A Barcelona home with 'federal' style

This place is pretty dreamy, right? But what's 'federal' about it? Well if you live in Barcelona, you've probably been to or at least heard of Federal Café, a great spot to meet friends for brunch while enjoying a relaxed and stylish ambience. Apparently the owners of this establishment, Australian expats, have carried that same ambience over into their home in the Barrio Gótico region of Barcelona.

Here are some more pictures:

It is very rare that I see a place where I feel that I could live happily without changing a single detail, but this is one of those instances. I love the way the living room flows seamlessly into the patio as though it were all one space and the way the woven baskets add some texture to the dining room. Unique and pretty. The owners could even put some flowers in those during the springtime and I think it'd look even better.  

What do you guys think? If you'd like to see more pictures, visit Nuevo Estilo where this house was featured. 

P.S. If you're new in town and looking for a good interior design magazine, I'd recommend Nuevo Estilo. It doesn't compare with Living Etc (in my opinion, nothing does) but it always features homes with great modern style. Plus! They have a mini version of the magazine which is less than 2 Euro in case you're just looking for a quick jolt of inspiration. 

(Photos: Nuevo Estilo)

Shopping for furniture in Barcelona

Before we came to Barcelona, I asked the readers of Apartment Therapy what neighborhoods we should move to and where we should go for furniture and home decor when we got here. We got a lot of great suggestions from the readers as regards where to begin our apartment hunt (which I wrote about here in a past post) but I don't think that the advice for furniture shopping was quite as helpful. Most people recommended IKEA which I'm not going to deny is your best bet for affordable furniture (and there are two of them in Barcelona!), but in the two years we've been living here, I've discovered some more resources for furniture and home decor and I thought I'd share them with you in case you or someone you know is moving here.

Okay, so here goes:

Let's start with the aforementioned and obvious choice: Ikea. Their stuff is ubiquitous for a reason. It's well designed and cheap. It's been our go to for the big stuff like beds, sofas, dressers and closets. The good thing about Ikea being so ubiquitous (can you tell I love using that word?) is that you can find tons of their stuff secondhand so you don't have to pay full price. In any second hand furniture store or flea market or even online, you can find good condition items for a decent price. Our sofa, dresser, and bed frame are all from Ikea but we bought them all second hand from people who were moving and selling their stuff online. Which brings me to my next source:

You can find such gems for cheap on loquo.com and segundamano.es.  These websites are like the Spanish version of craigslist and you can really find anything on these websites from baby clothes to furniture to a tutoring job. We found our dining room table (an antique) and a vintage armchair on loquo and paid 200 and 45 euro respectively. The upside to using these sites is that you can often negotiate the price down if the seller is desperate enough to get rid of something. The downside is that you have to be patient. If you're looking for a certain piece, you may have to check these sites everyday to find something you like a lot.

When I lived in the U.S. and devoured my imported, British home design magazines, I used to lament the fact that I didn't live in Europe and couldn't shop at Habitat. So many beautiful houses seemed to have stuff from there. When we moved here, I couldn't wait to visit this place which is located in Plaça Catalunya. The furniture here is modern and Scandinavian in style but not as affordable as Ikea obviously. BUT. They do have awesome sales now and again and I was able to buy our dining room chairs there for half the price and our dining room lighting fixture for like 15 Euro.

For accessories like throw pillows, baskets, vases, shower curtains, clocks, and other decor, you should check out some of these chains: Casa Viva, Natura home, Muy Mucho, Maison du Monde, Zara Home, A Loja de Gato Preto. Many of these places have some furniture like occasional tables, armchairs, etc but they tend to be kind of expensive and rarely on sale. But they have awesome stuff. I've bought pillows from Zara Home and the lovely Portuguese store A Loja de Gato Preto (which in addition to regular stuff also has adorable home decor with cat themes for the crazy cat person. Ahem).

And last but not least, and this should really be a post in an of itself, you should check out the flea markets. The biggest one is Los Encants where you can find anything from vintage clothing, vinyls, furniture, antique toys and more. This place is overwhelming in a good way and you can really find anything from anywhere in the world here. Even if you're just visiting Barcelona, you might want to visit this place especially if you are a collector of weird things, old things, or beautiful things like I am. If you find enchantment in typewriter keys, this is the place for you. Be sure to check out their webpage for hours of operation.

Well I hope this little piece was useful for someone out there. Get out there and explore my friends!

