We wanted to give you the top trends for 2011, but after looking at a great deal of design sites and blogs that all seem to say completely different things, we thought we would tell you this. Mainstreamimages is going through some big under the skin changes, I wont bore you to tears, but it is all to do with metadata and controlled vocabularies. This means that you will be able to find things easer and faster. We have also been looking for photographers that fill some of the areas where we have had gaps in out categories and we are very happy to have 4 new photographers which we think have a feminine and family aspect to their work.
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Retro Fun - Homemade In The Old Town
On their way home from a long day of ‘doing the local flea markets’, Dag and Gjertrud decided to stop at a public viewing of an apartment which was up for sale in the ‘Old-town’ of Oslo’s east side. It was love at first sight for them both in this bright and airy apartment. Despite lowered ceilings, and a recent and fairly unbecoming modernization of the place, they instantly felt the urge to move in restore the apartment to its former glory. Their charming reworking of the interior has provided them both with a sunlit-flooded arena in which to work and live. There is no doubt that the proportions of the rooms in the apartment now back to their to their former stature. The generous space for two, large windows, original cornice detail and even the wood panelling have now been given a new lease of life. Not to mention the patchwork of an old kitchen they have created together... view feature
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The Artists Palate
Designer Tricia Guild brings her keen eye for colour to the table, where she serves an inspiring Italian feast. It may be winter outside, but inside Tricia Guild and Richard Polo’s kitchen/living room it is springtime: lime-green walls, a green glass table, orange and purple flowers, the splash of signature pinks and turquoise… It all seems to fuse through the glass and into the terraced garden beyond; creating the impression of one big space that says summer is coming... view feature
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Period Piece
Part 18th-century cottage park Georgian pile, the Oxfordshire home of Mark and Sushilla is rich in history and reflects their artistic endeavours. "The Georgian architecture was what attracted me here,” says decorative artist Mark Dome of the Oxfordshire house he shares with wife jewellery designer Sushilla, their 18-year old son Jasper , and Amber the Labrador. “I’ve had a thing about this period since I renovated a Georgian house in London many years ago”, he says. Part of the stone cottage dates back to the 1790s, with a grander Georgian front section later. Sushilla runs her jewellery business from her informal sitting room in the old cottage part of the rear of the property... view feature
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Dental Renovation
When Fiona and her husband Barry first set eyes on the run-down detached house, near the East Sussex coast, they knew that if they bought it, it would mean taking on a huge renovation project. ‘The ground floor had been a dentist’s surgery, complete with waiting room,’ says Barry, ‘but no-one had been upstairs for more than 20 years. ‘It was virtually derelict. There were no radiators and for electrics it had surface-mounted wiring. We were impressed by the sheer size of the building, but its condition left us cold... view feature
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Suspensions of Disbelief
Daniel Chadwick started out working for the architect Zaha Hadid as an engineer in the 1980s, but he soon realised he was more passionate about creating art instead. His father was the sculptor Lynn Chadwick, who won the International Prize for sculpture in 1956. Lynn bought this house in Gloucestershire with the winnings, and Daniel moved in after his father died in 2003. ‘We can’t afford to buy the sort of furniture we’d like from places such as B&B Italia, so we just fill the rooms with work by me and my friends,’ he says. Handily, his friends include Damien Hurst... view feature
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A Glass Solution
With clever design ideas, attention to detail and bold use of colour throughout, Margot and John have succeeded in creating their perfect family home. The 1980s terraced house, has four comparatively spacious bedrooms on the first floor, but the layout downstairs proved far from ideal. The uPVC conservatory on the rear of the house was dismantled and replaced by a frameless glass extension. ‘The extension makes the house feel so much bigger – and we can enjoy views through the roof up to the sky'... view feature
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Today’s expansive array of interior trends easily lends themselves to incorporating a variety of damasks. Ranging from glamorous and dramatic to global and contemporary, The trend colours of 2010 are a punchy way to make an impact. Using modern wallpaper in turquoise, purple, and black and white combinations are the trendiest colours and easily make a statement in any room... search wallpaper
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Catwalk to Cushions
These days it’s a short step from catwalk to sofa, as more and more fashion designers turn their hands to our homes. Rather excitingly, the latest names to make the move are hipper and have more style than most. Take Jean-Paul Gaultier, former bad-boy of the fashion world, who has recently collaborated with contemporary furniture house Roche Bobois in a celebration of its 50th anniversary. As part of the collaboration, Gaultier has created a limited edition wardrobe, a combined bed and screen, a mirror, a chair, suitcases and two new upholstery versions of Roche Bobois’ Mah Jong modular sofa... search cushions Pin It Now!
