Lago is a young new company that creates beautiful but also surprising objects and pieces of furniture to enhance a new and more inspiring way of living. A great idea they had is to create “Lago Apartments” a network of houses around Italy and Europe. “Appartamento Lago is not only a space where one implements a new systematic vision of interior design but an epicentre of sociality, where one works, relaxes and develops the ideas that will design the future.” People can apply to become the tenants and contribute to bring to life this concept of living.

Here’s how  they re-interpret some “standard” objects to make them fun and intriguing!

Yes! There are no romantic widows… it’s a wall paper designed for Lago by Jannelli & Volpi (now that my English and Irish clients made me discover and love wall paper, THIS is the Italian reference for it)

A floating bed… there are supports but they are invisible.

Drunk Covering designed by Lea Ceramica. I loved this and thought it would make the day of a tiler!

Skin, a lavabo that seems to be detaching itself from the wall. Not for everybody for sure but what an effect!

A different way of interpreting bedside tables.

And the big table that brings everyone together.

The post i saloni: design to have fun appeared first on Standing Renovation.

Here are a few the tables and chairs I liked the most at the latest Milan Design & Furniture trade show. Hope you can be inspired.

Above and below, from Bontempi Casa, Artistico both solid and slender, I liked this elegant and contemporary table that mixes dark wood and white, straight lines and curved ones. By contrast, chairs are soft and “fuller” (with arm and back rest)

Below, always from Bontempi Casa, Logan http://www.bontempi.it/casa/prod-details/58-tables/64-tables/67442-logan, again thin and curve white legs (but metal this time) and a solid worktop.

Above: chairs and below an extendable glass table always from Bontempi Casa

Chunkier wooden tables for the Grey series of Gervasoni by Paola Navone mixing classical and contemporary lines and presented with contrasting chairs and big lighting fixtures. “Gray integrates “gustavian” and “scandinavian” styles into a harmonium and contemporary collection of casual furniture.”

Above: the Jag extensible table from Alf-Da Fre’ with a big pendant lighting . Note the mix of colours and materials – turquoise fabric and dark grey for the Elekta chairs – red / pink / orange pendent light

Above:  Italian wooden chairs makers Very Wood, declining wood in all its form to create beautiful chairs.

Above: Jesse’s Brige table and Jaia’s chairs – again, a hard wooden table is coupled with softer chairs.

If you want to know more or you would like to know how and where to buy this kind of furniture, contact us at info@standingrenovation.com

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Here are some interesting examples.

A lamp in the Lema boot

Coffee tables from Desalto

Cradle by Benjamin Hubert for Moroso

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An interesting sink from Lago … note the white grouting to create another geometry (I have to dare asking the tiler to do this!)

Stools from Bontempi Casa

The post i saloni: grids geometries appeared first on Standing Renovation.

This year I noticed green in all its nuances: from lime to mint, from moss to emerald! Here are some picture as colour inspiration.

Vibiesse 235Xsmall sofa looking which looks cozy, relaxed and stylish.

Loop&Co light green sofa (on the right)

Patricia Urquiola’s Biknit for Moroso that looks like a big knitted fabric.

The Roofer lamp from Fabbian in the Alf-Da Fre boot and clustered yellow lamps for MD-House.

Poliform interiors: green contrasts so well with the the dark boiserie and wardrobres

If you’re interested in knowing more about where to buy this kind of furniture, contact us at info@standingrenovation.com

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The potential was all there. The building is an elegant and beautiful 1930s construction. The spaces are bright and well proportioned. Most of the original features were still there: the parquet, the moulding on the ceilings, the authentic wooden doors. However, a big part of the apartment seemed ugly and hopeless.

My client liked white interiors with a feminine touch and I thought that that was exactly what that old apartment deserved.

So we started working.  If you want to know the whole story you can read these two blogs: creating white interiors 1 and creating white interiors 2

The post Trasforming a 1930s apartment into a white and sophisticated interior appeared first on Standing Renovation.

