An Ode To Jonathan Adler

It started with this table lamp and has blossomed into something akin to hero worship. I picked up his book a year or so ago and it inspired me to do the crazy things that brighten up our apartment.

For example:


Inspired this:


And then I took black porcelain planters and lined them in the hallway. A bit of padding and they grew cats:


If you're unfamiliar, you really should go to his site for inspiration.

Point Click Home recently published his 15 Fabulous Design Tips. These are my favorites:

3. Don’t fit in. Scale is the most under-considered piece of the decorating puzzle. Put a Gothic throne in a studio apartment.

** I don't have a Gothic Throne, nor is my apartment studio sized, but I like the whimsy this suggests. Decor is not to be taken seriously -- even that centuries-old setee that you grudgingly inherited can be brought back to life with new springs, stuffing, and fabric. Just don't refinish it -- you want to revive it, not turn it into something you could have picked up at Brocade Home last week. (This is without insult to Brocade Home, which I adore.)

4. Paint your floors white. You’ll feel carefree.

** This week my entry and hallway carpeting is being ripped up. I'm waffling between glossy white and glossy black. Both have a decadent feel and I admit that my decision will probably be based purely on maintainance. With black kitty hair I'd be broom-vac-ing that floor multiple times a day. I do think if you've got a great Southern Porch, that white-washing the boards will keep it cool in the summer. This would probably work on a poured-concrete deck, as well.

8. Chocolate brown and baby blue are perfect together. They’re uptown, they’re downtown, they’re classic and fashion forward.

** These are my favorite colors. They are in my closet, they are in my basic designs, they were my wedding colors. Chocolate Brown is a highly underrated neutral.

10. Put regal furniture in your bathroom.

** Again with the whimsy and I can't resist. I don't have room in the bathroom for anything that might be considered regal (while not a studio, it is still a loft) but I do have a stool that I'm going to refinish ebony and recover with some extra black shantung silk I've had laying around for months. Not regal, but a step up, I think. My bathroom is also pink and black and white. I try to channel Coco Chanel when I'm in there. Some mornings it works and I emerge ready for the day all kinds of prettified. Sometimes it makes me tired. I'm hoping the new stool will tilt the scale toward prettification.

15. Make your own – Personal style means having a space that’s comfy but filled with stuff that has meaning to you. It should hold things created and inspired by passionate people. Personal style should make you happy and happiness is chic.

** It's a cliche because....it's true. Your mother-in-law thinks that only bordellos have pink bathrooms? (Mine doesn't, or hasn't vocalized it if she does.) So what. She doesn't live there. You've always wanted a Warhol-esque shrine to yourself hanging in the entryway to remind you how fabulous you are every time you enter your home? Do it! You live here. It should be your sanctuary, your shelter from the rest of the world. Do whatever you want to make it sing to you every day. Because when your house sings...you sing.

And I'll leave you with that note of cheesiness. I do agree with his other Fabulous tips (except maybe hanging art off the bookcases, mine are used to often to have that kind of barrier). Follow the link above to be inspired!