NEWH Dallas Chapter Scholarship Available

NEWH Dallas Chapter now opens scholarships to young people wishing to pursue careers in the hospitality industry. The scholarship application and more information can be found on NEWH website at www.newh.org (go to Education/Scholarship Information/Chapter Scholarships/click on Dallas).

It's a Monday

Is it just me, or do you find there are a few items that always seem to disappear?  If only I were a bit more organized . . . 

So, with organization on my mind, here are few images that make my heart sing. 

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 Hope you have a "Friday like" Monday.  M.

Interior Design
This article was written by Amandine Dowle. 

Feedback from the Milan Design Week 2014

The 2014 edition of Milan Design Week ended two weeks ago bringing designers, photographers, architects, art lovers and journalists from all over the world. From the Salone Internazionale del mobile at Milan’s Fiera to museums, galleries, and other important location in Milan, the all city was full of interior design products to discover.

-Ventura/Lambrate: This area of Milan was presenting different artists most of them European. I have particularly liked the exhibition “Clique: Smart Matters”. The inaugural collection featured six furniture and accessory designs made of marble, valchromat, and solid wood, both original and practical, each with their own “electric heart” as ECHO, a bookcase with Bluetooth speakers and Heatty a fan heater both designed by Claudio Larcher.

 

- Museo Bagatti Valsecchi: The iconic Rossana Orlandi showcased a beautiful exhibition called “Untold” in the museum Bagatti Valsecchi, located via Gesù.

Lusters are one of my favorite pieces of the museum. Called “Brilli Mod” and design by the Italian Jacopo Foggini, they are made with extruded polycarbonate, which have the appearance of glass.

The Peacock chair by Eiri Ota and Irene Gardpoit Chan  presented at the entrance of the museum.

Spazio Rossana Orlanda:

Rossana Orlanda opened few years ago her own art space to give the possibility to worldwide artists to expose their work: one restaurant, three floors and a nice garden. I liked The Seed Cloud Installation designed by Joanna Bibby, Harriet Maxwell Macdonald and Solenne de la Fourchardière. The lighting concept balances beauty with functionality. It's a mass of organic cast bronze buds house solid glass drop, illuminated by LED. Technically advanced, marrying both modern and ancient processes.

 

Then different events were organizing as Romeo & Juliet 2.0, sponsored by Fontanot spiral staircase, where Marco Goffi recreated the Juliet’s Home;

 

Or even Wallpaper magazine organized their Handmade exhibition initiated and coordinated by L’ECLETTICO where you could find young artist as Alexander Mulligan and his audio System "EDSM". Comprised of individual, curved units that stack upon each other, the sculptural audio totem delivers sounds in 360 degrees, in addition to cutting a strong figure.

 

To conclude the Milan Design Week 2014 was about technology, simplicity of lines and shapes, and smart design. With thousands of new products launched, this year was another great success gathering international brands and designers.

ARTEC Group Looking for Part-time Designer

The ARTEC Group, Inc. in Fort Worth is looking for a solid designer with good CAD skills. Preferably a senior that could work 3 days a week in the summer and 4-5 in the fall.  Starting salary is $18.00 per hour. Please contact Debbie for more information.

Debbie Chirillo
The ARTEC Group, Inc.
777 Main Street, Suite 600
Fort Worth, TX  76102
www.artecgroupinc.com
Tel: 817-528-1027
E-mail:  artecgroup@sbcglobal.net

2011 Student Lighting Design Competition

In cooperation with the Philadelphia area IALD and LIGHTFAIR International, IES Philadelphia Section is sponsoring a student lighting design competition open nationally to all undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in an accredited U.S. institution of higher learning and majoring in one of the following fields: lighting/illumination design, architecture, engineering, and interior design.

The winning designs will be presented in the Lighting Education Lounge at LIGHTFAIR International 2011, scheduled at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, May 17-19 in Philadelphia, and will also be showcased in a window display at Macy's Philadelphia flagship store. The winning team will receive a $1000 award and second place will receive $500. Participants should organize into groups of no more than 4 students and work cooperatively to develop submissions. More information is available online at www.iesphl.org/design

Application Deadline: February 28, 2011
Competition Materials Available: March 1, 2011
Completed Design Entries Due: April 15, 2011
LIGHTFAIR International in Philadelphia: May 17-19, 2011

2011 Brass Ring Awards Online Competition

The Brass Ring Awards online competition is designed to motivate and reward students for excellence in art and design. The Brass Rings Awards are hosted annually by the Department of Art + Design at Oklahoma Christian University. This year marks the 25th year for the Brass Ring Awards, which attracted 530 entries in 2010, from 60 universities and 18 high schools. More information is available online at http://www.brassringawards.com/

Eligibility: All college and university undergraduates and high school students
Contest Starts: January 28, 2011
Contest Ends: Noon, February 24, 2011
Winners Announced: March 26, 2011

UNT Interior Design Students Awarded NEWH Scholarships

Three UNT Interior Design juniors received 2013 NEWH Scholarships. Sara Allen received $1000, Rebecca Christy received $5000, and Megan Crase received $7000 from NEWH. The recipients will accept these at the NEWH Annual Scholarship Awards Banquet on June 5th at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. More information regarding the scholarships can be found at http://www.newh.org/about-scholarships

The Magpie

I have a really great friend who claims to be a major magpie (which always makes me laugh).  She claims to be a total sucker for anything shiny.  

So, I have to ask . . . are you a magpie?  

