Wall & Deco: New Designs for 2013
Wall & Deco has just released a new video highlighting some fantastic new designs from their 2013 collection. Check it out!
Leather at Vastu
At Vastu, we don’t like being limited in our choices. It’s why we strive to find manufacturers and products that give you a wide range of personalization options. An option we get asked about often is leather.
Ramses Sofa by Steven Anthony in Grade X Leather
Whether you’re creating a custom sofa or headboard or specifying a lounge chair, we carry and represent some of the best and highest quality leathers in the industry. Leather is one of those durable upholstery options that only gets better with time…if it’s done right.
For our custom upholstered pieces from Steven Anthony we provide you with several different leather styles with varying textures and colorways.
Ordering products from Knoll opens up the collection of Spinneybeck leathers which contains hundreds of different options from sealed leathers to sueded varieties. Spinneybeck began as a Canadian company from Ontario that later moved its headquarters to New York state and continues to be a North American leader and supplier of upholstery leather.
Barcelona Chair in Spinneybeck Leather
**Fun Fact: ”Spinney,” the Old English word for woods, represents tannin, the ancient ingredient derived from wood bark, still used in leathermaking. “Beck,” the Viking word for brook, or stream, is the water component of leathermaking. Beck was given to the English language by the Vikings who overran the British Isles centuries ago.**
Companies like Herman Miller rely on their own private label leathers, as well as those from well-known leather manufacturer Edelman Leather. Edelman, with showrooms all over the US and representatives around the world, specializes in custom coloring, hand finishes and their line consists of more than 750 color ways and over 75 different types of leathers, all of which are GREENGUARD indoor air quality certified.
Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman in Edelman "Dream Cow" Leather
And last but not least, we have leathers from Cortina Leathers. Family-owned by a mother/daughter team, Cortina imports fine Italian leathers for the architectural, interior design and commercial markets in the Americas and all over the world. With over 50 different styles, Cortina produces high-quality and even has extensive custom capabilities that range from simple custom color to complex leathers involving multiple processes, including embossments, transfer prints, laser cutting and tipping.
Perlato Leather from Cortina Leathers
Top 10 VastuDC.com Products of 2012
This is it. It’s the last day of 2012 (at least here in Washington, DC).
We’ve already shared the Top 10 blog posts of 2012 here on Design Clique and now we’re going to check out the Top 10 VastuDC.com products of 2012.
2. Dupont Sofa
3. Shaw Uplift Storage Bed w/ Upholstered Headboard
Click here to see 6 through 10
Classic Style, New Idea
(from HermanMiller.com)
One of the more popular “lines” from the Herman Miller Collection is Ray and Charles Eames’s Molded Plywood Chairs. They come with a great story of creativity, innovation and what great teamwork can really bring to the world of furniture design. Well, Herman Miller has taken their beautiful designs and updated them with the option of upholstery.
Molder Plywood Dining Chair w/ Wood Legs, Walnut, Bento 'Truffle' Upholstery
That’s right, starting on November 5th as part of the Herman Miller Collection you could and can order the Molded Plywood Dining Chairs and the Molded Plywood Lounge Chairs with an upholstered seat and back. They’ve started with a varied offering of upholstery that give you even more personalization options (on top of wood veneer choices, and leg options).
Molded Plywood Lounge Chair w/ Chrome Metal Legs, White Ash, Divina Upholstery
All configurations of the Eames Molded Plywood Chairs are included in the Herman Miller Holiday Sale and qualify for 15% off through December 10th, 2012.
Lighting Fixtures that Save Daylight
This past weekend marked the end of Daylight Saving Time and we all moved our clocks back 1 hour (except those of you in Arizona and Hawaii). On top of occasionally messing with the amount of sleep you get, DST is designed to make the most of our sunlight hours during the summer.
So what’s one to do when daylight saving time ends in the fall and we head into those shorter days? One solution is to work with the lighting you have in your home!
Lighting design has come a long way and new technologies and materials are being developed everyday. Here are some of the Vastu team’s favorite lighting products!
Click here to see our favorite lighting!
Recycled Rubber Furniture
Vastu is committed to conducting business in an environmentally responsible way, that’s one of the reasons you’ll never see a printed catalog from us. It also means that we’re always on the lookout for manufacturers and furniture makers who create using eco-friendly materials and manufacturing processes.
