If you are looking for some fun fabrics try John Robshaw.

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If you want some fun, col­or­ful block prints, this LA Designer sug­gests you take a look at John Rob­shaw. He began design­ing his own prints after study­ing block print­ing in China.

He found he loved the local arti­sans fabric-making tra­di­tions and the hands-on imme­di­acy of tex­tiles that were dyed, printed, woven, stitched and worn pique that it became a life­long fas­ci­na­tion.johnrobshaw                                    Tex­tile Designer John Robshaw

He now makes prod­ucts from his tex­tiles such as bed­ding, head­boards, pil­lows, table linens and drap­ery. Duralee Fab­ric, com­mis­sioned John to develop an exclu­sive line of fab­rics for their show­rooms last year. Here’s a look at some of his tex­tile designs.

John Robshaw Mahout MultiPat­tern: Mahout Multi

15451-15loPat­tern: Ram­baugh, Grey

32395-31loPat­tern: Tabriz, Coral

Here is his lat­est col­lec­tion for Spring 2013 called “The Poppy Collection”.

poppy_collection_2Beau­ti­ful, play­ful and fresh. You can cer­tainly see the influ­ence from India where he cur­rently works on his tex­tiles designs.

FURNITURE_wingsIf you are not cer­tain how to apply these won­der­ful fab­rics in you home, take a look at just some of the prod­ucts he offers.

John-Robshaw-JR-by-John-Robshaw-Bombay-Duvet-Cover-Collection“Bom­bay” Bed linens

HC+3932_mx“Cha­rana” Bed Linens

HP_Nikolo_Bed_SP13“Nikolo” Bed Linens, Spring 2013

John Robshaw tabletopYou can set a very fes­tive table with a touch of the exotic.

John Robshaw_ Abaca_PillowsSelect sev­eral of John’s pil­lows like the “Abaca” group­ing fea­tured above to place in your home on the sofa, or on a chair that could use a bit of color and inter­est. You don’t need an LA Designer such as myself to pro­cure these prod­ucts, John Rob­shaw col­lec­tions are avail­able at many retailers.

Have fun this spring and add John Robshaw’s worldly aes­thet­ics into your home.

Kitchen storage and organization ideas that you will love.

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If you are about to remodel your kitchen, this LA inte­rior designer, wants you to con­sider putting into your design plan and bud­get, the new stor­age solu­tions that are avail­able. Dis­or­der is no fun and when tim­ing can be cru­cial for a spec­tac­u­lar recipe, you want every­thing right at your fingertips.

kit-fea-pantry14-435Let’s start with the big stuff and work our way down. This fold out pantry is beau­ti­ful enough and orga­nized enough to just leave open. But look closely, every­thing has its place. No more dig­ging around in the back of the shelves look­ing for the bread crumbs you thought you had. How many times have you re pur­chased an item cause you thought you were out, only to find it buried in the back of the shelf.

These pull outs also come in cov­ered wire for a more bud­get friendly solution.

pull-out-pantry1I love to trash talk and these are some of my favorites. You have the abil­ity to do your Eco friendly recy­cling all in one place with a pull out door sys­tem. This is also won­der­ful for clean up, no more trash can under the sink and trash com­pactors are com­pletely de rigueur, since sort­ing your trash became a man­date from the city.

171_1_371_1_Yes, they also come with lids. No fuss, muss or smell.

Draw­ers seem to be a “catch all” place. There was no way to really orga­nize your uten­sils like spat­u­las and slot­ted spoons from your pizza cut­ter or your 3 dif­fer­ent sizes of whisks. Now cab­i­netry can be ordered with all of the sep­a­rate com­part­ments you need.

Kitchen-Storage-Solutions

kitchen002How many of you have tried stack­ing the odd shaped glass bak­ing dish? And the lids with the knob han­dle on the top, where do those go? I love this solu­tion and it is adjustable!

Or those bak­ing sheets, where are they right now? Are they in your oven because there is no other place where they will fit? Get a nar­row pull out. These nar­row doors with indi­vid­ual sec­tions are good right next to the range or oven.

images-6Small appli­ances can really take up pre­cious counter space. For­ever! That is great if you want to show off your lat­est acqui­si­tion. But later, when not in use, it would be nice to get those appli­ances off the counter and reduce the visual clut­ter the kitchen seems to always take on.

kitchenThe other very space con­sum­ing items in the kitchen are pots and pans, plus their coor­di­nat­ing lids. These are a lit­tle eas­ier to stack, but then there is all that stand­ing upside down to find the right lid for the pot you have in your hand. You prob­a­bly have found that no but you will put the pots and pans away after they are cleaned, just too much noise and too much work. Thank good­ness for pull out shelves and lid racks. This is a must in your kitchen remodel even if your bud­get will only allow a few things.