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P.S: I wanted to say thank you for all the emails I received yesterday.  The blogging community is the best!  As I've watched the news (with many of you I am sure), I have been amazed at the resilience of those hit the hardest by the storm.  Many areas are still without power, but people are beginning to clean up and are truly thankful in the midst of this disaster.  Please continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.  Have a great weekend.  M.

IFDA Student Scholarships Available

The IFDA (International Furnishings and Design Association) Scholarships are now available. The physical brochure is posted on our bulletin boards. There are multiple categories and they are mostly good for sophomore and juniors. Applications accepted between March 1 and 31. To view all categories/criteria, please visit at www.ifdaef.org

Our students have won IFDA awards in previous years!

Ronald Reed, ID Faculty Published Book Titled “Color + Design: Transforming Interior Space”

A book titled “Color + Design: Transforming Interior Space” authored by Ronald Reed, ID faculty member, is published by Fairchild Books. This unique book presents color theory in terms of design principles such as balance, rhythm, emphasis, proportion, unity, and variety. The text is infused with insights into how people perceive color, and helps the young interior designer focus on the user experience of a space. More information is available online at http://fairchildbooks.com/book.cms?bookId=670

Yesterday

It felt like a Monday.  We awoke to storms, had a bit of a reprieve for most of the day (even sunny at times), and ended our day with some of the most violent weather I have ever seen in Alabama.  I simply can not focus on interior design today.  Instead, I am thinking of all the loss of life and property damage that occurred here in Alabama.

Yesterday afternoon I watched a live news feed via sky cam, as a tornado, roughly a mile wide, churned into the downtown area of Tuscaloosa, Alabama on it's way towards my family in Birmingham.  I simply cannot begin to describe how that makes you feel.

Here is some amateur footage of the terror.
Did you notice how breathless the man filming the storm was?  You could hear him breathing as he watched the devastation.  I can only imagine what was going through his mind. 

I have never seen live footage of something so onerous knowing it would be a matter of minutes before it was in my city.  For those of you not in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa is about 45 minutes southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.  It is a college town, home of the University of Alabama and our weather always comes from that direction.

Gratefully, my family and home were spared the devastation.  The storm moved a bit to the north, and we escape the destruction by a matter of miles.  Others were not so lucky.

  During the waiting to see if we would receive the blunt of it, I had family calling from other cities, saying prayers for us and asking if we were ok.  

Although I am grateful for our current technology, at the moment it was occurring, it scared the life out of me.  Also, the aftermath footage which we were able to see even before the storm reached us . . . was simply devastating.  

For those those of you reading my blog for the first time, I try to always post about light hearted interior design topics that take you away from reality, if only for a few minutes in your day.  But today, I simply don't have it in me.  

I feel so thankful that my family is safe and so very sad for those who lost loved ones and their homes.  As my husband pointed out, this storm will go down in history for our state.  I think the recovery will take years.  Please keep the Southeast in your thoughts and prayers.  We are going to need it.  

I will be back to interior design as soon as my brain can refocus. M.

Trend Spotting and Master Bedroom Before/Afters

So happy to back in the world of WIFI - we have never had a complete outage that lasted more than a couple of hours.  So, when day two rolled around and still no Internet, I was having a hard time remaining calm.  Whew!  To show how thrilled I am to be back online, I  wanted to show you some before and after pictures of my master bedroom.  But first some trend spotting is in order.

As I mentioned in a recent post,  I was thrilled Birmingham Home and Garden featured me as one of their 2013 Tastemakers.  In the article, we were asked to weigh in on the hottest design trends for 2013.

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One of the trends I mentioned in the article were Agates.

This is a spinoff of the gemstone trend from last year.  As mentioned in the article,  I've been so smitten with agates, I decided to have a set framed for my master bedroom.  I picked them up last week, and I have to say, they have added a very chic modern punch to an otherwise traditional space.   So, with the transformation is complete, here's the after . . .

Where did this bedroom begin?  This should give you an idea . . . 

We replaced the carpet with hardwoods when we moved in and the previous owner left the draperies.   Even though the fabric on the draperies was not my style, they were expensive linen fabric and were lined with blackout fabric.  Like most, this room was way down on the list.  So, it remained like this for several years. 

Then when this painting landed in the room (from a rearrange in another part of the house), I had the color direction I needed.  I pulled in more blues to balance the draperies and made the entire room feel more current.   

First, I needed to break up all the dark wood in the space - too much.  So, I selected an upholstered bed with nailhead detailing. 

Then, I pulled in several different fabrics to play on the blue/greens in the painting and draperies.  I made sure to include different textures of fabrics from cottons,

to velvet

 and even two woven jacquards.  This one in a modern chevron pattern . . .

As well as this one in a moorish pattern with tones of blue and green 

Then I selected on patterned fabric to pull all the colors together.  I used this fabric in a client's bedroom last year and thought it was the perfect color scheme to unify my space.

I also brought in the upholstered settee.  This was "a trade" I made with a sweet friend/client.

The settee did not work in her space and she was going to sell it.  So, we traded for it.  I gave her some design time and, in turn, I got the settee.  I think the scale is perfect.  

I also reupholstered a Bergere chair in a camel mohair and used it to fill in this corner on the opposite side of the room.  

Then, the final piece of the puzzle - the agates.

Last summer, I began to see framed agates on some of my favorite high end websites.  My husband and I took a trip to Highlands, and I noticed a gem shop near our hotel.  The rest is history!

As you know, a space is never really finished.  It's always evolving and changing.  That's what makes the process fun.  But for now, I'm done in this room.  The biggest surprise in this space for me?  I'm shocked by how much I like the draperies now.

And it all started with a painting.

Happy Monday! M.