Manolo for the Home

Need a way to illuminate those wine bottle shelves you slaved over? Drinking all that wine was *such* a trial, so I understand if you need some time to recuperate before starting your next wine-themed DIY project. I couldn’t resist, however, posting a link to Gerardot & Co.s wine bottle torch tutorial.

According to the instructions, making a wine bottle torch is easy and cheap at around $5 for materials. That doesn’t include the cost of the wine, but we all know you were going to have yourself a wee drop even if you weren’t planning on crafting something afterward. Actually, if you’re aiming to empty the bottle yourself, you may want to wait twelve hours or so before beginning this project.

We’re already in the habit of throwing old quilts over the furniture to protect everything from cat hair, so is it any surprise I’m digging on patchwork furniture? I swear I run the vacuum and the Roomba daily, but our cats are like tarantulas, defensively ejecting their hair everywhere. I’m not sure what it accomplishes, but it sure seems to satisfy them. So, quilts. I’m thinking patchwork couches and chairs would save us a step (though not the need to vacuum hourly).

Want to be all patchy-patchy? Try Squint Limited, makers of all things rocking the patchwork look. This isn’t your grandma’s patchwork, however. It’s bright and bold and fun and not at all dowdy.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with grandma’s couch or something like it. A patchwork daybed, perhaps — easy to do with nothing more than a throw!

Depending on how DIY proficient you are, you could try your hand at a patchwork reupholster project. Find a sturdy free chair, and you’ve got yourself something sweet on the cheap.

Big patchwork squares are balanced with little patchwork squares from Bazaar Style: Decorating With Market and Vintage Finds by Selina Lake (a very fun book, if I may say so).

A traditionally-shaped couch gets a new look with beautiful patchwork fabrics in the home of Mark Homewood, a buyer for interiors and textile company Designers Guild. I love how it’s set in an otherwise modern living area. (via)

I try to check out Megan Hobson’s Entertaining, Events & Beautiful Things at least once a week because it features a great mix of home decor, fashion, and *squee* wedding stuff. A few days ago, she posted that Le Papier Studio and Paloma’s Nest (maker of adorable ring bearer bowls) have put their heads together to create a lovely line of hanging custom silhouettes.

There are pre-fab silhouettes to choose from, but what fun is that? Especially when a custom silhouette ornament will only set you back $40. The deets:

Each ornament is crafted by hand by Paloma’s Nest utilizing fine pure white clay which has been fired and then finished with a special protective surface treatment. Silhouettes are hand painted to perfection with the finest black ceramic paint.

Don’t think that you have to use these hanging silhouettes as holiday ornaments. We’re planning on having one made of our daughter’s silhouette and it will be displayed in the hallway all year long. They could also make fun (albeit slightly pricey) gift tags, no?

Blue gingham on the ceiling? Zowie! A wallpapered ceiling provides the foil for the stenciled painted floor below in this kitchen featured in Coastal Living.

Blue gingham is used a bit more traditionally in this French country dining room found on Vintage Amethyst. It’s a little overwhelmingly country-country-country for my tastes, but I’m loving the distressed dining table paired with the gingham.

Upholstered headboards and footboards rock my world, if only because I grew up with one. Blue gingham makes this bed the focal point of the space in this bedroom from Belle Maison.

Finally, note that loving blue gingham doesn’t have to mean investing in new wallpaper or buying a new bed. These blue gingham plates from La Plates feature pretty monograms and won’t cost an arm and a leg.

To incorporate a little blue gingham into your own life, click on any of the pics below!

It’s my birthday today, and I’ve decided that for the big 3-0 what I’d really like is an ocean view. Unfortunately, an ocean view will add oodles of cash to the cost of a house, which means we’re stuck living within walking distance of the sea. Woe is us, right? That doesn’t mean I can’t dream of an ocean view…

I’m not picky or anything; something like this will do quite nicely, thank you.

Perhaps with an exterior rather like this? Something where I can walk out my front door and smell the sea air or even walk directly into the ocean.

