Shipping Container Retreat!

My dream one day is to have a really cool home office that is detached from the main house and is in a beautiful backyard. I saw this idea posted a while back on {Dwell.com} and then later on {Apartment Therapy}. I love it! This specific shipping container was turned into a backyard retreat/guest house - so cool! Texas architect, Jim Poteet, was able to find an empty steel shipping container and transform it into this wonderful room for visitors! Measuring 8ft x 40ft, a portion of it was kept as a garden shed and the rest was the living space. Floor to ceiling glass doors and windows, heating and air conditioning, a green roof, bamboo flooring and wall covering were all added, as well as small sink, shower, and a composting toilet. The whole structure was placed on a base made from recycled telephone poles.

Swiss Underground Moutain House

I think this is one of the most interesting works of architecture I have seen. I have never seen a modern home built essentially underground with a hillside entrance like this. The unusual house plan was the collaboration between the Netherlands architects at {SeARCH} and {Christian Muller Architects}. It is located in the Swiss village of Vlas, among many other mountain houses. One of my favorite parts is the stunning Alpine view through the wide, oval shaped hillside opening and the many windows which provide a flood of natural light into the house. Also, there is a nearby barn which has an alternate entrance into the home though an underground pathway.

"The Gardener" Berkeley, CA

Last weekend I went up north to the Bay Area where my family lives and had a wonderful time - reminding me of how much I miss living there. We spent one of the days in Berkeley - walking around and exploring the shops in the 4th Street shopping district. Though it was a pretty small strip of stores, there were quite a few gems! One of these was {The Gardener}. The Gardener was opened by Alta Tingle in 1984 in Berkeley, CA. In 1987 they moved to the current location, into a space nearly triple the size. The second store was opened in Healdsburg, CA in 1998 in a barn surrounded by a large garden. The third store opened in the new Ferry Building in 2003. I was so happy to have stumbled upon such a great store! They had everything from beautiful garden and outdoor furniture and supplies, seeds to plant fruits and vegetables, and even great interior design and kitchen/dining ware.

Alta is a former garden designer and lecturer on landscape design. She is an avid gardener and photographer as well. "The Gardener is a collection of all the things that Alta, through her talents and interests, has learned to enjoy and appreciate in her life - a great pair of Japanese scissors for cutting flowers, the purest bar of lavender soap, a big ceramic bowl for the kitchen to hold the season's offerings - things that before had required trips to nurseries, hardware and specialty stores."

When it first opened in 1984, the collection at The Gardener was the first to recognized that even the most avid gardener lives indoors. They specialize in carrying accessories and furnishings for indoors and out. Each location offers merchandise specific to that location. It is Alta's lifelong affinity for texture and minimal design that has guided her buying. She is influenced by the season, which has always guided the product selection.

I took some photos of a few favorites as I walked through the store and recommend that if you are ever in the Berkeley area, that you stop by and take a look for yourself! One small detail that I thought was really cool were the {Ceramic Easel Placecards} used with one of the table settings

Embracing Water.

The Dutch have been in a constant fight against the tides that rise and fall, building dikes, pumping out water in areas below sea level, etc. Rather than fighting the water that is infiltrating their land, they are using it as a part of a new development called {New Water} which will feature the world's first floating apartment complex - {The Citadel}. This new project was designed by {Koen Olthuis} of {Waterstudio} in the Netherlands. This new complex will use 25% less energy than buildings on land because of the water cooling system. There is a high focus on these energy saving projects. Olthuis has designed several of these floating residences around the world and believes that we should stop trying to contain water and learn to live with it. The New Water and the Citadel projects are an attempt to embrace water in the Netherlands, which is almost completely composed of wetlands. I have also included images of houses build on the wetlands in Holland.

Design*Sponge Find - Home Sneak Peak

This house stood out to me a few days ago on {Design*Sponge}. This beautifully decorated home of {Michelle Smith} has a great sense of warmth and a wonderful balance between vintage and contemporary style. My favorite is the nursery (though we can't see that much of it - I like what I see and can imagine what the rest looks like) and the drawers in the hall with the framed leaf prints. Great sneak peak Grace!

OSKA Architects - Rolling Huts

What a great idea! Owners purchased this site which was formerly an RV campground, with the goal of allowing the landscape to return to its original state. They turned to OSKA Architects who created a space for their guests that would be a step or two above camping while still maintaining the open feel of the natural Washington landscape. These {rolling huts} were their solution - they are low-tech and low-impact in their design. The huts sit lightly on the site, a flood plain meadow in an alpine river valley. The wheels lift the structures above the meadow, providing an unobstructed view into nature and the prospect of the surrounding mountains.

Building each hut seems to be pretty simple. It uses an offset, steel clad box on a steel and wood platform. Living occurs not only in the 200 sq ft inside the box, but on the 240 sq ft of covered deck space surrounding it. The interior is finished with cork and plywood – are simple, inexpensive, and left as raw as possible. The exterior is durable, no-maintenance materials – steel, plywood and car-decking. The huts are grouped as a herd - while each is facing a view of the mountains (and away from the other structures), their proximity unites them.

Tree House!

