Dec-a-Porter: Imagination @ Home: home design

Showing posts with label home design. Show all posts

Feb 8, 2016

SNEAK PEAK: Marisa Tomei's Apartment in Elle Decor

Academy Award winner and Empire actress Marisa Tomei covers the March issue of ELLE DECOR, hitting newsstands tomorrow February 9, welcoming the magazine inside her Greenwich Village condo.

From movies from the 90's such as "My Cousin Vinny" and "Only You" and more recent movies on the big screen "The Big Short" and "The Wrestler", Tomei is one of my favorite actresses.. with her lovable style and recognizable voice, she is always such a pleasure to watch. So I guess it is no surprise that her home is just as casually stylish and effortlessly chic as she is on the red carpet.

In the interview, Tomei talks about getting together with her ‘huge’ family, her dream home, her addiction to art and furniture shopping, how she winds down after a long day on set, and more.

One day, almost a NY Miracle in itself, Tomei's neighbors slipped a note under her door that said, “We’re moving. Do you want to buy our place?”: So she was finally able to expand her “snug and lovely” but small space in the 1931 high-rise in New York’s Greenwich Village.

“My family is huge, including over 25 cousins, aunts, and uncles, as well as my parents, who lie around the corner, and my brother. And we like to get together.”

Combining her love of old Hollywood-style glamour and her internet surfing for design finds on eBay, Live Auctioneers and other sites after long hours on set, the culmination of which is clear in the interiors with the eclectic mix of patterns, art and furniture.

The other side of the living room holds mid-century Brazilian rosewood chairs, stools purchased at auction, armchairs found on eBay, and a sofa by Classic Sofa upholstered in a Manuel Canovas fabric; the side tables are from Prime Gallery in Palm Springs, California, paintings by José Parlà flank a South African wall hanging made from cowrie-shell-embellished aprons, and the rug is Moroccan.

Chairs from HousingWorks surround a vintage marble-topped dining table found on eBay;
the chandelier is by Lindsey Edelman, and the curtains are of a Pollack fabric.

Marisa on her love of vintage furniture, art, and objects:

“It has to do with being an actress. What are the details of another person’s life? What’s the history of an object?”

The living room sofa is upholstered in a Kuba textile, the Milo Baughman swivel chair is covered in a fabric by Christopher Hyland, the floor cushions are covered in a Dedar velvet and an Edelman leather, the cocktail table is custom made, and the sconces are by O'Lampia; the floor lamp was found on Etsy, the painting, by an unknown midcentury artist, was found on eBay, the walls are painted in Farrow & Ball's Dove Tale, and the rug is Moroccan.

What a fabulous combination of styles and comfort - the end result is certainly one that will inspire and be welcoming for those family gatherings.

Make sure to grab your copy this month!

*Photo credit is Douglas Friedman for ELLE DECOR. Interview by Ingrid Abramovitch

May 14, 2015

Before and After: Designing a Home in Darien, Connecticut (Part 1)

Three years ago, I was asked by my clients to visit this home with them in Tokeneke (Darien) Connecticut. With a very distinct architecture, and gorgeous sprawling backyard, this was the perfect setting for their growing family once they would decide to leave Manhattan, and move to the suburbs to raise their children with more space and comfort.

Tasked with making this feel more like a young family home, we decided early on that there needed to be plenty of color and patterned papers and textured elements to help achieve that very desired end result. We needed to take into consideration that for now, this was to be their second / weekend home, and for that we needed to be considerate of making as many cosmetic changes that were necessary to make it feel like home, without taking on the bigger more structural renovations such as the Kitchen and Bathrooms which we would tackle once the move to the burbs was a more imminent decision.

I thought it would be fun to share with you some of the Before and After shots of my interior design for this home, to show just how much can be achieved with the direction of an interior designer on your project.

Beginning in the Kitchen and Great Room, we knew that we wanted to complete a total gut renovation in this space, but for the time being, as the family used the home we decided that simply giving it a fresh coat of paint, including the island and bar area would help tide us over until we were ready to make that final decision.

Not a modern kitchen by any means, I was very happy with this compromise.

The original home owners used this room with a very different layout. However, we wanted to maximize causal seating for great TV viewing and eating all centering around this Great Room.

Again, we wanted to respect the original architecture and maintain some of those elements in the design even if only for the time being, but still allow for the family to make use of the views to the gardens from every window and feel very child friendly.

With an eat in kitchen. living combination.. this room allowed for the family and friends to be together while entertaining throughout both the winter and summer months.

We included the desk area off the kitchen with the same tones of yellow,

so that all the areas worked together and became one happy room!

From the desk, you would walk through into the Dining Room ..

With some vintage finds, such as the crystal chandelier which was taken from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel before the remodel of this landmark began .. two sconces and my favorite pieces in this room, the pineapple alabaster lamps that we found on a trip to an antique store in Stamford.

The antique rug was a perfect fit from ABC Home and brought in many colors that we needed to soften the existing wood floor which would otherwise be slightly overwhelming and not provide the "beachy" feeling my clients desired.

Not to be forgotten.. the Powder Room is another key area, albeit small, that we had some fun in.

We were able to use the existing wainscoting and fixtures, but by adding this Cole and Son wallpaper, we brought some color and playfulness to this powder room.

I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of this Before & After series of my clients home in Darien, Connecticut.

