In a big country dreams stay with you...

Just some final inspiration from Poland before I move on to cover London...

Krakow.

 

 

Warsaw.

 

Gdansk.

 

Traveling to new places always recharges my creative batteries. I highly recommend it :-)

The Kids Are Alright

Some final inspiration from Poland. While staying in Krakow, we came across some great places like Wodka and Camelot, and I became obsessed with the young hipster vibe at Pijalnia Wodki I Piwa next door to Camelot.

What's not to love? Newsprint on the walls, Bauhaus-style barstools, cheap prices, vintage Polish movies playing on TVs:

But then I found out it was a chain, with several more locations in Warsaw. D'oh!

I wondered if the hipster kids knew. I'm sure they did. Sigh. Thanks for making me feel old...

Each morning I wake up, before I put on my makeup...

Recounting my travels in a somewhat backwards way, I wanted to recap another interesting design inspiration from Gdansk (as well as parts of Warsaw too.)

Both Warsaw and Gdansk were bombed during the war and had to be re-constructed. They paid a lot of attention to detail to recreate the Old Town look, and after 60 or so years they look pretty authentic. (I'm afraid of how Disneyland/Westworld it might have all looked right after they rebuilt everything in the '50s.)

Something I saw that could be applied to more modern buildings Stateside is an exterior trompe l'oeil treatment. Basically, if you don't have any interesting architectural details to the outside of your space, why not fake it?

I found these pretty good examples:

And of course, you could have some fun inside too ;-)

More next week!

Now five years later on you've got the world at your feet...

I'm back! It hasn't exactly been five years, but I know I've been off the blogging radar for a while now. I left Ye Olde Dayjobbe at the end of March after (mostly) wrapping up some projects and began setting up shop on my own with some help from Homepolish.

April was really busy, working with new clients and trying to run a business by myself. So a couple of weeks ago my partner and I took a vacation. Flying into London first (where we always seem to go) we then hopped over to Poland to see his ancestral homeland. Krakow, Warsaw, and Gdansk--all will probably be featured here over the next few blog posts.

While in Gdansk, we stayed at Holland House, which I likened to the Zetter Townhouse in London--bold design with a twist on traditional/period. The room we stayed in gave me some great ideas on how to decorate with high ceilings:

Besides the great black and white color scheme, check out that wallpaper border at the ceiling. I know you might be traumatized by wallpaper borders from the '90s (like I am) but this is such a better interpretation, especially if you can only afford one or two rolls or don't want to cover an entire wall with your favorite crazy pattern.
 

These were approximately 10ft ceilings in our room. About 7.5ft from the floor, they placed the lower molding, pasted about 2ft of paper/border, and then topped it with a larger crown molding.

I loved the effect! It's the perfect way to have some element of your favorite wallcovering (Flavor Paper or Osborne & Little, anyone?) without going too crazy.

Watch out--I'm going to try this at someone's house pretty soon. Want to be my guinea pig? Drop me a line! ;-)

I'm free...

Don't be afraid of your freedom!

Ah, the Soup Dragons. This song takes me back to high school, when the world was full of possibilities (which is why I loved the soundtrack and plot behind The World's End, one of the funniest movies of 2013.) And after four years at Ye Olde Dayjobbe, the world is full of possibilities again because...

I'm free. To do what I want. Any old time.

That's right, I'm transitioning away. Going solo. Becoming master of my own fate (mostly.) Some of you may already know that I'll be doing some work with this great online design service because a) they pay more, b) I think they're the way this business is headed, and c) it feels good to work with regular people.

But I'll also be free to act more (I've just been cast in a play) and figure out if my partner and I want to move somewhere else.

I said I'm free. To be what I choose. To get my blues. Any old time.

Of course, I'll have even more time to blog and bring you new ideas. For example, spring is here (at least in San Francisco), I got my David Hockney portrait framed, and spruced up the mantel again:

So here's to the first day of the rest of my life. Let's see what happens!