Off the wall
The Dodd family home is a place of dramatic contrasts. Giant penguins, burlesque motifs, a woodland glade… Sarah and Andrew let their imaginations run free when it came to doing up their idiosyncratic family home... view interior feature
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Urban Renewal
Two designers specialising in revival and renovation give their Scandinavian-style London home a bright, airy overhaul. Jonathan Parkin and Jenny Lloyd are best described as transformers. They have the ability to take something unwanted or past its prime and change it into something desirable. Take their North London home: when they bought it nine years ago, it had been on the market for a while and was regarded as a “tricky” property. The single-storey building was “a bit like a hut, really”, says Jonathan. “The walls were mainly wood with small windows. It had been designed as a Scandinavian-style building, but lacked any feeling of light and space. We also had difficulty getting insurance because of its timber frame and flat roof.” Undeterred, the couple and their children moved in and, over the next five years, they virtually rebuilt the place. Most of the exterior walls were replaced with large glass panels and skylights were added. Removing walls to open up the living space reconfigured the internal layout... view interior feature
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Where the art is
When a potter and a designer set up home together in South London, their creative vision and eclectic approach resulted in a masterpiece. “Everything we have has a history,” says Jennifer Lee. “That’s why we don’t have comfortable sofa – this one belonged to Jake’s family.” She perches on the back of a red velvet two-seater while her husband – the artist, designer and food writer Jake Tilson – finds a comfortable hollow on the cushion below and crosses his feet, which are shod in the multi-patterned canvas boots he designed for Paul Smith. The rambling five-bedroom property provides them not only with a home but also two workspaces. It is in hers, at the back of the house, that Jennifer makes pots, exhibiting as part of the Collect event at the Saatchi Gallery. Jake, who has writer and broadcast about fish, especially eels, has a studio packed to the gills with packets, tins and bags of dried fish, labels, netting and floats... view interior feature
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Modern Classic
The muted palette and pared-down elegance of architect George Saumarez Smith’s 3-storey Winchester house are redolent of the gentler-paced era in which it was built. Built in the late 1800s, it’s part of an attractive row of four pairs of externally identical properties. The austerity of the house is softened by its colour palette; a melange of blues and greys. Slipper Satin has been used for the stairs, Lamp Room Grey for the entrance hall and Shaded White for the kitchen... view interior feature
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The Greatest B&B in Britain
Sumptuously decorated and embellished with eccentric touches, 40 Winks is designer David Carter’s East End homage to fin-de-siecle frivolity. The result is a glamorous hotel that belies its bijou size. The property, 40 Winks, is claimed to be “the smallest hotel in the world”. Whether this is true or not, the three-bedroom Queen Anne confection (two guest rooms, plus Carter’s “private boudoir”) must surely be one of the most seductive. The house is a fantastical melange of the terribly grand sprinkled with a soupcon of the voguishly shabby; it’s like a piece of living theatre, exuding wit, charm and glamour... view interior feature
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Opposites Attract
Swedish-born designer Vanessa Fristedt’s East London home successfully combines a Scandinavian passion for clean lines with a collector’s eye for quirky British memorabilia and design. In the converted basement and first-floor flat of her period terraced house, Fristedt has skilfully drawn together the twin threads of her life. The large, bright inner hall, with its open staircase and wall of glass which looks out on to the sauna at the end of the garden, answers her Nordic desire for light and air, while the quirky décor and playful artworks speak of her immersion in the East London art scene... view interior feature
