Vivid Sydney – Inspired Interior by My Decorator

Proposed foyer design for Performing Arts Co.

A few Friday nights ago we went into the city to take in the amazing atmosphere at Vivid Sydney 2013. We enjoyed dinner and drinks first at the Opera Bar and then wandered around Circular Quay and The Rocks to see all the different visual light displays.

I couldn’t help but let my designer mind go to thinking how some of the amazing images that were projected onto the Opera House could be used in Interior spaces. So to capture this creative thinking I have put together a 3D image for an Old Warehouse of a Performing Arts Company that shows what some Vivid could look like in a Commercial setting (pictured above). The proposed foyer would have a huge artwork image of the opera house (vivid a fied) hanging in the foyer with some quirky performing arts bowler hats as pendants and tan leather barcelona chairs to create a warm friendly welcome to any visitors.

I hope you had the opportunity to go and see Vivid Sydney 2013, if you didn’t have a look at the slideshow I put together of some of the photos we took. I would also love to read your thoughts and experiences of Vivid Sydney 2013 so feel free to comment below.

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How to mix pattern into your interior – clash or match?

Interior Design and Decorator Tips

Pattern brings personality to a room. There are two ways to introduce pattern into a space, the safe calculated matching way and then the clashing quirky way.

To clash or match that is the question?

As I have mentioned in my blogs before I often look to fashion to see what will be trending in interiors. Currently pattern clashes are trending in the fashion world and beginning to seep through to interior design. The vintage interior theme is popular at the moment, this theme carries clashing prints really well. But is there a right and wrong way to clash prints? I think the key is to have a bit of fun, mix up your prints and go with what you like. I think clashes work well as long as your colour scheme is similar then patterns can clash. For instance small or large print floral, paisley, bold abstracts, images and checks and stripes all can work together when they are in the same colour family. I think the unexpected element of surprise of mismatch can bring individuality and personality to a space.

To match is much easier in theory. For example one way to achieve a perfectly matched interior is to pull your theme from the supplied stories that come in soft furnishing fabric sample books as fabric houses have generally designed them to match.

Mood boards work well to help you design your scheme, using small samples of the fabrics prints that your are considering will help steer your scheme.

Let me encourage you to clash a little, push the pattern boundaries, explore what different patterns look like together and have some fun with pattern.

All interior images from Houzz

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Bohemian interiors

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The Bohemian interior style is trending in a big way at the moment. The recent movie “The Kings Speech” the speech pathologists rooms/house featured a bohemian style of interior – the aged patina wall, the well worn antique couch….. What is Bohemian?

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits. In this context, Bohemians can be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds.

In modern usage, the term “Bohemian” is applied to people who live unconventional, usually artistic, lives. The adherents of the “Bloomsbury Group“, which formed around the Stephen sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf in the early 20th century, are among the best-known examples. The original “Bohemians” were travelers or refugees from central Europe (hence, the French bohémien, for “gypsy”).
Reflecting on the fashion style of “boho-chic” in the early years of the 21st century, the Sunday Times thought it ironic that “fashionable girls wore ruffly floral skirts in the hope of looking bohemian, nomadic, spirited and non-bourgeois“, whereas “gypsy girls themselves … are sexy and delightful precisely because they do not give a hoot for fashion” ^[1]. By contrast, in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th, aspects of Bohemian fashion reflected the lifestyle itself.

My thoughts:

The Bohemian Interior is expressive, colourful, often rich jewel or muted colours, beautifully textured hand designed fabrics, vibrant, a unique mish mash collection of treasures, golds, pewters, antiques. A style that fuses old with new and east with west.

At the moment I’m just loving this style, maybe its the gypsy in me! Why don’t you bring some Bohemian style into your world today?