Drop Dead Gorgeous Real wood, like real women, has curves. Tree trunks aren't square and branches don't search for sunlight in parallel lines; they swerve up, bend, and dip. The current taste for retro modernism celebrates clean straight lines and stark angles, creating interiors that are paper-cut sharp. So any hint of a sway is a reason to celebrate. The stunning, polished ebony Drop coffee table by Italian designer Giorgio Soressi for the company Trend Sofa, available at Bravura (534 West Pender Street), adds a little spice to linear spaces. Its natural stripes in shades of chocolate and its round base (perched securely on a hidden flat pedestal) make a bold statement-not surprising, considering that Soressi has also designed for the fashion house Fendi. The Drop table is 19 by 80 by 131 centimetres. It also comes in wenge and natural cherry, and sells for $1,498. Meanwhile, Soressi's Shanghai coffee table manages to be long, slender, and supple yet substantially heavy and grounded. Both ends of the table's 150 centimetres swing up in a playful reference perhaps to pagoda wings. With its combination of solid construction, curves, and dark wenge, this piece fits perfectly into our West Coast style. The Shanghai table stands 20 centimetres high and is 50 centimetres wide, and sells for $1,998.
Natural Geometry Victoria furniture maker Ken Guenter looks to the past and the paintbox for his evocative pieces. Each is one of a kind, even the Fraternal Twins stereo towers, originally conceived as a response to 9/11. A subsequent visit to Versailles provided further inspiration-and names. Curvaceous mahogany and wenge wood details combine in Minuet. Primary-coloured dots decorate Polka. You can check out Guenter's approach in Of Curves and Colours. On through Tuesday (May 3), the exhibit at Circle Craft Gallery (in the Net Loft on Granville Island) also includes the Primary Issues table based on a 17th-century style that transforms it from triangle to circle. In the Louis Credenza art deco-meets-neoclassical with scarlet touches of Bauhaus. If you can't make the show, check the site at www.ofthewoodsfurniture.com/.
'60s Light Show Think of a beaded curtain circa San Francisco's tie-dyed-to-death Haight-Ashbury during the 1967 summer of love, replace the beads with tiny, multicoloured electric lights, and you've got Skina ($14.95), a "curtain" of lights brand new in IKEA's summer catalogue. Each groovy drape is 18 centimetres wide, 11 centimetres deep, and 23 centimetres long, and comes with five extra bulbs. They'd be great as décor for a summer patio party, but they're designed for indoor use, so bring them in when the fun is over. These lights are a real turn-on; just go ask Alice when she's 10 feet tall.
Creme de la Castoffs The rich are different from you and me. They drop $9,600 on a yellow-cream damask silk camelback sofa and when it's time to redecorate, simply consign it. At the Carriage House (505 Railway Street in the Alexander Design Center), it's yours, in perfect condition, for $2,400. Fancy Marge Carson leather-and-suede campaign chairs that might normally run you $2,400 a pop? Try $750. Typical savings at this up-market consignment store are 70 percent off nearly new, or new samples and discontinued styles from the worldwide showrooms of designer-manufacturer William Switzer & Associates. Currently in the 10,000-square-foot space are French country pine armoires, Biedermeier-style chairs, bar stools, art, and 180 Persian rugs. If the income-tax vultures are hovering, the Carriage House has a lay-away program for those Apprentice boardroom chairs you're eyeing.
Spring Bulbs Paint may be the quick and easy fix to set the mood of a room, but lighting is just as critical. Lighting, however, involves quite a bit more research and patience. Sistemalux (available at SLS, 22 West 2nd Avenue) is a Canadian-born company out of Montreal and offers the gamut in lighting technology: halogen, HID, fluorescent, and LED. Worth examining is its Cool Line for Interiors (www.sistemalux.com/). The bulbs are made of Italian blown white glass and cast a gently diffused light. Queen, one product within the line, reads like the minimalist version of a classic chandelier: eight candlelike cylinders sit perched on a grey square frame. The look obviously works within a décor of clean lines but try it in a more eclectic room, matched with a chestnut table and heavy, filigreed flatware.
Debbie Does Cheerful Given the power of colour and light to affect one's mood, it's no surprise that the new Debbie Travis Paint collection (available at various Canadian Tire locations) is based on this theme. Travis has divided her colour offerings into four themes: calm, cheerful, nostalgic, dramatic. She's also thrown in an essential-whites palette for the colourphobic. (Although, choosing the correct white-vintage white, ivory white, crystal white, et cetera-is more likely to drive someone around the bend than selecting a simple orange or blue.) The paint line features 348 colours. The DIY guru advises that before starting the decorating process: "First choose a mood for a room…then choose a colour." Given that artists such as Charles Baudelaire heard music when they saw certain colours (a condition called synesthesia), looks like ol' Deb is on the right track.
Days of Swine & Roses They aren't quite as easy to swipe as the garden gnome or the pink flamingo on your neighbour's fastidious lawn but serve pretty much the same purpose. Ital Decor Ltd. in Burnaby (6886 East Hastings Street, www.italdecorltd.com/) offers garden ornaments of fibreglass, concrete, cast marble, cast ivory, and plaster, with most any top finish or patina conceivable. Rustic, copper, and porcelain are among the options. Roberto Tinucci of the founding family adds that the large pigs ($250) are so popular they can hardly keep them in stock, especially on Mother's Day. Hmmm… Paint the pigs to look real or leave them looking petrified in the grey cement in which they arrive, they are the ultimate in stoic art.
Hod Goddesses The stories behind New England cottages, getaway cabins, and other hand-crafted homes-all built by women-are evocatively detailed in The House That Jill Built: A Woman's Guide to Home Building (Gibbs Smith, $33.95). Author Judy Ostrow breaks new ground with case histories that don't play down the sweat and years involved. Photos by Karen Leffler show the results: houses of unusual warmth and character created, almost always, on a tight budget. From where to find land to how to get money, user-friendly information and sources give self-starters the basics they need to start dreaming about what to construct on their own piece of Gulf Islands heaven.
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