When Chairish Asks, “What Would You Do With This Space?”

If you follow Chairish on Facebook, you see they occasionally post an empty space and ask, “What would you do with this space?” My thought is always, “upload it to Olioboard and play with it like it were MY space!”

Chairish recently offered this blank space:

Olioboard Room

Here’s what I did with it on a moodboard at Olioboard:

Chairish What Would You Do With This Space

 

I added:

  • Some Asian elements
  • Some industrial
  • Global textiles (the “art” on the wall on the left is a hooked rug)
  • Subtle pattern play in similar colors so it doesn’t get too wild
  • A bit of bling in the peacock mirror
  • Pieces that look casually collected over time

I think if this were real, the candelabra would light up the jali screen when the candles are lit. And also cast light down on the Buddha’s face.

I kept it simple. I don’t like to load up coffee tables with too much “vignette” stuff. The coffee table space is open and free to hold wine glasses, a laptop, a book, a lounging cat.

You can try this too, by uploading the blank space above into Olioboard.

Let’s see what Chairish offers us next on their Facebook “what would you do” series …





Did you like this post? Don't miss out on more:

What topics interest you?


An Indian-Inspired Room, Designed

So 1st dibs ran a Pinterest contest to “design your dream living room.” The winners are great but they kind of all look the same? Of course I put an India-inspired room together and it looks nothing like the winners. Here’s a collage of items from my board:

India-Inspired-Room-Moodboard

Items can be found pinned from their sources at the Pinterest board. It’s a mix of luxury (Fortuny silks!), with a bit of rustic, ancient patterns, natural colors, touches of gold. And a mix of textures: velvets, carved wood and stone, smooth metal.





Did you like this post? Don't miss out on more:

What topics interest you?


Happy New Year!

A virtual New Year’s Eve view from an imaginery hotel.

I wish all my wonderful visitors here a very prosperous and happy 2012!

A Taj Mahal travel story:

I had wanted to photograph the Taj Mahal from afar at night (my dream was to have dinner at the Oberoi), then again in dawn light the next day. We left Delhi with plenty of time to reach the Taj before evening. On the highway from Delhi to Agra, we saw exit signs saying “Taj Mahal” but our driver kept going straight. We figured maybe he knew a better way. Turns out, our driver didn’t know any way to to the Taj Mahal or nearby hotels! Whaaa?!? We wound up in an area in Agra where tourists should never go. The driver didn’t speak English or Tamil and my husband doesn’t speak much Hindi. But we had to find a way to direct the driver to our hotel, and somehow we did despite never having been there before and lacking GPS. An angel must have been guiding us. By the time we got to our hotel, we were crabby and tired, so no Oberoi and no Taj at night.

So above, finally, is my virtual view of the Taj Mahal at night.

And in the link below, you can see a few photos from our visit to the Taj …





Did you like this post? Don't miss out on more:

What topics interest you?


India, Imagined at Olioboard

One of my favorite creative outlets online (besides this blog of course) is Olioboard. Have you heard of it yet? With Olioboard, you can easily create realistic rooms or fantastic imagined spaces that look like nothing we’ve ever seen before. And there’s a fun community of talented people there who love interior design and decoration.

You can play with products in Olioboard image libraries, and you can even pin your own products during online surfing, including things that you’d buy “in real life” (try them out first in an Olioboard moodboard) or things that you cannot possibly ever afford. That’s how Olioboard serves as my fantasy playground — I play with antiques from 1st dibs, and furniture and accessories from One King’s Lane that either someone else beat me to the shopping cart, or that would have bounced my checking account up to the high heavens. But with Olioboard, you can have all these things!

Olioboard runs theme contests and a recent one was “Inspiration India.” Yeah!! Here’s some beautiful moodboards …

This one was created by Panache — she’s won a lot of contests there, and this moodboard was the #1 winner in the India contest:

This moodboard by adrianad won second place:

The #3 winner by joci37:

Rajasthani moodboard by vasudilip (she also runs the beautiful Cherishing Spaces blog):

Another one by joci37 — a hidden sanctuary:

By lidia, an outdoors scene:

Very vibrant, by arquidoll:

More vibrant color by marialuisalim:

Where’s mine?? Well, I was on an Internet hiatus. Because I was in India living the real life, no imagination necessary! Plus I’ve made a lot of moodboards over the past year, so it’s OK. The folks who made these India moodboards are from all over the world — Romania, Brazil, the Philippines — c’mon over to Olioboard and join us!





Did you like this post? Don't miss out on more:

What topics interest you?