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My favourite lighting designs are the ones that bleed creativity. There’s definitely something to be said for a design that seamlessly blends both form and function. There’s also something to be said for a design that exhibits a sense of humour. You know that a designer is talented when a light fixture can make you giggle in your seat… search lighting
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Where Shepherds Watched
The renovated shepherd’s hut at the end of his South London garden. The pale blue hut that sits halfway down the long garden is one of a number of original vehicles made in the 19th-century. They were mobile shelters for shepherds who had to watch their flocks by night up on the moors and open heath land. Built with a solid wooden frame on cast-iron wheels, the huts often had a small wood-burning stove and an adjustable platform that was a seat by day and a bed by night. To Roy’s mother, Peta Waddington (a designer and online DJ who, under the name Hip Auntie, has set up a music website for parents and children) the shepherd’s hut is a rustic reminder of the time she spent living in leafy Hampshire, but to Roy it is so much more. view interior feature
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Go Wild in the Country (DJ Hoop)
Hoop is a club DJ with an encyclopaedic knowledge of modernist furniture, alongside a love of the rural. He lives in a pretty, turn of the century cottage set amongst woodland glades in Hertfordshire, about an hour’s drive from London. Hoop DJs in the coolest London clubs from Hoxton to Brixton. Come Halloween, London is set aside as friends come over, line their tents up along the grass lawns outside the cottage and cook barbecues all day long and well into the night. view interior feature
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Changing Garden Rooms
An amazing inside/outside home, 3 Concrete structures (which normally are used to divert underground streams!) are placed down the long garden with separations made by trees and ponds. The last one has a pond on top of it only seen from the converted room in the roof back in the house, so you can only hear the water from the garden! The owners use the Roof room as a chill out zone and have a steam room underneath which they can use to make the chill out room humid and jungle like, or open the balcony doors to feel the breeze and look out to the garden. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Abigail's Party
Entertaining doesn’t have to be a Victorian extravaganza of garlands and tartan. At her East London home, Abigail Ahern keeps it cool with muted tones, strings of lights and flowers galore. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Elements of Surprise
The Grove in Hertfordshire is proud of its gardens – and justifiably so. Billing itself as ‘London’s Country Estate’, the hotel is set in 300 acres of green landscape, with an 18-hole golf course on its doorstep and an elegant formal garden to complement the grand eighteenth-century mansion. The formal grounds have all the ingredients of a traditional country estate, such as ancient trees, a box parterre and a Victorian walled garden – along with some rather more unexpected features. view feature Pin It Now!
The Artist's Palate
Designer Tricia Guild brings her keen eye for colour to the table, where she serves an inspiring Italian feast. It may be winter outside, but inside Tricia Guild and Richard Polo’s kitchen/living room it is springtime: lime-green walls, a green glass table, orange and purple flowers, the splash of signature pinks and turquoise… It all seems to fuse through the glass and into the terraced garden beyond; creating the impression of one big space that says summer is coming. view interior feature
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What did you say...
We are hopefully continuing to listen to what you say and we have a new theme section up this month called Fashion & Textiles, its full of fashion, couturier and designers, please take a look by clicking the link Fashion & Textile. Pin It Now!
Top 20 trends in 2010... were they right? take a look for yourself.
Video Top 20 trends in 2010 here a little video with some view on the top 20 trends for 2010, it includes such things as Ecopoitan and nomadabodes scrabble will never be the same….anyway you might just get a few ideas and remember where you saw it when you need the images. Pin It Now!
