Making your house a home

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Finding a new house to call your own can be, in one, simple word: challenging. Whether you’re moving to a new city, or just to a new neighbourhood, you want to be able to find a great place that you can grow in and add your own, personal touches to truly make your house a home. Finding your unique style and vision for your new home can be intimidating, but you will find yourself attracted to some pieces more than others, and this will help shape your niche.

If you’re still not sure what your ‘niche’ may be, or just starting at the first step of figuring out your ideal home décor, then check out some great suggestions on how to find your style below:

Find Your Colour

Think of the colours, stains, and finishes that really catch your eye, and which ones don’t really ‘tickle your fancy’. Some people prefer pine over oak, and nobody will hold that against you because it’s your home and you’re allowed to be picky. So, don’t feel pressured to settle on a colour or stain that you don’t really like but feel obliged to select because it goes with what’s already in your house, or that it is popular.

An example of a unique piece would be the Rustic Wooden Cabinet from Uniche Interior Furnishings, made out of pine with a soft, antique-looking stain to create a rustic look. You’ll want to find something that goes with almost everything, in case you decide to paint or move the item to another room.

Consider the Trends

Considering the current, and even past, trends is a crucial step in deciding which colours, stains, and finishes you like; if you are a big fan of the distressed look, then a piece with a rustic or antique look to it may just be the right furnishing to catch your eye. This could be a conversation piece, like Uniche’s Rustic Wooden Cabinet, or it could be something a bit smaller and less of a statement item.

As the rustic and antique trends have enjoyed a long life and are almost positive that they will never go out of style, there are also current fads that may not have the same effect and appeal in a few years that they have now. Home fads can echo life-spans of fads within the clothing and fashion world, so you might want to consider your style and tastes when it comes to fashion, too; are there certain articles of clothing that you won’t buy because you know that they are part of a short-lived fad? This kind of discretion can help you when picking out furniture and other home accessories.

Let There Be Light!

Lighting is a luxury that we often take for granted, but it is essential to fill our homes with bright, energizing, light to help us feel right at home. There are so many lampshades, lamps, fixtures - you name it – that are available to include in your new house, and, while finding lighting may seem like a breeze, it actually can be quite daunting.

You’ll want to ask yourself the following questions before shopping around for the perfect light fixture:

• Which colour or finish do I want?
• What style do I want?
• Hanging, mounted, or standing?
• What kind of light do I want? (e.g. white, yellow, or fluorescent)
• Where am I going to put it?

Look for something special and different, as long as it fits within your own vision and sense of style. An example from Uniche Interior Furnishings is The Jali, a unique take on the traditional hanging lamp featuring hand-blown glass and antique-style chainmail without a strictly medieval theme. Light fixtures can also double as conversation pieces, and help to set the tone for any kitchen, dining room, or other room that you have big plans for.

Your home is your safe place and where you can express your personality and tastes through different pieces that really capture your own, personal style and preferences. Adding vintage, rustic, antique, or any other kinds of home furniture and fittings to help you express yourself can make all the difference between arriving at your house and truly coming home.

Four ideas for making your kitchen into a more social space

Isn't it strange how a “great social space” is important to us when we move into a house, but then never seem to act on it to make it happen? It can be difficult to find the time for home improvements when there are so many other aspects of your life that are full on, but it can end up being worth it in the long run if you take the plunge.

Spring time provides a great inspiration for many people to get these jobs done for once and for all, so if you are also up for the challenge you will want to read the following ideas for making your kitchen into a more social space. Hopefully by the summer you will be able to invite your nearest and dearest over for barbecues, a jug of Pimms, and other fun in the sun...

Reorganise your kitchen layout

If you are adamant that you want to completely change your kitchen as it currently stands, you may want to look into reworking the layout. There are a number of possible benefits for this, the most significant being that you can create more areas to relax in. Whether this is a kitchen island to lean on, or a breakfast bar with some high stools, you could create something pretty special.

Think of going open plan

Of course, you may not feel that your space is not big enough for your ambitious plans. Luckily you may have a couple of options when it comes to looking for a solution. The first is to knock through to your living room or dining area to create an open plan kitchen that becomes part of the rest of the house. This means you can host guests without disappearing for significant chunks of time. The other option is to get a ground floor extension, if you have the space, permission and budget.

Create a comfortable seating area

Regardless of whether or not you choose to increase the footprint of your kitchen, you can still find ways of creating a seating area for your family, friends and other guests. It might be a good idea to have a look in the shops to see what is currently on offer; you might find that you want to replace your existing table and chairs for a set that is more ergonomic and comfortable over the course of an evening.

Include your outdoor space

If your kitchen leads to your garden, you might want to create a terrace or patio area right outside the back door. Have a look at Vevo bifold doors if you want an easy way for people to come in and out without too much congestion - they’re also pretty handy for bringing lots of natural light into the home. It could also be worth thinking about getting a decking area installed if you are a fan of barbecues and hot tubs; this could be the perfect place for relaxing during the warmer months, working in tandem with your kitchen.