0L3G0038Knives, dish­ware, even your spices all have a place to be neatly organized.

rubberwood-knife-drawer-orgmodern-cabinet-and-drawer-organizers2012-4-6-junk_2It is not nec­es­sary that you get all these orga­niz­ing solu­tions at one time. You may have moved into a new home and with your kitchen remodel, you are not cer­tain yet where you want things to go to best suite your needs. Many of these ideas like drawer orga­niz­ers can be added at a later date.

Make your kitchen work for you, not the other way around and you will find you love it.

Why wait one more year to remodel your kitchen with these fan­tas­tic options. Give me a call for a con­sul­ta­tion at 818–763-2555.

Resources: Blum, Rev-A– Shelf

Superbowl Sunday is coming. 6 quick wins to make certain you have enough seating.

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In less than 2 weeks, Super Bowl Sun­day will be upon us. The Bal­ti­more Ravens vs. the San Fran­cisco 49ers. Both teams are very evenly matched and ready to go. As you sit down to watch the game with fam­ily and friends, will you be ready? LA inte­rior designer, Lau­ren Jacob­sen, has some ideas to make cer­tain your guests have a front row seat to watch the game.

Most peo­ple will gather around the TV on their sofa and the two occa­sional chairs they have in their most com­fort­able, large, TV room. That will give about 6 or 7 view­ers a place to sit. So what can you do to quickly cre­ate more seating?

around-the-fireIt is always great to have an ottoman in the house. As a table, or in this case extra seat­ing, they are indispensable.

img34oThese X base stools are light and easy to move. The uphol­stered seat makes them very comfy. When you are done using them for the party, they can store under the con­sole table, or at the foot of the bed.

x-base-bench-vanity-stoolhttp://www.crateandbarrel.com

If you read my blog in Decem­ber, I wrote about Poufs. Won­der­ful round or square seat­ing with no back or sides that is fun and very portable. They come in all kinds of mate­ri­als and col­ors. These lit­tle gems are great casual seating.

Product-61967-1.full copy

img41bBenches also make for some easy seat­ing. If you have a bench at the foot of the mas­ter bed, go get it and bring it out for at least 2 peo­ple to share.

Coffe-Bench-Furniture-550x535And if your lucky enough to have them, these cam­paign chairs would be my favorite.

249105423110619315_UjwlTiSo_cHave a great Super­bowl Sun­day. Now, with some quick think­ing you can have as many guests as you like and every­one will have some­where to sit and cheer their favorite team for the win.

If you find after the game is over, you would like to update your great room or liv­ing room to enter­tain with con­fi­dence and lux­ury, con­tact me and I will help your cre­ate rooms you love.

Add some color to your your next kitchen remodel.

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Most of us like white kitchens. They look clean and fresh. But what about color? Color
use is part of my style as an inte­rior designer. So, when I am con­sid­er­ing the remodel of a kitchen for a client, color is def­i­nitely part of the con­ver­sa­tion. There are great uses of color for kitchens, more now than ever with new mate­ri­als on the mar­ket like glass, lam­i­nates and veneers.

Other than our bed­rooms, the kitchen is a place where we spend a lot of time. Shar­ing food with fam­ily and friends, it is the heart and soul of our house.

HouseBeautifulWellAppointedHouseBlogGreenKitchenNotice this kitchen above uti­lizes the ceil­ing in which to add color. Don’t for­get about the ceil­ing in your kitchen, it is a sur­face as well. There is still some visual relief with the white
on the cab­i­net runs. The island works as a focal point and can quite often be of another paint color or stain and some­times a dif­fer­ent mate­r­ial alto­gether from the main cabinetry.

100108360_pDesigner: Eliz­a­beth Speert

Here it’s just the oppo­site, the cab­i­nets hold all the color and the island is white. The other ele­ments of design work­ing in this kitchen are the open shelves and glass cab­i­net doors. This again, adds some relief to all that solid, bold color.

Colorful-kitchenThis is a fun mid-century kitchen. Per­fect to play with brighter color from that period, espe­cially since the cab­i­nets are sim­ple in design. Even though there is a lot of color, if you look closely your palette is turquoise, white and a snap of red. I like the red bal­anc­ing the turquoise even though it is there only as an accent.

