Dreamscapes Landscape Design's Allison Olson will be at Palo Alto's Gamble Garden, on Oct. 15, 2011 teaching homeowners about affordable ways to transform and expand their living space. Interestingly, she will apparently cover mid-century housing and gardening, including Eichler homes. Read more about it here.
Image credit: Allison Olson
The eight-house Robert Rummer tour and lecture presented by the Historic Preservation League of Oregon were a smashing success. Architectural historian Jack Bookwalter provided an overview of mid-century residential architecture as context for Rummer's work and Mr. Rummer himself was in attendance to answer questions and provided many interesting (and amusing) anecdotes. He graciously applauded the craftsmen with whom he worked on his projects, giving them credit for implementing his designs. Several current Rummer homeowners participated in the Q&A - one even discovered that he's living in Rummer's former personal home - and there were even some out-of-state guests who traveled great distances to attend. This annual tour is highly recommended for anyone interested in mid-century design and architecture. More photos of the homes can be seen here. Mr. Rummer will be speaking again at Rejuvenation in Southeast Portland on May 25 (the day before his birthday!).
Image via Martrese
March 20 is the first day of spring - hurrah! Bankrate suggests these seven affordable ways to welcome sunshine and warmth into your home.
PrairieMod readers John and Judy D. sent us some pics that highlight a project they recently completed with our new Prairie School Stencil #11 design.
They even have a blog post you can check out that details the project. Very cool!
We'd love to see more of these things if anyone else has completed similar decor updates with products from the PrairieMod Store. Please share!
Image courtesy of John D.
Succulents are the perfect house plants, especially for those of us with less-than-green thumbs. They retain moisture in their thick leaves allowing them to survive long periods without watering and as a bonus: they're oh-so pretty! California-based Succulent Love offers some beautiful succulent planter designs to bring a little green into your home. For additional inspiration, check out the owner's mod wedding photos from May, 2009. Looks like a rockin' party and the splashes of yellow are quite sassy.
Image copyright Succulent Love
If it's not what you'd like, try Melissa Borrell's "Fantasy Shades." Living in a cramped city studio apartment and longing for something greener? Try "Cherry Blossom" or "Tree Branches" to bring a little nature into your space. Living in the 'burbs but wishing you were in the heart of New York or San Francisco? Melissa has you covered there, too. Shades can be purchased on lineat Supermarket or she can create a custom shade just for you.
Seems that Transcendentalist thinkers like Emerson, Thoreau and Wright were on to something when they placed a capital "N" on Nature. According to new research, maintaining a connection to the natural world can not only decrease stress and promote healing, but it can also make us better people. Read about it here.
Etsy.com artisan Ottoman has found an inspired way to "Bring The Outside In." Looking at the moss and lichens that grow on rocks and trees, Ottoman interprets the effect in needlepoint to use indoors. There's even a "moss" ring! See the collection here.
Images copyright Ottoman
Are you trying to find ways to "Bring The Outside In"? Then check out the very unique handmade paper lamps by etsy.com artisan wyldewoodpapers. I especially like the very organic shape and color found in the "Hestia" lamp shown at left. See more here.
Image copyright wyldewoodpapers
Spring has sprung in Chicago (finally!) and that means lots of great flowers in the garden. Here's a great post from design*sponge that looks at some really beautiful vases to hold those cut spring flowers. Read it here.
Image copyright design*sponge
Etsy.com recently featured the talents of greenware design, a two woman team that combines the talents of longtime friends, Irene McCollam and Leslie Geer. Their beautiful ceramic vessels are filled with arrangements of unique succulent plantings. These would make great easy-to-care-for gifts for anyone who is looking to "Bring The Outside In." See more here.
Image copyright greenware design
Here's a New York Times article about a California makeup artist who built the addition of his house around an old sycamore tree. Check out the slide show that accompanies the article.
Image copyright Ethan Pines for The New York Times
After painting an accent wall in our living room "Bicycle Yellow" (fitting, as my husband is an avid cyclist), we came across this post extolling the beauty of using a sunny yellow to brighten the often subdued color schemes of modern decor. And during the grey, rainy winters here in Portland, OR, we can use all the artificial sunshine we can get.
If you're nervous about introducing any shocking color to your home, try what we did (visual at left): Take a photo of the area with a paint chip near where you plan to use it (on a wall, sofa covering, drapes, etc.). This way the swatch accurately reflects the lighting in your home, not what you see in the hardware store. Use the dropper tool in Photoshop to "pick up" that swatch and color the intended area with it. Voila! A quick, inexpensive sneak preview of the result. The retouched photo at left looks exactly like the painted result and we couldn't be happier with it.
All this month we have been talking about the PrairieMod Principle of "Bring The Outside In." We've looked at several ways in which the beauty and inspiration of the natural world can be woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. The final post on this topic for the month will examine how to blur the line between "outside" and "inside" with windows.
One of the most invigorating ways you can apply the PrairieMod Principle of "Bring The Outside In," is to consider the decorating power of sunlight. The Sun has been a vital part of human existence since the dawn of time. But very rarely do us modern folks stop to consider it (other than to bathe in it on our vacations). So what does sunlight have to do with decorating a house?
I was recently reminiscing about all the amazing things I saw during my visit to the spectacular "House Beautiful" exhibit in Midland, Michigan earlier this month. It made me remember Dianne Maddex's book published a few years ago titled, Frank Lloyd Wright's House Beautiful and so I decided to check it out of the PrairieMod library. As I was perusing, one particular excerpt spoke perfectly to the principle of "Bring the Outside In" for this week's installment of PrairieMod Monday.
How often have you planned a vacation to go visit nature? Sure! Pack the kids up and take them to the zoo, or a neighborhood park or the Grand Canyon. Nature is that thing that’s outside of us. We have to travel away from our homes and jobs to see and appreciate it. It’s certainly not in our daily lives, right?
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