The tough sense of rope makes it an ideal decorative item if you would like to add texture to your home’s interior design scheme. You can use rope to invoke images of country living or to match a nautical theme. Or perhaps you simply need inspiration to get crafty decor ideas that look great and… Continue reading How to Hang Rope as Decoration

The TV has a bad rap for a decor “culprit,” particularly when you mount the flat-screen version above a fireplace mantel. But often, that is the ideal place for it. A fireplace is the room’s focal point, and as such, deserves the help of good-looking adornment over it. Show off your style smarts by concealing… Continue reading Decorative method to Hide a TV Over a Mantel

New York City’s Museum of Modern Art has a brilliant new way of introducing young readers to works in its group: children’s storybooks. Along with the very first, branded Young Frank, Architect,by award-winning and bestselling children’s book writer Frank Viva, is all about design. MoMA Store MoMA Store The narrative follows a young architect named… Continue reading MoMA's First Kids' Storybook Draws on Architects

Can you dream about living in a magical stone cottage, a saltbox on the shore or a comfy vintage cottage with loads of personality? Whatever the style you would like, there is bound to be a cottage that appeals to you — and here at , homeowners, architects, designers and builders have shared many inspirational… Continue reading 14 Cottages to Suit Every Character

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is ordinary old biennial Rudbeckia that is 2 feet tall and for sale in any nursery, but then there is the long-living giant coneflower. If you would like to be the talk of your gardening friends, provide the latter a place to accent your border or meadow. Missouri Botanical Garden Botanical… Continue reading Fantastic Design Plant: Giant Coneflower, a Authentic Exclamation Point

I’ve long admired the work of the husband and wife architect team of Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker. Like this other great architect on Chicago’s North Shore, Howard Van Doren Shaw, Cohen and Hacker have assembled some remarkable houses in Chicago and its environs. While the majority of these houses have been large manor houses,… Continue reading Modern Marries Conventional at a Chicago'Shotgun' Home

As part of its annual design to support local neighborhood associations, The Junior League of Palo Alto•Mid Peninsula, California, decked out four family homes in the San Francisco Bay Area in fresh seasonal exhibits to showcase the work of local designers. From bay leaf garland wrapped around a stair handrail into hot-pink acrylic plastic name… Continue reading 4 Home Tour Dazzlers Give Holiday Decor Inspiration

Maybe you have a houseful of hand-me-down furniture, or else you’re a devoted thrift store shopper. Maybe you found just one piece you could not resist in the design store. Or maybe you simply don’t like”matchy-poo” sets (as one design maven I know calls them). No matter the reason, you’ve ended up having an odd… Continue reading How to Pull Off Mismatched Nightstands

This 100-acre land in Chester County, Pennsylvania, provides an abundance of opportunities for adventure and is steeped in historical significance. It was here in the lush grasslands where Texas cattle ranchers found relief to their herds in the drought-scorched pastures of the Southwest. The property is full of woods of climbable hardwood trees where wild… Continue reading A Tepee in the Trees Defies the Ordinary