Interior Design: Industrial Work Space with Soft Touches

I love creative work spaces, especially if you work in the creative field. I don't think any type of artistic person can work at their best capacity in little grey cubicles with fluorescent lighting. Maybe that's just me, or maybe it stems from the highly visual world we live in, but it's obvious that modern offices are striving to attain style, not just function.

Let's face it, in today's fast-paced world, we all basically live in our offices. Even if you're not putting in any overtime, it sometimes feels like you spend more time at your desk than anywhere else. If you're spending so much time in one place, it's only naturally that you would want it to be visually appealing and tranquil. This office space for Bitium manages to do just that. It obviously has sectioned off areas for desks and a conference room, but each room flow into each other and the industrial elements are combined with soft touches to make the entire space feel more homey.

Dark Interiors: Macabre Charm in Grey Walls

I have to admit, I have a dark streak in me. On occasion, I'm drawn like a moth to the macabre - explaining my love of all things skull-printed. As obsessed as I currently am with any interior that has white walls with touches of wood, this shadowy shoot by photographer Tommaso Sartori really grabbed my attention.

Monday Design: Interior Design in Chicago

I've been a little preoccupied lately because I've been job hunting (hard) and it's been taking up most of my time. Today, however, my job hunting and my blog inspiration crossed paths! So I thought I would share.

It's not secret that I love interior design. I do and we all know it. Today I had the bright idea of looking up some interior design firms in Chicago to see if they would on some far off chance be hiring for a social media manager - they were not. BUT, I did find some awesome interior design eye candy in my search! I mean you can't win them all right? Now I can share a couple with you here.

Monday Design: Best Use of Space Award

I've actually been meaning to post this video for a while and it kind of got lost in my back logs. My apologies if you've already seen it a million times, but I thought it was worth the share.

And the award for best use of space in a tiny apartment goes to.....

GIZMODO - The Tiny Transforming Apartment That Packs Eight Rooms into 350 Square Feet from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Monday Design: Country Home

I think I might secretly be a small town girl at heart. Although I wouldn't really know since I've only ever lived in big cities. I probably would get bored if I moved out to some town where the downtown consisted of 6 city blocks. Unless of course I could live in a little country home like this one.

Monday Design: Winter Perfect Pastels

So in the midst of getting over the death flu that everyone has contracted, I've been spending a lot of time at home scheming and plotting design changes for my apartment (an apartment that I might be moving out of in April, yes, I'm insane). This past weekend I finally started repainting the walls and it was super exciting! It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do. Now, I've been living in a sort of Barney playroom apartment with every room being two different colors for a little over a year. I also had pretty bright colored furniture for a while from a time where I lived in a dark basement apartment. Well, the bright red couch has been replaced with a subtle grey one and the walls are going back to white! Now my biggest dilemma is what color scheme I want to change to.

After a year of living in a rainbow, I've been really drawn in to subtle color palates which is why this pastel home decor really caught me eye. I love that there are still splashes of color but it's all so subtle that the design is still clean.

Monday Design: Floor Plans

As drawn as I am to rustic designs and styles, lately I've found myself being really pulled in my more modern and quirky interior designs. Maybe it's because I've been going through the painfully slow process of redesigning my apartment and there is nothing rustic about it so I have to look at more modern interiors for inspiration. Well, this awesomely modern and bright apartment is nothing if not inspiring.

Monday Design: Industrial Mood

As you can probably tell by all the other interior design post on this blog, I'm an exposed brick, rustic farm elements kind of gal. However, this doesn't mean that I can't appreciate or enjoy clean modern lines. The inner hoarder in me just happens to prefer a more cluttered design scheme. Finding this industrial inspired home was one of those moments that pulled my out of my usual design aesthetic.

Monday Design: Living on LSD

This house holds a special place in my heart because it's right here in Chicago and I walk / drive/ ride by it frequently. And yes, you can too! It's very interesting looking from the outside. The exterior is entirely modern with clean lines, large windows, and protruding levels. The architecture is really something to take in, but it's also surrounded by greenery with a park right across the street. The modern facade is masked by large trees making this pretty imposing building something that you could easily pass by without a second glance. Luckily, I glance at all buildings.

Monday Design: Perfect Pastels

I am growing increasingly tired of the color on my walls. When planning painting my apartment, I did an incredibly poor job of figuring out how the rooms would play together. And now I can't stop dreaming about getting the original white walls back. Finding this simple and stark apartment while real estate stalking did not help one bit. I think I'm going to have to repaint soon and bleach my couch cover. Does anyone know if that's safe to do on couch fabric?

