a bathroom, if you have a bath tub, is to use a drum stool next to the tub to put a book or a glass on. We have some lovely blue and white stools {and other colours too} in the shop at the moment which would do the job. I use one at home next to our bath and it is fabulous. I often have a pile of magazines on mine...nothing like reading some magazines in the bath at the end of a long day!!


image 1 & 2 via the lettered cottage, image 3 - anna spiro

Ormiston House Sneak Peek

I thought I would share a few photos of a job I have been working on lately for some very lovely clients at Ormiston. It's quite a funny story actually. When Brad, Harry and I lived at Ormiston a few years ago this house was one we used to drive past and comment on. The gardens were always so beautifully kept and the house was picture-perfect. I was thrilled when I arrived at the front door earlier this year at my first appointment with the clients to walk inside and see the house we had long admired and to be asked to be involved with the renovation and update of the home.

I helped the clients with the concept for the kitchen. One of my favourite things in the kitchen is the 3 vintage light fittings we found for above the island bench. I took them to one of my little vintage lighting haunts and we spent a good half hour there looking for the perfect lights. Two of the lights match and the third is slightly different. The clients were a little unsure of this at first but after my re-assurance they were happy to go with them. When I visited them at the house last week they couldn't have been happier with the lights. I actually love the size of them. Being smaller they don't dominate the kitchen which I really like.

We installed some of the furniture last week including their old sofas which we recovered in a plain pale blue linen with contrast white piping. The two Antique French gilt chairs I found for them and had covered in a beautiful pale blue and white stripe fabric to work with the blue/white/taupe floral fabric we selected for the scatter cushions. We are still working on a few more pieces of furniture including barstools, dining chairs, lamps etc.

Once we have completed the house in a few months we will be photographing it for our Black & Spiro website. I'll be sure to let you know once it is up on the portfolio page.

Oh, and look at the beautiful afternoon tea my client had prepared for me when I arrived to install the furniture. So lovely!!

Hello

Hello again. I thought I would let you know that I will be back to blogging on Monday. We had a lovely break away and I am looking forward to sharing some wonderful things with you next week including a few photos of a beautiful job I have been working on lately.

xo
Anna

Interior Design Ideas on Choosing and Arranging Office Furniture Tips

Once you've set up your office furniture, you'll want to monitor how well your home office Interior design ideas are working for you in actual practice. You home office design ideas may have seemed great, but when you go to set up your office at home you might find they really don't work well for you. A few adjustments now will save you grief later. Your work area needs to function efficiently so you can be more productive. Here are several tips on choosing and arranging office furniture:

Start bringing furniture into your office space with similar color of wall, floor and another room's decorations, It's best to start with the larger pieces first so you'll still have the maximum amount of floor space to move them around. As you set up your office and bring in furniture, dust and polish it as needed.

Maximize the space with special shape furniture, here is the sample, a simple home office furniture on the corner of the room.

Bring in your home office equipment and place it where it needs to go in the room. As you place each piece, check to see if it needs to be cleaned, oiled, or otherwise serviced, and that all cords are long enough to reach your outlets or power strips.

Bring in smaller furniture to complete the set up of your office at home, such as lamps, organizers and desktop items. If needed, clean or dust them as you place them in the room.

Home Office Design Ideas with Fresh and Unique Design for Workspaces

Create a statement in your office by adding unique interior design elements to the mix. Designing workspaces doesn’t have to be boring or all about practicality. Have fun and bring in fresh design ideas to create a home office ideas that welcomes people into your workspace.

If you've been wondering how to set up your office at home, keep in mind that to help make your home office set up go more smoothly, you'll want to be efficient. You may have all the home office design ideas in the world, but until you actually pull it all together you won't get much work done.

If at all practical, remove any existing furniture and plants from the room or space that you will set up as your home office. If you're converting a closet, remove all clothing and other items from the closet. This will help you start with a blank canvas that you'll fill in with your home office design ideas one step at a time.

If you need some remodeling done to accommodate your home office set up, the next step will be demolition to remove existing partitions, shelving, etc. that are not part of your new home office design ideas.
Install any electical, phone or cable outlets, cabinetry, shelving, and/or wall partitions on your plan - ideally while the space is already empty.

Thoroughly clean and paint, wallpaper, add floor coverings, hang light fixtures, etc. before bringing anything into the new space. Without furniture and equipment to get in your way, this step can be completed much more quickly and easily. However, while you don't want the furniture in the way at this stage of setting up your home office, you'll want to make sure you know exactly where your furniture and equipment will be placed in the room.

A Week Off...

I'm taking off for a week or so to spend some time with my boys. I should be back by the end of next week or there-abouts. I'll leave you with this photo {top} which I was trying to take for Friday Flowers but a little friend kept sneaking into the photo!

Hope you all have a great week and I'll be back soon...

xo
Anna

Vintage Beach Photos

I love these vintage Hawaiian beach images which have been hung in the staircase of the Moana Hotel in Hawaii. They remind me of the staircase Windsor Smith filled with framed black and white photos as below.

