Dining Styles

Informal dining room, the skirted table can be used for a buffet style
dinner as well!!



Living/Dining open concept, great style for apartments or media rooms.


This french country  dining room takes a cue from an old French farmhouse, with a beautiful French Directoire chandelier as the focal point.


This Greenwich, CT, dining room designed by Markham Roberts makes a strong case for symmetry: The table and Gustavian chandelier are centered directly on the fireplace, and a pair of English Regency-style cabinets with Japanese lacquered panels flank it.



Designed by Betsy Burnham, this modern dining room features an eccentric yet artful collection of Nymphenburg porcelain figures. The upholstered chairs are from Artistic Frame.



This dining room, designed by Paolo Moschino, feels European, with walls painted in a custom white botanical chinoiserie pattern and the ceiling dominated by a 19th-century French bronze and crystal chandelier.



Designed by Jeffrey Bilhuber, this dining room features Louis XIII-style chairs, which add sumptuousness to the dining room. He chose the stained bamboo table by Dominic Gasparoly for its strong, quiet form. The Calder-inspired mobile is from Mondo Cane.

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Open and Airy Rooms

In Venice, Calif., this living and dining area opens up on three sides: to the lap pool on the west with sliding glass doors; to the north courtyard with pocketing glass doors and to the south garden and guest house through pivoting metal doors.



Architect Scott Joyce designs a chic Hollywood Hills home with an entire rear facade consisting of glass walls that accordion open to create seamless outdoor/indoor living room.



A unique Palm Springs home features a white living room designed by Luis Ortega. The interior contains a mix of contemporary materials and natural elements, playing homage to American modernism.



Architect Max Strang designs an outdoor living room with a panoramic 360-degree view. Featuring "ipe" wood floors, an amazing ceiling of rusted industrial steel and furnishings from Bali, the space feels like a high-style tree house.



This Malibu great room with its eye-catching smooth stucco fireplace has a wall of bi-fold doors, which open to make the indoor and outdoor spaces feel like one. The glass-tiled pool is surrounded by a teak deck featuring a concrete BBQ and Viking appliances.



In Newport Beach, designer Mark Cutler creates a room that was designed to make the most of its waterfront location and enjoy a cottage-like feeling with a European flair.



Architect David Hertz designs an amazing glass-walled beachfront home in Venice, Calif., with an incredible roll-down window that opens the living room completely up to the outdoors.



Designer Mark Cutler creates a loggia at a Beverly Hills estate featuring an outdoor living and dining area in yellows and greens inspired by a Tuscan villa.

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Markus Johansson’s Cirrata Lamp

Who knew that a behind-the-scenes look at design could reveal a process as multifarious and complex as that of making a major film? And a Tim Burton film at that. The comparison holds in regard to Markus Johansson's Cirrata Lamp, especially when one sees the dozen or so miniaturized prototypes that culminated in this over-sized lightpiece that resembles a gigantic octopus.




The large lamp’s name refers to a suborder of octopi characterized by an internal skeleton and a set of two fins—unusual qualities in an octopus and ones which actually make it more vulnerable to predators. Perhaps Johannson chose the name for this reason, because Cirrata’s increased vulnerability prompts it to favor deep, dark spaces.



In such depths the creature can avoid predation, and one imagines Johannson’s imaginative vision of Cirrata profited from this biological fact. It seems likely as well, that the designer chose the hard—and heretofore less malleable—material of Corian for similar reasons, not the least of which is the intriguing way in which it absorbs and reflects light.



Using a high-heat forming process in which he molded Corian around wooden boxes, Johannson was able to stretch the material out into the luminously-long and many-appendaged parabola of Cirrata: “a body with many arms which sweeps along and lights up the depths.”

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The Raft Table by Andre Joyau

Chunky wood beams make beautiful, simple furniture that is elegant and modern. They also make furniture that is nearly impossible to move, but thats another story.
I am continually drawn to this type of furniture for its straight forward design that feels timeless, for the moment.
Reclaimed beams and salvaged wood are materials that come up a lot in the search for sustainably designed furniture, which begs the question - where is this material coming from? Reclaimed wood is a finite resource, and I wonder what happens when the material runs out. I also wonder what is being taken apart for these pieces of wood to become available for reuse. Although started with the best of intentions, at some point old structures that could be saved will, or already are, being taken down for the sake of reclaimed stock.



Moving on. Andre' Joyau, the founder of the company and head designer, uses reclaimed beams simply with contrasting materials to create his line of rustic contemporary furniture. The Raft Table is a series of assembled reclaimed beams that have been connected, hand waxed and balanced on solid cherry footers. The finished product has the quality of old wood without the splinters and with all of the backaches. Imagine delivering this baby to a 5th floor walk-up, I think not. The chairs that are featured with the Raft Table have a complimentary aesthetic that gives the set a Japanese feel.





About the Designer: André Joyau is a small, cooperative studio of designers and cabinetmakers that is based out of Brooklyn, NY. The group believes in creating fine, modern pieces marked by attention to detail and enduring craftsmanship. André Joyau is the company founder and head designer, who oversees design and production for the studio. Their mantra is producing hand-crafted furniture that combines sustainable and traditional methods with new technology.

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Interior Design II

Interior Design















Interior Design Colors Do You Good

Interior Design

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Interior Design II

Interior Design















Interior Design Colors Do You Good

Interior Design

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Palmwood

A positive outcome of the coconut water invasion is the excess of full grown coconut palms which are no longer nut producing. Palms produce nuts for about 80 years. Coconut palm plantations are in abundance throughout much of the world and are often focused around areas with endangered rainforests. (Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia) Durapalm hopes to make palmwood a standard building material and deflect harvesting from other rainforest woods.
Palmwood can vary in color from dark to medium-red mahogany with an exotic grain that is reminiscent of bamboo. Durapalm palmwood comes in flooring, plywood, paneling and veneer that is durable and formaldehyde free. We’ve seen palms used before, Kirei makes a series of Coco tiles that feature the unique qualities of palm as does Pacific Green in their palmwood furniture collection.



Coconuts have invaded our lives lately with the onslaught of the coconut water fad. The city is mobbed with coconut water trucks and the grocery stores have replaced their varieties of enhanced water with a naturally “enhanced water.

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