We have moved to our new home! Finally after months of house hunting and anticipation, we found our new nest in Takoma Park, MD. A charming house on a lovely tree lined street. Some of the trees are more than 100ft tall.
Moving day was this past Saturday, rain and all…It took the movers over 8 hours from start to finish. They did a great job and even gave us a discount for using them again.
Movers, Paul and our plants, Some of them didn’t make it 
I still can’t believe its ours! And all the space!! Yahoooo!! Space for my design projects, storage, Paul’s library, guest room, office, and sooo much more.
We have year around Christmas Tree like shrubs..anyone know what these are called? Aren’t they just so pretty along the walk up the house?
Japanese Maple tree in our front yard. In the back you can see all the Bamboo trees as well.
Here are some highlights- more pics to follow soon.
- Pre-war cape cod/ colonial. 6 bedrooms, 3 bath, huuuuge backyard, and trees everywhere
- Hardwood floors (Oak?) in entire house except kitchen and bathrooms
- Brick fireplace that works ( well after a visit from the chimney sweep it will). I always wanted a real fireplace to cuddle up in front of in winters
- Bamboo and Japanese Maple trees in front yard
- Ginormous mater suite with high high ceiling and jacuzzi
While its great as it is, it needs a lot of love and personalization. Over next few months, we have our home improvement projects cut out for us. Some upcoming projects -
- Interior decorations!! I can’t wait to unpack and start decorating all the rooms.
- Landscaping in backyard – we want a water feature, fireplace/ bbq combo, Zen-like garden and having lots of friends over
- Kitchen – there is nothing wrong with it, we want to redo it to suit our lifestyle, I don’t like the flooring, and the cabinets and we need to make space for our new appliances – all stainless and energy saver, with eco-options of course!
The house has a walk-out basement. Plenty of windows allow for bright and airy rooms. We have a second kitchen in the basement and will update that as well. We plan to rent this unit out for a while and later use this space for entertaining large groups of friends.
I’m really excited, can’t wait to get all the unpacking done with. More pictures to follow soon.
I would like to share some exciting news. Greg Finney, co-founder of 2Modern has invited me to contribute on 2Modern’s blog- Design Talk.
If you haven’t heard of 2Modern Design Talk or 2Modern, you have been living under a rock! 2Modern is a modern furniture, contemporary lighting, personal accessories, and eco-friendly products for home and office store. They are based in San Francisco.
Contributers to Design Talk include some very inspiring individuals – Greg Finney, Jennifer Sitko (co-founder), Deanna Miller, Kasey Coughlin, Stratos Bacalis, Anand Gahlot, Danielle Colosimo, Erin Loechner, Kim Barrington, Valentina Herrera, Lisa Williams, Heloisa Righetto, Adrienne Breaux, Rachael Pfeffer, and Lauren O’Malley.
What is unique about 2Modern Design Talk? We provide a wide-range of views and commentary focused on contemporary design. Contributors to the blog are designers, manufacturers, editors, retailers, architects and consumers. Some contributors enjoy a large spectrum of the modern lifestyle, others are focused on specific niches or topics like: modern lighting, contemporary art, innovative architecture, etc. Some of us spend most of their time at tradeshows, viewing the latest designs, others spend their time in a studio in overalls and paint. The common denominator is that this carefully selected group of individuals weave a special fabric we call the 2Modern Design Talk blog. – 2Modern Design Talk
I feel fortunate to be on the same list as these talented designers, artists, innovators and furniture connoisseurs. I will be contributing on Thursdays, starting next week so keep an eye out for my first post there! 2Modern Design Talk
Here’s a peak at 2Modern’s collection
Take a look at these home accents from Viva Terra. Viva Terra, or living Earth provide products that reflect their commitment to organic sources, ecological sensitivities, and passionate designs. And the best part, is they are on sale!!
recycled jewel tone bottle vases, starting at $65.
recycled glass balloon vases, starting at $39
reclaimed tree trunk lamp (sale!!) $298
temple bells $24
honeypot beeswax luminaries, starting at $14
sprout bowls, starting at $24
lotus flower chandelier, $329
railroad tie dining table and chairs, starting at $398
recycled metal globes, starting at $169
Happy Monday! (Is there is such a thing?). Either way- here is to start your week with projects from Barbara Strueder who lives in Uruguay. An architect and interior designer, Barbara’s style is modern, minimalistic, vintage and shabby chic.
I love the Asian accents.
Her clients are spread over Europe and South America and she has also been featured on German TV. Barbara’s website is not up yet, but you can view more of her work on her flickr page.
She is available for consultations through her email: info@artedeleste.com.
If there is one mantra Mochatini follows religiously, it is think and live green. One way to incorporate green living is buying products that are organic. And when you have gorgeous, stylish and herbicide free home textiles like Plover Organic have to offer, it makes going green hip.
Plover textiles are produced from the best quality 100% organic cotton. The organic cotton in Plover’s linens comes from non-genetically engineered seeds grown in soil that is free of pesticides, herbicides or other
cytotoxins—keeping those poisons out of the ecosystem. Plover Organic is designed in the U.S.A. and
made in India using Fair Labor.
Their collections include bedding, duvet, shams, pillowcases and even fabrics by the yard.