The silence of the lamps

Pardon the bad pun but if you keep reading it'll make sense.

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post about an Italian furniture studio I'd found on Twitter called CLAB4design. CLAB's still plugging away in Breschia and my now-friend Umberto Dattola's still at the helm and he's still creating beautiful work.

Umberto and I have kept in touch over the years and recently, he sent me some photos of his new collection of floor lamps.

In Italian, they're called Lampada Silente. That's Silent Lamp in English. In any language, they're simple, sculptural and absolutely beautiful.

He carves each of these lamps by himself, by hand.

The shades are made from thin sheets of poplar.

And the bases are made from linden.

The lamps are finished with an oil finish and the wood's left its natural color.

Each lamp is 190cm tall and can hold a standard lightbulb.

Silence Lamps are readily available in the EU and you can find out more information about EU sales on Umberto's website. Unfortunately, North Americans, Australians and the rest of the world are out of luck since CLAB4design doesn't have a distributor outside of the EU.

That wouldn't take much to remedy however. If you're interested in carrying the Silence Lamp or any of Umberto's other offerings, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him.

Old techniques, new furniture

My friend Patrick Shilling is a master woodworker in Bethnal Green, London. Over the years he's carved out a niche for himself as a creator of exquisite, one of a kind interiors. Here are some examples of his work.

Never one to sit still, Patricks's been turning his hand to fine furniture and over the years has perfected a technique that uses an adze and a saw on English oak. The texture carved onto these pieces is done entirely by hand and that's something that's utterly unique in the world.

The finishes he's developed for this line mimic the appearance of stone, leather and charred timber but the attention to detail he employs never lets you lose sight of the fact that his pieces are made entirely of oak.

His passion for and love of his craft shine through this entire collection and I invite you to take a look through the gallery on his website. Whether it's a wardrobe, a table, a room divider, a larder or any of the pieces in this collection, all of it's breathtaking.

If you're interested in Patrick's work, you can contact him through his website. He's also looking for dealers in the UK, the EU, The US and anywhere else in the world you might be. So if furniture's your thing, drop him a line.

It's an easy cliche to fall back on the idea that no one makes high quality furniture by hand anymore and people like Patrick Shilling are living proof that the cliche's simply not true.

This beautiful table is for sale

This is what I call craftsmanship.

That joinery is in the center of a table designed and built by my friend Kevin Fitzpatrick. Kevin's a master furniture maker by any measure and I'm regularly awed by the work that he does. However, this table stands out. It's also for sale.

This table's made from reclaimed barn timbers and floor boards. The wood was milled 200 years ago from old-growth Pennsylvania white pine. All of the old growth forest in this part of Pennsylvania is gone now and the last of it was cut down at around the time the boards used in this table were milled.

As a more or less rural Pennsylvanian now, I see old barns, mills and tobacco sheds so regularly it's easy not to notice them. I make it a point to keep an eye out for them though, and they tend to figure into my my photography when I'm documenting farm life and local agriculture.


Many of these old structures are still in use although some of them get torn down from time to time to make room for more modern agricultural operations. That's a somewhat sad turn of events, however none of the stone or timber used in those old buildings goes to waste. Lumber reclaimers stand in line to buy up whole barns that are slated for demolition.

That ancient wood gets reused as flooring, siding and in the case of my friend Kevin's table, furniture.

When Kevin built this table, he took an old barn's structural timbers and used them as the legs and supports. The table top is made from the floor boards of the same barn.

Though the finished surfaces have kept the rustic appearance of barnwood, the table's engineering is beyond precise. Through a combination of complex joinery and pegs, there are no nails, screws or glue holding the table together. It's all beautiful wood on wood locked in a precision embrace.

The top of the table is made from three floorboards and there's a quarter inch gap between each board. The rough hewn edges made a close fit impossible. Further, the gaps allowed Kevin to showcase the wear patterns and natural distressing already present in the wood. All told, the table top measures 60 inches wide by 35-1/2 inches deep. The table top is an inch and three quarters thick.

The table stands 34 inches tall and the legs are three inches thick. This is a substantial piece of furniture and I can see it used as a display table in a retail setting just as easily as I can imagine it in someone's home.

Kevin's asked me to broker the sale of this piece as a test to gauge what interest there is out there for his kind of wood working. He has other pieces completed and many more in the works. The cost for this table is $2500 plus the cost of shipping, so if you're interested, let me know.

Dealer inquiries are welcome too and I'm offering a designer discount. Tables of this vintage and quality can sell for upwards of $6000 and at $2500, this one won't last very long.

So again, if you're interested let me know. We're open to other offers too so don't let the price tag frighten you off.