This morning's post is 100% in honor of my good friend Tod (toddybear, todler, todathon, todathalon, tod-a!) who is smack dab in the middle of a renovation insane foray into the deepest darkest depths of home rebuilding. He's just now approaching the fun cover-up-the-drywall-pick-out-the-pretty-stuff portion of his hero's journey, which is right where I LOVE to butt in. Everyone needs a little k-dawg input, right? Of course. We spent a good portion of last Sunday evening pontificating on the glories of various floor finishings: while Tod is uber-minimalist to the ma-xxx (note the lack of an excessive second 'D' in his name) and high polish concrete would look divine in his 1920's rehab, homeboy is livin large on a pier and beam foundation that simply doesn't lend itself to that sort of earth-shattering weight. He's going with my dream surface: hardwood. Now I just need to convince him to use my dream color: black (midnight, darkness, ebony, inkjetness, onyxabod, blackademicawesomeness). I reminded Tod of last year's Top Design finale where - married with child(?) - matt went head to head in a bloody loft battle with Carisa. Both designers chose to use black floors, Carisa won my heart with the use of wood:
Top left: Matt's painted black floors. Top right & bottom left: Carisa's luxe black hardwoods. Bottom right: Carisa's kitchen (tod just wanted to know what color she used, I don't love it). I did get all hot and bothered over the stained black hardwoods and decided to see what else I could find. Tod, look closely. Everyone else, take a shot every time I type Tod's name.
Two residences by (Erin's term) Uber Glam Goddess Kelly Wearstler. Both with magnificent black floors. I LOVE the zig zag installation in space #2. If Tod (shot!!) really wants to go all gangsta, he could lay the wood on a diagonal, helping to expand the space and counter-acting the room-shrinking dark floors.
More sexified darkness:
Left: a suite at Paris's Hotel Sezz; Right: private residence by Ghislaine Vinas interior design. (Does anyone know how to make a little spanish do-dad over that N in Vinas? There's supposed to be one there.) I la la la love the image to the right: black, white, lime & light-friendly partitions. Hey, who stole my dream and turned it into a room? C'mon, stop kiddin around.
TOD! TOD! TOD!
If everyone can still read after that last round of typing TOD! TOD! TOD! then go ahead and take a gander at this:
Right: Private residence shot by Paul Costello; Left: Private residence from Survivestyle5's flickr photostream. Ok, so clearly the stripes in image one are the showstopper here, but the unadulterated hotness of those black floors simply can't be denied.
Are you convinced yet? Teetering?
True or False: a zebra rug is required with black wood floors? Just wondering. I really do love how the black floors anchor all of these spaces. (Image courtesy of Survivestyle5's flickr photostream)
However, if, like me, Tod (drink up, we're coming to a close) wants to survive the living nightmare that is spending every single day wondering who/what/where/why people are walking on his floors, he can always go with white:
Suite 7: The lute suites. Yes, I know I know, the rock is blowing my mind too. Let's save it for another post... perhaps a nice fantasy vacation segment, oh yes, it's going to be lovely. For now, go get some sleep and dream about your new bodacious floors, you're going to have quite the hangover in the morning.