Visit to Grant Dorman
Long overdue was our visit to Grant Dorman this week to see the extensive Schumacher fabric range we have been eyeing off of late. You’ll know from a previous post we finally sourced a Martyn Lawrence Bullard Adras Ikat print for our office chairs from this range. Such great stuff from chunky upholstery basics to beautiful embroideries, big scale geometrics which I am loving at the moment and a bold use of no holds barred colour. With so much to choose from, we selected in colour stories so that when we start to work with a fabric we already have a range of complimenting fabrics that work back with it. This is a great tip for working with pattern or colour. It’s kind of the same as buying an outfit rather than individual pieces.
CHDC Studio Revamp
We’ve been spending a little time of late planning a small revamp in our office, that has involved us swapping our old trusty meeting table & chairs & replacing with a more relaxing pair of armchairs, coffee table & ottoman. Not content with just any old fabric on our chairs, we set about finding the most perfect geometric fabric that was full of colour. We, or should I say I, was determined to find a pattern that would make me feel happy everyday I walked into my office. Now, this is a miniature job for us, we take on large scale renovation projects, we do up whole houses with new furniture, fabrics, rugs, lamps, the lot & had we been doing it for a client we would have done it in two seconds flat. But it’s a well known fact that when designers do things for themselves, even we find it hard to make decisions! That’s right, we do this for a living, but we tie ourselves up in knots in search of the perfect thing. So, we empathise when clients are faced with the same dramas in their houses. But I’m happy to report the perfect colourful geometric has been found – and it wasn’t deliberate but it is a fabric from the man of the moment Martyn Lawrence-Bullard – who I have mentioned in this blog before (see Decoration and Design Entry). Have a look below at the fabric and furniture we’ve chosen – Adras Ikat Jewel Print & check out the range from Schumacher designer collaborations with great ranges from Trina Turk & Kelly Wearstler – its definitely worth a look. Stay tuned for the blog post with our final office revamp…
Jardan Winston Chair – Schumacher Adras Ikat fabric, Pierre & Charlotte Butler Coffee Table and Town & Country Gaston Bench (unfortunately now discontinued)
Temperature Design, A New CHDC Favourite
Tucked into the backstreets of Collingwood, in a fantastic warehouse space is another one of Melbourne’s design industry gems – Temperature Design. After finding our way there late last week, we knocked back a strong coffee & chocolate treat before getting stuck into looking at all the fabulous pieces from Temperature house brand – a great range of furniture staples, Jonathan Adler – for that quirky, fresh & colourful twist on everything & Ercol Furniture – the most beautifully crafted wood furniture made the way it should be.
Decoration & Design Sydney 2012 – “Creating Luxury in Interiors” Transcript
For those who couldn’t attend the International Industry seminars at Decoration & Design in Sydney in February, here is the transcript of my talk on “Creating Luxury in Interiors”
I am the founder of a small interior design practice based in Melbourne – Chelsea Hing Design Consultants – we work exclusively on residential projects both renovations & new houses.
When I started to prepare for this talk & I was thinking about how we create luxury in our interiors, I began by looking into what others considered luxury to be – I found definitions around the idea of something inessential, expensive, hard to obtain or unattainable even - I realised that I had a very different definition to this.
For me, luxury starts off as a concept, as designers its our job to translate that into an experience for our clients. That experience is based around good design, the elegance of objects, the clever resolution of every detail, the thoughtfulness of the planning and everything just working together beautifully so that design is no longer noticed, only the form is visible. And when I think about it that way, I realised that creating luxury is ultimately what we are trying to do, with all our projects.
I’ve started off with this quote, because I think luxury is often perceived as great style, but in my opinion, its all about design, & that’s what I’m going to talk about.