Sneak peek - my new digs in Seattle!

TWO MONTHS????? Its been 2 months since I posted?
Is anyone still left out there reading my blog? I doubt it, cos if I were you I'd have abandoned me a long time ago. Seriously.

So if you are there, reading this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.

Ok, so here is a quick sneak peek of pics to come this weekend. Pics of our new home in Seattle. Many of the things you see will be familiar, but the setting is different. I am still working on the bedrooms, and those pics will be up in a week or so. But the main living/dining.family room/kitchen areas are done.

Here are just a few pics to whet your appetite.

Come back on the weekend. I promise lots of pictures. And its so good to be back blogging, even though it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to post!!!!!

Light white Swedish Interiors!

The Swedes are masters of light and masters of white. For a country that lives 6 months out of the year in darkness, they sure know a thing or two about light. And what is it about the quality of light in these Scandinavian countries that makes the interiors look like they've just been bathed in a soft soulful sunlit glow? 


Or does the sun somehow decide that since he does not shine there for 6 months, he is going to be generous and radiate some extra special sunlight upon them the remaining 6 months of the year? I have yet to see a Scandinavian interior that didn't look fabulous! Are the Swedes drawn to white to make up for those 6 months of no light???? 


Ok enough rambling....! For the past 2 days I have been mesmerized by the interiors by the Swedish design firm of Alvhem Mäkleri & Interiör. Their website had so many absolutely stunning interiors, I could not decide which home to pick. So I decided on a few from each. 


Everything is white.....the walls, the ceilings, the countertops, the flooring, the woodwork, the trim, the baseboard..everything! The only variation on white you will see is maybe a muted grey on a wall, or another color for the wood flooring. You'd think it would be one cold stark room, but paired with colorful warm rugs and furnishings, they are STUNNING!


Without further ado.....

This was all I needed to convince me that my next house will not have even a smidgeon of any other color other than white on the walls. No really! I think i have officially entered the "white phase" of my design life!

India's time has come!

India is HOT! Yes, and I don't mean the temperature cos we're in the midst of a wet monsoon. But I mean hot in the design and decor industry. Everywhere you look you see India inspired linens, furniture, crafts, textiles. Finally our time has come and it couldn't be better.

Indian decor is diverse, beautiful and versatile, it lends itself well to almost any design style - modern, traditional, eclectic. For the past few days every furniture and home decor site I have visited has at least one item Indian. So I stuck them all in a "to share" folder and that's what I am doing today...sharing those with you.

  Tanjore finials - via

Hundred petal lotus vessels - via

Kantha chair - via

Carved wood coffee table - via

Charpoy coffee table/daybed - via

Mally Skok's India collection - via

Ikat cushions - via

Peacock napkin rings - via

Trellis dhurrie rug - via

Jhula inspired wooden hanging bed - via

Aren't they lovely? I just realized they are all in shades of blue and white.....! Enjoy!

Back on the blogging bandwagon

I feel like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Only unlike the Phoenix I seem to be rising again and again.

I know, I've been gone while. It was meant to be a few days off from blogging but I realize now its been almost 3 weeks!!! Too many other things have been taking up my time. Now that the rains are here and summer is over we have been busy getting our organic veggie garden up and running. I've been tinkering around with DIY's, blogging for Saffron Marigold, cooking some new vegan dishes, watching Mad Men season 4 and so on.

And I must admit I did run into a blogging wall...not a brick wall, but a heavy steel reinforced concrete wall!!!! I could not for the life of me come up with interesting things to write about. Beautiful rooms, design ideas, cool store finds...all been there done that! I could not write a post without running the risk of someone else already having blogged about it. A year ago I had post ideas coming out of my ears and could not keep up...but now.....nada, zilch, nothing!!!!

But today, even though I run that risk of repeating something, I must feature designer Katie Leede. I think it was Bhavna of An Indian Summer who featured her a while back? I am not sure.

Katie creates lush, livable interiors that reflect their personal spirit and is known for her bold use of color and love of texture and beautiful textiles. She especially enjoys bringing a contemporary edge to traditional homes and a feeling of old-world comfort to more modern houses through the use of antiques, art, and great furniture. Her goal is to create magical places where time stands still and her clients love to be.

Here are some gorgeous interiors by her that are really inspiring me.

Its true what they say about your design style evolving as you grow older. I find nowadays I am getting drawn to more texture and layering in interiors, quite a change from the clean lined clutter free look I have been embracing all these years!

To see more of Katie Leeds, go here.

Online design resources!

As design bloggers, we need all the help we can get sourcing gorgeous pictures of homes and ideas for our readers. While it may take half an hour to write a post, we all know the real truth - in essence it takes much more than that. By the time we have found the exact pictures was want, copy them, paste them, edit them, crop them and so on....we have spent a good couple of hours. At least for me that's the amount of time it takes.