101658226_ssArchi­tect: Linda MacArthur

I have included this kitchen because color does not always means bright­est and bold­est.
I think this kitchen is beau­ti­ful because of its gray cab­i­nets. The floors and the island pro­vide warm tones so it does not feel cold.

44613852529597364_s0xo5xju_fDesigner: Liz Caan

I adore this kitchen. What I love about it is the full size col­ored rug in pink, and the stove in pur­ple. Really unex­pected, but looks super cozy . I just want to pull a chair up and sit at the island chat­ting with the owner. I know by look­ing at this kitchen, the food and the con­ver­sa­tion would be excellent.

kitchen-counter-ideas-ed0911-07-lgnDesigner: Jonathan Adler

Sleek and ruby-red, this kitchen has very mod­ern feel. The red cab­i­netry by Schiffinni is con­structed of metal. All that high lac­quer has great reflec­tive qual­ity that bounces light around the space.

101098362.jpg.rendition.largestBet­ter Homes and Gardens

Some­times it can be about the back splash. With color like this as a focal point,
you’re pretty much done.

If you are in fact think­ing about a remodel or even want to change the color of your cab­i­nets with paint, think about color. It can change your whole morn­ing when you
wake up and head to the kitchen for coffee.

 

What about using the space under your stairs?

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I have a client who is look­ing to uti­lize the space under the stairs in his new home. So Eddie, this blog is ded­i­cated to you and Sakura.

There is no rea­son why the space below your stair­case can­not be uti­lized for… well, many things. Depend­ing on what your lifestyle is, and just how much space you have acces­si­ble, I have some ideas I would like to share as food for thought.

If your sin­gle or shar­ing space say in a condo, this is a good solu­tion for your bike(s) instead of putting them out in the weather on the bal­cony, or try­ing to get it in and out of the closet every time you want to ride.

storage-ideas-under-stairs-in-hallway7Addi­tional desk space is nice for you or the kids.

home-office-under-stairs-storage3Stor­age, stor­age and then more stor­age. I am of the belief that unless you are an extreme and rare min­i­mal­ist, you can never have enough stor­age. These pull out doors are great. You could eas­ily put sea­sonal items here like win­ter sweaters and shoes or hol­i­day wrap­ping. I never have a good place for that.

StorageIf you really have room, take a look at this idea. What a great pow­der room for guests! Not a lot of width which is why you see a wall mounted sink and toi­let, but adding a pow­der room to your home will def­i­nitely increase its saleabil­ity and value, not to men­tion your convenience.

11-ways-to-use-space-under-stairs-2Love this idea as long as your dog likes to camp out in the Foyer. My yel­low lab Sophie likes to fol­low me into what­ever room I am using at the time and that is where she will stay. If you like this idea for your dog, please make cer­tain that the door open­ing is large enough that you can get in and out of it as well as your pup, cause you know that’s where all the secretly stolen items from around the house will end up and you are now going to have to go in to get them back.

11-ways-to-use-space-under-stairs-9There are a lot of peo­ple with liv­ing rooms or great rooms that have no where to put the flat screen TV. This way you have a nice book­case, a place for the cable equip­ment and Blue-ray and still come out with addi­tional drawer storage.

Great room stair spaceCre­ate a read­ing area or if this is by the front door, a nice seat­ing area while you wait patiently for your sig­nif­i­cant other, or other. Who hasn’t walked through the door on their cell phone and needed to sit down quickly, relax and fin­ish up the call?

storage-ideas-under-stairs-in-hallway3Got kids? Want a spe­cial place that’s your own to read a book?

Under-Stair-Boys-Room-Designs-02By now, I am sure my friend Eddie is think­ing this is great and all, but I had other plans for this area. Well Eddie, this should make you very happy: wine stor­age! Oh yeah, now we are talk­ing. I do believe you can get a wine fridge at 55 degrees opti­mum for this area, there are sev­eral sizes in the mar­ket place.

4003wine-storage-under-stairs4Impres­sive me thinks.

I hope this has inspired you all to think about open­ing up the wall under the stairs and uti­liz­ing some addi­tional space you did not think you had. Good luck, let me know what you come up with.

- Lau­ren

7 fabulous storage ideas for holiday decorations.

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Christ­mas was fan­tas­tic this year, I spent a lot of time just enjoy­ing everyone’s hol­i­day spirit. Part of that is the excite­ment I get from view­ing all the clever dec­o­ra­tions and house lights. My favorite part of Christ­mas as a child, beside open­ing all the gifts, was tour­ing the lights that go up in our neighborhood.

