La Cornue by Martyn Lawrence Bullard

Celebrity interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard has collaborated with La Cornue, the venerable French company making high quality ranges since 1908, to create ten new colors in their Château series based on high performance race cars.

Bullard says, "The colors I chose for the collection, apart from being iconic racing car colors, are colors that bring such personality to a space. Color is really something that we can use to show our personalities in our interiors. So, for me, everything from our beautiful deep black, to our rich and sexy oranges and reds, are all colors that are so vibrant and so full of expression and personality. It adds such excitement into a kitchen in a way we haven't seen before."

I can see these working really well in kitchens of many different styles. The colors allow for varied directions of feeling and expression in a home remodel.

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Tulip Chair by Eero Saarinen

Finnish American designer and architect Eero Saarinen is perhaps most famous for his design, which was created with structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel, of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, more commonly known as the St. Louis Arch. But within the sphere of interiors and furniture design, he created one of the most iconic mid-century furniture collections, The Tulip Group (also known as The Pedestal Collection). In 1955, Saarinen set out to design a collection of furniture that would eliminate, as he put it, "the slum of legs" found under ordinary four-legged pieces. His training as a sculptor and architect helped him develop a concept that was clean and spare. The chair is named for the tulip because of its similarity to the flower.

Made of cast aluminum and fiberglass, the design is sleek and utterly modern. In fact, the chair was adapted for use as seating (with a modified back) on the bridge of the Enterprise on the original "Star Trek" television series!

Although its origins are Mid-Century Modern, the chair can look good when paired with other, unexpected styles, as evidenced below (see my "Contrast brings interest" post)!

The chair is available from Knoll.

http://www.knoll.com/product/tulip-arm-chair

Happy designing!

Modern Industrial Minimalism by Fiorito Interior Design

It’s rare when a client comes to me with a brief for a complete home from scratch, but that is exactly what happened here. My client, a professional musician and singer, was having a luxury three-story condo built and wanted help choosing not only all the hardscape materials like tile, flooring, carpet, and cabinetry, but also all furniture and furnishings. I even outfitted his new home with plates, flatware, pots and pans, towels, sheets, and automated window coverings. Like I said, this was from scratch!

We defined his style direction for the new home including dark colors, minimalistic furniture, and a modern industrial sensibility, and I set about creating a fluid expression of that style. The tone is set at the entry where a custom laser-cut industrial steel sign requests visitors be shoeless. We deliberately limited the color palette for the entire house to black, grey, and deep blue, with grey-washed or dark stained neutral woods.

The navy zellige tiles on the backsplash in the kitchen add depth between the cement-textured quartz counters and cerused cabinetry. The island is painted in a coordinating navy and features hand-forged iron stools.

In the dining room, horizontal and vertical lines play with each other in the form of an angular linear chandelier, lighted acrylic light columns, and a hand-made dining table with a special faceted wave edge. Chair backs echo the shape of the art maps of favorite cities my client's band has toured.

We chose a unique, three dimensional wall treatment for the living room where a plush sectional and LED tunable lights set the stage for comfy classic movie nights. A custom, extra-long media console and polished concrete coffee table round out the space.

Walls with a repeating whimsical black and white whale skeleton named Bruce adorn the walls of the powder room.

The adjacent patio boasts a resort-like feeling with a cozy fire table, a wall of up-lit boxwoods, and a black sofa and chairs for star gazing.

A gallery wall featuring a roster of some of my client’s favorite rock, punk, and jazz musicians adorns the stairwell.

On the third floor, the primary and guest bathrooms continue with the cement-textured quartz counters and same cerused cabinetry.

We completed this well-appointed home with a serene guest room in our established limited color palette, and a lounge/office/recording room which serves as a space for band photos and a gold record!

Happy designing!