I love wall plants. You can say they are a little too “done”. But I don’t care. I love them, always have, always will. The picture above is of my newest staghorn fern and i think it is AWESOME,

I used them as a project in my first HGTV Room Crashers episode. I had to compromise a little due to time and budget – I wanted to do a “trophy wall” of staghorn ferns but had to settle for two large panels:

Julianne Moore’s garden was featured in Architectural Digest and had exactly the look I was dreaming about:

via Architectural Digest

via Architectural Digest

Stag Horn Fern’s aren’t the only option for wall mounting plants. We have quite a few wall mounted plants around our place – here are some highlights:

There is of course  the classic Woolly Pocket:

I just trimmed a bunch of our plants back and am going to add a few more pockets, but I think I am going to paint the walls  first.

This is a White Fan Orchid Cactus – not technically wall mounted – I just stuffed the potted plant into the top of a brutalist style metal candle holder I got for 50 cents at a yard sale

(and ya, I’m bragging about my super cool score)

We’ve also hung air plants on our wall – just a little bit of copper wire and a tiny nail is all it took….

This one I have had FOR EVER. I got the planted ( if that is what it is) at Goodwill when I was in college and this sweet little plant (that I can’t remember the name of) has hung in there with me for last 13 years. Trooper.

And my very first staghorn  – and my bubble clock – which I think helps my terrible school room ceilings from the 1970′s not feel so terrible.

If you love plants as much as we do you can follow our living life lushly board on pinterest – it’s one of my favorites .

via sfgirlbybay

My neighbor’s home was just featured in sfgirlbybay!

Not that this was a surprise – I had the great pleasure of spending the evening with Kim and her friends while Victoria was staying there. It was really the perfect evening – starting with the fact that I only had to walk all of 20 steps to get there. Traversing this kind of distance really improves my motivation to go out. And I got to meet the darling Victoria in person. She’s really just as lovely as you’d expect from her blog.

Anyway, Kim’s house is super cool and lovely and, no joke, has looked this perfect and styled every time I’ve been there. I’ve actually pointed this out to my kid “See? This is what a nice clean house looks like!”

You should definitely check out the post and enjoy the great photography and beautiful interiors.

Cara Tote in Fuchsia Tree Tomato by Amy Butler *  Pom Pom Solid Scarf in Orchid and Charcoal – Thomas Paul * 13″ Velvet Album by Velvet Raptor  * Set of Two TopoSeries by KNS * Lucia Fresh Fig & Wild Ginger Soy Candle – Lucia  *  Coniston Fuchsia Towels – Designers Guild  *  Goat Milk & Almond Foaming Bath by Les Bains

check back for the final hours of a perfect day

Jamaica Mug in Blue – Sagaform  *  Pamela’s Whole Spelt Almond Waffles * Oval Oak Tray Table – Sagaform  *  Set of Four Florilegium Dinner Plates – Thomas Paul  *  Spectra Set of 2 Champagne Glasses in Pink – Sagaform  *   Flora Robe in Pink Lotus – Sabine + Sailor  

OK people, Mother’s Day is May 13 this year. That means you’d best be shopping now.

We are here to help, what follows is my carefully curated, and scheduled wish list. There is something in here for everyone but we are going to go through what a perfect day looks like, starting with waking up!

Let Mom sleep in in new bedding with a fresh carafe of water with and some light reading:

American Beauty by Claiborne Swanson Frank – Assouline  * Pipal Indigo Duvet in King by John Robshaw  * Finch Decorative Pillow by John Robshaw * Harbor Mirror- Currey & Company * Carafe 34 ounces – Menu 

……Check back soon for Breakfast

Got to spend some time with our friends from Organic Hammer this last weekend. Organic Hammer is an awesome sustainlble landscape design firm located in Encinitas CA. A totally inspiring visit with the Amy and Steve, their kids (pretty much the two cutest little girls on planet earth)  and a sneak peek at Amy’s new permaculture farm in Leucadia. She just got access to the land and is in the very beginning stages of a HUGE permaculture project. “Organic Hammer is starting a new project: a permaculture farm on a ½ acre site in Encinitas that will supply organic produce to local restaurants, serve as a permaculture showcase, and small permaculture plant nursery.”

It is really amazing and an inspiring place to visit. We are considering getting some backyard chickens so it is great to see how a suburban family is really making a sustainable landscape work.  You can also check out Amy’s blog with tons of tips and info on creating a sustainable life for yourself at PeoplesPath.com

And the perfect place to let little ones run wild.

They’ve got one handsome rooster:

And some adorable hens:

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

Photography: Joshua White/JWPictures.com  Images from a test explosion at MOCA Geffen

“So AMAZING!!!”

This was my 2 year olds reaction to Cai Guo-Qiang’s Sky Ladder at MOCA Geffen this weekend. After waiting in line as patiently as a 2 year old  and running wild around the viewing areas for about a half an hour, our minds were blown by Cai Guo-Qiang’s Mystery Circle: Explosion Project for MOCA, Los Angeles.

“Mystery Circle, a site-specific work created for MOCA, will contain four stages of special pyrotechnics. At the moment of ignition, 40,000 firework rockets will form a string of crop circles and launch perpendicular to MOCA’s north wall, toward Temple Street, before falling onto the ground. Amidst a curtain of smoke, approximately 100 spinning pyrotechnic UFOs will sporadically appear from the parking lot grounds, while an imaginary alien-god figure on the left side of the wall is outlined from bottom to top by gunpowder fuses. When the burned fuses reach the “halo” of the figure, mini Titanium Salute rockets will shoot into the air followed by a grand finale. The rockets will create a burned imprint on the museum wall, leaving an outdoor drawing. While Cai’s signature explosion events, Project for Extraterrestrials, have been dedicated to creatures from outer space, his new project at MOCA will be the first time an imaginary alien figure actually appears.”

