i’ve been keeping a close eye on Tracy Wilkinson’s blog 149 Sullivan Street, as she has been teasing us with sneak peeks of her new site for TW Workshop - which i’m happy to see launched this past week. Tracy is a British designer who has a masters degree in fashion & textile design from the royal college of art in london, and now lives stateside where she handmakes ceramics and home accessories (amongst other creative endeavours). be sure to visit her shop.
10 awesome homes where i wouldn’t mind being invited in for tea…
but don’t let me stay too long or i might pitch a tent and claim squatter’s rights.
/ 1 / Céline Saby by Freunde von Freunden
/ 2 / Isabel Wilson by Brian ferry for FvF
/ 3 / Vanessa Bruno’s Paris Apartment
/ 4 / Jake’s Silver Lake Home by Dabito
/ 5 / Lauren Moffatt’s apartment
/ 6 / The Art House photographed by Line T. Klein
/ 7 / Stine A. Johanson’s apartment
/ 8 / Inge Rylant’s home photographed by Eefje de Coninck
/ 9 / Jan S. Hansen’s apartment
/ 10 / The Sneeoosh Cabin
one of the things i’d like to do at home is build up my ceramics & glassware collection. i’ve been buying a few knick knacks here and there, which is always a slow process as you tend to find them sporadically (and need to resist the urge to buy an entire collection that you won’t necessarily love years down the line). so when i spotted these colourful marbled pots on Etsy i kind of fell in love, and did a bit of reading up on their origin. found this little piece of Fab.com which explains,
Nemadji pottery is that early 20th century invention that somehow got mixed up with a Native American tribe. The Minnesota-based Nemadji pottery company began manufacturing this colorful, swirled pottery in 1929 and promoted it as being “Indian inspired.” Over the years, advertising became truth in the minds of many, leading to mistaken claims over authentic Native American pottery.
i would probably end up filling my house with these, if only i could get my hands on some locally. you can find them on Etsy and eBay – click on the pictures to be taken to the source (some of them are already sold, unfortunately!)
first of all, i APOLOGISE for the title of this post. it could not be helped.
so, a difficult thing i had to do recently was help my boyfriend pick out a carpet (actually, rug) for his apartment. at one stage there were three HUGE beautifully colourful kilims on the floor of this old school carpet place we visited in cape town, and the carpet salesman was almost rolling his eyes at us as we umm’d and aah’d over which one he should take home. eventually after peeling away layers upon layers of piled up carpets he found the one. but i’m still thinking back to all those carpets, i honestly would have loved to take all of them home.
i’m also on the market for a carpet, and i thought i had a good idea of what i wanted until i came across the Nazmiyal Collection of vintage rugs boasting Swedish kilims, Moroccon rugs and some incredible Art Deco pieces too. do i want something fluffy? or Scandanavian? ideally i’d like all the rugs in the world, but if that’s not possible i could very happily live with one of these.
if you’re like me you probably like settling down with a cup of coffee and the weekend newspaper on a sunday morning and flip straight to the property section where you play the always fun game if i had a billion rand / dollars / pounds which house would i buy?
this game would be about 1000 times funner if the visuals in the property sections were on par with what’s going on at Fantastic Frank. this swedish real estate agency styles & photographs the homes in their property portfolio so beautifully that you’d want to move in right away.
A home is more than the size and space between the dwelling walls. Our minds are more affected by light and colors, the sounds and structures than of a designed chair. We feel good when we are inspired, when we feel that there is a purpose to what we surround ourselves with. When the home has a character we can have a relationship with it.
It is when you look at the property in nature as you can see who will live in the next. Therefore, when characterful homes passed, the goal is always to reach the few who love the home, rather than to reach very many people who just like it. It is the philosophy behind the way we convey housing, and that is why Fantastic Frank created.
all images courtesy of Fantastic Frank
