Cheap n Chic: Seagrass Water Hyacinth Baskets

I love a good-sized storage basket made of natural materials such as Water Hyacinth or Seagrass. Not only are they functional: you can use it practically in any room of your house, may it be a throw basket in your living room, or for storing plush toys in a nursery, or for scarves and hats in your mudroom; they also look great by adding a touch of warmth and rustic nature to your décor.

The best types are those with handles for easy portability.

Pottery Barn's Beachcomber Extra-large Round Basket at $165 is definitely worth the splurge.

 

You can stow away a ton of stuff in its generous 21" x 23" size.

 

 

 
West Elm's Oversize Seagrass Basket at $138 is charming, warm and functional.

World Market's Water Hyacinth Jessica Basket is a Pottery Barn Beachcomber lookalike, smaller but at an affordable $35.

My favourite goes to Indigo's Sweater-Weave Basket made of natural seagrass and is just the right size I was looking for, at a cheap-and-chic price of $39.50.



 

Dining Room: Roman Shades or Blinds

These are the windows in question, and there's not much view outside of them other than our neighbor's redbrick house. 

When we first moved in, I put through a massive order for these blinds to dress up all the windows throughout the house. I like that they look great, practical, easy to clean and resilient to weathering. However, they might also look too utilitarian for a formal dining room I am trying to put together.

So I am contemplating of changing them to roman shades. Did you know there are tens of different types of roman shades, such as the most popular flat roman shade, the classic shade with all the panels folded up and visible in the front, and the slouchy relaxed type. Combined with fabrics, the choices are unlimited.

I am thinking of something like this:

Or something modern and geometric like this:

So would you swap the white blinds I have for my dining room windows with roman shades, or would you leave them as is?

Dining Room Design Board

The attempt to only swap out the dining room chandelier has triggered a domino effect - I've now decided to decorate the entire dining room! Soon I probably should be writing a book titled "Confession of a Serial Decorator".

So this is what I have in mind our new dining room would look like. I might even be sending the two armchairs for a paint and re-upholstery job such that they wouldn't be so matchy-matchy with the rest of the dining set.

With rug.

The white hutch display cabinet and mirrored chest also soften the overall look. I will tell you more about the white hutch display cabinet you see here shortly .

So what do you think? Is there anything you'd change in this design board?

Decorating with Maps and a Giveaway

As a kid I used to collect maps of all the places I had been to. Growing up now into interior design, I see maps as great decorative objects. Because maps have such graphic quality with their sweeping lines, color blocking, and typographic elements, they will work so well decoratively. Map on textile, or the so-called "tourist textile", has been popular for centuries. The use of these map tea towels or napkins are unlimited in today's decor. Just take a look at the following:

Mat them: unexpected but totally works right? It complements the picture by reminding you where it was taken.


Via Martha Stewart

Frame them: they seriously work in any room of a house and make such a worldly statement in the space.

Via Martha Stewart

Remember I framed Alanna Cavanagh's tea towel for my kitchen. I am still loving it.

 

Hang them: or how about turning them into a roman shade?

Via Martha Stewart

So here is your chance to win this true vintage Hudson's Bay Company Map Tea Towel made of 100% linen, sponsored by Monica from Reminisce Vintage. The tea towel measures 30" x 21", has never been used and is in mint condition. It would look great framed for a nursery, a kid's room, a man cave or a home office.

Here are the simple steps to win this tea towel:

• Leave a comment on what you plan to do with this tea towel and where you plan to use it;
• Leave another comment if you tweet about this giveaway (@ AM Dolce Vita). You will receive two entries for this (please leave the same comment twice).
• Follow my blog by clicking the link here and leave a comment to let me know when you've done so.
• You will receive one entry for each comment you leave.

And that's it.

Contest is open to US, Canada and European Union, and a winner will be selected on Friday April 5, 2013. Good luck!

New Project: Basement Office Game Room

A while ago I blogged about turning an empty zone in our basement into a game/craft room but it was put on hold due to other priorities. I am thinking about it again and this time have decided to go through with it.

This is the space I referred to, a pretty good-sized 15' x 10' area. It's the zone outside of my husband's media room, a.k.a. his man cave.

I know I absolutely have to do something when I noticed the space had been turned into a warehouse of late, my wall of shame.

We think we are going to need an extra office so we've decided to turn the space into a basement office/game/craft room. Essentially this is going to be a very flexible and versatile space that will get a lot of use in the future. We would have cabinets run along the 15' wall, put a rectangular table in front of it for game nights or crafting. So here are the options along this long wall.

Option 1: 2 x desks, 1 x built-in bench, and upper wall cabinets. This option is symmetrical and may look the best.

Option 2: 1 x desk, 1 x built-in bench, and upper wall cabinets: we really don't need two desks down there, plus the desk on the right side is going to be too short for it to make any practical sense.

Option 3: similar to Option 2 with 1 x desk, 1 x built-in bench, but NO upper wall cabinets: we really don't need the extra storage from the upper cabinets, and they are usually not deep enough to store anything else but books. Also, our basement ceiling is not exactly that high (touching 8'), so adding wall-to-wall 30"-tall cabinets might be too overwhelming. What we can do though down the road, is to add some wall shelves.

Option 4: 1 x desk, NO built-in bench or upper wall cabinets: I also thought of this option in which we'd go with a very long 5-foot desk centered around the window, flanked by base cabinets. We can still add a long rectangular table in the front. However, this design would require a continuous 15'-long countertop. Assuming we were able to get it custom made, we still wouldn't be able to get it down to the basement (or through the window). We are also concerned that there's not enough support in the middle where the desk is and I don't want use any metal legs.

At the end of this exercise, it seems like we have a clear winner without having to compromise aesthetics or practicality. Could you guess which one we've decided to go with? Which option would you choose?