Inspiration - vintage interiors(from the Café archives)

Fabulously mysterious interiors styled with vintage furniture, accessories and props - all from here.

Restoration reproduction

After I posted that job listing yesterday and that great pic of the reproduction postal desk I became quite obsessed with Restoration Hardware's office furniture. I know it's a bit masculine but I really love the industrial style of these pieces. They are extraordinarily expensive but, gosh, I really like them. I love the patina and the huge scale of the pieces. This first piece, the desk, is zinc - so cool! RH really does a good job of reproductions. These pieces may not be to your taste but perhaps you can be inspired in some way :-)

Window Shopping - vintage finds at PB

Pottery Barn offers much cooler stuff online than in their stores - a way better selection of all the great stuff that we've alway loved about PB. Right now they have some very cool VINTAGE pieces including these train mirror/luggage racks, old sewing machines, cameras and giant apothecary jars. I really like that they include half a dozen shots of how to decorate using these great old pieces - nice job PB!

A couple of very beautiful photographs from Paper Treasure. I'm sure you love the styling of these images - just as I do. I don't post a lot of interiors here anymore - mostly because it seems that everyone has an interior design blog these days and can do it so much better than I can :-)

John Ward

We have a new café in Nelson. My friend Amy opened the John Ward Café 2 days ago in THE BEST location in Nelson. I'm very excited for her and very excited that she asked me to design a logo for her. Thanks Amy! So I headed in to Nelson yesterday morning to have my first latté and I was so impressed with the space - especially the cool vintage wall treatment. Apparently a friend had found these old boards, from vintage packing crates, in the wall of an old house they were renovating in Nelson and asked Amy if she could use them - she's so creative(as is her whole family) So they put them to good use, on the wall and I thinks it's fab fab fab! I couldn't wait to show you because I know you are going to love it too. . . . .

All Saints

On Saturday we were having a wonderful wander around SF with our friends Martin and Cate from Blanket. It was the only wet day that we had on the trip so we spent a lot of time in shops, restaurants and wine bars! Cate and I squealed when we ran across All Saints (Cate used to live in London so she was very excited to see a familiar shop) So if you look carefully at these images you can see that every window of this tall storefront is filled with cast iron, victorian, sewing machines - seriously there are hundreds of them! This is so up my alley I couldn't wait to explore the interior. So I sent Doug on a photo shoot while Cate and I drooled over the bags, shoes and jewelry(not so much the clothes, that seemed to be a bit 'Goth' for us.)

Note the sewing machines in all the windows.

How cool is this traditional white and gold window decal?

Sewing machines, sewing machines, sewing machines . . . .

Can you see the wooden spools on the wall? - there are hundreds of them(below)

The retail space itself is so impressive with huge industrial fixtures, tables and signage.

All Saints, 140 Geary Street, San Francisco 94108

Interior Inspiration

I pretty much love everything in the new House Doctor catalogue - they really know how to do that modern country/light industrial look. And their catalogue is so darn pretty!