So cool! I think this would make a really cool idea for a retreat getaway / tree house resort type of thing with individual rooms like this all throughout nature :) Another great {Apartment Therapy} find. These tree houses are built by {Blue Forest} - definitely worth checking out their site.

Providence Home Renovation

Here is a look at another beautiful home that I found on {Apartment Therapy}. The makeover of the Deaners' house was amazing considering the amount they were able to get done with so little and in such a short period of time. Most of their improvements were relatively simple - painting, wallpaper and material upgrades — no major demolition was done. They did an amazing job making this older house their home - using what exists and taking time to live in the house to really understand the space they were working with. They created a truly unique aesthetic - the paint on single walls throughout house, together with the with the old wood floors, created a cohesive space. The end product is perfect for showcasing this couple's amazing art collection and eclectic taste in furniture. Apartment Therapy covered their progress on the back in February after only owning and working on the house for 3 months. Now, after another 3 months, this is final product...for now! Their style is mid-century modern with an eclectic blend of art and design - which is what I love about it :) They said their biggest challenge was renovating the entire home while still living and working in New York and sticking to a small budget - their best advice is "less is more". Beautiful job!

A Foreigner Feels at Home

After having moved to New York 5 years ago, from South Africa, Bradly "feels at home as a foreigner". To cope with homesickness and carry on his South African pride, he keeps importing mementos from back home. After having a stylist go to work in his one bedroom, 800 sq ft, condo - he is very happy with the finished product. The overall style is mid-century modern with eclectic African influence. Everything works so beautifully together - I especially love that he has straight-edged clean elements mixed in with interesting organic objects. There is a great balance of color and texture throughout. He was inspired by the eclectic style of luxury boutique hotels that started opening up in South Africa in the mid 90s - they were mixing urban elements with local flavors - standing out from the rest. When he first moved to NY, he only had a suitcase of clothes - since then having built a beautiful home for himself on the Upper West Side. Furniture are about the only things that are not from South Africa - each time he goes to visit, he comes back with bits and pieces of home - lamps, photography, home accessories, and knick-knacks of all sizes and shapes. During his 5 years in this condo, he renovated and expanded the kitchen and main closet of the apartment, closed off extra closet doors and created a solid living room and dining room area. After all of this and many good times - he is selling this place and moving on. I wish I lived in NY - I would love to live in this condo! This was a wonderful find from {Apartment Therapy} today.

Vertical Gardens and Bardessono Hotel & Spa!

These are so cool - what an awesome idea to grow a garden vertically on the wall as a work of art in a frame! {Flora Grubb Gardens}, a San Francisco based business, is responsible for these beautiful gardens. They have a wide variety of great, climate appropriate plants, a great selection of outdoor furniture, and other home design items, as well.

They also created the wall garden for the {Bardessono} hotel, restaurant, and spa in Napa Valley. This 62-room hotel was one of the most anticipated openings for years in Napa Valley. With its incredible modern elegant design, along with advanced environmental technologies and materials, Bardessono is said to be one of the greenest luxury hotels in America. I love, love, love everything about this place! From the interior design to the architecture and exterior design, the beautiful lighting fixtures, the gorgeous stone work both outside with the slate tiles and pillars, as well as the large marble dining tables. How about those luxury bathrooms - ah! Take me there now please.

Beautiful Sausalito Home

I have been missing the Bay Area - where I grew up - a lot lately. When I saw this beautiful home on {Design*Sponge} today and read that it was in Sausalito, it made me miss it even more! I love the style of this home from the exterior, the red door, the adorable front porch, the decorating style of the living room, and the amazing kitchen :) Thanks Grace, for this great find!

Radiator Heater Painting

This radiator heater has been refreshed with a white coat of paint then prettied up with a cheerful blue floral design by San Francisco's Robinson Finishes. I am unable to find a Robinson Finishes website, but those interested in their decorative finishes can see more of their work {here}.

Hemeroscopium House

Hemeroscopium, for the Greek, is a place where the sun sets. This house was designed by {Antón García-Abril}, with the idea of defying physical limits. It was built out of heavy structural elements, defying aesthetics with beams that are perfectly placed, creating an aerial effect. Thought seemingly unstable, this structure was built in 7 days, but took a year to perfect. Complex calculations created the perfect balance of aerial quality and overall appearance. The use of heavy concrete gives an industrial and modern look, but somehow is able to look beautiful in its surroundings. I especially love the pool that looks like it is floating!

Green Windows on Edgemont

I was visiting family in Los Angeles this weekend and while driving down Edgemont Street near Hollywood I saw this really cool house. I absolutely love the wood panels on the concrete walls, the large windows, and the green frames! I couldn't just drive by without snapping a few pics :)

Dinner in a Treehouse?

I first heard about the {Yellow Treehouse} restaurant a few months ago and just came across some pictures of it today and wanted to share it for those who haven't heard about it. The interesting part is that modern treehouses are not new to architects, but the designers of this project in New Zealand were able to create something that blends with its host, a redwood tree. The fungus / chrysalis-shaped building is a restaurant build by, of all people, the New Zealand Yellow Pages. It is situated 30 feet up a giant redwood tree, just north of Auckland.