Guest Post: ABC & Yurts?

Hello Design-Crisis fans!  My name is Ceci and I am a friend of Karly’s Mama in Virginia.  I've never written or guested for anyone’s blog before but I love Karly & Erin and Design Crisis...and Door Sixteen...and If the Lampshade Fits...and Petunia Face...I read them every day.  HUGE fan!  I have gotten lots of design inspiration and have painted quite a few things gold.  (wink)  So, I’m very excited to be here today!  I also want a lot and can't afford much, like what I'm about to show you...

My favorite store in the world, NO! in the UNIVERSE …

is ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan.  Its 4 hours from VA and totally worth the drive to spend a few hours on every floor in this place.  Or stay home and spend a few hours online at abchome .  There’s even a button for a wish list!  I do this quite often when I’m bored at work… (sorry boss).  That’s where I found this gorgeous sofa!

I LOVE COVET this Kilim Landscape Sofa!

AND…

’ll take 2 of these dreamy Kilim Landscape Ottoman’s!!  Everything will look great with my 6 foot coffee table.  A nice little Ottoman living room & sometimes casual dinner party room.  Let’s just pretend that it doesn’t cost $3 zillion.  Sometimes we want what we can’t have.  That’s what the ‘wish list’ button is for.  Right?  One more thing….

Remember the Yurt Family Higman-McKittrick?

They live in a yurt in the Alaskan wilderness 90 miles from civilization? And cook their meals on their one & only modern cooking appliance?

Well, there is a resort in Big Sur, CA called Treebones Resort where you can stay in a LUXURY yurt with Ocean View or Partial Ocean View.  Take a look.

nice view!

Nice and clean!  (Although if it were mine I could totally see my Kilim Landscape Sofa & Ottomans in there, a couple beautiful Moroccan lanterns…absolutely NOT a rope rug)  There are no facilities in the yurt, but there are just a few feet away.  I can stay here!  And with a Cordon Bleu Chef…Chris…who just happens to be 6’ 5”, cookin’ dinner in the resort’s restaurant?  Home Sweet Yurt!  Learn more about Treebones Resort here.  Looks like fun!

Thank you Erin & Karly for taking the day off & letting me post my wandering thoughts on your FABULOUS blog!  And thank you for writing a fabulous blog that we all can read everyday!  YOU ROCK!!

Rooms With a View

The possibilities involved in space planning are both staggeringly vast and frustratingly limited. I am constantly rearranging my furnishings, searching for that perfect balance of function and aesthetics, struggling to create movement and appropriate pathways throughout rooms (no chi blocking allowed). I shuffle chairs over there, only to find they looked so much better where they were. Switch this couch with that one, move the tv to another wall, change out the art and rugs on a monthly basis -- it's a full time job. When I get tired, I'd rather just plop down on my properly positioned sofa and spy on other people's rooms, so thank you Juergen Chill for feeding my voyeuristic tendencies.

Photographer Juergen Chill gives us a full frontal view of spaces both public and very, very private. Shooting everything from bordellos to office spaces, Chill's camera coolly hovers high above, revealing the intricacies of space as it relates to daily life.

I can't wait for Raina, the goddess of floor planning, to start mentally rearranging these spaces...

Hope you dudes have a fantastic weekend!

Pattern Recognition

When it comes to decorating, I can really be a schizophrenic nightmare. I am inundated with a thousand new ideas every day as I peruse the web, and while I would like to try them all out right NOW (because I am not a patient person), I'm honestly running out of space and money for these killer brainwaves. I cannot squeeze one more single thing into this modest mid century ranch house (not that I would ever let silly size constraints stop me), and if I repaint one more wall (again), the hubs will probably divorce me. So, it's a good thing I have this blog to turn to. Because if I didn't have an outlet for all my collected fantasies, I would probably go berserk and paint pink graffiti all over my couches. And while that idea is vaguely tempting, the less crazy part of me knows it would not end well.

Nicolas Mattheus

This is all a very long and protracted way of saying, Look! I like patterns! Alas, I have no room for them right now (plus I want to move so I'm in decorating limbo (which is actually, seriously more like the 7th level of hell)), but I'm going to take some mental lithium so we can hang out together and enjoy these pretty pictures that I have hoarded for a while. And I will try to restrain myself from plotting new ways of implementing these designs.

Reto Guntli

Greg Natale

Jason Loucas

Marie Claire Maison

Francois Halard

M Design Interiors

Elle Decor

SR Gambrel via Elle Decor

Francois Halard

The Boundary via Even Cleveland

Living Etc.

Maybe someone out there can put my fantasy plans into action, but don't tell me about it because I will be hatefully jealous of your decorating freedom. Just kidding, I would love to see your awesome super patterned hotness. Send me some pics and I might even post them.