This is a photo of the De Nijenshof lounge. Guesthouse De Nijenshof is a well decorated B&B, close to the estate The Eese. Renée and her husband Hans bought this large farm 8 years ago and renovated the buildings from top to toe. Renée is not only a wonderful host, she is a dedicated cook and has a feeling for decoration. In her spare free time she loves to search for accessories, in order to optimize the decoration of her 4 luxurious equipped suites. As a frequent guest Emilie is witnessing the development in Renée’s decoration process and is impressed by her sense for colouring. See for yourself, the Blazer Red painted beams are some eye catchers but not in a overwhelming way. Renée carefully instructed the painters to keep the wooden ceiling work untouched and to colour the beams in her favourite Farrow & Ball Red. This trick in perspectives and colouring results in an optical airy and grand image of the lounge. If she ordered to paint the ceiling work in Blazer Red the lounge would look bleak and if the painters would plaster the ceiling work white it would lose its country chic appearance. With only a few touches of Red in the accessories (lamp shades and rug) she created an intimate but fresh spirited lounge for her guests. Click here for the website and overnight packages of Guesthouse De Nijenshof.

Hotel San José, Austin*

Like in our first blog post about the application of the colour Red we would like to emphasize the fact that Red can be too much. It’s a colour that grabs you by the eyes and will try to influence your overall view of a space. We think the ideal proportion of the usage of Red in combination with other colours is 1:3. See the Red lacquered chairs in the Austin hotel room, that has been decorated in a fresh style with lots of white applied in the bed linen, furnishings and colouring. In its subtle application the Red supports the characteristics and freshness of this light room.

Bergeron's design: her daughter's bedroom

This subtlety is to observe in the Bergeron’s designs for her daughter’s room. She made sure that the light blue overwhelmed the impact of the Red wall covering. Diane Bergeron is a Melbourne based agent in imported boutique fabrics. For more info about her skills in decoration, click here for our blog post of August, 28. Tomorrow we will show you the impact of red painted beams.

* This photo is from the October edition of Vogue Travel + Living. For more info about this hotel, click here.

The new Vogue Entertaining + Travel is out. We were inspired by this October edition and created a moodboard with furniture from Mydeco. Click here for more…

For sale at Robert Dusarduyn

A restored bamboo set from Colonial Indonesia:

1x dining table

4 x chairs

2 x side chairs with arm rests

1 x bench

1x wall unit

numerous side tables

For more information click here

These photo’s are taken during the New York Fashionweek that is taking place until the end of this week. We’ve been browsing through the collections of G-STAR, Mulberry, Caroline Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, Proenza Schouler, Marchesa and Marc Jacobs and saw some colours, that we think will be picked up by the interiors industry. We saw a lovely dark brown in a satin glow, smoked blue, stale orange, faded pomegrate and lots of white. We’ll get back to this subject in January when the interiors industry will present her collections.

The photo of the blog post about Obama’s dahlias could give you a peek into the White House Interiors. Off course we are anxious to know what interior decorator received her/his ‘one in a lifetime assignment’ by Michelle Obama. CNN published an article on January 14 of this year, that the Californian born Michael S. Smith got the dream job. He has been educated in interior design in Los Angeles and in antiques in London. This combination of inspiration from two different continents blends perfectly well in his interiors. His lay-outs are strict and symmetric , that stretch out of vast and aerial spaces, filled with comfortable furniture. You can see from the pictures that he is fond of the combination of luxurious textiles that he easily mixes with different prints. It might be a fact that his education in London enriched his skills in the mix and match of colours, fabrics and prints. Additional to the British inspired upholstery, he favors a wind/sun washed execution of his colours, as though his interiors have been enduring the Californian sand and sea. This combination results in chic interiors that feel like home. We think that the decoration of the White House is a Michael can do.

