SIA was created by Sonja Ingegerd Andersson in the south of Sweden in 1963. SIA reflects her passion for decoration, her love for nature and her desire to share the pleasure of feeling good at home. She started by making paper flowers and designing printed fabrics that she displayed in her garden for her friends…”The Garden of Temptations”

Sonja Ingegerd Andersson, SIA’s founder. I love her car

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This is “Nomad Attitude”, collections from SIA.

Source : SIA Homefashion

Scott Sanders LLC is a New York-based design firm, specializing in residential and hospitality interiors. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, with a degree in Interior Design, Scott Sanders began his professional career at Polo Ralph Lauren. He created the company’s Interior Design Department and, as design director, transformed the residences of Polo Ralph Lauren clients in California, Florida, New York, Connecticut and Paris. This is some his portfolio.

Source : Scott Sanders L.L.C.

Casa Décor, a series of international exhibitions that invites design professionals to create showhouses, is responsible for producing numerous eye-popping venues in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and, beginning this year, England. (The London showhouse opens in March.). Still, Casa Décor’s U.S. debut this past fall must have seemed daunting. The mission: to transform the sprawling, five-floor Mediterranean building on Biscayne Bay that, for the past 80 years, has been home to the Miami Woman’s Club into something, well, hipper. Chic, even. Good thing nearly three dozen of South Florida’s resident design geniuses. This showhouse create by BNOdesign.

Source : BNOdesign

Jay from Jeffers Design Group (JDG) created an oasis at home for Angelina Umanksy, the owner of Spa Radiance (a top San Francisco day spa designed by JDG). Jay transformed Angelina’s two-story townhouse into a glamorous spot where this very vibrant entrepreneur could relax and entertain.

A fabulous color palette of pinks, chocolate brown and Wedgwood blue provided a backdrop for sophisticated contemporary and vintage furnishings. In the living room, a tufted settee and chic daybed invite leisurely conversation and a spectacular, custom-made blue glass mosaic fireplace surround is a stunning centerpiece.

The dining room – the heart of the space – features a custom white lacquer table designed by Jay, dining chairs upholstered in hot pink and a vintage chandelier.

Source : Jeffers Design Group

Näckros Villa designed by Staffan Strindberg architecture in Sweden. The 12×12 metre Villa has six rooms and a kitchen, 178 sq metres of living area, 125 square metres of terrace and 74 square metres of windows but is crammed with technologies to enhance your lifestyle and create an ambience of tranquillity and harmony with nature.

“The idea of living so close to the water and nature is really thrilling. The design is focused on bringing the surroundings inside, to get the feeling of the water into your living .” With water comes a special light and the reflections from the water that dance on the ceiling. Strindberg’s experience and fascination with water and light led him to explore far and wide, and he was particularly drawn to the “the beautiful treatment of the light that you can find in the old Turkish villas climbing the slope of the Bosporus around Istanbul where they mainly let the light in from below, reflected from the water.”

In building the site, Strindberg tried to foresee what could happen around the site, and then got more and more interested in the idea of not just one but several water houses and how to arrange the interior of the house for this imaginary pattern. “On one side you have the dock and on the other side you have the water, one official side and one private. How do you get the most out of the privacy and how do you make a welcoming entrance yet a distinct border for privacy?”

The entrance design takes into account various dock heights and those environments without a tide. The living room is as close to the water as possible and sleeping facilities are positioned so you go to sleep at the same level as the surrounding water. The layout is concentrated on opening the house to the water. The kitchen is close to the entrance and faces the quay but is also a part of the open area that includes the living room and the terrace.

Strindberg also had to address what the feeling and ambience should be based on, such as “what is a floating home, what does it stand for, does it have to look like other kinds of floating things that man uses, like boats?” “Should it even borrow details to associate to other floating vessels?” “What does it express in its design?”

These thoughts led to the decision that it should be a house, not a boat. “A house that takes care of the special qualities of the surroundings,” says Strindberg.

Source : Arkinetia, gismag, Modern Marine Home, Interior Design

The duoMo hotel has long been a fixture in the historic heart of Rimini, one of Italy’s long-standing and established seaside resorts. Untouched for many years until the owners decided to bring celebrated architect Ron Arad and his team into the picture in 2003, resulting in a unique and exciting transformation. The main concept revolved around the need to embrace the past while simultaneously creating space for a thorough look into the future. This need for dynamism, design and creativity resulted in a unique identity in design, where subtle contrasts, light, shadow and transparencies were infused into the existing building, thus giving birth to the new hotel.

The hotel entrance is through giant pin-ball-flipper doors, framing the view to the reception area, which inevitably becomes the focal point of the hotel. The front desk is an oversized circular stainless steel structure, dramatically leaning at an angle, looking like a large inclined wedding ring dancing on a plate. Shelves are built into this ring defining the horizontal topography of the desk. The wall behind the reception is formed by a series of aluminium fin-shapes, allowing natural daylight to flood the space while affording an edited view of the offices located behind it. Although ultra-futuristic in its design, the entrance area exudes a bouncy lightness. The intrepid original features, daring colours and adventurous shapes inevitably make a big impact, setting a distinctive tone for the duration of the guest’s stay.