So the past few days my main exercise - in addition to DIY's I started but have no patience to finish - has been to bookmark and categorize some great resources. Hopefully it will make the job easier next time.....! So here are a few I am sharing with you....WARNING...they are all addictive!

Houzz.com - pictures and images ranging the entire gamut of design......modern, traditional, contemporary, eclectic, Asian, Indian, Mediterranean. Ideas on virtually everything....and the best part is you can create and Ideabook and stash all your fav pics there. If you are looking for something in particular, type it in and voila - its there! If you yourself would like to submit a post, you can contribute to it too. In fact recently Anu of My Dream Canvas did just that. And then twice a week your inbox will be flooded with some cool stuff from them.

Elle Decor's LookBook - similar to Houzz, but a notch above in terms of rooms shown. Lovely rooms to just gaze at....I have spent hours here. Really inspiring.

HGTV's Designer's Portfolio - Pretty much along the lines of both Houzz and Elle Decor's LookBook, but more wide ranging in style and design I think.

Pinterest - Ok this one is too much fun. Its like pinning up your favorite things on a corkboard...only you are doing it on this website. I stayed away from it for  along time thinking it was too tedious, but my goodness, it is so easy. You sign up, attach this little bookmarklet to your bookmark bar, and every time you come across a cool image you like, you pin it to your board(s). I love it. Here is a link to my boards....! Also a great resource if you are looking for something. I love this site.

And then my latest love...Olioboard! Its an online resource to create a mood board. I don't know how I missed it all these days! It has a built in library of items - furniture, accessories, linens, bath products everything. You can also create your own library of things you find on the web. Similar to Pinterest, you use the bookmarklet to "add to Olioboard". Then they stay in your library. The funnest part is creating the board...you just drag things onto it, resize and reorient them. And its very helpful to see a room "pulled together"! Really fun! Here is one I messed around with last week......I stayed up till midnight Olioboarding!!!!

So go ahead and check them out if you haven't already! My resolution to stay away from the computer one day a week is getting harder and harder with all these fabulous fun things out there!

Tell me your design mantra, I'll tell you your bling mantra!

What's your design mantra? Not the first time you've been asked that, and I guarantee it won't be the last time. I think by now people know mine.....

We all have our distinct likes and dislikes when it comes to design and decor. Some folks like a clean minimalist look, some like lots of stuff around them, some like big bold chunky accessories, some like small knick knacky things (Ma.......are you reading this? :-)), some like traditional Indian, some like uber modern Western!

But does your taste in decor extend beyond interiors to your clothing and jewelry? Most likely it does, whether it happens unknowingly or consciously (I suspect the former). If you like ethnic tribal folksy touches in your home, chances are you like the same in clothing and bling bling. If you like sophisticated opulent interiors, I bet you like diamonds and rubies!

So here are some room interiors I clubbed together with jewelry that goes with it. A silly extremely time consuming exercise I indulged in yesterday......! Tell me, which one most personifies you? As for me....hmmm..take a guess! (Click on the smaller pics to view better as larger pics)

Like me, you are probably a combination of 2 or more. Its really rare for someone to get pigeon holed into any one category. That was fun!

All room images via, most jewelry via and other internet sources (which I absentmindedly forgot to jot down)

Kitchen makeover

Does it ever happen to you that one day, suddenly out of the blue...you want to change everything in the house? I mean, you're going about your business as usual, doing the things you do every day and then BAM - you're just tired of seeing the same old things in the same old room, the same old way!!!! You want to change things around.

Well, that's how I have been feeling about my kitchen lately. My cook left more than a year ago, and ever since then I have been spending a lot more time - happy time - in the kitchen. I love to cook and as long as she was there, I didn't bother too much about how efficient or user friendly it was. But for the past year now I have sort of been adapting....! Now I really want to change things around so I'm not dashing around madly between the food and the frig. and the dishes and the sink and the stove, tripping over my one dog who is ALWAYS there while I cook!

I need a LOT of counter space, I mean a lot. I guess we all have different ways of cooking, but I cook sort of like they do on cooking shows. I get all my ingredients measured out, my veggies all chopped and lined up, so when its time to cook I have everything right at hand. So obviously I need a lot of space to keep all these things.

Then secondly all my nice pottery and dishes which I never used when my cook was around, have all come out now. So I need a place for them.

So you see....why I need to redo things? So for some inspiration and ideas I checked out Elle Decor's Lookbook. I just loved some of the ideas and over the next week am going to try to incorporate some of them...take a look at these lovely kitchens.

Will post some pics in about a week's time. Let me see what ideas I can get (and successfully execute) from these pics.