So, this year was no dif­fer­ent. We loaded up into the car drink­ing our steamed hot choco­late with a dol­lop of whipped and drove the Glen­dale, Toluca Lake and Sher­man Oaks neigh­bor­hoods here in Los Angeles.

It was so much fun!

Now that the hol­i­day is over, all those lights, trees, wreaths and rein­deer have to go back into stor­age for another 364 days.

So, since I have to put all my dec­o­ra­tions away as well, I looked up hol­i­day stor­age solu­tions and found some good ones.

1. The Tree

Unless you have a live tree and you are cut­ting it up for the trash bins, the fake trees can go in a nifty zip case on wheels. Organize.com has nice ones.

2. The Lights

My lights are cur­rently in a large plas­tic bin with a lid. Each strand is indi­vid­u­ally wrapped and tied. This works pretty well, but I still get a tan­gled mess when I go to unwind them each year. And why is it every year there are strands that won’t light any­more? Ugh! Check­ing every bulb for a loose con­nec­tion, I would rather clean the hall closet…again!

There is a handy item called the “Light Winder” and it rolls the whole strand up nice and neat so all you do next year, is unroll.

Light Winder: http://www.treekeeperbag.com

3. Wreaths

I use many wreaths around my house and they are not easy to store. You don’t want them get­ting crushed or dusty. There are round stor­age bags in var­i­ous sizes that zip and also hard cases should your wreath have breakables.

Zip bag at: www.christmasworld.com

Sterilite Wreath Box: http://www.spacesavers.com

4. Orna­ments

My mother and grand­mother used to wrap their orna­ments in news­pa­per and then put them in a wooden crate. No dividers and there were all kinds of dif­fer­ent sizes to con­tend with. Here is a much bet­ter solution.

Orna­ment Boxes: http://www.organize.com

5. Wrap­ping Paper

This year my hus­band, who does not get involved in dec­o­ra­tive, stor­age, house­hold solu­tions, saw an idea on the web and of course imme­di­ately claimed title to it while I was wrap­ping gifts. To keep paper rolled, take an empty toi­let tis­sue roll, slice down the length and “wa-la”, you have a wrap­ping paper keeper. “Thanks hun!”

6. Wrap­ping Paper Storage

Once you have the paper under con­trol, the rolls can be stored in a zip­pered case with room for bows, gift tags and other sundry and loose items.

Gift Wrap Orga­nizer: http://www.organize.com

7. Rib­bon Box

And then, as a gals best friend, Martha Stew­art, has devel­oped a great rib­bon stor­age box that will keep all your rib­bon clean and per­fect, unlike mine which the cats get into and chew on.

Rib­bon Box: marthastewart.com

There you have it. This season’s best ideas for find­ing every­thing next sea­son; clean and in good shape.

Hope you all had a great holiday.

TV trays get an update.

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Back in the day, this was my TV tray. Had I known, I prob­a­bly should have hung on to it now that Dis­ney is so col­lectible. Yeah, Mickey and the gang watched a lot of TV with me and we had many a Swanson’s TV din­ner. After all, they went together.

My Mickey, Don­ald with nephews and Pluto TV tray.

And my TV din­ner. Remem­ber these? Did you eat the apple desert first or last?

So, I was think­ing about din­ing tables the other day and from there, TV trays popped into my head. I thought it would be inter­est­ing to see what, if any­thing, has changed. To my sur­prise, TV trays def­i­nitely have had addi­tional atten­tion to design since the days of Mickey and Donald.

These stack­ing burl wood trays were about as close to what we used. only the metal TV trays did not have a stack­ing device, you just leaned them all up against the back wall behind the coats in the hall closet.

Many man­u­fac­tur­ers have gone to a more dual pur­pose TV table like this Crate and Bar­rel “C” shaped accent table. Could be either a side table next to a chair or sofa that can be eas­ily moved to func­tion as a TV table.

If you want to get hip and mod­ern, these trays are made from clear Lucite or trans­par­ent poly-methyl methacry­late. Hmmm, do I want that near my food?

Or, if you like vin­tage style mid-century, this works. I love the turquoise tray color. It reminds me of the kid­ney shaped swim­ming pools back then.

Here is the ideal TV tray for the technophiles that wants to text on their iPhone, work on their lap­top, all while watch­ing “Home­land” on Show­time. It has two fans to cool your lap­top so your legs don’t get too hot and a USB port. Not sure where din­ner goes, but if they could find a way to get the fans to recir­cu­late the hot air, it could keep your din­ner warm.

