Some clever decorating ideas for simple living

Swiss or Swedish? Who can tell the difference? Well, the former has alps, the latter doesn't. 

Seriously - this Swiss cottage in the mountains was photographed last December

 by Jérôme Galland for Marie Claire Maison.

Lots of interesting design ideas to be inspired by.  

An old favorite is clean, built in storage. Another is the bed facing the window. 

No frills. Take the kitchen: just the basic necessities in wood and steel.

A place to wind down and relax, don't you think? Like this Norwegian cottage

I wrote about yesterday here. Much more color, but just as relaxing. 

  

Tub Love

Love this circular "tub". 

Could it be an old wash- or laundry basin put to new use? Clever. 

Have no idea where it's from, or who took the pic, 

so let me know if you do.

It's fun to play with light

 I love light in all shapes and forms. 

In my work I use daylight and lamps to show off interesting 

features in a room. And to create a space within a space. 

How do you use light in your home and workspace?

Image via

Clay - moving in the wind. Kind of.

Just for fun - here is another set of pictures from my recent experiment with clay. 

This time it's a bowl with a yellow glaze on the inside and green glaze on the outside.  

I was not sure how the ragged bits in the rim would come out, but it goes well

with the over all asymmetric look that I was going for. 

Wabi Sabi getaway in Norway

Don't you think this Norwegian Hytte (weekend getaway) covers

many of the qualities, so typical for Wabi Sabi? 

All those natural materials. All that simplicity and tranquility. 

It may not be old and rusty, but it will

certainly age with grace. Via

A glimpse of my most recent work

You may noticed that I continue my spring cleaning here on the blog. 

Today I've tried to create new headers for this blog and my other blog Creative Living. 

I'm still not happy with this one. Have to tweak it a bit more... 

Something I am happy with, though, is my recent ceramic experiments. 

As you can see from the first three pictures below, I've tried to make clay 

look like cloth. What do you think - does it work?

Sorry about the bit of leaf on this one. I took these pics outdoors, 

and my fingers must have been dirty! Oh well... 

And here are a few other plates and bowls, 

where I've experimented with different glazes and raku.

Wabi Sabi Dining

Serene dining area, by Claudio Silvestrin. 

Imaging being able to keep you own living space in such order... 

Not realistic in my world, but love it! 

Snow white

Odd. We had snow today. I just hope it's a one off. That spring returns tomorrow. 

Or the day after. Had planned to spend Easter working in the garden. 

See the green grass grow, make some new flower beds, plant some seeds.

As it is - I think I'll accept this is a weekend in white. All white. 

What's it like where you are?

Images are from top left-right by/via:

1. me (view from my house) + beautiful envelop

2. via

3. unknown star + Residence Mag. 

4. flickr + Amica minimal fashion

5. Silver fox + flickr

6. Japanese paper airvases + unknown kitchen

7. via + happy rabbit

8. Ceramic "bowls" photographed by me + paper spheres by Yoshinobu Miyamoto

9. linen + via

10. Country Living

11. A walk in the snow

Welcome to designer Dorothee Schumacher's Animal Farm

I came across these images over at the Selby. What a lovely house and "garden". It's the German home of fashion designer Dorothee Schumacher , where she lives with all her chickens, horses, pigs and rabbits. A lovely, mini Noah's Ark. Head over to the Selby for more images of her home.