Modern Exterior Park on Street

Modern Exterior Garden on Str...

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Please Support Your Local Stores

We were driving down the design district in Los Angeles the other day and we were struck with how many "For Lease" signs were out there. It seems like almost every other shop is closed! Then we read in the LA Times that Cook's Library is closing. For those who do not live in LA, Cook's Library is an independent bookstore that specialized in cookbooks. It's one of those places that you can spend hours in--the staff is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. In the LA Times article, the owner was lamenting about how they would spent a considerable amount of time with a customer on a book, only to have that person ask them to write the title/author down so that they can buy it at Amazon.com. That is so wrong!Which leads to an appeal we would like...

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Modern Home Office

Working from home is such a popular trend nowadays. Most people we know either work from home part time or full time. For us, we practically live in our home office. This is why we think it should be both nice and functional, with an emphasis on functional, as it is so important for getting our work done.Here are some modern offices that we thought are really cool:Source: Point Click Home Here are some cool stuff from DWR for the office Red ClockBusiness Card Holder Modern File TrayModern Desk !--google_ad_client = "pub-6949260476896346";/* Inside Avenue Blog */google_ad_slot = "8525715528";google_ad_width = 468;google_ad_height = 60;//-->script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.j...

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The Garden....

Todays post is about the landscaping for my house. This was included in the contract as all houses in the estate need to at least finish the front graden in order to get back the 5k bond from the developers. Believe me when I say that 5k has already been spent many times over!So, this afternoon I met our young landscaper to once more go over the plans he drew and what he had 'in his head'. Can I just say, never before have I been so clueless, confused and so overwhelmed with all these decisions I needed to make. He had all these different coloured rocks, big ones that are going to be a feature, smaller rocks and 4 different coloured mulches. Which combination did I want???? Haha, how do I know, I think we just stood there for at least 15 mins...

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Blackbutt Flooring....

Our blackbutt flooring...this is what it looks like with just one sand. We are going with a satin finish, just a more natural look. Could not resist hehe ...another pic of our front door.Just got back from the house. Our lovely landscape man is meeting us tomorrow (had to cancel as he was held up at a job) but we saw our beautiful blackbutt flooring .. it has been given a very light sand for the first time. It will take 5 days to complete the whole house as it has to be done in stages. I am so excited that I couldn't help but post pictures. Feeling much more positive as the house is starting to look less like a bomb site and more like a home we can actually move in to. Getting closer to moving in....but still feels like a dream. Mrs...

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Designers to Watch-Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch

Have you ever read about someone's life, and say, man, that is one bitching life! We do. A lot of it is from fashion and design magazines. You know, the ones that are always about some pretty young thing who is, invariably, married to some hedge fund manager; has a pied-a-terre in Paris; a loft in New York; a country house in Connecticut?Well, aside from reading these for fun, we also love it for inspirations as well. It's kinda like a break from the mundane of our everyday's life, right? Like, five minutes of fantasy before we get back to figuring out how to pay our mortage this month?Which brings us to the topic of this blog--we were reading in W Magazine today about Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch as an emerging design team which we never...

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Upholstery from Nathan Anthony

We use a lot of Nathan Anthony products for our home staging projects. They are reasonably-priced; the turn around time is pretty fast; and they come up with new stuff all the time.Quality-wise it's reasonable. We would say that it's in the mid range... It's not super high end. The prices reflect that. It's the kind of furniture you buy when you want to be stylish and happening while you are waiting for the big bucks. Generally a queen bed goes for $1500 or so, and a sofa between $1500-$1800 depending on what fabric you choose.Here are some of our favorites:This bed reminds us of the one Charlotte has in "Sex in the City". Remember how she has this beautiful creamy bed with creamy lamps and white roses? That apartment was so awesome... Isn't...

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Trina Turk Fabrics for F. Schumacher

Designer collaborations are everywhere nowadays. You see Pierre Hardy designing shoes for the Gap, Alex McQueens for Target--all designed to bring high-end designs to the masses. Although we have to say, we're not that impressed. Has anyone seen the Vera Wang collection for Kohl? Cheap looks cheap, no matter what name you put on it.For Schumacher though, the designer collaborations are quite successful. A good example would be the Kelly Wearstler fabric collection for Schumacher, especially the Imperial Trellis pattern. It sells like hot cakes. Come to think of it, it's the only pattern that seems to do well.Trina Turk just did a collection of indoor/outdoor fabrics for F Schumacher that we thought is quite pretty. It has her signature of bright,...

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Pretty Fabrics from Thomas Paul for Duralee

We love Thomas Paul. Started out as a pillows line, Thomas Paul has now taken off like a rocket with a rug line with Chandra and recently, a licensed fabric collection with Duralee. His stuff is casual, colorful and reasonably-priced--a perfect combination when you want to brighten things up a bit without spending tons of money.Here are some samples from the lines. You can see the rest of the book here.Thomas Paul fabrics run about $50/yard retail, but you can get about 30-40% off the retail prices at our fabric store....

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The end is near...

Sorry I haven't posted a while and commented on all my favourite blogs! I have been so preoccupied with other things in life, dwelling on a few 'well meaning' comments by neighbours about why hasn't our house been finished yet. I think I can almost see the end in sight. We have had so many tradesman at our house, frantically trying to finish it off before our builder goes away on another overseas holiday. We have to be in before he goes...that is a given. This is such a critical time for a house build like this as the attention to detail is so important. If he rushes the jobs, it will show. We haven't waited 16 months to get a second rate finish to our house. Renderers are almost finished and the house looks so much better. Our beautiful, beautiful...

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