Even 18th-19th cen­tury antique fur­ni­ture gurus and Antique Road­show experts, the Keno broth­ers, have devel­oped their own take on the TV tray using maple and louro preto veneers trimmed with stain­less steel. It doesn’t look like the TV tray is headed for extinc­tion any time soon.

And never, ever, count out the Ital­ians with their Char­iot side table. You can for­get the stack­ing option or lean­ing them on the back wall in the hall closet, but you can­not deny they are sooo clean line, min­i­mal­ist, pure Ital­ian design.

I don’t think I could bear to put a Swanson’s TV din­ner on one, it would be sacrilegious.

How to use books to decorate your home.

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Hav­ing books in your home not only says some­thing about intel­lect, but it also says some­thing about the feel of your home. As an inte­rior designer, I find books are a must in any home. They add a sense of his­tory, inter­est and state­ment. I hope books never leave our homes as they are one of the remain­ing items in which we are invited to use many of our senses: sight, smell, touch and I sup­pose sound if you count lis­ten­ing to turn­ing the pages.

Now as far as an ele­ment of decor, books can either stay on the shelf or come off the shelf. They eas­ily make them­selves at home on the any table adding color, shape and bal­ance. The great­est qual­ity about books as acces­sories is that they set the stage so well for other acces­sories. Cre­at­ing a pyra­mid style plat­form to high­light another shape as the main eye catch­ing object.

You can cre­ate col­or­ful arrange­ments of your books by palettes. This is espe­cially great if you want to pull col­ors from your books to match with a few accent pil­lows in the room, or an occa­sional chair, maybe the cush­ions on the din­ing chairs in the other room that you can see through to. It adds a graphic pop to the book­case area.

Uti­liz­ing your books as an entire wall of shape and color can add height and weight to a room when you take the book­case all the way to the ceil­ing and side to side. This room below is suc­cess­ful because the book­case has also been bro­ken up with the glass dec­o­ra­tive doors adding visual relief and inter­est along the large wall of books. This wall of books can also be ever-changing for those of you that need con­stant new­ness by adding  objects of inter­est such as art­work, pot­tery and sculp­ture set inside the shelves amongst the books.

In our boudoirs, the bench, the ottoman, or even the night table, is the per­fect home for books. We all like to read in bed, right? Again, they add color and sur­round us with sophis­ti­cated subjects.

You will never see books leave the realm of inte­rior design. So, if you do not have any great cof­fee table books, I mean the ones that are big, catch your eye and have beau­ti­ful edi­to­r­ial pho­tos, I sug­gest you get some. You will never go wrong.

Every home could use a Pouf.

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There is the pouf, which was a high head­dress with the hair rolled in puffs, worn by women in the late 18th century.

Then, there is the pouf we are dis­cussing today. The one used as fur­ni­ture and spelled pouffe or pouf. It is a soft round or square seat with no back or sides, used for sit­ting on, rest­ing your feet, or as a small table.

The Moroc­can pouf, like the exam­ple shown above, is usu­ally con­structed of leather with dif­fer­ent pat­terns of embroi­dery adding to its unique­ness and come in a vari­ety of col­ors. They are read­ily avail­able at many retail­ers or online. Quite pop­u­lar really.

The “Kano” poufs are not as com­mon in the United States. These poufs are made in Kano, a city in North­ern Nige­ria that dates back to at least A.D 999, that has been long known for their excel­lent crafts­man­ship in leather work.

Poufs were orig­i­nally made of goatskins and began show­ing up in Europe as “Morocco” leather around the 15th cen­tury. Today, they can be made of fab­rics, knits, woven rugs, faux fur, leathers and metal­lic vinyls.

For kids, these no break, no sharp cor­ner soft­ies, are the per­fect item. They can roll all over them and roll them all over. Splen­did! Here is a pretty had woven pouf in a var­ie­gated aqua cot­ton. The fill is EPS (Poly­styrene beans) all for around $69 at The Land of Nod. And mom, you can spot clean them.

If you are feel­ing very Martha Stew­art and have unlim­ited free time, you can even make one for about $12.00 in materials.

Or, if you are feel­ing extrav­a­gant you can pur­chase your own Rotterdam-based Christien Mein­dertsma “Flocks Pouf Stool” chain link stitched, 100% wool pouf, for a scant $6,900. For that price you get the flock and per­sonal name of the sheep the wool came from.

Ma Lamb, is that you I’m sit­ting on?