Addicted: Transparency

As life-long city dwellers, space is always an issue.  One of our favorite tricks for working in a small or crowded room is transparency.  Glass, lucite or otherwise clear furniture creates the illusion of furniture not actually being there, something almost all urban abodes can use.  Case in point, this "is it or isn't it there?" dining room table:

Here are a few transparency tricks we love:


Is your foyer so small it's practically non-existent but you still want something more than a mat to welcome guests?  Start with a lucite console table, hang a mirror above, add some tabletop objects de l'amour and voila, you have a bonafide chic foyer!  

This idea also works for skinny hallways.  The following mirrored console has the same effect.

We've also seen lucite consoles used as a vanity table in a bedroom, for office-less offices (e.g. desks that have to live in living rooms or guest bedrooms) and as a credenza in a  small dining room. 

We also love going transparent for coffee tables and side tables in living rooms.  

In the case of our living room below, using an opaque coffee table would hide one of the biggest design elements in the room -- our boldly striped rug. A clear coffee table allows the rug to be seen and doesn't take up a lot of space in our already crowded room.  We like this idea for nightstands in bedrooms, too.  

Kick the Habit: Dining Room Chairs Don't Have to Hurt

99% of the time our mantra is "form over function," but when it comes to dining room chairs our butts win out in the end.  Don't get us wrong, we love a Louis Ghost chair just as much as the next gal.  Until we had to sit in one for an hour-long business meeting and shifted our weight from one cheek to the other the entire time. So not fun.  (The folks below figured that out and are trying to soften the blow with pillows.  Good luck with that.)

And then there are benches and stools - good idea in theory, painful idea in practice.  Case in point, the following dining room we found in Living Etc.  It's over-the-top gorge(!), but we'd dread having to sit through a 2-hour dinner party on one of those tiny, backless stools, especially the one with the cushion.  How many times do you think that puppy would slide throughout the night?!

Oh and for all you barstool owners, do everyone a favor and make sure they have footrests.  Those of us under 6'0" start to lose feeling after 15 minutes of leg dangling.

We're not saying you should skip out on beautiful chairs altogether, just don't expect people to actually sit in them. Instead treat them like art -- and allow people to enjoy their beauty from afar.

Daily Hit: Room with a View

To walk around naked or not?

With a room like this, who cares?!  And judging by the naked pair of legs in the pic, we're not alone.


We don't even know where to start with a room this magical. The owners smartly recognized that the view is the real star of the show and have kept everything else minimal, warm and harmonious with its surroundings. Additional furniture, colors or prints would be fussy and intrusive. 


And that hanging chair must feel like a tree swing in your own personal forrest.  We can't imagine a cozier spot for our first cup of coffee in the morning.

Quick Fix: Paint the Tub

We are suckers for color so were just tickled pink (gag!) when we saw this bathtub in LivingEtc.  Genius idea for salvaging a tired old tub --  upcycling at its best!

The rest of the decor leaves us scratching our heads and we're not sure bubblegum pink would be our first choice, but admire anyone with the guts to paint their tub pink.  We'd paint ours indigo or charcoal and throw a pale lilac paint or wallpaper up on the walls. 


Btw, how fierce are those wooden blocks?! 

Craving: Alvar Aalto's Golden Bell Light

We came across this shiny and simple light fixture in LivingEtc and immediately pictured a gazillion places we could use it:  one on each side of the bed in lieu of boring bedside lamps, 8 or 10 staggered at varying heights over a long dining room table, one or three above a console in the foyer (against a dramatic wallpaper would be to-die-for!), a solo one hanging next to the mirror in a tiny guest bathroom.  


The possibilities for this shining beacon of chic are endless.

Design Decoder

What you'll find on The Fix:

• Craving: an object we covet
• Daily Hit: a room that leaves us speechless
• Kick the Habit:  design tricks we are so over 
• Addicted: design tricks that never get old
• 10 Steps: 10 inspirations for 2010
• Quick Fix: ideas for working with what you've got