High Style for the Home

Amidst reporting all the fun at Boffi’s first anniversary party in Georgetown last week, I didn’t spend enough time on the reintroduction of the Minikitchen, which Paolo Boffi traveled from Italy to present at Thursday’s event.

First designed in 1963, the mobile kitchen packs cooking, storage, and refrigeration into one square-meter unit with a single power source. Originally designed with teak, the new version is molded from Corian, which works great outdoors.

“A lot of people have it in flats and condos, and roll it right out on the terrace,” says Adnan Hamidi, the store manager at Boffi Studio DC. “It’s being able to literally roll your kitchen right outside.”

It almost goes without saying that the Minikitchen is ideal for, well, mini kitchens. But if you need more of a reason to splurge, here’s how you can justify it from an art-collector/design angle, according to the Boffi literature:

“More than just a kitchen, a concept. A kitchen abstract that includes pure functionalism … The natural geometry of the piece, its appearance having the vaguely enigmatic feel of heavy machinery, alongside a natural aesthetic as an intelligent device that would be found in the ideal home, a domestic hub upon which one can rely on to provide both the practical needs of daily life and the desire for beauty in the home.”

Last night was a big night for us at Washington Spaces, as we helped host two events to celebrate fabulous design.

The Washington Spaces staff at Boffi Studio DC

We started at Morton’s The Steakhouse in Tysons Corner, where we honored the winners of this year’s Washington Spaces Best of Interior Design competition.  We presented them with framed layouts of their projects from our Spring issue and toasted them with free-flowing wine while enjoying delectable hors d’oeuvres.

Then we dashed over to Georgetown to Boffi Studio DC,  where we co-sponsored a reception to celebrate its first anniversary in Cady’s Alley. Paolo Boffi himself came from Italy for the occasion, where he introduced a new version of the Minikitchen, originally designed by his friend Joe Colombo in 1962.

Keep reading for a rundown of the Seen and Heard.

Capitol Hill residents Aaron and Shannon Hase call themselves opposites: He works in public relations, she is an accountant; he loves classic styles, she loves modern.

But since they’ve been moonlighting as Yuppie Décor for about three months (Motto: Go Yuppie or Go Home!), those opposites have worked well together. They’ve scoured antique shops in tiny towns up and down Maryland and Virginia’s shores and refurbished their finds into eclectic new pieces with a modern twist. Aaron has put his PR skills to work getting the word out, while Shannon keeps track of the books.

The St. Lucia chair

“We initially just started it as a hobby – something we could do together,” Aaron says. But in this short time, they’re already taking custom orders from interior designers and selling items through a local antique shop. They’ve become hugely popular at Eastern Market, where they set up a booth about once per month. And if you look at their products online, you’ll see that most of them are already sold.

the Parisian boudoir bench

For more of their products, keep reading.

If your design sense leans modern, you might want to check out the new model units at 22 West in DC’s West End.  Even if you’re not in the market for condos (which range from $783,500 to more than $3.8 million) in EastBanc LLC’s newest building, you’ll get some great ideas from the two models, which were designed by Jason Claire at Vastu and Contemporaria’s owner, Deborah Kalkstein.

Washington Spaces just printed its annual Art issue (Summer 2008, check it out). It’s a favorite of mine – throughout the year we cover local artists and homes filled with challenging, insightful pieces, but our Summer issue is when we really throw the spotlight on creativity.

I’m continually impressed with the ingenuity of our local arts scene. To wit: At a recent collectors’ talk sponsored by the good folks at Transformer, Jan and Peter Hapstak graciously opened their doors for guests to see their lively collection of bold, graphic art – everything from Joan Miró originals to a coffee table embedded with illustrated envelopes mailed to the homeowners by rising local talent Trevor Young.

There’s no shortage of exquisite art in the usual formats: peaceful landscapes, elegant portraits, and colorful abstractions. But for some, all that just seems too flat, too typical, too still. This is the age of information, and we’re accustomed to absorbing many forms of it all at once. If we’re not talking on our cell phones while watching the nightly news while checking our e-mail, we feel like we’re wasting time. Naturally, our art is becoming more complicated, too.

If you haven’t already picked up the latest issue of Washington Spaces, I want to direct your attention to our feature on outdoor rooms,  along with its sidebar reviewing products for those outdoor rooms.

The whole point of being outside, of course, is to enjoy the natural scenery. To that end, I’ve been seeing a lot of scenic inspiration crop up.

