Profiled by the Decorating Diva
My great friend Carmen writes the great website The Decorating Diva . Back in February, Carmen asked me to put together a Designer's Look Book for her site . Designer's Look Books are a regularly-appearing feature on The Decorating Diva. Carmen asks a designer to put together a list of selections and then Carmen assembles everything into a single page look book. To say I'm honored by this is an understatement.
The things I put together for Carmen are a departure from my usual fare and it was a blast to really run with that. Carmen's request came at the same time that I was working on my presentations for KBIS, one of which covers something I'm calling New Traditionalism. That's also the name of my presentation.
New Traditionalism is an aesthetic I first started seeing on design blog's like Gina Milne's Willow Decor , Joni Webb's Cote de Texas , Things That Inspire and Decorno . There are many more of course, but they're the ones that come to mind.
Maybe it's just me and my market but the Las Vegas-inspired Mediterranean kitchens that have been all the rage more than one years ago have disappeared completely. To that I say Hallelujah.
This seems to be a trend that was started by Christopher Peacock but it's been taken and run with by Mick De Giulio and countless others. It started on the extreme high end and trickled down pretty quickly and I swear half of my calls come from people who are looking for white painted cabinets and marble counters. I don't think it's a bad thing at all but it's important to remember that this aesthetic, like the ones that preceded it, is a trend. It's a throw back to an earlier time and it takes a lot of its cues from the early 20th century. But in the early 20th century, a kitchen was a dark room in the back of the house. This is pure trend. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's important to call things what they are.
Anyhow, I even have a hard time choosing finishes for the concept of a room. I need a real room to paintings with. Here's one in every of my angle drawings.
This is also the room I had in mind when I put together a Look Book for Carmen. It fits this New Traditionalism aesthetic pretty well if I may say so myself and some of the finishes I listed for it in my Look Book are:
A walnut table from Spekva .
Pasadena Chairs from Thos. Moser.
Calacatta Gold marble.
An Aga Legacy range .
A bronze sink from Rocky Mountain hardware .
A chandelier from Vaughan Designs .
They're just my favorites. Check out the rest of my finishes for this room on The Decorating Diva and let me know what you think. What do you think too about this whole New Traditionalism thing? I'm I onto something or am I out to lunch?