- from the MOCA blog

Before:

During:

Credit: Joshua White via LA Times Blog

Credit: Joshua White via LA Times Blog

After:

This is the first show of his work I ever saw in person in 2008 at the Guggenheim in NYC. It was an amazing show and the architecture of the Guggenheim seemed particularly well suited to displaying the dizzying impact of his work. It was both terribly energetic and deeply moving experience. Cai Guo-Qiang seems to be able to employ the power of  spectacle while still creating incredibly thoughtful and transcendental work. The gunpowder drawings are sublime and his installations with animals (fake)  are both powerful and slightly terrifying. His work embodies the true definition of awesome.

Because I had the kiddo with me on Saturday we weren’t able to stay for the opening party and see the whole show, but I can’t wait, and now my kid is so terribly enthralled with this work we are both excited to get back downtown and check it out later this week. Buster hasn’t been able to stop talking about what he saw, and it totally over shadowed the Easter Egg hunt we had gone to earlier in the day. Everyone he sees gets asked “Remember the museum? With the fire and the boom and the fireman with the firetruck and the ladder? Remember? The BOOM!!? ‘member??”

If you are in or near LA any time soon I highly suggest you make the trip to see this show. Cai Guo-Qiang is a true master artist.

Here are a few more videos of his explosion works.

Black Ceremony

Black Ceremony- Rainbow

Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder on Nowness.com.

I finally get to talk about it! The first episode I designed for the HGTV show Room Crashers aired the other day and now I can share pictures and all the fun details. I actually just finished another episode for them – but we’ll talk about that one after it airs…

First  – the before:

The clients were two Yoga instructors who had a great big beautiful room that had great potential but they had not really figured out a way to create the warm, inviting sanctuary that they needed. In addition to being their bedroom, they also had their office space and yoga practice space in the same room, so we needed to do some space planning.  They also had a master bathroom that DID NOT HAVE A DOOR!! Can you believe that? Sometimes I just don’t understand new construction. They both wanted a space that was warm and inviting and were very inspired by Southeast Asian design, and Kia had always dreamed of having a four poster bed – so that was number one on my list.

I went for a mix of British Colonial and Asian aesthetics  to create a space that was both sophisticated, worldly and a teeny bit tropical. After searching for some inspiration images for unique four-poster beds, I randomly pulled this image from Houzz – which happened to be designed by my friend and former colleague – Dara Rosenfeld. We worked together for more than 7 years at a firm in San Francisco. She has her own firm now and continues to be utterly brilliant.

Emulating this bed was way too ambitious for our budget and time line, but I was VERY inspired by the ceiling. That was something I thought we could pull off! Especially because I knew about this great bamboo wallpaper ! I was so excited to show up on set and see it going up on the ceiling on day two of our shoot. I had never put bamboo wallpaper on a ceiling before so i was a little nervous – the second I saw one strip on the wall I was thrilled. This shot is in progress:

and completed:

The next challenge was creating some distance and separation from their bathroom. I went for a two fold solution.

1. Installing a pocket door at the entrance to the bathroom.

2. Magic.

Ok not magic, per se, but a sliding book case that hides the more private areas of the Master Bedroom Suite, the closet and the bathroom. This may or may not have been a secret childhood fantasy that I inserted into this design just to see if I could get them to do it. But I learned an important lesson. When another client learned about it, they asked “when do I get a secret passageway hidden with a bookcase?”  The lesson? Act out more childhood fantasies.

Last but not least, the copper wall. Now intially my plan to to make the alter wall clad in woven copper – like this:

but due to some production *things*(not really issues, or problems… just, you know, things. Designing for TV in 3 days is different than real life. Did you know that? I sure leaned it real quick )

we weren’t able to do the weaving. But we did still do the copper – and it turned out!

Some more details:

the rug is the Silvana Rug that I have been obsessed with forever. It is a wool and silk blend and it is beautiful.

and, my friends, that is a 10′ x 13 rug you see. It is ONE BIG RUG!

A little detail where you can almost see how pretty the silk details are. Almost. In person they are about 10x prettier.

Also  really love the elm wood desk  (I love need a big desk) and an Oak Chair with a rush seat.

I also found some BEAUTIFUL antique pieces from Mix here in LA.

this is my favorite antique piece  – I used it for Tommy’s bedside table:

You can’t really see this piece in the show or in the pictures – but the dresser I used as a bedside table for Kia it has an amazing patina and paiting.

This was my initial design:

You can checkout my pinboard for this project here

The client is a professional golfer so I made 31 prints from satellite images of some of the best golf courses from around the world. It was a lot of work but it was also really interesting. Spending a lot of time looking at satellite images of the earth is really awe inspiring. We live in a really beautiful place.

See the snow drift-like bowron rug peeking out of the bottom corner? (oh and – please ignore the lamp behind the chair – it’s being replaced shortly)

Oh, and this is the dining area – which is done but hasn’t been photographed yet -but since we are sneak peeking:

You can see a bit of the Frank Ebert painting on the wall, the custom banquette and a couple of pillows from Burkedecor:  Geo/Metric 18″ Pillow in Maize – Thomas Paul,  Rhino 18″ Pillow in Charcoal – Thomas Paul, and Zig Zag Needlepoint Pillow in Blue – Trina Turk