The much-hyped noMi club is a large island with fjord-like scoops spreading outwards from the main structure to provide guests with surfaces to sit at. The surface of the bar top is made of brushed steel and its sides are finished in mirrored polished steel, creating distorted reflections of the people and the surrounding environment. On balmy summer nights, cleverly retractable glass walls allow for the activity in the bar to be taken outside onto the streets of Rimini’s lively historical centre. World renowned DJs are invited on a regular basis to entertain guests and locals and the Sunday beach parties promoted by the hotel already feature high on the agenda of the in-crowd. Unconventional and exciting design is also present in the private champagne room. It has been set up in an exclusive atmosphere for guests to indulge in after a long day of work or leisure.

Arad’s audacious design philosophy is reflected throughout the rooms as well. Individually formed bathroom pods create the backdrop to the sleeping area. Each pod is a wet room with teak slatted timber flooring and a large circular glazed window, which allows natural light into the space. The exterior of this uniquely designed structure forms the bed head. Arad has played with visual provocations, experimenting with basic spatial perceptions while maintaining the highest level of comfort in the rooms. The careful management of the movement of light and shadow evokes the idea of infinite spaces at the duoMo.

Source : Design Hotel, Interior Design

Your bedroom is the room in the house that is a true reflection of yourself. It is the room you will spend the most time in and should provide the ultimate comfort and support. It is where you begin and end your day so it is important that it is restful, personal and intimate but also simple and free from clutter.

Assess your room

First of all you need to take a cold hard look at your room and assess the pitfalls that need to be overcome before the room can become and oasis of calm. Ask yourself a number of questions:

How big is the room? Depending on the size of the room depends on the colours you use to either give the illusion of space or to create a cosy retreat

Is there adequate storage? If there isn’t adequate storage and if there are a number of electronics on display no amount comfortable bed linen will make the room feel a restful retreat. Invest in good quality wardrobes and hide TVs away.

Which way does the room face? An easterly facing room will have the morning sun, which will wake you long before the alarm does. Invest in some good quality curtains to block out the morning sun (this is especially important in a children’s room unless you want to be woken at 5am every morning!!)

How comfortable is the bed? The type of mattress, duvet and pillows all has a significant effect on how good a night’s rest you will have. It is recommended that you replace your mattress every seven years by which time you will have logged up more than 20,000 hours there. By then your mattress will be full of dead skin cells, dust mites and fungus.

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Colour schemes

Greens and blues are the best colours choices for the bedroom because they are associated with feelings of peace, calm and serenity. Use soft muted tones and pastels to ensure the room is restful and calming after a hard day. Neutrals are another good choice with gentle earth tones. The calming colour schemes can be livened up with deep rich colours as accessories to give your bedroom that individual touch.

Bright stimulating colours like yellows and oranges are best avoided in a bedroom, as are deeply contrasting or clashing colour schemes.

Use colours effectively to make your room appear larger or smaller. For example a low ceiling will appear higher if painted a lighter shade than the walls and paint the darkest shade near to the floor to give an illusion of space.

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Bed Linen

The most luxurious fabric for bed linen is 100% cotton. Cotton “breathes well” absorbing moisture and heat whilst feeling deliciously smooth and soft against the skin. Generally the higher the thread counts the softer the fabric however the length of the cotton fibre is also important in determining the softness. Egyptian Cotton has the longest cotton fibre and thus is the softest cotton available. The way the cotton is woven also contributes to the softness. Cotton sateen is the softest but the classic linen effect will give a beautifully crisp feeling.

The bed and the linen will be the most dominant feature in the room and therefore it is important to consider the colour and pattern if the linen to achieve to overall affect you wishes to create in the room. Throws and cushions can be changed to reflect the different seasons and to keep the room updated.

Bedding

The choice of bedding depends on your personal desires. The best filling is down, it is more effective than feather and is lighter. However for people who suffer from allergies synthetic fibres are better. Depending on how much warmth you require from a duvet will determine the tog rating you need. Another consideration is the effect of the different seasons. An all seasons duvet maybe the answer – it is a combination of a 9.0 tog and 4.5-tog duvet to create a 13.5-tog duvet in the winter and either a 4.5 or 9.0 tog for the rest of the year.

Lighting and accessories

To create a peaceful and restful mood in your bedroom it is essential to have bedside lighting rather than simply relying on the overhead lighting in the room. Also the use of scented candles will appeal to all senses.

So the secret to a very deep and restful sleep is to invest in good quality products and to create a very restful scheme in the bedroom. Hopefully we have inspired you to use your imagination in order to create your own very personal space.

Source : Grand Ideas, Interior Design