Spring Thinkin'!

Okay, so I know it's all spring and stuff, but I (and a few friends at work) have been suffering from the spring blahs! Ick. In order to shed this sad mental state, I have allowed myself to open a (pandora's?) box in my head that I usually keep closed: housing decor.

I know, I know, you are probably thinking: "Housing decor must be kept under mind-wraps? What an odd duck." But, it's true. For years, since, oh, even before leaving for university, I have an ability to become obssessed and single minded when it comes to almost all aspects of home decoration. Boyfriends of the past have had to endure months of shopping around local secondhand and antique stores while I find the perfect side table and bookshelf to refinish. I was once able to list every store in Ottawa which had a tulip table on sale - including price and condition. Oh, come on, ya gotta love a good tulip table.


I can spend more time shopping for housewares than clothes. Why? Because with the right design foo, almost any space can take on almost any design inspiration. A decent normal room is like a model that can be dressed up any way you can imagine - few rooms in the boring cookie cutter houses of today have features that utterly block a style or vision. Did I mention that there are countless objects one can fit in a room - functional or frivoulous, and countless places to buy them these days.

I can spend hours pouring over new and old, urban and country style decoration magazines, and decor books. My favourite architect is the old Scot Charles Rennie MacIntosh - his work embodies the perfect soft, sleek, spare essence of modernity with a solid appreciative nod to nature (well, duh, it's Art Nouveau, but still!). My fav big name designer is Tricia Guild. Her use of colour and the inspiration she draws from the natural world is phenomenal. I find the work of these two decor gurus to be beautiful and fascinating. How I would love to know how they arrived at their final designs and pieces!

So, anyhoo, when my brain is blah and I want to liven things up, I occasionally enlist the beast in the box to help elevate my mood. And it works. After spending some time perusing my fav design site online, Apartment Therapy, I feel refreshed and envigorated. And, I am now going to try to convince Mr. P to let me paint his house based on the colour palette below, which I found on said site. Pretty.


Ahhh!

Have a happy spring.