Look for inspiration everywhere

Often times if you are in a conundrum with your scheme, colour, decoration, lighting or otherwise, then go for a wander. If you hit a brick wall and it happens all the time with moi, with how you want a room to look aside from trawling the web and amassing tear sheets from magazines go for a potter. I do it all the time, it fuels inspiration. For instance there is there super cool cafe in the Kingsland Road (name escapes me sorry) owned by a couple of French guys – genius store design, food yummy (coffee OK) but for once who cares about the coffee the ambience, the atmosphere the laid back casual vibe it permeates inspires all sorts of thoughts. Likewise in Sydney last Sunday night had super at the latest, coolest, hippest hang out called Mr Wong’s. Now I felt right at home because it’s quite dark inside, brick walls, large but quite snuggly,  cool lighting and again the atmosphere spot on. Same goes for pubs, stores, hole in the wall cafes figure out what makes them cool and capture some of that magic by taking home the essential ingredients. Design is a snooty old business and although I’m not telling anyone not to study it, sometimes you need to do a field trip on the ground to figure out what works rather than pouring over books. From experience the more you come away  from the preconditioned rules and regs the more exciting a space becomes. Is it the lighting the makes a space cool, the style of furniture, the wall treatments, the scent – break it down, figure it out and capture some of the magic in your pad. Pretty darn easy right? For me,my inspiration comes from Merci in Paris (seen below) in my mind one of the coolest stores in the world. I hate overly designed spaces I want them to feel relaxed and effortless and this place totally nails it. From the paint colour to the lighting, to the rugs to the mismatched furniture. Kinda of now want to go to Paris for the weekend! Happy Friday and weekend– for us on Saturday its a potter thru Notting hill with a wander over Hyde park first of course because the two M’s are obsessed with the swans and ducks on the Serpentine and love rolling in duck poop! Too much information, possibly, sorry  ignore the last part, but if it makes them happy it makes me happy! Oh and finally an image of my two assistants not the most get up and go couple on the block, their day involves quite a bit of snoozing, eating, chasing and snoozing again. Mention anything to do with work like maybe would they mind sending a few emails, possibly checking in some deliveries and its gets met with a response pretty much like below!