If you find yourself strolling down the quaint downtown of St. Michaels, MD, this summer, you might see Robert Murphy sitting outside the shop he owns with his wife, whittling a chair back into a crab, mermaid, or tulip bouquet.

Robert and Susan Murphy have owned Claiborne Ferry Furniture for 15 years, and in recent years their work has gotten the attention of HGTV, CNN, and Maryland Public Television. The Murphy’s buy old chairs at auction and then carve, paint, and upholster them to suit each client’s wishes. So if you want a sense of humor and a hint of the shore in your home, stop by the Murphy’s shop at 603 Talbot Street the next time you’re there.

Now that it’s the summer tourist season, it’s timely to note the city’s major monuments, even for us natives. That’s where a gorgeous book that came out earlier this year can make your visits even more interesting: The Italian Legacy in Washington, D.C.: Architecture, Design, Art and Culture, edited by Luca Molinari and Andrea Canepari (Rizzoli International, $70).

Consider:

• The dome of Rome’s Pantheon can be seen in many incarnations at the U.S. Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.
  
• An Italian sculptor and his five brothers carved the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.
• The interior of the Capitol Rotunda (the famous “Apotheosis of George Washington,” which graces the book’s cover) and the Capitol’s many corridors and offices showcase the ornate paintings of the Italian-American Constantino Brumidi.
• The iconic curves of the Watergate Complex were designed by Italian architect Luigi Moretti.
  
  

There might be a trend afoot here. Last summer’s Design Star winner on HGTV, Kim Myles, was a hairstylist by trade before winning her own show on that network called “Myles of Style” and becoming a major design celebrity.

Meanwhile, hairstylist Heidi Johnston of Warrenton, VA, was posting images of her DIY decorating on HGTV’s “Rate My Space,” and becoming a minor celebrity under her screen name, hpj185.

Her spaces have received tens of thousands of visitors who have posted hundreds of gushing comments about her elegant style. So we decided to take a virtual visit to her Warrenton home and talk some shop.

So, what is it about hairstylists who have great decorating and design sense? “It’s all creative,” says Johnston, who has owned The Secret Garden salon in Warrenton for 21 years. “You’re really kinda working with fabrics either way, whether it’s hair or upholstery.”

Johnston and her fiancé moved into a new home last October, and like her previous home that had gotten rave reviews on Rate My Space, she decorated the new one within three months. Here’s how she did it:

The Kitchen
Johnston hated the dark cherry cabinets in the home’s kitchen, and set about immediately to change them. Refacing turned out to be almost as expensive as replacing the cabinets, so she turned to decorative painter Cindy Mueller, who painted and glazed them to give the space a French Country look. “That, to me, single-handedly transformed the house,” she says.

On this day, the 101st birthday of Charles Eames, the U.S. Postal Service is releasing a new collection of stamps depicting furniture, art and architecture from the famous couple.

(Stop by Design Within Reach through Saturday for a sale on all Eames furniture and other lines produced by Herman Miller.)

But the coolest thing about these stamps is that Derry Noyes, the Washington, DC, designer who conceived of and created the stamps, grew up with the Eames. They were close friends of her parents, and some of the furniture Noyes portrays on the stamps furnished her childhood home.

It’s no fun to go back to work after a great summer weekend, so lighten your mood a little with these glorious pieces by a relatively new furniture maker called Patagonia Trading Co. The Los Angeles-based company was established as a case goods manufacturer about 10 years ago that specialized in exotic woods from Lima, Peru. But since then, they’ve branched out into upholstered pieces as well, and we’re glad they did.

I LOVE this chair, called the Franklin. The spindle detail with the more contemporary animal print would wake up any room.

The Eve bench just seems perfect in every way, from the sleek fabric to the upswept frame. I could build an entire foyer around it.

This sofa has of-the-moment silver nailhead trim, but its quiet upholstery is timeless.

The Whitney, which riffs off both a slipper and a wing chair, lets you really sink into it and curl up – perfect for a small space where there’s no room for something bigger.

How I wish I had room in my tiny dining room for this formidable Madison console.

Oval-shaped tables speak to me. That’s why the Victor coffee table really caught my eye – it’s functional and artistic at the same time. Perfect for a stylish family room.

The company’s founders, Edward Guerrero and wife Catherine Calig, say they take much inspiration from the designs of the 1940s and 50s, and they translate them into things that are both comfortable and modern. Here’s to a job well done.