One of our newest vendors creates contemporary pieces using 97% recycled rubber from tires molded into shapes of various dimensions. The Rubber Cube and Rubber Cylinder come in a total of 10 standard sizes and 8 colors are suitable for both indoors and outdoors and are exceptionally durable.
Our 17" Diameter Cylinder in Blue
You can use these as side tables, like our model shown above, or as cocktail tables and even stools.
Their porous nature makes them easy to clean with almost no maintenance and they’re anti-fungal and anti-bacterial.
Come by the showroom and check out this eco-friendly piece of rubber furniture today!
KnollTextiles + Trove
KnollTextiles has a history of cool collaborations with other companies and designers like Proenza Schouler, Rodarte, and Abbott Miller from Pentagram, just to name a few. The latest to be added to this list is wallpaper company Trove.
Trove specializes in wallcoverings that contain “large scale photographic and impressionistic qualities that are mainly organic in nature.”
When Trove design duo Jee Levin and Randall Buck teamed up with Dorothy Cassonas, Creative Director of KnollTextiles, they created the Vivid Collection. The Vivid Collection for KnollTextiles includes three patterns in various colorways and each one has “a painterly expressionistic effect and large scale design” perfect for spaces that need an accent wall.
Check out this video to learn more about this award-winning collection:
And in related wallpaper news, we’ve changed out the wallpaper in our small alcove near the front of the Vastu showroom! Stop by this weekend and check it out.
Cabriole ‘Oyster’ by Designer’s Guild
Knoll Marble Tops: Beautiful, Functional, Historic
One of our designers came across a great article the other day about the marble tops Knoll, Inc uses in several of their designs such as the Saarinen Table series.
Justin Pratt, a studio manager for Knoll UK, provided the original author with some great facts about the marble Knoll sources.
“The white marble that Knoll uses comes from caves high in the mountains in northern Italy and is considered to be the most pure of all the different marbles. It is the same marble that Michelangelo used for his sculptures. Of this most pure of natural materials Knoll selects only the top 4%. So when you buy a Knoll Saarinen table in marble you own one of the great designs of all time, produced in the finest of materials.”
As if you didn’t have enough reasons to appreciate your Saarinen table from Knoll! Think about it, the top 4% of some of the best marble in the world. If it’s good enough for Michelangelo, it’s good enough for us!
Pratt goes onto to describe the process Knoll goes through to create its marble pieces:
“One of marble’s defining qualities is the beauty of the raw material so we do very little tampering with it. Once the piece of marble has been cut and shaped and finished by hand, a polyester coating is added to the surface. Only Knoll uses polyester to protect the marble and the result is a table that cannot be stained by tea, coffee, wine, lemon juice and most other household stains that could permanently mark the marble without this protection. This polyester coat allows children to do their worst during the day and then with a quick clean the table is ready for a formal dinner party.”
We’ve always loved the durability and iconic status of Knoll’s Saarinen tables. Check out the photo gallery below to see how we’ve used marble-topped pieces from Knoll in past projects!
Before & After: Poolside in Palm Springs (Part 3)
It’s our final post in the Before & After: Poolside in Palm Springs series and I definitely feel like we’ve saved the best for last. Scroll below to see the dramatic transformations of the master bedroom and bath, media room, outside patio and pool area.
The Master Bedroom
The Master Bathroom
The Media Room
The Pool & Patio
For more information on any of the products shown, or to learn more about Vastu’s Design Services, head over to our website www.VastuDC.com or contact one of our designers!
Click below to see other images from Eric Kole’s Palm Springs house.
Before & After: Poolside in Palm Springs (Part 1)
Before & After: Poolside in Palm Springs (Part 2)
Before & After: Poolside in Palm Springs (Part 2)
In this post, we’ll show you how Eric Kole, Vastu co-owner, transformed the kitchen, living room, guest bedrooms and bathroom from dark, crowded and outdated spaces into luxurious, spacious rooms befitting a swanky Palm Springs abode.
The Kitchen
The Living Room
First Guest Bedroom
Second Guest Bedroom
Guest Bathroom
New paint on the walls and flooring, a thoughtful collection of furniture and whole lot less clutter really cleaned up those bedrooms, and there’s still more to come! Next time, I’ll be revealing the media room, the master bedroom and bath and the fantastic outdoor living areas.
Welcome to Design Clique
Have feedback or ideas you'd like to share? Click here and let us know what's on your mind.
Share it with us and we will address it in one of our "Design Direction" posts.