Image 1 - via Flickr, Image 2 - Domino via Flickr

Uniquely Me Chic - Part 2

It's no secret that I try as much as possible in my work to create a look which is unique and interesting for my clients. I was recently inspired by something written about Ralph Lauren in the book Ralph Lauren, The man, the vision, the style, which was;

"And you couldn't copy his look. You could try but you wouldn't look the way he did."

Image - Ralph Lauren

Red

I haven't really been using red in my work lately but I have recently started to love a touch of red again. Here are a couple of images which reminded me how great {and fresh} a little bit of red in a room can look.

image 1 via pink wallpaper, image 2 via shelter, image 3 via brown turtle neck sweater, image 4 via elle decor, image 5 - via Mrs Blandings

Summer House Design, Antique Prefab Wooden House

Uncomprimising, original and respect for the landscape, these are the concept of this unique summer house, an antique prefab house with wooden material. Created and financed by Todd Saunders & Tommie Wilhelmsen, this prefab house bring the natural environment to the house.

DesignSpotter Creative Work on Lighting System

Lighting is an important system that can easily make the room beautiful, modern home decoration use vest way to make the room looks elegant, one of them by using a lighting system. Here are several collection of creative work from DesignSpotter on lighting system.

A spiral staircase with unusual balustrade. Glass Balusters with an inclined top allow for finger clearance and an ideal fixing point for the stainless steel handrail. The glass treads are supported by rolled interlocking stainless steel bracket welded to the pole.

Designer: Geoffrey Packer (United Kingdom)
Manufacturer: (United Kingdom)

orchid light is a feature pendant / table / floor standing light.
inspired by sensuous orchid flowers, each flower is hand dyed sometimes up to three different times, layering the colours in surprising and unexpected ways. Each light is made to order in 20% any colours you desire!

Designer: marc pascal (Australia)
Manufacturer: marc pascal - m2 products (Australia)
Inspired By: orchid flowers
Material: polycarbonate, stainless steel, Forton
Colours: made to order
Dimension: pendant aprox 110 x 850 x 850mm
Price: AUD 1400

Pile Light is a lamp shade made from polypropylene which utilizes a curved grid structure with identical pieces of polypropylene attached to each 'window'. Peering through the center of the light is quite extraordinary!

Designer: Christopher Tomoya James (Australia)

Giorgia Modern Kitchen with Italian Architecture Style

Here are Giorgia kitchen with Italian Architecture style, the kitchens are used modern and minimalist design, Wenge and dull white laminate, The extraordinary designer hood, the bar handles and the lighting shelf with an aluminum edge give a gritty imprint to this wenge and dull white composition. Below the worktop, several large, deep and highly accessorized drawers are there to remind us that in Giorgia there's no beauty without functionality. Several of these modern kitchen were used for kitchen remodeling, here are the details:

Natural oak and wenge laminate, Color contrasts and plays of volumes are the distinctive features of this composition where the brightness of natural oak is enhanced by the mellow shade of wenge. The wall unit solution is extremely original, the "solid" effect created by dark doors and shelves alternates with the "empty" effect created by the light-colored back.

The wenge equipped columns are brightened up by the embedded ovens.

Glossy white and wenge laminate, glossy orange lacquered glass. In this extremely rigorous peninsula solution, the glossy white and wenge acquire personality thanks to the orange glass wall units. The magnificent hood made of steel and glass is a full-fledged design piece rather than just an appliance, contributing to the "essential-chic" look of the kitchen.

Anthracite and dull white laminate, The geometric perfection of the square and its multiples rules this anthracite and dull white composition. Its peculiar handle decorates the surface of the door. The square shape is also present in the two ovens embedded in the equipped columns and in the white wall units above the gray peninsula equipped with very useful baskets.

Glossy sand laminate, glossy anthracite lacquered glass, A refined sand color, blending wonderfully with anthracite grey, fills with light and reflections the minimalist geometry of this spectacular peninsula composition.

Friday Flowers

Here are some pretty Spring flowers I arranged late yesterday afternoon in mismatched vintage vases. I arranged them for Melanie {one of my Black & Spiro girls} and I placed them down the centre of the dining table last night at Pearl. We took Melanie out for dinner to celebrate her upcoming wedding which is in 3 weeks. Her favourite colour is Yellow, hence the mixture of yellow and white flowers.

See you next week!!

xo

Anna

Feng Shui Mantra Bed with Canopy

A wonderful bed designed by Mauro Bertame' along Feng Shui principles. The base of the bed is very low (Feng Shui recommendation); and the canopy has soft round contours providing a warm embrace. It is covered in a special textile which mitigates the damaging effects of electromagnetic fields. Available in wenge and teak to fit a 160 x 200cm mattress, or in wenge to fit a 200 x 200cm mattress. Mattress not included. --stylehive--

Italian Curve-Style Modern Kitchen

Imagine your home custom fitted with fine Italian cabinetry, finished with the best accessories and beautifully designed to present and store your kitchen system with ease. Think how comfortable, relaxing and eloquent a new Pedini Kitchen environment, fitted with the best fixtures and appliances will feel at the end of your day. This is the Italian curve-style modern design for kitchen remodeling idea from stylehive: