Karolina, Author at Dear House I Love You

shopping

marimekko, palo alto

May 25, 2013

This past week was one of those impossibly long ones. By the time Wednesday rolled around I couldn’t believe there was more of the week still ahead. I slogged through. I drove my car all the way to Palo Alto for service. In some amazingly bad Bay Area traffic (which means, yay, improving economy!). On Thursday I was ready to throw in the towel on this week, but after picking up the car, I decided to take advantage of this trek and took a detour on my way home.

I ended up at the Marimekko store in Stanford Shopping Center. After slowing down to browse, I began to realize just how much I needed this. I tend to shop online and overwhelm myself with research. It was nice to slowly browse, feel the fabrics, and chat with the nice lady who waited on me, pulling fabrics down and unraveling them to show off their drool-inducing patterns and colours.

I haven’t always been a fan, as I used to associate Marimekko with the ‘Unikko’ red and white flower pattern which was quite popular some ten years ago and not quite my cup of tea. But lately, as I’ve become more interested in patterns and fabrics, I have come to love their monochromatic and graphic styles.

There’s Unikko in the upper left!

Marimekko’s spring fabrics have been out for a while now, and they are super fun. I spotted this and feel in love:

Tilkkutäkki. Very op art. Definitely an option as an actual art piece too, if stretched on a canvas. Perhaps in our dining room?

If you’re in the neighbourhood, the store is worth a look. I’m glad I took the time to stop in.

Happy weekend!

(And no, this is not a sponsored post. Just sharing my shopping finds with you.)

photos: Karolina Buchner

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dining room

getting started on our dining room refresh

May 23, 2013

As I alluded to in an earlier post, I’m planning to change up our living + dining space. I’d like to go in a more mid-century Scandinavian direction, but not with the entirely black and white colour palette typical of Nordic styles, because, hey, we’re in California! And California knows how to party, I’m told. Let’s get started.

In the “woe is me, I own an Eichler” department, I will say that having a huge open space makes it challenging to design the dining room. Because it’s not just one room. It’s all of the rooms! Our living room, dining room, kitchen, and breakfast nook are quite continuous, with one wall connecting the spaces. Currently that wall is a teal-ish blue chosen, I’m sure, by the staging company which prepped the house for sale, for maximum universal appeal to buyers. I really want to put my stamp on the house, so even though it’s not at all offensive, the blue is definitely going.

As I look around the space now, I find my eye rests on the white elements (Eames chairs, white ceramic pots, fluffy sheepskin pillows) and I enjoy that. I’m hoping to add more white and pare things down a bit by restricting the number of colours. Sorry, multi-coloured kilim rug and orange pops of colour, you will have to go along with the teal.

I also want to add more drama. Somehow. Perhaps, a big swatch of colour with an animal staring you down while you eat dinner?

Source: Dwell via Design Milk

Yeah, just like that. A touch of ~~insanity~~ whimsy!

I think my vegetarian husband would find this deeply disturbing (and heck, me too — doesn’t that creature look kind of angry?) so I’m keeping this concept in mind but will probably skip the actual taxidermy.

Here’s a possible direction in terms of colours and textures:

And the run-down:

1. Untitled 12.1.12 by Richard Blanco
I found out about Cureeo from Emily Henderson’s blog (this lady is so talented and I really appreciate seeing how she does things). It’s a site where you can buy reasonably-priced, original art work that is nicely curated for you, so it’s very easy to shop and pick out something cool and one-of-a-kind. This piece is bright and fresh and just serious enough, but I’m not 100% sold on it yet. Deciding on the art is a challenge. Do I go bold and colourful or maybe neutral and texture-y? I may wait and play the ‘Art Goes Here’ game after painting the blue wall. In fact, I’m pretty darn sure of it. Stay tuned.

2. George Nelson Saucer Lamp
The mid-century geek favourite. This is already in the room and it has a great sculptural quality which I want to repeat…

3. Assorted Danish candleholders via Etsy
Yes! The cute lady is a candleholder. I’m going to need some tall pieces to sit on top of our teak credenza, as I currently have mostly short things that are too small.

4. Atollo Table Lamp
This is my dream lamp. I think it would do splendidly in helping to continue the sculptural theme here. The Atollo is an iconic lamp designed by Vico Magistretti for Oluce, a long-standing Italian lighting company. It’s a piece of art in itself, as you can gather by reading the product description on the Oluce website. I challenge you to read that description and not be moved!

5. Benjamin Moore’s Admiral Blue
This would be the new colour for the wall that connects our living, dining, and kitchen areas. I think this should pair well with the mahogany paneled walls which account for two of the dining room’s three walls. It’s dramatic but cozy.

6. Nate Berkus Arrowhead Rug
A nice black and white foundation to keep things sane while adding some Scandinavian-ness and woven wooly texture. It seems this rug is everywhere these days, but I really like the pattern and the very reasonable price point offsets the potential dream lamp purchase. It’s perfect!

What do you think? Any art suggestions out there?

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landscaping travel

palm springs: alexander homes

May 17, 2013

Hi friends! Where did the week go? It’s been a busy one over here, and I’m looking forward to the weekend and some more projects.

I’ve been trying to get organized lately, and realized that a few months back, I totally neglected to share with you my favourite past-time in Palm Springs: looking at houses! In fact, one of the original goals of that trip was to do some field research on landscaping.

Makes you want to rip out your lawn and fill it in with gravel, doesn’t it? OK, maybe it’s just me.

These beauties are almost all from the famed Racquet Club Estates, mostly on the same street as our rental house. They are Alexander homes.

The Alexanders are like the Eichlers of Palm Springs: both merchant builders of mid-century modern tract homes. Except with more glamour and a family tragedy that ended their development. Unlike Eichlers, they seem to be ubiquitous throughout the area, and much better preserved, with fewer heinous improvements than we sometimes see in the Bay Area.

After getting my fill of desert amazingness (as much as was possible due to certain, ahem, constraints), I returned inspired to set some landscaping plans of my own into motion. The horsetail and beach pebble installation from last weekend is a start. Small steps.

For more of Palm Springs through my eyes, check out my flickr set.

Happy Friday! See you next week.

photos: Karolina Buchner

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landscaping projects weekend

a little landscaping: horsetails + beach pebbles

May 14, 2013

Hey all! How was your weekend? Hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day. After calling my mom at midnight on Saturday (she’s nine timezones ahead of me right now), mine ended up being all about this little patch of horsetails just outside our atrium, at the front door.

After years of looking at the same sad, lonely-looking horsetails and mystery ground cover, I decided to rip the ground cover out and add more horsetails to give the original plants some company. I’m learning that more is better in landscaping too, as in, more of the same thing. For impact! So this weekend, I decided to go all out and get the plants, pebbles, and landscaping fabric. We got all fancy, yes, we did!

Learning #1: horsetails are known by their genus Equisetum. They’re one of those ‘living fossil’ plants. And they run like bamboo. I do find them popping up in the atrium, so planting more is probably fool-hardy. We’ll see.

Learning #2: those beach pebbles weigh a TONNE. If you ever want to take on a project like this, make sure you have an extra set of hands to help lift the bags those suckers come in. And you’ll need more than you think. We used about 4 1/2 bags for this small space (maybe 2×6 feet).

It was nice to improve our curb appeal just a little. Or maybe it’s just front-door appeal? It’s nice to come home to either way. It also temporarily satisfies my dream to re-do our landscaping all around the house. I’d love to do something more angular and modern, and have been scouring the interwebs for ideas.

Sources (clockwise from top left): The Lovely Plants, Houzz, The Brick House, Japanese Trash

Raw steel, grasses, succulents, cacti, agaves, architectural pottery, pristine new pavers, and hanging chairs. WANT. Ugh.

A complete re-do is a long term project that I’m working on, as I’ll need a professional to do it. Terraforming on a larger scale than this weekend is beyond my physical powers. For now, I’ll enjoy my horsetails when I come home at the end of the day.

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travel

paris: my favorite thing

May 10, 2013

I was going to wrap up this week’s Paris posts with more design-oriented things I looked at, but it didn’t feel right. I may save that for later.

When looking back on this trip, I think of our last day: I was trying to make the most of the time we had left, and feeling overwhelmed by the choices (more shopping? for what? more sights? museums? where to eat?) After a week of taking in so much (work, the conference, sights, shops, deciding. where. to. go), I needed my brain to stop for once. Anything involving the indoors seemed a waste at this point. The weather was gorgeous, so we decided to go to the Jardin du Luxembourg, where we’d gone earlier in the week.

On the way there, we passed the David Hicks gallery, which had this canvas in the window. The quote is by Diane Arbus, though sadly I don’t know who the artist is. I think it inspired us, on some subconscious level, to do just that. We wandered. We grabbed tea for me and macarons to share and sat in the park for a while, with no particular goal in mind.

By the way, I’m pretty convinced that the French have perfected some sort of weed killer that leaves only perfect grass and daisies behind. That, or they hand-tend these lawns.

The park was quite busy since it was a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon. The one section of the lawns where you are allowed to sit reminded me of Dolores Park on a hot day. People seemed to really be into the togetherness, and apparent novelty of sitting on grass, here. (Everywhere else there are little chairs to sit upon.)

And then we wandered outside of the park, in pursuit of a fountain we spied off in the distance. It was much quieter on the way there. People were strolling, playing petanque, playing table tennis, even setting up a slack-line between a statue and a tree. I love how Parisians enjoy their parks and public spaces so very thoroughly. That walk was my favourite part of our visit. Don’t you find that this sort of thing always happens on the last day of a trip?

It’s not entirely clear from the picture, but on the left, with the number 10 t-shirt, is a young girl who was playing an accordian. Strains of the Amelie soundtrack if I’m not mistaken. I kid you not. Only in Paris.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this excursion with me. Maybe I’ll go wandering somewhere this weekend.

Where will you go that you’ve never been?

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travel

paris: soya + coutume

May 9, 2013

I spent a lot of time on our trip across the table from this guy, eating at various bistros and cafes, some of which were excellent, some of which were average. My husband, David, is vegetarian, so it’s always a bit of a challenge to find someplace interesting where there is an option or two that works for him, especially when traveling. I thought I’d share two of the best spots we ate at in Paris, which you may find helpful if you are also of the vegetarian persuasion.

As you might expect, the interiors of restaurants are how I remember them. The food at both of these places was excellent, but the vibe added so much to the experience that the interiors alone are blog-worthy. I generally feel too self-conscious to take pictures of my food, so sorry, no food porn here. However, doors, walls, floors, art, and lighting are all fair game!

First up:

Soya was one of my vegetarian work colleagues’ picks. After a failed attempt to get in without a reservation one night, he booked a table for the following night and called Dave and me up spur of the moment so we could try again.

(OK fine. Some mild food porn managed to slip into this post.)

The interior was very spare, with a few large communal tables and a number of small tables. Walking in, you get to enter through those old, wooden doors. After seating ourselves at one end of the communal table, we ordered drinks and I got to stare at the surroundings and caress the tabletop when my companions weren’t paying too much attention to what I was doing.

The appetizer above was humus (or houmous, per the menu) topped with dukkah, fresh herbs, and a mix of nuts. The menu was all vegetarian and pretty creative. My entree was a tomato risotto involving Middle Eastern spices, which surprisingly worked really well. We arrived relatively early at 7:00, hence the empty tables, and by the time we left the place was very busy. Apparently Parisians eat dinner really late — peak time is usually 8-8:30 if you’re eating out.

And next:

I had originally learned about Coutume on the Hindsvik blog. In case you’re not familiar with Hindsvik, they’re a husband and wife team living in Canada (in Port Colborne, Ontario, very near where I grew up!) who run a gorgeous Etsy shop selling their mid-century finds — lots of great Scandinavian teak to be had there.

We came here with our friend Michael as part of our epic walking tour which took us from the Eiffel tower all the way to the left bank and St. Germain. It was a Sunday and we were quite worried as we walked down rue Babylone to Coutume – all the shops were shut tight. Coutume was both open and packed with people.

Both Dave and I had the vegetable ‘detox’ brunch of ricotta with radish, polenta, and steamed veggies. It was a nice change from our otherwise steady diet of pastries and cheese in Paris. Also: the best cafe latte I’ve ever had. So smooth. Even Michael, who drinks a lot more coffee than Dave and I together, agreed that it was excellent.

I definitely recommend this place for anyone who is into coffee. As a bonus, in the back, they sell all manner of coffee-making apparatus: presses, syphons, Chemexes, filters. You name it. Made me want to break out the Chemex and try my hand at brewing again!

Here’s where to find them:

Soya
20 rue de la Pierre Levée
75011 Paris

Coutume
47 rue de Babylone
75007 Paris

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shopping travel

paris: merci

May 8, 2013

Dear friends, I have to confess that part of this goal of posting about Paris every day this week was meant to help me overcome my jet lag by forcing myself to stay up in the evenings. And boy, is it ever kicking my butt right now. I am determined to power through it because today’s post is about the much-anticipated (for me) Merci! Let’s do this.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Merci is acclaimed as a must-see shop for Design*Sponge readers, and I set a goal to make sure and visit it while in Paris. I had also read about Merci and the recent launch of their online shop, greeted with much enthusiasm, on sfgirlbybay. So, I had some high expectations and this place did not disappoint!

The store has a much different vibe than Fleux: more organic, airy, and at the same time a bit industrial. The goods at Merci include utilitarian but beautiful household products, like rubber gloves and pails, as well as cosmetics, clothing, kitchen ware, furniture, and lighting. Upon entering the store, we were greeted by an installation of what seemed like about a hundred straw brooms suspended from the ceiling.

While browsing through the furniture displays, I spotted these delicate ceramic pieces:

Of course these beauties could never survive the trip home in my suitcase, so I had to pass on them.

Most of the vignettes throughout the store had really nice balance of the hand made, organic shapes, and more industrial modern furniture. I was particularly taken with the one on the right here, which included a marble-topped, screw-base table and rough hewn wood stools:

Taking a closer look, the dishes on the table were made of paper-like fibres. Lovely, subtle, and made in Japan. But of course. These would make for some kick-ass picnic dishes.

Merci has multiple cafes integrated in the store which was really handy. After Dave lost track of me for a while, we managed to find each other on the bottom level. Since we were famished from our trek through the Marais and one of the cafes was right there, we decided to have a snack of fruit crumble and their house lemonade, which was flavoured with ginger and mint, and paired nicely with a view of the cafe’s courtyard. A courtyard complete with birds chirping away. It was almost too much charm. Almost.

(yum!)

I decided to treat myself to a little something to remember this place by: a pair of these sleek tumblers in black. They’re ceramic with a silicone layer that makes me think of a finely pleated skirt. So elegant.

Here’s where you can find Merci:

Merci
111 Boulevard Beaumarchais
73003 Paris

And they are also online at merci-merci.com, which I just might have to browse more of this weekend. Enjoy!

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shopping travel

paris: fleux

May 7, 2013

When planning where to go on this trip, I did a bit of research on the Design*Sponge city guide for Paris, and put Merci on my must-see list of design shops. It is located in the Marais, which a colleague also recommended as a great neighbourhood to walk around. I loved the area — it was both bustling yet laid-back and the narrow, winding streets were a lot more hushed than the more popular sights in the city. We decided to walk from the Hotel de Ville to Merci, and happened upon Fleux, the subject of this post, by chance.

Fleux is a design shop, focusing mostly on home decor goods, furniture, and lighting. It was a lot of fun to explore. My favourite parts were the furnishings and lighting (surprise!) They have the famous French-designed and hand made Jielde lamps in all sizes and colours, as well as the equally iconic Tolix chairs.

You guys, they have ALL THE TOLIX CHAIRS! And Tolix cabinets, stools, and tables. In fact, they had a Tolix-only upstairs floor, with all of the pieces right there in many paint colours, finishes and sizes. This was the first time I had seen the perforated metal Tolix chairs, which look really nice, especially in the gun metal and black versions. We saw the black perforated ones again at Merci, where we ventured later on. Being on this floor surrounded by all that shiny, brightly coloured paint made me very, very happy.

Fleux is huge by the way. It spans about four different adjacent small shops. If you’re coming from the west/city center, you’ll likely happen upon the smaller, Tolix- and Jielde- focused shop, which is actually a separate space from their main store, just across the street. The main store goes on and on. Among the many nicely-styled displays in the furniture shop, I did spy this neat lamp-cum-bookshelf which I kind of regret not getting:

I would love to use it in a Scandinavian, minimal space, perhaps in a little reading nook involving a vintage rattan chair with a sheepskin draped over it. I may just have to create such a nook in our house. You know, to justify getting this cute shelf-light-thing someday? Sounds like a plan to me.

This store was a very lucky find. I recommend visiting if you’re nearby!

And so you don’t have to hope to encounter it by chance, here’s where to find Fleux:

Fleux
39-52 rue Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie
75004 Paris

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travel

paris

May 6, 2013

eiffel tower | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

typographic art | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

pink shoes and flowers! | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

paris apartments | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

jardin du luxembourg | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

flower shop | photo credit karolina buchner via dearhouseiloveyou.com

I’m back! Despite this being a work trip for the most part, I have to say my visit to Paris was fantastic! All that fuss about springtime in Paris? Totally deserved. Warm and sunny weather in this city just puts things over the top. It was ridiculously charming.

I am so happy that I got to experience the city in a state of near-perfect health this time around. Last year’s visit, while an actual vacation, was ridden with illness and pretty sad. This time, after a few days of work for me, we walked every day until our feet could take no more, ate dinner out every night (we ate out ONCE last time), and then walked some more because I could not get enough of this place, painful feet or not.

As promised, I have some goodies to share, and I’ll be posting a little something every day this week, just for you!

photos: Karolina Buchner

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geeking out house tour

geek-out time: our floorplan!

May 3, 2013

(Hello again from Paris! So sad that our trip is nearly at an end, but I have many things to share with you as soon as I get back home. Until then, I have to share this post, out of a need to inform you all about geeky things that are imporant to me.)

After we moved in to this house, I became a bit obsessed with tracking down its original floor plan.

What I really, really wanted to find was the original builder’s certificate, which I’d seen in another Eichler garage while we were house-hunting. I remember it well: it was a heavier card-stock paper, yellowed with age, with all the details like the parcel number, the builder, the year, the model, and so on filled out in pencil, in a heavy but lovely hand which reminds me of the way our school teachers would write on the chalkboard. Proper writing.

After an overly thorough search of our own garage which involved getting some gigantic cobwebs in my hair, I passed on finding the builder’s certificate. I did find a few home inspection certificates of an appropriate vintage stapled to one of its walls, and instead started searching online for the next best thing: the original design and floor plan. There are a number of Eichler communities with various floorplans archived, notably on the Eichler flickr group. My searching did not turn up the exact plan, but I found the closest I am likely to get:

Source: Eicher SoCal

Isn’t it gorgeous? In a super-nerdy way? I love the rendering of the front.

The floor plan comes from a subdivision of Eichlers in Southern California, and is just about dead-on. We have the same carport + garage configuration, four bedrooms, and two baths, situated almost the same way. The only differences in our house are:

Kitchen: There is no pass-through from the kitchen directly to the dining room. The range is on the wall opposite the oven. And we don’t have the big pantry, but we do have the dish cabinet — in the same spot!
The entrance to bedroom 4 is not at the end of the main hall. Instead that space for the washer and dryer is rotated 90 degrees to the right, so it ends the hallway, and you have to go around it to get to the third and fourth bedrooms.
We don’t have a sliding door from the dining room to the side of the house.

… and a few other small details, like the way the atrium and back patios are laid out, and the hole in the roof overhang at the front of the house (pictured in the top rendering) — ours is solid.

In case it’s not clear from the plan, the atrium area is open to the sky. This is probably one of the best features of this house, and makes for some memorable times. Like when one of our friends’ kids got pretty confused about being inside the house but also seeing the moon straight overhead. Or when we watched a certain little boy running laps with much glee through the living room, down the hall, out into the atrium and back again through the living room soon after we moved in. Or how my mom would never know which shortcut to take to get to the kitchen when visiting. She may have gotten lost once or twice.

I hope this helps sort out how things are laid out, as I take you all through the house.

Did you notice the door from the second bathroom opens to the outside? We’re still wondering why this was done. Does your home have any surprising features that you discovered after moving in?

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