Locally, you can find Patagonia Trading Co. products at:
The Remedy for Living in Bowie, MD.
301.352.0077
info@theremedyfurniture.com

 

If you passed on purchasing items at the DC Design House last month and other show houses in the past, here’s your second chance to get some of them at a huge discount, in addition to dozens of other pieces DC designers are donating next week to raise money for the Center for Family Development. The Designers Tent Sale is hosted by Kelley Proxmire of Kelley Interior Design.

Proxmire poses in one of four black and white dining chair’s she’s offering at the sale, which she featured with her tabletop setting in last year’s Georgetown Jingle.

Proxmire went through her vast storage areas and produced this green club chair and throw pillow from a past showhouse.

She is also donating this stunning blue ottoman and slipper chair.

If you don’t already have an invitation for the “1st Dibs” opening reception on June 19, head out to Bethesda on June 20 or 21, where you might be able to snap up this chair, which designer Page Palmer featured in the guest room of the DC Design house. Hickory Chair, the maker, sold it with brass nailheads, but Palmer found a craftsman to replace all 450 gold-colored heads with silver. Original retail price: $1,650. Tent Sale Price: $850.

Thirty percent of all sales go to support the Center for Family Development, which runs marriage prep classes and marriage counseling programs in addition to parenting and relationship counseling and youth leadership programs. Some of the designers who are participating are donating the goods, so all of those sales benefit the center.

When you enter Valerianne, the scent seduces you right away. Spicy, sweet, and fresh, it pulls you in, away from the heat and into the airy expanse of the newest home boutique on Church Street, in the quaint, unassuming heart of Vienna, VA. Owner Aimee Wedlake opened the shop as a second location to the original Valerianne in Scottsdale, AZ.

Wedlake will likely show you to a wooden cabinet stocked with world-renowned soaps and home fragrances from Santa Maria Novella, a line handcrafted in Florence by Dominican monks, which includes a delicate, pomegranate-shaped terra-cotta diffuser, molded out of clay infused with pomegranate oil.

Terra cotta is formed by hand, fired halfway, and then dipped in pomegranate oil for a week and fired again, sealing the fragrance inside, which will last 9-12 months.

100 percent beeswax, with the scent of rosemary, orange, and lavender oils with natural cinnamon bark

It is with the same attention to quality and aesthetic that Wedlake curates her impeccably merchandised shop, choosing pieces that she knows “will withstand the test of time” but also feel of-the-moment.

The big retail news this week is that Pier 1 Imports made an unsolicited bid to buy Cost Plus World Market in a deal worth $88.4 million. Wall Street analysts are mostly down on the idea, but style-wise, it makes perfect sense.

Both companies have a strong Asian/Polynesian feel, with unexpected delights popping up now and again that don’t always fall into that category. Walking through Pier 1 or World Market always yields cool discoveries.

High-end designers are not above using them, either: Kenneth Brown used a World Market screen in a family room he designed for a Los Angeles music industry executive, which was featured on his HGTV show. Thom Filicia of Bravo’s Queer Eye fame used to be the spokesperson for Pier 1. Pier 1 also offers discounts for interior designers.

So, let’s compare:

World Market has these great Thai floor cushions

And Pier 1 has these colorful damask throw pillows

World Market has a strong, contemporary picnic table:

And Pier 1 has these sweet rockers:

World Market has a lovely outdoor pitcher and glasses,

Which would go great with Pier 1’s outdoor tableware:

World Market offers a beautiful Honeycomb screen,

While Pier 1 has a louvered Plantation screen:

World Market has a handsome round rattan vase

And Pier 1 sells a jaunty turquoise one:

Meanwhile, both stores have some beautiful items that are unique to them. Keep reading to see more.

Pink leather. Jewel-tone silk. The famous Fendi Fs.  It’s hard to separate Fendi’s fashion from its furniture, and indeed, these details are descriptions of the latter.

Fendi Casa, along with Habatat Galleries, hosted a reception last week at its showroom in The Washington Design Center, which featured designer Dominque Alexander of City Style Interiors.

“Audrey,” by Noi Volkov through Habatat Galleries, was displayed at the Fendi showroom reception, along with several other Habitat works.

“We’re living in a time in which fashion and art and contemporary living are really at the forefront of design,” Alexander says. America “is now much like Europe – we live in older homes with contemporary finishes.”

American fashion designers, such as Oscar de la Renta and Ralph Lauren, are known for their regal, traditional looks that hearken an old-line American aristocracy. But for the inspired contemporary looks that are becoming ever more popular here, the Italian fashion houses are the way to go. Keep reading for more Italian looks for your home.