Design

Once a while we found a vendor that we just love. Arteriors is one of them. A home accessories company, Arteriors' core strength is its lighting products. Here are a few of their chandeliers that we just adore: Catalonia Chandelier $3250 Copacabana Coconut Chandelier $2375 Pagoda Chandelier $920 Medina Chandelier $875 Kensington Chandelier $2750 Louis Chandelier $1750 Stratford Chandelier $1125 St. Charles Chandelier $1325 Giovanni Chandelier $1250 Parisian Chandelier $3250 To see more of Arteriors products, you can visit their website . Arteriors does not sell to the consumers directly, however. If you need help in purchasing any of their products, please contact us . We'll be more than happy to help.

Christmas Tour Part II: Come inside for a peek at some of our decorations for Christmas. This will be our first Christmas in several years with all our kids at home.

Christmas tour part I: Considering hubby has been away during the time to decorate for Christmas, I have had limited time and muscle for the task at hand. Part I consists of a peek at our winter wonderland just outside our front door.

Wonderful areas rich in biodiversity are natural gardens, and great places to visit. We like to travel to interesting natural areas around the world, focusing on areas that are rich in natural history and culture. We're off for semester break in South India this year; look for travelblog posts (if I have the opportunity)!

Bar stool is one of the hardest items to shop for, isn't it? It's rare to find ones that look cool, be well-constructed, yet affordable. We recently found some that we just love: Brown Leather Modern Barstool This one is upholstered in top grain leather and is superly made. It comes in brown, black and white leather. No assembly needed! Best of all, the seat height is adjustable. Here's a new one that just so sleek and simple, we expect to see it in Met Home any day now... And for sheer comfort, nothing beats this one: For more cool, modern barstools, check out the barstool section.

I looked out the breakfast room window this morning and caught a glimpse of the crescent moon framed by clouds tinted a rich purple by the sunrise. By the time I took this picture, the color had faded somewhat, as the light brightened. It reminded me of sunrises in the tropics, as we seldom have such vivid early morning color.

I hadn't rooted cuttings much before, and I thought I'd try some Spanish lavender (lovely flowers most of the summer) and an amazingly hardy red climbing rose in front of the house. (The lavender image is from a fellow blogger from Alabama: somethingthatwontcompute.blogspot.com.) The rose has flowered season after season with no help from us; it scrambles up an old dogwood tree, and then flowers and flowers. Drought didn't stop it; light frosts are shrugged off. It's amazing. We don't water, fertilize, spray -- it's definitely a rose to grow! But since it pre-dates us, and is of no recognizable variety (without doing any research), I thought cuttings would be easy enough to try. So in late summer, I took tip cuttings of the lavender and of the rose (this was in the depths of our dreadful August heat), dipped them in some Rootone that I'd had for awhile, and stuck them in some pots filled with half and half vermiculite and potting mix. I checked them

It hasn't been a week for gardening -- we finally got some rain (half an inch last Friday) and almost 7/10 of an inch yesterday. In the drought we're in, counting every drop is important. We're worrying about the long-term forecast; my colleague sent an e-mail about hearing that the National Weather Service has projected drought through next summer. It's cool now, but any soil recharge we get is great. Here in SC, we're (at least as a public garden) thinking about whether we can water next summer -- I'm expecting that we'll have mandatory restrictions like our neighboring states of Georgia and North Carolina. What's been fun, however, is the parade of birds through our home garden. They're definitely enjoying the water I put in the birdbath and large dishes on the ground. In recent school programs at the botanical garden where I work, I've enjoyed pointing out woodpeckers, bat boxes (we have bats that roost in the trees, and use the boxes a

Leaving for work this morning, rustling sounds in the frost-bitten swamp sunflowers caught my attention. I'd seen some goldfinches foraging for seeds there last weekend. They're dull in color now, nothing like their spring and summer colors. But these birds were foraging on the ground, poking around in the leaf litter. There were probably 5 or 6 of them in a small area, joined by a Eastern Towhee kicking the leaf litter. They scuffled around a bit like the towhee, kicking the litter, bringing up seeds to eat. Their distinctive striped heads seemed to fit white-crowned sparrows, but I didn't have my binoculars with me as I left the house!

