A Moment for Indigo

Yellow

 

There has been sunshine all week in London, we are all so cautiously pleased, suspecting the sky to cloud up anyday.... however, enjoying the light and warmth. Bring some yellow into your home, paint a door or window, put a yellow picture on the wall.

Plates and chair from Anthropologie

Selfridges, Oxford Street

Selfridges, the large Beaux-Arts building on Oxford Street, has long been a center of supplying the best in design to Londoners. An invitation to this iconic store last week was to see their new homewares department on the lower ground floor.  I saw many of my favorites and now very conveniently available there on Oxford Street.

Vitra, supplier of the classics of modernism, Panton, Eames, Saarinen, Jacobsen and others like the glassware itttala are on display.

Wishbone chairs and classic light shapes.

The Egg chair by Eero Saarinen

And an exclusive to Selfridges, Eclectic by Tom Dixon has a boutique here displaying his sleek copper lights, containers, holders and furniture.

Bowls formed from a sheet of brass and given a gold wash, stunning.

Anthropologie has been at Selfridges for over a year. Now they have enlarged the space and can display all their lovely recherche / vintage look furniture and accessories.

Another exclusive to this department of furnishings and accessories are the best in foods and cooking.

 Maison de The Mariage Freres from France are purveyors of tea, exquisite tea, tea full of flavors but delicate. This is their only location in London.

And other products we were invited to sample and taste were the new coffee maker from Starbucks. a coffee maker where you put in a pod of coffee, add water and it makes a coffee that is hot as hell, black as night and sweet as sin.

The Grand Cuisine by Electrolux is a cooking system designed to bring the tools and machines that professional chefs use to create that sublime experience of fine dining to your home. It will enable you to whip, knead, blend, bake like a master chef. These tools are precision made of high quality materials cast aluminium and stainless steel... no plastic parts.

The trip to the lower ground floor to Selfridges will be an experience in the finest products for your home, the edgiest designs and the best for cooking.

Reclaimed Wood

Over the Christmas vacation I was staying with family in the Carolinas, it was warm and lovely and beautiful country. The home was lined with reclaimed wood: the walls, the kitchen, built in cupboards and consoles, all yanked from an old tobacco barn. It gave texture and warmth to the house so each place, each corner was cosy. Truly a one-off house. 

To have a home of reclaimed wood is a dream for most of us. I have a dream of building an eco-house too, solar powered, reclaimed wood, insulated... but I digress. The essential element of a house or furniture of reclaimed wood is its texture, the wood will be solid, dark, weathered and rich. 

While most of us are not going to build our own homes, there are some very attractive pieces of furniture from our favorites that are either made with reclaimed wood or are using wood exposed, the grain, the color, the texture left to sing, only using wax or oil to preserve it. A change from the painted look.

From West Elm

From Eat Sleep Live

From Anthropologie