Posts from — April 2010

The dining area is usually where families, busy as they are, come together for meals. It is a place where families converse about the events of the day, happenings at work, discussions about school, and perhaps the occasional (perhaps frequent) banter about one of the Premier League’s top four clubs.

Many yearn to have the dining hall separate from the living area and this is usually achieved in medium to large sized landed properties rather than small to medium sized apartments. However, even in apartments, I’ve seen folks convert an unused bedroom into the dining area to great effect. Done well, it can create a wonderful sense of privacy, a very cozy feel coupled with possibly a great view. If you’re planning to convert a room into a dining space, consider using large wall mirrors to provide additional spatial sense thus making the dining feel larger than it actually is. Large horizontally stretched mirrors, ideally not much longer than the length of the dining table is ideal. However, if space becomes a constraint, a mirror hung vertically can create a desired effect as well. A classy cutlery cabinet is always a nice addition and makes preparation a lot more convenient too.

Finding the right dining set

Before wading through seas of furniture, you need to be able to identify with the theme of your dining room. As with anything in life, decision making is less complicated when you know WHAT it is you want – in this case, having a rough inkling of that helps to greatly narrow down your options when you step into furniture outlets. The dining hall is a place where families and their guests get together to eat, drink and be merry hence it is critical that the furniture you choose for it reflects your personality which in turn connects with a theme you might have in your head. For a classy look, cherry or dark wood finishing with a tempered glass top is always going to work in most any home. If your dining hall is generally painted or littered with items of a dark shade of colour, a light coloured dining table will draw attention to it.

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We’re always bombarded with contemporary furniture that only does one thing: comfort. There’s nothing wrong with sturdy furniture that caters to your relaxation. But, why should you settle for less when you can get more? Traditional sofas are too small for large guest rooms. The T35 modern sectional sofa is your solution to a sleek and functional sofa that invites you to sit and relax.

In June last year, a chap by the name of Henry approached me seeking opinions about setting up an online business selling quality fabrics to the Australian market. The key things I spoke about then were about a user-friendly site display, clear furnishing options, strong delivery capabilities, and above all, easy payment options.

The site, comfortworks.com.au was officially launched on 7 April 2010 and features interactive products and fabric customization options to allow customers to be ale to view their finished product online before making the purchase.

Here’s the story of how ComfortWorks originated:

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You have a perfect home in mind ? and all you need to do is find the bedroom furniture that fits the bill. Your bedroom is your refuge from daily stress and long hours in the office. Everything in this room possesses a tranquility that becomes your daily refuge. If you?re going for comfort ? might as well go for furniture complete with storage. Concorde modern bed offers a complete package that deserves a spot in your bedroom.

This is the last feature of my fave works from the folks at Rocket Design – Fanelli and Bregoli. Named the ‘clothes track’, this unique wall hanger represents a synthesizer with its dials as the hangers. 2D art with 3D functionality.

This would be a great piece to have in your teenager’s room, accentuating his/her music inclinations. Hats off to the clever folks of Rocket Design for their refreshing and inspiring take on creating household products that ‘rock’

imagesource: RocketDesign

This is so awesome. The ‘extended plane’ is a shelving unit made to look like a casette ejected from a casette player. A little old school for some of you but a tribute to the good old days pre-CD when casettes and walkmans ruled the earth.

Made of wood, the shelf is decorated with vinyl to give it its casette deck look. This is definitely a great conversational piece to have in the home. No doubt it’ll get your guests talking about it and admiring this clever piece. Bregoli and Fanelli, the designers, continue to rock on with their wicked designs

I still clearly remember the first casette dad bought me – Michael Jackson’s BAD. Listened to it every night on the walkman till the battery ran out of juice or till I fell asleep with the earphones on.

imagesource: rocket design

The ‘Wine Jack‘ wine rack is the perfect rack for music enthusiasts to house their bottles of wine in a cleverly designed rack where the slots for the bottles resemble input jacks.

Made from plexiglass and metal, designed and manufactured in Italy, the Wine Jack can accomodate up to 6 bottles with each ‘jack’ labeled uniquely (sterero L, stereo R, video input, headphone input).

The folks from Rocket Design have several really interesting rock themed products of which I’ll be picking the ones I like to be featured in the coming days

imagesource: rocketdesign

Do you know what makes a piece of furniture great? For me, anyway, perhaps the most significant factor which determines whether or not I “like” a piece has to do with versatility in design. Should modern furniture look great? Absolutely. But that isn’t all it needs to be, in order to be truly worthwhile. After all, most modern furniture “looks” good.

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1. It feels totally cozy – doesn’t it feel like a warm family home? It sure does

2. A really nice rug – the rug, taking up 3/4 the width of the hall sits very well with the entire colour scheme, giving it a very clean and refreshing look. Whilst adding a focal point to the space, it does not dictate but complements the wooden floors and sofa.

3. Abundant natural light – Nothing like free day light thrown in from a window to provide ambience to the space. Having the sofas on the opposite end of the window allows just the right amount of light to bath its inhabitants and guests during the day.

4. Simple configuration with lots of free space – a sofa set, a coffee table, a bookshelf and some wall art as well as lamps to complete the hall yet leaving an adequate amount of space for the little ones to toddle around with their toys. This configuration allows the vastness of the space to be truly augmented

imagesource: freshome

Talk about smarts! This is a clever little invention that simplifies life in the kitchen. Don’t you often wish you could just sweep the debris and crumbs after working on your countertop, off the countertop – similar to how the folks at your local roadside stalls simply sweep the debris and leftovers off the tables without a care in the world where it lands?

Well, you could do that at home but it’d just be absurd because then you’d have to clean the floors!

Drawervac is a neat little gadget that fits under your countertop and gets activated when the tray is pulled forward. All you then need to do is sweep all the unwanted debris into the tray and watch it being neatly sucked away.

Watch the Drawervac in action here

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