Ahead Of The Curve
A dramatic home in Kent displays not just the owners' vaulting ambition but also their passion for eco living. Deep in the Kent countryside is the home of architect Richard Hawkes, it's the sort of place that encourages passers-by to slow to a crawl in their cars. What they’ll see first is a vast arch thrusting out of the ground that’s covered with a lush carpet of grasses and flowers – in effect, a rooftop meadow – beneath which there are boxy glass and cedar protuberances: the interior rooms. “It’s every architects dream to build his own house at some point, and when we found this plot, it just felt so right,” says Richard. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Thread Of history
By interweaving new features with old, designer Michael D’Souza has breathed new life into a 17th-century tapestry works on the banks of the Thames. There are those who say a real home is a place with a past, where memories are made and cherished. If this is so, Michael D’Souza’s South London flat qualifies easily, for it is steeped in history, some of it of D’Souza’s own making, the rest stretching back through the centuries. Once a tapestry works patronised by Charles I. The 17th-century bones of the building are visible in its dark wood, rib-like beams. D’Souza renovated and restored the place, realigning and refurbishing the wooden window frames and shutters and adding a contemporary Alno kitchen. When he asked about replacing the bowing beams in his bedroom, an architect advised, “Leave them be. They’ve been there for over 400 years and won’t be going anywhere fast.” view interior feature Pin It Now!
Wild Living - The Stowaways
Jane and Peter Smith’s holiday haven not only reflects its seaside surroundings, but it also has the flexibility they need to accommodate five children, relatives and friends. "Peter’s view was that it should be as comfortable as our home in London," says Jane. To help her fulfil this aim, and to create a house that could cope with varying numbers of visitors, Jane turned to neighbour and interior designer Clare Teed, who is also mother of Robert and Joseph’s surfboarding mates, Sam and Toby. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Where The Wild Things Are
By adopting the ‘experiments and errors’ of his design company Timorous Beasties, Alistair McAuley has created a vibrant, eclectic den for his young family. Timorous Beasties was founded in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, who met while studying textile design at Glasgow School of art. At the home McAuley shares with his wife, Denise and their children. “This is the first time in ten years that I have lived with so much of our stuff, and it isn’t as horrendous as I thought it might be,” says McAuley. “It’s also good to have the fabrics and wallpapers at home, because when you are working with the designs, you don’t really get an idea of how they look until you see them hanging.”
When it came to doing up the detached house in the Glasgow suburbs, McAuley didn’t have it all his own way. Denise, once an art teacher and now part of the architect and interiors team of Occa Design, is no slouch on the creative front herself. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Room At The Top
A converted army barracks on the Kent coast offers a unique perspective on the pretty town of Deal, thanks to its amazing observatory. The home of Sue Prichard, curator of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, occupies what was once the gymnasium of the late 18th-century cavalry barracks. The four-storey house is one of ten created within the Grade II listed building, and includes the impressive original glass cupola that gives a 360-degree view over the sea, local rugby pitch and town. “The light is wonderful for sewing, but the views, changing weather and stargazing are fabulous,” says Prichard. view interior feature Pin It Now!
The Beachcomber
With her bright and airy home on the Kent coast, Maxine Sutton is perfectly placed to source the pebbles and shells that sit alongside her own textile creations dotted around every room. Three years ago the family moved from South London to Kent in the hope of finding more space not only for the family and a much longed for dog, but also to accommodate Maxine’s work. She uses hand and appliqué to create wall hangings and other fabric-based craftworks. The couple’s hands-on and creative abilities were well used around their house. view interior feature Pin It Now!
What do we think of tiles?
We tend to keep them locked up in the bathroom and kitchen; maybe we should let them out and set them free into the rest of the house. Our friends in the rest of the world are happy to use them anywhere. Now that we have under-floor heating our old view of tiles being too cold just doesn’t wash, so come on, let’s start using these very versatile products. They come in so many styles and are even more eco-friendly than our old favourites like wood and carpet... Search tiles Pin It Now!