Monday Design: 8 Living Rooms Designs

So I bought a new lamp over the weekend to replace a hobbled one that was way past its prime and it got me thinking about rearranging my living room. Which of course got me thinking about redesigning my living room entirely. And when inspiration hits, what do we do? We hit Pinterest! As well as my secret stash of other design sites. And then spend hours on the internet dreaming of living rooms that I will never have and getting nothing done in the way of reorganizing. Gotta love technology right?

On the plus side, I did pull together some fun living room design inspiration to mull over.

Bright and Colorful Living Room

Monday Design: Skull Home Decor

I have an affinity for all things skull shaped. I can't explain why or how it started, I just know that I am always drawn to that shape. In high school I thought it was just part of my "punk rock" phase, but last summer when I was walking around all the craft fairs I realized that I kept being drawn to all the skull sculptures that were painted in different colors - neon, pastel, chalkboard black. Now I know I can't escape it. I think I love the way a skull sitting in a room next to a bowl of fruit reminds me of a still life painting - always reminding you to enjoy every minute. Of course, I'm not talking about real skulls here, that's kind of creepy even for me, but plastic and wax molds I'm ok with. Although, adding skulls to your home decor doesn't always have to be morbid. Just check out these adorable mini skull speakers below! They are sort of cartoon-y but still add a modern feel to the room.

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You could also just do a bowl of skulls like in this picture. This is more on the extreme end of displaying skulls in your living space since they are so bare and exposed. I prefer nestling one in your bookshelf or on your mantle, somewhere prominent yet unexpected.

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This skull rug is another example I love of turning something that can be kind of morbid into a fun center piece.

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It took me a second to notice the skull candle in this picture since it's such a bright white against white, but it's an interesting arrangement of objects.

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Now I know this last one isn't a human skull and it's not really a skull either, but I just thought it looked cool and was an interesting take on the mounted deer head trend. I believe this one is just carved wood. Still pretty intimidating huh? It looks gorgeous against the brick background. 

Would you ever add a skull to your home decor?

Monday Design: Recycling Architecture

There is very little I can say about this home because I'm in such awe of it. The architecture is entirely uncommon and modern, yet it's piggybacking on the structure of an already existing building. This give it a quality that is almost warm and inviting. As much as I enjoy looking at modern home architecture, there is something about about a lot of the buildings I've seen that feel very museum-like. The Villa Rotterdam has a bit of this museum quality too, but at the same time I can see myself living within it's walls. The melding of the old home and the modern design is really gorgeous, I guess you could call it a form of architecture recycling.

I think my love of this house has a lot to do with how well it incorporates nature into the design. Those giant triangular windows let in some much light and green from the trees outside. Living in the city your entire life and make you forget what it's like to wake up and look at the birds in tree branches. I suppose the pigeons on the roof next door carry their own sort of charm. The design within the house also fits my tastes when it comes to furniture so maybe the truth is that whoever lives in this house just has similar tastes to mine. Either way, I adore the use of very Victorian looking furniture details against the modern cement and glass geometric shapes. The roommate would call this cluttered, I call it eclectic. Obviously, we have different sensibilities when it comes to design. Thankfully, he lets me run wild with our apartment. Anyway, enough out of me, judge for yourself:

What do you think of modern home architecture? Bring it home or leave it in the museum?

Photo Friday: What to do with Old Floppy Disks

How creepy/cool are these paintings by Nick Gentry? That circle from the back side of floppy disks is used at the pupil. That paired with the eerie pale tones Gentry decided to use as the skin tones gives these painted faces a look that only Twilight fans can appreciate. Some look particularly more vampire-esque than others, but staring into those flat floppy disk eyes sends a chill down my spine. Luckily, I'm a big fan of horror movies and enjoy chills down my spine so I thought I'd share this with all of you! Hope I didn't spook you ;)

I'd love to see these paintings up close, although it's apparent from some of the close ups that Gentry purposefully integrated some of the original floppy-disk colors into the works. I like that some of the labels are peeking through as well. Very interesting pieces. I mean, what else are you going to do with all those floppy disks?

Nick Gentry is a London-based artist and is best known for these floppy-disk paintings. You can find more information on him here. 

Have a great weekend!

Monday Design: Swedish Style

I'm sure like most design-o-philes, I am regularly pulled in by Swedish style and design. They really know what they're doing over there and I'm not just thinking of IKEA (although I did spot at least one piece of IKEA furniture in the design of this space). This Swedish apartment is is perfectly modern and clean in design. It's full of simple lines and gorgeous white space. After taking all the time to paint each room in my apartment, I think I miss the simplicity and cleanliness of a white room. If you're thinking about moving to Sweden, it's for sale.

 

The forest wallpaper in the background perfectly fits into the aesthetic of the room and lends a little bit of rustic charm to the very modern furniture selection. 

 

I need a little grey ottoman like that. Oh yea, I would also need a bigger living room. 

 How smooth is this kitchen?

That's all I've got for today. Until tomorrow!

-Maggie