A “bucket” lamp. I am not sure if the Fork lamp by Diesel for Foscarini was the one setting the trend

Fork lamp by Diesel for Foscarini. Picture from www.foscarini.com

From Frau Maier… and the dog is real!

Again from Foscarini, above designed by Lucidi & Pevere these lamps look like drops of coloured water, below Flip by Simon Pengelly and Lightwing by Jean Marie Massaud.

Philippe Starck’s A4 light for Flos  like a sheet of paper

The post i saloni: wall and floor lights at euroluce 2013 appeared first on Standing Renovation.

There has been a tendency lately to cluster light and create interesting volumes, as well as shadows and light effects. Here are some examples of beautiful compositions.

Wooden lamps with a Scandinavian feeling by Finnish Secto Design

Above: Hand made lights by Celine Wright who says « Hand-made work is the only non-polluting human energy »,

Foscarini’s Tubes by Studio Hannes

Fiorella: one of my favourite lamps from the Italian innovative company Slamp

The new Slamp Aria by  Zaha Hadid

Davide Groppi’s Miss coloured by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada

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That renovation started with the intention of giving a new look (…not just a facelift though, as we renovated way beyond the surface layers) and making the whole floor more beautiful and functional.

So we had to insert new bathrooms and re-think about the whole decoration. Which meant that we had a white canvas and my client had to start from scratch! When you think about how many styles, products, inspirations we have now access to, it can be quite difficult to decide exactly what you like.

My client is passionate about sustainable development and she had the idea of “bringing nature into the home”. That was a starting point but then, how do you practically translate that?

When she was talking, I had the image of Bardelli artistic Italian tiles coming to my mind. That is how I pictured what she was describing.

I brought her the catalogue and while looking at the images, she liked so much the idea and the colours scheme presented that we decided to use a similar one: white, light green and black for the “relaxing bathroom” and orange, white and purple for the “energizing one”.

We decided to bring back the wood (covered with paint or with other stuff) to the original beauty and to have wooden furniture.

There are other more creative ways to bring nature into your home. Here are a few of my favourites.

- LAMPS: Slamp is designing very interesting lamps, inspired by nature!

And  I love the mix of old and new it creates.

INDOOR GREEN – More spectacular: indoor green for vertical gardens and indoor furnishing, without maintenance from Italian company Verde Profilo.

TILES – that look like natural elements.

WALL PAPER, and many more …

If you need help in choosing the style of your home and deciding what elements to put together, send us an e-mail at info@standingrenovation.com

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The post Two colourful small bathrooms and more… appeared first on Standing Renovation.

The house, a typical Brussels town house, had not been renovated when my clients bought it. After a few years they decided that it was time to renovate properly the top floor.

The top floor had only a tiny shower room (a room with a 80×80 cm shower and nothing more) and a small toilet. It lacked a proper bathroom.

We looked at several alternatives for changing the layout of the floor and insert the new bathroom. Several options were possible. With the three dimensional drawings it was easier for the whole family to visualise the possibilities and choose the one that suited best their needs and the budget.

So we decided to add a small volume that would include the existing toilet but also have enough space for a proper shower and a sink.

The toilet was transformed into a much “cleaner” volume, hiding pipes and renewing surfaces and accessories.

The new volume, while very small, is spectacularly spacious inside and hosts a 90×90 cm shower, a nice sink and the toilet.

Since my client wanted to “bring nature inside” we chose Italian hand-painted tiles with tulips designed by the Dutch Ronald Van der Hilst. A black and white version for the first bathroom and a colourful one for the second create different atmospheres (relaxing and soothing the first, energizing the second, as my client described) while keeping a coherent scheme.

Dark red and purple are the other colours chosen for feature walls. These splashes of strong colour within a whiter context create a very interesting effect.

Stay tuned to see how these bathroom were designed with my client’s idea of bringing nature inside.

And contact us at info@standingrenovation.com if you too have spaces that you need to improve but years have gone by without doing anything because you have no idea where to start.

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