Furniture that Inspires

One of my favorite styles of furniture is Victorian style furniture that has been redone in a retro style. The one above is kind of drastic, but it's beautiful and very inspiring. I love old Victorian couches that have been painted a bright pink or turquoise and made to look modern in maybe a black and white room with other random bright colors mixed in.

Inspirational Design

Tony Stark's house in Iron Man 2 is really inspiring to me. The entire time I watched that movie I was completely captivated by his house, and caught myself noticing things I wouldn't have noticed before I started school. I love the architectural work, and the design elements throughout. There's so much high technology involved as well. If I could have any house I wanted, this house would definitely make my list of choices. It's phenomenal. I really hope that one day I'm able to help create something like this.

One of my favorite buildings, mainly because I spent a large amount of time there when I was in high school, Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth. It's not an amazing architectural masterpiece, but it means something to me, and I personally love the way it looks, inside and out. It's homely, familiar and simple and not over the top. It was an amazing place to have spent so much time.

Project Spotlight

During my last year of high school, I would go to my dad's shop every day after school and work for him for a few hours doing miscellaneous chores and errands for him. I would clean the office mostly, because it always needed it having two dirty mechanics walking around in there all the time. But eventually it turned from cleaning, to re-decorating. The office was terrible ugly and really needed it. So my dad handed it over to me to do with a small budget. But, I figured out a way to do it. I painted all the walls, tiled the floor, and painted all the doors. I also bought accessories and storage space for the bathrooms. For an office in a mechanics shop, it looked pretty good, and I was praised for it all the time by my dad's customers. It was really inspiring to me. That was probably around the time that I decided I wanted to look into going to school for Interior Design.

Field Report

For this project I decided to visit Starbucks again, because I love being in there. The customers are able to move throughout the coffee house efficiently and they seem to have enough space. The employees are extremely nice and cheerful towards the customers. It seems like they could use more space behind the counter to move about, especially during their busy morning hours. A positive thing about the layout of Starbucks is that their are a variety of seating options that creates a homely feel. There's also the option to sit outside if you'd like. A negative would be that maybe they could make it a tad bit larger. Although it is a coffee house and they aren't supposed to be large, Starbucks is a really big company and they attract a lot of customers. The customers that come into Starbucks varies, but mostly it's college-aged students who come to work with their laptops and hangout with their friends, or middle-aged people who have work to do that they'd like to do outside their home. I've also noticed that people meet here for meetings with clients, such as a photographer talking to a couple I saw about shooting their wedding. The materials they use in Starbucks are beautiful. Everything is Earth-toned and homely feeling.

Site Visit

This week we were supposed to visit a coffee or smoothie shop, so probably just like everyone else, I went to Starbucks. I love the design of Starbucks. When you're in there you just feel relaxed. All the colors are neutral and calming. And I love the light fixtures and the way they have specials written out on a chalkboard like it would be in a small cafe.

Metrocon

Metrocon was awesome! I loved seeing all the products and companies out there. And being able to see the newest products available was really cool. One of my favorite products was LDF Silk's. They did tree, plant and floral designs that were really abstract and different, but they were absolutely beautiful. I've always loved floral design and these products really inspired me to maybe to make a floral design of my own (if I ever have the free time)

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Inspirational Blog

A really awesome blog that I found was called decor8, founded and edited by a woman named Holly Becker. The blog is full of fresh and fun ideas for interior decorating. She's also a columnist for the magazine Real Simple. All of her work is so clean and fresh. I absolutely love residential design and that seems to be what she specializes in, but it's not all she does. There were numerous things that she does. I saw some fashion accessories and food on the blog as well.

http://decor8blog.com/

Career Spotlight

I've always been extremely interested in residential interior design. I've had a passion for decorating everything in my house with whatever I could ever since I was little which is what I think drove me to pursue a career in it. I'm running out of room on my walls for new things. Being able to use my talent and ideas to make other people feel happy where they live is what I want to do with my life. Residential design is so much more personal than other careers in Interior Design because you get to work one on one with the owners of the house you're going to be making into something amazing. I want to be able to see the look on the homeowner's faces when they see what I've helped create in their homes.

Earlier this week I went with my boyfriend to his coworker Kayla's house. It was beautiful and really inspired me. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me. But I remember what it looked like pretty well. The walls were blood red and there were rustic looking decorations surrounding the fireplace. The whole house had a really warm feel to it, but you could tell that they were still in the process of decorating. The fact that it wasn't done also inspired me. The entire time I was there I was thinking of ways I could help make the space look even better. I do that with every room I enter actually. I really wish I could have photographed the house.

Designer Spotlight

Dorothy Draper was the first person to establish an Interior Design company in the U.S. in 1923. Her entire career was full of amazing achievements. She broke away from normal styles and used new, bold concepts and approaches to designing. Her work is very inspirational. It's weird, and I love it. I've always been attracted to odd things in design and love to break away from the normal everyday designs you see. That's why I chose to write about Dorothy. She's such an accomplished woman, especially for her time when woman weren't usually their own business owners. She was a confident and daring woman that was able to branch out into all areas of design and succeed.

Some of Dorothy's Projects: