Check out this bowl designed for people who love Pi. Via Neatorama.

Tags: pi

I was just reading an article in a design magazine about a very unique design approach that has been taken by a Japanese mental health clinic located in Tokyo. The design uses a variety of different tricks that would likely confuse the mind. For example, there are doors located all throughout the mental health hospital but the doors don’t actually open. How do you get into the rooms if the doors don’t open? Well, there are hidden doors located behind bookcases and in the center of walls adorned with decorations.

It sounds almost like a form of torture doesn’t it? Here you are, trying to gather together your sanity, and everything that should be normal around you is different from the way that it’s supposed to be. It sounds confusing. It sounds frightening. But perhaps it’s exactly the opposite. Perhaps this unique approach to design could be the thing that helps to heal patients.

The thinking behind this design is that it’s a truly hands-on, day-to-day method of getting everyone in the facility to think outside of the box. When your normal surroundings are altered in a very unusual way like this, you are forced to think differently. You are forced to be more creative. This could have a very beneficial impact on altering the negative states of mind of the patients who come to receive help at the mental health clinic. It might even have a positive effect on the thinking patterns of staff and visitors.

As beautifully described by the magazine:

“By providing alternate perspectives for viewing the world, and avoiding being trapped by pre-existing perceptions, the interior allows visitors–and staff members–to experience opening new doors in their hearts, one after the other.”

It’s a fascinating idea isn’t it?

Tags: design, hidden rooms, japanese design, mental health clinic, unique design

One of the topics that I write about weekly (twice-weekly actually) is interior design. I try to come up with creative ideas for home design which I write about in picture-rich ideabooks over at Houzz.com. Houzz is a good site where you can sign up to collect pictures of projects that you might want to do (and you can add notes to yourself or others in text if you want).

I’ve made a whole lot of different collections through the site. I like exploring all different areas of home decorating. I’m always changing up my own house. Lately I seem to be following a new theme though – a theme of making your home fun. Two of my recent ideabooks were on using polka dots and making your home feel Hawaiian.

I think that this is a sign that I want to do something more fun with my home. I’ve made the bathroom and kitchen pretty fun. The bathroom is a flirty style and the kitchen is a retro look. Now I’ve got to move on to the rest of the apartment. I’m a little more stuck there as to what I want to do. I know that I want it to be colorful but I’m just not sure how colorful or in what style. I’ve got some thinking to do!

Tags: decorating, fun design, houzz, Interior Design

As you might know if you read this blog regularly, I’ve been putting together ideabooks on different home decor topics over at Houzz.com. I thought I’d share the links to some of my favorite ideabooks in case you have an interest in this topic.

Links to the best ideabooks I’ve written:

• Sophisticated and Fun: Good Design Can Be Both
• How to Add a Jacuzzi to your Home
• Home Design for the TwentySomething Person
• Save Old Furniture with Bohemian Chic Decor
• Awesome Stairway Ideas

Links to some of the best ideabooks by other Houzz authors:

• Not Exactly Roughing It: Fancy Camping by Kit Pollard
• Workspaces that Stimulate Creativity by txranchgirl
• Favorite Front Porches by Becky
• Decorative Bedding Done Right by Rachel_M
• Warm Up to Fireplaces by jerrifarris

Does anyone else use Houzz? Share your Houzz URL in the comments.

Tags: home, houzz, Interior Design, Link Love

I recently wrote a post on this site about some really cool cooker hoods for kitchen stoves. Although I included links to where you could see those cooker hoods, I didn’t include many pictures. Several people told me that they wanted to see what really cool cooker hoods look like. So I wrote another article featuring 10 awesome cooker hoods. That article is photo-heavy so if you’re a SmartChick (or SmartGuy) who wants to see some pics of what cooker hoods can look like then you may want to check out that article.

And now I’d like to put a question out there: what other kitchen appliances (or home furniture) in general would you like to see more articles about? There aren’t too many articles on the topic of cooker hoods and I like to pride myself on topics like this that aren’t widely covered. Your suggestions are welcome!

Tags: cooker hoods, hubpages, kathryn vercillo

As you might have noticed from some of my interior design posts on this site, I tend to enjoy an eclectic mixture of high-end and low-end décor. On the one hand, I really love vintage pieces that can be found at affordable prices through thrift stores and yard sales. On the other hand, I also like well-designed, high-priced items that serve as conversation pieces in my home.

My kitchen is a room in the home where you can see this eclectic style at work. It’s designed in a retro 1950’s style. There’s a vintage apron hanging on the walls. There are posters and calendars from Anne Taintor. Most of the design of the room required very little investment money. However, I have a few accessories that didn’t come cheap including a fancy espresso machine and an awesome coffee maker. (Gee, can we tell what my biggest vice is?)

One of the things that I’d really love to get for the kitchen would be an amazing stove. Unfortunately, my apartment building isn’t going to allow me to get something like this. My best alternative option would be to get a really awesome high-end grill. I’ve been looking at Lynx Grills online and daydreaming about what it would like to get one.