It was absolutely lovely in the garden this morning; the fall color is still bright, as the leaves come down and sprinkle the landscape with color. But it's unusually warm, the kind of "Indian summer" day we used to have in September and October, not in mid-November. On the front steps, there was a sudden emergence of hundreds of winged insects -- they looked like ants and I'll have to figure out what they were. In any case, it's not the time of the year to be hatching! I did my favorite program this morning for a garden club in a nearby city (this permutation was Gardening for Nature ). Actually the location was in a semirural area west of town. In what used to be rolling farm fields, subdivisions and shopping areas have popped up and lakeside houses now dot the nearby shore of Lake Hartwell. They were a great group, amazingly energetic with their outreach and volunteer activities. It was not only gardening and planting activities that they were involved wi

We have an old Paulownia (Princess tree) in the back that's not in great shape. We haven't bothered much with it, since we figure it's eventually going to die, so not worth it to take out before then. Paulownias are tremendously weedy in many areas, but this one, probably since it's on its own, is not producing viable seeds, at least there's no sign of seedlings. So when the powerline trimmers came through, I wasn't too concerned about it, as long as it looked halfway decent. I was out planting some last winter color things ( Violas and kale) & started hearing a rhythmic call coming from the Paulownia. It turned out to be a male red-bellied woodpecker foraging, punctuating his activity with calls.

There was ice on the birdbath this morning, reflecting the first good freeze after several hard frosts. The strong winds yesterday brought down many leaves, but many trees are still lovely. The fothergilla in the back has turned bright orangey-red, quite spectacular. The ginkgo behind the garden shed lost all of its leaves this morning in one graceful pool - ginkgos make a habit of that.

We love the colors of Spring and Summer with our trips to the shore and wanted our family room to have the same cheerfulness those seasons encapture, all year long. The blue reminds us of the ocean and sky and green of trees and grass.

A serene, cerulean blue palette lends this master bedroom a sense of tranquility. Eric Prokesh uses shades of blue, fluffy soft whites, and shimmering silver pieces in this heavenly bedroom, which proves that linens do not have to be overstuffed to be luxurious. Simple shams and a coverlet set off the hand-painted headboard. This lady's writing desk holds a pair of 18th-century terra-cotta busts of French philosophers.

We've had lovely fall color despite the extreme drought-- the yellows and reds have been great; drought stress sometimes stimulates the anthocynanin production that provides the orange, red, and maroon colors. Some of the oaks will probably drop their leaves without much color change. And other species are late to change color; probably the temperatures haven't been cold enough yet. Trying to figure out the maple species whose image I took along the square in historic Pendleton, SC was interesting; one tidbit I learned was that our maples, especially red maple, are planted widely in Great Britain for their fall color. Acer rubrum (red maple), Acer leucoderme (chalk maple), Acer barbatum (Southern sugar maple) and Acer saccharum (Sugar maple) all have nice fall color here, ranging from yellows, to orange, red, and scarlet.

Interior design is the process of shaping the experience of interior space, through the manipulation of spatial volume as well as surface treatment. Not to be confused with interior decoration, interior design draws on aspects of environmental psychology, architecture, and product design in addition to traditional decoration ( Wikipedia ). Interior Design - Home Decorating a home is about finding a comfortable balance between the different furnishings in the space such as living room, dining room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. By reading my interior design articles, hope you will be able to put together an entire room or an entire home and have the design flow well throughout the home. The common step for you to start interior design for your home are : Choose either a theme or a color scheme If you have been choosed some furniture or other decorations item to fill your house, then these items may have to set the color scheme for the room by selecting the paint color or wallpaper for

Dining room is a formal room dedicated to the serving of meals or eating. Now, We'll talk about how to get and create beautiful and nice Interior design for dining room. A dining room can be such a fantastic place to entertain, but it can easily be underused if you often eat in the kitchen or in front of the telly instead. Ever wondered why the red color is a popular color for design of restaurants and dining rooms? It's easy to be answer, because it stimulates the appetite. Other colors to get your mouth watering are orange and yellow. When you make design for your dining room, the dining table and chairs are also very important as a central feature. Antique tablecloths and dresses can be cut up to make colorful napkins, and the napkins should be folded neatly and placed in the center of each setting. You can choose from many selection or style of dining room furniture sets.   A dining rooms should be light and airy, try to make the most of natural light. If the room is natura

Living rooms are mostly used with a family to sit together in which the family lived - multi-functional space for relaxing, watching television, reading, listening to music and entertaining guests. Interior Design or Interior Decorating idea for living room are base on the room size, kind of use, and also how much the budget was plan. There are some of design model for living room such as formal living room, modern living room and standard living room. Interior design for formal living rooms and modern living room usually use rich and more expensive material and a strict symmetry, and also may use bright spicy colors and variety of textures to create unusual look. Bellow are some tips to help you how to start design or decorate your living room ; 1. Determine design style or layout your living room. See as much as possible home decorating magazines such as Asian design style, Europe design style, Franch design style, then decide which one you like. You can mix them to create a style t

Inspired by a Roy Lichtenstein painting, the flat, clean colors of this living room are outlined with electrical tape to capture the crisp, cartoonish effect of the artist's 1990s "Interiors" series.

Anything we plant - anything green - helps take up CO2 -- plants convert CO2 to sugars and produce oxygen -- that conversion is why there's life on Earth. Perhaps our local planting efforts are minor, but all of us that garden DO collectively have a positive effect. Green spaces instead of asphalt, adding trees, shrubs, and perennials -- this adds up as an antidote to urban/suburban heat islands. But it seems like it's time to actively promote greening our communities, new residential areas, commercial developments, etc. Certainly this has been important for awhile, but why not step up our efforts? The largest city near us -- Greenville, SC -- is having a difficult time passing a tree ordinance. Our traditional 'don't tell us what to do with our property' stance in SC has emerged. But, really, trees vs. asphalt? Which is better for us?

Wood paneling, checkerboard tile, and a painted tub lend this bathroom a cottage aesthetic. On the side table, gingham fabric and a vase of fresh flowers make the space feel cozy.

We're expecting temperatures to dip below freezing tonight here. We've already had a few light frosts, primarily evident in low-lying or exposed areas. A lovely white-flowered Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost' that I'd planted in one of my containers was already showing the effects of cooler weather; coming from warmer regions of the world, it went into decline when night temperatures went below 40°F. An exposed Portulaca was similar, looking quite stressed after one of the frosts. I harvested all of the last peppers this afternoon -- the poblanos and thick-walled 'pizza' peppers, along with a few last pimento peppers. I'd already picked the final few tomatoes, and will need to figure out what to do with the green tomatoes. Relish? Chutney? Some sort of green salsa? I can roast and freeze all the peppers, but maybe I should also try to roast the green tomatoes, and freeze them, too. After my enthusiasm for making jams & jellies when I was younger, I&

The bedroom is a space that inside the house which We spend the most time in. Weather its good or not, like it or not, but We need to sleep to be able to function. So, why We don't make it our personal haven with the use of interior design or interior decorating. Interior design for bedroom are depend on individual style, who will use for such as the children, adult, new married, or may its preparing for your guest or family when they wan to stay on your house for few days. To make nice bedroom's design for the children you need to remember that the rooms for children should reflect their interests, such as color of wall, toys, furniture elements and also the picture. Creative flooring patterns can also be a good starting point. Try to make an easy or simple design layout, give them space for play on their room. Choose the right light for children, Kids have slightly different lighting needs from adults. Bedroom design for an adult we can create a modern or trendy color for