Please come back in a few days, when I will take you upstairs into the bedrooms to share some more of the fun we had here.

All images: John Gruen - Styling by Raina Kattelson

Apr 22, 2015

Celebrating Earth Day with Go Design Go

Interior by Mehditash Design

“Having started my career working at Sotheby’s in Portugal, I find myself always attracted to unique antiques and fabulous one of a kind pieces of art that make each design an individualized representation of my clients. By re-using materials and products you are providing them a new home rather than dumping them into landfills. Antiques offer an opportunity to recycle great industrial design while showing gratitude to the artifacts history and story.”—Jennifer Mehditash

Head over to Go Design Go now, to read how these fabulous fellow interior designers make their contribution to being Earth conscious while designing fabulous rooms.

From top left corner, clockwise: Jennifer Mehditash, Trudy Dujardin, Sandra Espinet, Campion Platt, Kathleen Walsh

Apr 16, 2015

Sharing My TOP DESIGN TIPS with YAHOO MAKERS

Continuing on the same theme from my last post on "Why You Should Hire and Interior Designer",
I was thrilled to be able to share my top design tips and advice to homeowners with YAHOO MAKERS', Sid Lipsey.

read the full interview here

Some of my favorite quotes from my Interview

"WE SOLVE PROBLEMS YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU HAVE"

"I’ll give you an example from a house I did. It was a second home for this family with young children. When they bought the home, they thought it was perfect the way it was. But the house had what I call “ghost rooms”: the formal living room that no one uses or the formal dining room that no one uses, but they both look really pretty.
So I decided to take the formal dining room and turn it into the husband’s man cave. And turn what would be the formal living room space into a really great home theater. So now it’s a house that actually accommodates the way that this family lives.
I think that’s probably my favorite part of my job: it’s finding solutions to problems that sometimes the clients don’t even know exist and creating solutions for them. .."

"WE NEED YOU TO TRUST US"
The most difficult part of an interior designer’s job is when your clients start to doubt you. That’s really hard to deal with. In every single project, whether you’ve worked with that client before or not, there’s what I call a “leap of faith moment” — where you have to convince them to jump off the bridge with you into a place where they’re not sure if they’re comfortable. It’s usually in the creative phase of the project when the client has to actually make a decision to let you wallpaper their ceiling, or put fabric on the windows, or do this and that. You’re pushing them a little bit beyond their comfort zone. And you’re making them trust you 100%, even though they’re not able to visualize or understand fully what the end result is going to be.
I get that that’s scary. But I think homeowners forget that if they’ve done their due diligence in the beginning when they hired you, they need to trust themselves. I try to remind them that they’ve researched me, they went to their friends’ homes and got a referral about me. Or we’ve been working together to that point where I’ve proven myself to be trustworthy and that they can believe me when I say, “I know what I’m doing; let me lead you to where you want to be.” And there’s always a moment where they have to just hold their breath and jump.

For the rest of the interview, make sure to head over to Yahoo Makers now - would love to hear your thoughts on how designers bring value to your table!

Dec 15, 2014

Interior Design 101 - Interior Design Process

After seeing the great reaction from my roundup of Window Treatments Galore I thought I would put together another collection of my posts on Working with an Interior Designer and some thoughts on the putting together lighting schemes and mood boards.

Happy reading!

Dec 4, 2014

Mehditash Design: In the News // Our Soho Design in Mexico

From Soho to Mexico, Mehditash Design is being shared across the four corners of the globe!

We are so excited to share that our interior design of this fun and youthful apartment in the heart of Manhattan recieved a 6 page spread in Arquitectura y Diseno magazine in Mexico last week.

Thanks again to the lovely Stacey Van Berkel for these great shots and Raina Kattelson for her mad styling skills.

Dec 1, 2014

Interior Design 101 - Window Design Treatments

You asked and I listened!
All of your favorite posts on Window Treatments in one GIANT post...
Click on the images to go to the full posts and get all the visuals along with it!

So many of you pin, repin, share and comment on my Interior Design 101 posts that I thought it would be nice to share them all with you in an easy 'go-to' post.
DO you have a favorite drapery style? Are you more drawn to classical or more modern curtain design? Do you let the architecture speak to you and lead the way, or is there a specific fabric or detail that you just must share with your clients?

Let me know and share YOUR drapery design with me on Instagram .. lets use the hashtag #Drapery101 and on Facebook...

Nov 17, 2014

Home Theaters - Examples in Design

Furniture layout and design planning today for us designers is all about taking into consideration the way we live and how we all have evolved as a culture. Part of our daily challenges is helping our clients bring together both AWESOME design and style (of course!) but also function, which is something I refer to plenty on my design posts.

The thrill of tailoring each and every room, not only bedroom, to my clients desires and needs is what makes our job exciting. No two days will ever be alike.

So what is the best use of our space? Do we adhere to the traditional separated dining room and living rooms areas, with all their formality while they remain unused throughout most of the year but are what our real estate agents expect from us?
Or, do we break free from those restraints and use each and every inch of our homes the way we live, with open kitchen/dining/living floor plan combinations and spacious family and TV - Home Theater Rooms?

These are only but a few examples of some of the Media - Home Theater rooms that have been filling my inspiration boards as I help my clients create their dream family room..
Which is your favorite?