This House is Beatiful!

I started flicking through the June issue of House Beautiful last night--it's a good one!  Page after page of great ideas and sources and some really nice examples of stellar interior design.  The resource theme of this month is the hardware store.  Places like Ace, Lowe's Home Depot, etc.  I am a lover of hardware stores--much more comfortable there than at the mall.  The imagination can really soar in a hardware store and all kinds of wonderful solutions can be found.

So I went on the HB website to grab a few pix to show you.  Please remember that you don't have to be a fan of the particular style of an interior to get great ideas out of it.   Designer Ann Wolf  is featured for a home she worked on in Houston. She did a spectacular job and here are some ideas for you to enjoy:

It's the ceiling I want you to notice.  Love that blue!

That stone fireplace on the screened porch, with the super simple mantel is fabulous.  It's the artwork of the room.

Looky here.  She made a children's reading nook out of an unused space in the house.  Love how the grommet curtains are hung from the ceiling.  Kids space, but grown up fabric on those curtains--that's how we all coexist with each other.  And don't kids just love cozy spaces where they can hide away from us?

This picture really looks better in the magazine.  Look at the ceiling--isn't it a beauty?  Why do we ignore ceilings?  And this is a great use of gray, my least favorite color, unless you get it really right, which she did.  Not cold, not depressing.  Soothing, neutral and providing a great backdrop for the daffodils on the nightstands (which, you notice, do NOT MATCH).

One more.  Nice office space. Roman shade on the window is gorgeous to gaze upon, cobalt blue lamp reminds me of the water, hardware on the built-in cabinetry is just lovely. And the peacock wallpaper lining the back of the bookshelves is a wonderful, deluxe look, but, if it's the wallpaper I think it is, then it's just for show and won't really stand up to books being shoved back and forth.  But I love it all!

Ciao,
Anne