The Lynx Grill is a highly sophisticated, stylish grill. It’s got a great modern design which is one reason that I love it. However, I also like Lynx Grills because they are so amazingly functional. They take your normal barbecue experience and ramp it up a few notches to allow you to do high-quality grilling at home. Durability, safety and easy clean-up are some of the words used to describe these grills.

If I did get a grill like this then I would need to store it in my kitchen when it wasn’t in use. That’s because my apartment complex has a shared yard area and I wouldn’t want to leave it out for others to use. I’d need to get a grill that was portable and one that matched the mostly-vintage look of my kitchen. I’ve seen a few that I like which meet this criteria.

People who know me will know that I tend to live within a fairly strict budget. So how is it that I could justify the expense of something like a Lynx Grill? It’s because I know that being frugal means getting the bets buy for your money. Since I’m not going to replace my kitchen stove, it’d be worth it to invest in a really amazing grill!

Tags: grilling, kitchen, lynx grills, outdoor, style

Just thought I’d share a picture of my bathroom. I happen to love my bathroom. Here you can see that i’ve got a flirty shower curtain and a pretty purple toilet seat cover with matching bath mat. I also have burlesque pictures on the wall, a beautiful grey/white soap dispenser and the Flower Girl vase that you’ve seen pictured in other photos here before.

Tags: bathroom design, decor, feminine bathroom, kathryn vercillo, Photos, pictures, pretty bathroom

I recently realized that I don’t own any sort of wall clock or standing clock. I definitely have clocks around (on my TV, my microwave, my computer, my coffee maker and my cell phone) but I don’t actually own a clock that stands alone as a clock. How strange.

I had some really cool clocks growing up. At one point in time, my bedroom was decorated in black and hot pink. (What can I say, I was ten.) I had a clock that matched that decor. Later, I got a blue speckled wall clock that set a moer calming tone for the room. And although I never got one, I eventually longed for one of those cool digital clocks that displays the date and time in LED lights that hover in the air.

Now that I’ve noticed that I don’t have a wall clock, I realize that it’s been a really long time since I’ve had a wall clock. I don’t particularly need one but I do think that they add something to a room. I’ve been exploring different options for clocks. What I’m enjoying most is the retro or vintage style of wall clock. This makes sense since this is the vibe already going in my kitchen which is where I’d be most likely to hang a wall clock. A style like the one pictured above is what I have in mind but I’m curious about what else is out there.

Any other SmartChicks (or SmartGuys) happen to know a good place to start looking for a modern retro kitchen clock (preferably with a red design)?

Tags: clocks, decor, retro clock, vintage clock, wall clock

There are two different pieces of furniture that I have always been drawn to for my living room or bedroom space: the fainting couch and the chaise lounge. For a long time, I thought that these two items were the same thing. However, as I’ve started to look at actually purchasing something like this for my home, I’ve started to realize that they are quite different indeed.

The reason that I thought that these two things were the same for so long was because they have the same basic shape and size. They are the size of a small couch. They are typically rectangular in shape. And they usually have four legs to support them. I also thought they were the same because both pieces of furniture were popular in the nineteenth century and have resurfaced as great vintage pieces today. Both items typically also have just a single arm although modern designs may differ on each of them.

So what’s the difference between the fainting couch and the chaise lounge? The shape and placement of the back of this piece of furniture are what distinguish one from the other. The back of the fainting couch runs alongside the longer side of the couch (as it would with any couch) whereas the back of the chaise lounge is at the shorter end (like you would find with a chair). The fainting couch tends to have a back that is high on one end and low on the other whereas the chaise lounge has a back that’s the same height all the way across.

If I had to choose, I prefer the style of the fainting couch although I’d probably be more likely to get a chaise lounge since it would fit better with the style of my home.

Tags: chaise, chaise lounge, chaise vs. fainting couch, fainting couch, furniture, houzz, kathryn vercillo, resting, vintage furniture

One of the places where I publish my writing is Houzz.com. This is a site that is loaded with great photos related to home design. I like to put together ideabooks there where I compile photos around a specific design subject and write about my thoughts on them. Recently one of the articles I did there was about bathroom sinks that are shaped like bowls. These are also called vessel sinks.

There are quite a few different designs for these types of sinks. However, the style that I like best is the style shown in the picture on this post. The sink actually looks like a ceramic bowl which is simply sitting on the counter. Some of the reasons that I’m drawn to this style of sink include:

• Natural design. I find the ceramic or clay pot feel of these sinks to really evoke a natural feeling. I like bathrooms that feel like a spa and I think this is conducive to that kind of earthy relaxed feeling.
• Small shape. Every bathroom I’ve ever had was small so I appreciate sinks, tubs and toilets that don’t take up a lot of room in the bathroom.
• Easier to decorate around. I think that these designs lend themselves to decorating with neat soap dispensers and vases which is something I like to have in my bathroom.
• Unique but not odd. I think these bowls have a really unique shape that differs from the standard sink. However, they’re common enough not to be too weird.

I’m really drawn to these types of sinks and plan to look at more of them to see if there’s a particular style or brand that I like best.

Tags: bathroom, bowl sinks, home, houzz, kathryn vercillo, sink shaped like bowl, vessel sink