5 Great Ways to Delineate Rooms within an Open Space Concept

So now you have a loft or a nice contemporary open space ! Great, so what comes next?  What to do with all that roominess? How to make distinctive cozy areas without making your home look like a garage sale? Here are cky's top 5 great ways to achieve a harmonious living and dining space:

1]  Space planning. You must physically decide what part of the room will be the dining area, and what will be the living area. That sounds easy but it is not. Of course it is convenient to have the dining table near the kitchen, but what if you have a great view at the other end of the room like here :

At the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference, lifestyle and the inherent architecture of your home.

2] Colour.

3] Rugs.

4] Furniture division and grouping. A bench, daybed or chair can usually do the trick.

5] Architectural Elements. Here are a few examples which may or may not be feasible to add after-the-fact [Attention Developers!] :

Raised floor.

Kitchen hood and built-ins.

Wall bumpout.

Floating ceiling/ceiling feature.

Windows.!!

That's it for now!
Blogatchalater.

IDS 11 Toronto Interior Design Show 2011

Let us take you on a journey through the IDS11 conference we attended in Toronto last week.

Design Within Reach

we love Montauk Sofas

interesting vintage style hinge

i have no idea where k and y are looking? Probably checking out a hot guy.

Victoria + Albert

cool....

sic pillows

the luverlee k beside a blown glass installation. My kinda room divider / art

Dinner by Design chairs

beautiful quilted acoustic wall panel

faucet sculpture

TV / mirror on a sliding wall panel hiding storage

molded integrated sinks are now vanity counters as well. Very clean and sculptural

Lots of sexy cement used for every thing from floors, counter tops to fireplace surrounds

cky will be sourcing Weaver's Art rugs in 2011 for clients

We discover this incredible line of rugs from ELTE at the show that we also be representing as a rug option to our clients. They are antique carpets from Turkey and Istanbul that have been re dyed and in some cases cut apart and re sewn together to create a new pattern. These rugs are the perfect blend of classic history and cutting edge modern

I love this one of the Union Jack flag

All in all it was world class show. Very inspiring.

10 Top Drawings to Communicate Design Concepts

aka a picture is worth 1,000 words

Did you see the Mike Myers skit he did on Saturday Night Live ? - SIMON - "you know my name is Simon, and I love to do some drawerings".....

OK, enough with the silliness. Seriously, at cky design group, we love to draw. It is our number one way to communicate our ideas with you, our clients, whether the drawings are computer generated or hand drawn. Consider these types of drawings we do for various interior design projects :

1] SKETCH - a loose, simple drawing used to communicate ideas quickly; aka napkin drawing

2] IMAGE BOARD - a design collage of the "look and feel" of the project; helps narrow down the myriad of choices to be made; can be made by us [cky] or you or both of us...we love to collaborate.

2] FLOOR PLAN - the essential drawing for all interior design projects; the main tool used to plan the space and determine the layout based on use/function of the space; the beginnings of the construction drawings

3] ELEVATION - also referred to as " Front, Top, North, South, East, or West View"; this drawing shows a wall [OR side of a product like a sofa or building] drawn to scale with all its existing features [e.g. switches, ceiling height, doors and windows, etc.]. It can be a WORKING DRAWING or a RENDERING [see below].

4] WORKING DRAWING or CONSTRUCTION DRAWINGS - this is what we give our contractors, in order to obtain a quote. Once the contract is signed, these drawings along with product specifications form part of the contract

5] SHOP DRAWING - usually this is a drawing produced by a fabricator for us [cky], to confirm how the cabinet, mirror, furniture or other custom item will be made

6] RENDERINGS - realistic images of what your project will look like, from different vantage points and using different drawing techniques. These drawings are quite technical and can be difficult/time consuming to produce accurately. There are companies who specialize in producing them and charge $100's to $1,000's. Here is a synopsis of the different type of renderings :

a] 1 POINT PERSPECTIVE - HAND DRAWING

b] 2 POINT PERSPECTIVE - WIRE-FRAME

c] 2 POINT PERSPECTIVE - COMPUTER DRAWN

d] BIRD'S EYE PERSPECTIVE - COMPUTER DRAWN

e] AXONOMETRIC PROJECTION - one of the sexiest drawings and a great way to illustrate space planning and form. Click to see the Wikipedia entry

f] ELEVATION & 2 POINT PERSPECTIVE COMBINATION

Thank you for your interest and we hope this helps clarify some of our designer mumbo jumbo.

Blogatchalater!
cky

10 Top Sofa [companies] and Why We Love Them

Looking for a great sofa that will last you through the next 20+  years ? Here's a list of our top 10 & why [in no particular order] :

1] Bensen

Here's a great sleeper sofa by a great Canadian furniture designer Niels Bendtsen. Simple, functional, elegant & red! What's not to love?

2] Ligne Roset

French company Ligne Roset is the BMW of furnture - hard to go wrong here - I love this Cityloft sofa especially, as it could work in a modern or a transitional style of living room [notice the beautiful sculpted arm rest].

3] Moooi

Ah - the return of Moooi to our blog- not only do they make our favorite horsey floor lamp they make incredible sofas ! Below shows you how one sofa can look so different depending on the upholstery :

4] Edra

This is a very special furniture company based in....you guessed it....Italy ! Our favorite country in the whole world for furniture, food and fashion. Edra's designs are always very experimental and very cutting edge. This sofa called Flap is practically an apartment in itself! Just imagine the parties you could have....

5] Cassina

Another of our favorite Italian furniture companies, this sofa was designed by the king of design himself - Philippe Starck [more blogging about him later]. What is so cool about this sofa is that Starck designed it to be very versatile - it comes in different lengths and configurations. For example, the one below has two different sizes of armrests; the one below that is extra long - great for an Academy Award movie night [or Superbowl]!

6] B & B Italia

ok, yet another Italian furniture company - B & B is the absolute king of sectionals. If Ligne Roset is the BMW of sofa companies, B & B is the Lamborghini :

7] Gus Modern

These sofas will appeal to loft dwellers, due to their compact sizes. This nice little Canadian company has come up with a collection of very affordable, practical and well made sofas with a lovely range of fabrics.

8] Minotti

Minotti also has some fantastic sectionals similar to B & B, but these more rounded styles [smaller versions are available] differentiate this Italian company from the crowd.

9] Montauk

This Canadian company based in Montreal offers very very nice plush, luxurious styles that blend in with many living rooms and lifestyles. For example this sofa is placed in a Rococo style space - it's clean rounded lines compliment the architecture nicely without competing for your attention.

10] Baker
Although we at cky love modern, we still appreciate and work with those of you wanting a more transitional style living space. Baker is a fantastic American producer of lovely sofas by leading designers such as Barbara Barry.

11] HBF - I had to include this one....it is SO Park Avenue :

12] Modernica, Ital Divani, Bernhardt, Living Divani, Moroso, we could go on-and-on......