And an interior like this would not be remiss! Though as I said, I’m not picky at all. (via)

Hint, hint!

I adore people who know what they like, which means I have a real thing for John Webster of Kitsch’n. He gets his kicks with kitsch and isn’t afraid to take his flair for retro chic decorating and DIY to the next level.

Ooh la la! I’m loving that little wall clock… and how about that mantel? Gorgeous! (I’ll leave it to you to decide what you think of the other odds and ends.)

Lots of the furniture you see here has backstories that can be found in the archives, like the weirdly shaped coffee table and the pretty blue side table. Anyway, Webster’s entire blog is delightful, and I thoroughly recommend that you give it a read.

I’m a huge fan of hardwood floors for both their beauty and their durability, but I’ll admit that they can be pretty boring. Paint can do a lot to fix up a dull floor, but painted wood floors can be a little overwhelming if you’re not showcasing them as the focal point of the room.

Painted checkerboard floors that feature wood floors are a good compromise, as they’re not so in-your-face as, say, a bright blue floor or as blah as a plain white floor, but at the same time they appeal to the eye. Here are six examples:

A soft, low-contrast checkerboard floor doesn’t steal a room’s thunder.

This patterned floor adds a lot of oomph to what might otherwise be a fairly drab kitchen. (via)

This red and white checkerboard floor is playful and fun. (via)

The border on this painted checkerboard floor gives the floor the finished look usually provided by a fine rug. (via)

In a room with built-ins like cabinets, your checkerboard floor colors can match or not, depending on the sort of look and feel you want to achieve. (via)

And when I say you I mean *you* — as DIY projects for the home go, painting a floor is one of the easier ones. The Wood Floor Guide has a how-to that takes you through the floor painting process step-by-step, though I much prefer the how-to on the This Old House web site because it includes not only steps, but also a video.

Commitment-phobic decorators can still get their fun on, sans nails or paint or anything else that will leave a lasting impression. Decals are the order of the day for those who can’t fathom keeping the same decor for more than six months and apartment-dwellers whose landlords have given them a clear thumbs down when it comes to changing anything more than the window treatments. Stick ‘em, unstick ‘em, stash ‘em when maman comes to visit, whatever.

Old chairs become new again!

Low ceilings no longer mean having to forgo pendant lighting!

Why spend a lot on a headboard that doesn’t actually do anything?

No fireplace? No problem.

The chair backs, socket lights, and headboard decals come from Blik, while the mantle decal comes from Urban Lola and the chandelier decal comes from Single Stone Studios.

The humble daybed was my dream bed as a girl, which is why I’d like my daughter’s first big-girl bed to be a daybed. I’m sure she’ll despise it because the grass is always greener, meaning she’ll dream of a lovely wooden platform bed or a sleigh bed or perhaps even a round hanging bed if she peruses the Manolo for the Home archives. A daybed can be thought of as a cross between chaise lounge, couch, and a bed, and may come with a trundle bed that stows away underneath so two can find a night’s rest.

I still love them, I’ll readily admit, which is why I went looking for pictorial daybed inspiration. Here are five daybeds done five ways…

For the sunroom, where guests can sit on it year round or sleep on it in the summertime:

For the home office, where one can lounge between frantic sessions of productivity:

For the living room, where it doubles as the couch:

For kids’ rooms, whether it is a seating space or a bed for sleepovers or both:

For a cozy, out-of-the-way guest bedroom (otherwise known as the room your dog thinks of as his own):

Regardless of how you feel about the legitimacy of the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, I think we can all agree that this is a pretty sweet chair.

This take one the iconic Egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 is being produced in a limited run of, you guessed it, just 42 numbered chairs. The design pays homage to the Hitchhikers Guide series with a beautifully rendered hand-finished embroidered exploding earth on the back. The front of the chair features optical white hide with a cowhide seat cushion (which frankly, I could do without, but I suppose one could remove it).