Plover textiles are available through retails all over the USA and their online store.
Oh and FYI-
Plover is a short-billed shorebird that has been a cherished inspiration in the arts from all over the globe for centuries. Unfortunately, plovers now also symbolize the conflict between the natural world and coastal land use and development, their numbers dwindling dangerously as a direct consequence of human interference. Read more about these bird on Plover Organic.
Heather Knight finds inspiration for her collections in nature. You can see this in each piece that is designed in 3D. Heather’s Environmental collection is refreshing. She also runs a blog about her work.
I would love to feel the texture of some of these. See more handmade ceramics by Heather on Etsy.
Available at elementclaystudio on Etsy, the bowl is made of high fired porcelain, unglazed on the outside and translucent icy blue glaze on the interior. It is very durable but has a sense of weightless fragility. Isn’t it just gorgeous?
Turf Micro Tile
Here is a brilliant idea for the storage under the stairs that I found on Apartment Therapy yesterday. Designed and constructed by Chris Darling, I think it is a perfect solution for the dead space under stairs. Highly functional and can be creatively customized to fit most stairs.
This is what Chris told me about it:
It was part of an enormous two story row house renovation in Portland Maine I did in the early nineties. I did the stairs as well which reflect some of the elements of the original 1860’s character of row houses on the same block; i.e; Swan’s neck railing sweep, sparse tapered ballasters, etc.
The actual job was inspired by traditional Japanese under stair storage and Shaker furniture elements two areas of interest for the client I did this work for, who told me “what he was
thinking ” ( I then sketched on a piece of scrap wood & built it. ) & I had the drawer boxes made up after careful layout of my vertical spaces (partition) the drawers are close to 34 inches deep so they do provide an enormous amount so storage. As you might suspect the left side has a number of “reverse corbelling” to provide verticals off the angular underside of the stair (think upside down staircase) the verticals are for the slides for the drawers on the left. SO though there is an “aire of simplicity” the behind the face of the drawers is a serious amount of prep
for this built in unit.
The drawers are Baltic birch boxes or “Apple-ply” (1/2″) faces are veneer faced MDF, bottom trim Poplar, NOTE the bottoms of the larger lower drawers are of thicker 5/16- 3/8th baltic due to span. Most of the slides are 75lb slides lowers are 100lb slides. All but the drawer boxes were made on site.
Thanks Chris for sharing these details with us. I’m going to file these images straight under the hidalgo casa mood files. I can see this as a wonderful utilization of space in our prospective new home!!
Inspiration boards also known as mood boards are simply a collage of images, materials, textures and fabrics that you would like to use in your design project. Every designer, stylist and decorator for your home will tell you that creating an inspiration board before any home improvement project is a must.
We had to do countless inspiration boards for our interior design classes at NYU. The biggest pro to creating an inspiration board, is it helps organize your thoughts and bring them out of your imagination to a working board. I won’t go into more detail about how to create one, in this post, but you can see some very creative ones on Holly Becker from decor8’s blog. She ran a contest a while back really encouraged people to submit their mood boards.
Link to more submissions from Holly’s contest.
I started to create a few for our new home. Garden, kitchen, bedroom, guestroom, study, living and dining……., but decided to keep it to an online board – Hidalgo Casa Mood Files, till after we move.
I would love to read your feedback on them.
I’m an obessessive recycler and reuser. I find a use for everything around the house. From wine bottles to tin cans to zip locks to produce packaging. Once we have moved to our new home and we are not living out of boxes, I promise to post my ideas.
For my readers who have been inquiring about reusable lunch bags after my post on Martha Stewart’s DIY lunch bags, I wanted to share this post from Apartment Therapy’s sister Ohdeedoh (the sister that features home, design, children). You can download a pattern from Spool Sewing for $5 or order an entire kit for $22 that includes the pattern, outer and lining fabrics, interfacing and velcro from them.
Aren’t these so fun? I find them a good size for sandwich, fruit, water, yoghurt and more…The bright colors, cheer up my packed lunch. When I remember to pack one that is! What do you carry your lunch in?
PS: if you would like a reusable lunch bag, but don’t have the time to DIY, Mocha Design Store can send one to you. Email me your requirements!
images from Ohdeedoh, original post here.
At a recent party in Brooklyn, I met Ross von Burg and we got to talking about green design. We could have gone on for hours comparing notes about green practices in USA, Dubai (UAE) and Singapore. He shared some very interesting facts about how Singapore is implementing green roofs, and bio-climatic practices. Especially those of bio-climatic architect Ken Yeang.
A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and soil, or a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. This does not refer to roofs which are merely colored green, as with green roof shingles. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems. Container gardens on roofs, where plants are maintained in pots, are not generally considered to be true green roofs, although this is an area of debate. Rooftop ponds are another form of green roofs which are used to treat greywater. Finally, the term “green roof” may also be used to indicate roofs that utilize some form of “green” technology, such as solar panels or a photovoltaic module. Green roofs are also referred to as eco-roofs, vegetated roofs, living roofs, and greenroofs. (Wikipedia)
Here are some pics of a summer house in LA.
Ross will be meeting Ken again sometime this month and will hopefully bring back more interesting facts on green solutions by Ken.