Photographs
America has for a long time recognized the appeal of great photography; thankfully we too are starting to use it with great effect, whether used as the main focal point of a room or to make intermit moods within the interior... Search photography
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Paneling
Movable, changeable or a more permanent fixture, paneling allows you to create a whole new surface to work on without changing walls plaster or brickwork. It comes in many forms from contemporary to salvage... Search paneling
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Bright Ideas
Victoria Whitbread’s design company has had huge success with its range of Pantone mugs, so it’s hardly surprising that her love of colour can be seen all over her South London home – from purple floors to Union Jack tea cosies and pink elephants, it’s anything but drab... view interior feature Pin It Now!
Northern Light
Swapping London for Glasgow was a good move for interior designer Anna Murray. Her stylish reworking of a grand Victorian interior has provided all the family with a sunlight-flooded arena in which to work and play. There is no doubt that the proportions of the Murray’s Glasgow home are impressive. The generous space, large shuttered windows, original cornice detail and even a panel of Victorian wallpaper survive, but much of the infrastructure had to be stripped out and replaced... view interior feature Pin It Now!
Chocolate Orange
Stunning cocoa and tangerine cabinetry in a smart glossy finish ensures the Clarke’s’ large kitchen-diner is a truly delicious design. For most people, the process of finding a home is nothing short of a quest for perfection. But then Viki Clarke, a graphic designer with a keen eye for style, isn’t like most people. ‘I wanted a project I could get my teeth into,’ she says. So when a neglected period terrace came up for sale in south-west London Viki couldn’t wait to take her husband Mike along for a look... view interior feature Pin It Now!
The Greatest B&B in Britain
Sumptuously decorated and embellished with eccentric touches, 40 Winks is designer David Carter’s East End homage to fin-de-siecle frivolity. The result is a glamorous hotel that belies its bijou size. The property, 40 Winks, is claimed to be “the smallest hotel in the world”. Whether this is true or not, the three-bedroom Queen Anne confection (two guest rooms, plus Carter’s “private boudoir”) must surely be one of the most seductive. The house is a fantastical melange of the terribly grand sprinkled with a soupcon of the voguishly shabby; it’s like a piece of living theatre, exuding wit, charm and glamour... view interior feature Pin It Now!
The Homely Loft
Warehouse living isn’t all about the minimalist ideal. An East End family have cleverly divided their home to create a cosy, warm apartment where young and old have their own dedicated space. Nagels home in a former spice warehouse in East London couldn’t be more appropriate as a backdrop to her sunny new byGraziela designs. There is plenty of warmth here, brought about by the numerous vibrant accessories, textures and colours that combine to create an effortlessly stylish look... view interior feature Pin It Now!
Andy Martin
Australian architect Andy Martin and Norwegian art consultant Madeleine Heide-Paus have led the classic W11 lifestyle, living just a stone’s throw from pubs like The Cow and The Westbourne and 200 yards from the Portobello Road, their bijou flat is in prime Notting Hillbilly territory. They met in legendary west London boîte Woody’s in 2002 and moved into the one-bedroom basement flat in 2004, when Madeleine was expecting their first son Eero. Since then Martin has totally reconfigured the interior, increasing volume, reversing the layout and adding a bedroom. view interior feature Pin It Now!
Themes page
We have been working hard on our themes section and have added many more projects in the last month. Please take a look... themes page Pin It Now!
Could your room use a touch of black?
The use of white and black in decorating can create a stunning and dramatic decor. Find out how to best take advantage of the combination of these two simple colours to maximize your decorating statement. Pin It Now!
Hate going to the office? why not work from home...
Working is an inevitable part of living, but just because we cannot avoid these money-making activities doesn't mean that we can't make that time more pleasant and enjoyable. One of the ways to make working more fun, convenient, and comfortable, is to work from home... Search home office and study
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