This is a photo of our Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Princess Maxima in conversation with Michelle and Barack Obama. We are impressed by the balanced colour palette of the yellow wall paint, in combination with the orange/coral flower arrangement and the matching dresses of Michelle and Maxima. The tones in orange/coral/yellow recur in the painting , hanging at the wall behind President Obama, and in the carpets. This photo captures a professional and stylish setting. We are in awe and so much the more for the beautiful arrangement of dahlia’s. We love dahlia’s for their rather expressive and bold appearances in different hues of orange, salmon, pink, aubergine and purple. The person who was responsible for this arrangement did a good job in bundling the flowers in a somewhat natural way by using two different tones (salmon /orange and coral) and by having inserted the flower steals at different heights. If you have dahlia’s growing in your garden, you could think of picking them for an arrangement in a tureen instead of a vase. Oasis and/or a piece of chicken wire will help to strengthen the bundle of dahlias.

PS Make sure that it looks simple and natural, otherwise the possibility might occur that the outlooks of the arrangement will make a flat impression.

In our search for unique pieces of furniture, we’ve bumped into the handmade tables, benches and stools of The Hague based design label Onze Studio. The owner Zoë Alderfer Ryan was born in New York City and raised in the mountains of Colorado. Her eye for beautiful objects came from her mother (an antique dealer) and her father (a custom home builder). After her successful renovation of a 100 year old American house, she decided to exploit her creativity and her sense for beautiful design. This resulted in the opening of her own product design studio. Genesis is a hand cast bronze side table with a table top made out of hardened glass. We love this side table for its natural form and subtle but dynamic expression. The timelessness of this design makes it possible to combine Genesis with a Louis Seize chair, the newest sofa by B&B Italia or a fifties smoke chair by Hans Wagner. Due to the appropriate heights (64,9 cm.) Genesis can function as a bed stand as well. Genesis is available in custom colored bronze and in two different table top seizes. Click here for more information the collection of this fine design label.

For Thonet Adolf Loos designed some furniture for the Café Museum in Vienna , that resulted in a more subtle and mature adaption of the original Thonet manufacturing techniques. Thonet became popular in the nineteen century for its optimalization of the production of bent wood furniture. Loos perfectioned the designs of the Thonet collection by moulding and stressing its natural forms, that matched with the Art Nouveau style. For the interior decoration of the Café Museum he expanded the existent Thonet colour palette with varnished red, yellow, white and black. When you are in Vienna, you could still enjoy a cup of coffee in this Café, check here for their website and their extensive info about Adolf’s Loos designs.

At this moment Robert Dusarduyn is selling a part of his black lacquered Thonet collection. He has a bench, some chairs, a dining table and a bed for sale. In the Amsterdam shop we had the possibility to make some shots of his black lacquered Thonet bench, that is in a good condition. We think that this bench will fit with The Bamboo Papers of Farrow & Ball. These originally Japanese prints from the nineteen century have been recently relaunched by this British manufacturer in paints and wall papers. Both designs (The Bamboo Papers and the Thonet bench) date from the same century and are inspired by floral forms. Therefore we like to combine them with the accent upon subtlety. The prints of The Bamboo papers can make an impact. In order to keep the interiors chic and simple, we would like suggest to pick a remarkable spot of the house for the Thonet bench and panel its back wall with one version of The Bamboo Papers. If you are not into wallpapers, than Rectory Red can be a good alternative for the setting of this beautiful black lacquered Thonet bench.

This is a detail of a late Art Nouveau bed stand, that is for sale at Robert Dusarduyn. This walnut piece of furniture has been adorned with the typical Art Nouveau floral decoration that is signed with a French name. We are not sure if the craftsman was Belgian or French, but we know for sure that Robert bought this bed stand from a Dutch household. Unfortunately there is no second version of this table in his collection, so the original function of a bed stand is questionable and in need for a creative alternative. We see this antique bed stand as a nice center piece for a tiled hall way or a dining room in combination with a colorful porcelain lamp base with a voluminous white lampshade. We looked for a matching lamp base and found an example at Habitat. See here: the Gogo.