the highlow

Tag: Elle Decor

  • Leather, Leather on My Sofa…

    Let me just start by saying that rebellion at 37 looks nary a thing like one at 16.  Case in point:  I have traded climbing out of my window in the dead of night so as to attend the latest glamorous bonfire party being hosted down by the river in my little town for wanting to…wait for it, wait for it…add a BLACK.LEATHER.SOFA to my living room.  I’m baaaaad.

    Now, when I was 16, you didn’t really have to put much thought into being bad / you just kind of did whatever was dumb and destructive and called it a day / no further research necessary.  Unfortunately, the older version of bad kind of comes with a little more baggage.  Like, one must think about what kind of bad they want to actually be. 

    Is it a Portia de Rossi & Ellen DeGeneres kind of bad?  (Check out their living room in Elle Décor below and maybe you can figure out what exactly that means…and let me know if you do.)

    Ellen-EDC-05-13-002-lgn

    Maybe throw in a little Swedish kind of bad?

    lively-and-light-interior-of-house-in-sweden-1-554x261

    Or perhaps a little bohemian bad:

    Bohemian+Living+Room+Decorative+screens+flanking+8iF7NP93GeOl

    How about Fornasetti bad? 

    c534a5aeb23f8e4cff6d88306a8afe81

    Or, even crazier…rustic bad:

    4b5b12a63ba5135b1a9089e54ced059b

    Okay, so truth be told, none of these were exactly the kind of bad I’m going for, but they did provide some good inspiration. 

    So off I went to make my own rebellion in this world (btw, I’m guessing my parents are wondering why on God’s green earth they couldn’t have had this version 20 years ago).

    Here were some of my favorite finds along the way (and you can also check out my more extensive/less curated Pinterest collection as well if you’re so inclined):

    Blog_LeatherSofa Final

     

    1: West Elm / 2: Talisman / 3: 1stdibs / 4: Cisco Home / 5: Benchmade by Brownstone / 6: 1stdibs / 7: Dering Hall

    But I still hadn’t found exactly that je ne sais quoi bad that I was looking for.  What was a girl to do?  Answer:  DIY.  In other words, comb through the sofa fields ad nauseum, find a silhouette that sings to you, imagine it in leather, decide to do it “COL” (customer’s own leather), go on a leather hunting mission, strike gold, combine the two…and pray that you’ve got it all right in your head. 

    Now the million dollar question becomes…am I baaaaad…or just plain old bad? 

    Tune in in about eight to ten weeks and we’ll have the answer…

    *Note: if you want some other well-researched ideas, check out Victoria Smith’s / aka sfgirlbybay’s piece on the subject. 

     Photos from here, here, here, here, and here. 

  • Kelly Behun is My Friend

    Okay, well not really (I wish).  But did anyone here see this New York based designer’s spread in the July/August 2013 issue of Elle Décor?  Even if you did, it bears re-sharing here for one very important reason – without uttering a single word, her living room perfectly defines what it is to engage in “highlow” design.

    Kelly Behun

    Absolutely and totally gorgeous, right?  Must have cost a fortune.  Okay, yes.  But guess where those stools came from?  Yup, Ikea.  Yes, that’s right, Ikea. You heard correctly, I’m not joking.  This architectural and design wonder of a home’s living room is tied together by none other than stools from the largest furniture retailer on the planet, whose products most decidedly come nowhere close to breaking the bank.  How exciting is that?!  We could all share in a little bit of Kelly Behun’s fabulousness in our very own homes if we just got thee down to our nearest Ikea store/hangar.

    This got me thinking about other swoony interiors I’ve encountered that have also managed to incorporate a little Ikea love into their design.  I’ve giddily conjured up two more off the top of my head.

    Poppy Store (purveyor of luxe children’s clothing) in the Marin Country Mart in Larkspur, CA:

    Poppy Store, Marin County

    Not only are those storage bins under the birdcage sourced from our favorite Swedish megastore, but so are the chairs and table off to the right.

    And then there’s el restaurante Compartir de Cadaqués in Cadaques, Spain:

    El restaurante Compartir de Cadaqués in Cadaques, Spain

    As we settled in for our meal from el Bulli trained chefs last year, I remember feeling right at home as I recognized these wicker chandeliers as having the same provenance as the one hanging over my dining table at home.  (I also applaud Christopher Salon & Home in Tiburon for having similarly fine taste in lighting.)

    Looking at these pictures got me wondering what new cool stuff Ikea has up their sleeves these days.  As always, they didn’t disappoint.  Herewith are a few items that can hold their own in any room:

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    And there you have it. There is truly nothing more exciting, thrilling, and satisfying than celebrating both “high” and “low” design in all its brilliant forms. Even more exciting is when you get to combine the two to create something wholly unique and no one can tell which piece came across on that container from Europe and which one you found on eBay for $12 from the random guy in Saskatoon.

    So what I’d like to do here is share things that might be way out of your price range, but provide great inspiration for something a little more financially palatable…as well as things that might be entirely too far below your generous (and envious) budget, but that I’m sure you can always find a more expensive version of! Wherever there is inspiring design to be found, it will be shared here.

    Here’s to taking the highlow design plunge together, hope you enjoy…

    Photos from here, here, and here.