(Photo: Nuevo Estilo magazine)

Martina and Lola's Room

I saw a tour of this shared girls room the other day on Apartment Therapy and thought I'd share it in case you guys hadn't seen it. I adore this room which is so sweet and whimsical. If you notice, there's nothing particular about the room that screams 'girl'. There are no pink walls or Disney princesses about and the wallpaper, lighting and many of the toys actually are very gender neutral. If I'd had a girl her room would look like this (assuming I had as good taste as the mother who put this room together).

The mother, Beatriz, writes the amazing blog, Con botas de agua, and I have become smitten with it for her beautiful photographs, restaurant and cafe recommendations in Madrid where she lives, and a glimpse into her family life. I recommend you check it out if you need another online addiction and if you speak Spanish, of course. Enjoy!

(Photos: Con botas de agua)

Nooks and crannies

I've been puzzling over what to do with the dining room area for about a week now. I know, I know. You thought that after I wrote this post last week, I had it all together. It seemed like I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But now I'm having second thoughts after some reader suggestions.  Remember how I originally planned to put a round table with a pedestal base in this space? Well, some people wrote to me and told me that if I'm planning on doing the banquette idea, I should probably do a rectangular table so that people sitting on both ends of the banquette would have adequate table space.  This makes complete sense and I'm surprised it didn't occur to me before. However that's what reader feedback is for! Except now I find myself staring at the space constantly, trying to imagine what it would look like if it had a round table vs. a rectangular table.   The only problem is that I have a pretty terrible imagination and I can't quite picture it.  Fortunately for me, I've managed to amass some dining nook inspiration photos from Pinterest to help me get a better idea of what the finished room could/should look like.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The recurring theme seems to be that no matter what size table you get (round, square or rectangular), the nook idea seems to work best if you have a table with a pedestal base.  The reason for this (I'm guessing) is so that people can scoot in and out without banging their legs into the table legs and so that people have adequate leg room.  With this new observation in mind, I'm going to keep my eyes open for a table that meets these requirements.  It may take awhile to find what we're looking for but I'll be sure to keep you guys posted. After all, that's what a blog is for--to keep my family, friends, and total strangers apprised of my most  trivial and insignificant thoughts :)

(Photos: Today You Inspired Me, Desire to Inspire, My Home Ideas, IKEA Family Live)

Progress: Living/Dining rooms

Now that we've been living in our new apartment for almost three weeks, we're starting to feel a bit more settled in and I think our home reflects that.  We've unpacked and cleared away most of the boxes and have actually bought a few pieces of furniture (actually just two pieces--those bookcases you see in the living room) and one (just one!) accessory--that gold mirror on top of the bookcase.  I bought that from an antique shop across the street from our place for 25 Euro.  The guy even threw in a free book! Needless to say, I'll be going back there :)

The one thing that's a bit tricky about this space is that this rather small room serves three purposes:  it's a living room, a dining room and kitchen all in one (as our real estate agent described it, "al estilo 'loft' americano").  In the first picture above where you see that giant, plastic jug of water on the floor on the right hand side, is also more or less where the kitchen begins. The kitchen stretches across the entire right hand side of the room, as you can see in the second picture above.  In the third picture, is the dining room.  Notice that there's not a lot of space separating the dining room from the living room. Tricky indeed. 

So, how do we plan to make this space work?  Well, we've got some ideas.  Because I'm obsessively detail-oriented, I mapped out in newspaper what I planned to do with the space before there was a single box or piece of furniture in here.  

This is what I envisioned the living room to look like:

*Where you see the thin row of newspapers pushed against the wall is where I envisioned the bookcases/TV to go as they are currently set up.  The patterned brown and white tapestry on the floor is where I envisioned our future carpet to go.  And the chubby block of newspapers in front of it, is where I planned for the sofa to go.  

For the dining room, I think that an L-shaped banquette is the way to go:

I thought that by shoving benches up against the wall, we could both save on space and have extra seating whenever we have guests.  Hopefully we can find benches with storage underneath so we can keep the space as uncluttered as possible.  The big, round piece of newspaper is where the table would go.  We're looking for a round table with a pedestal base and also one that expands to accommodate six people. 

As I said, I think this is the best layout for the space but I'm no professional (seriously. I'm a political science and language major!)  I would love to hear (actually read) your thoughts!  So, tell me: what do you guys think?

A beautiful Barcelona home (not mine!)

Since my apartment is still covered in unpacked boxes and there's no furniture in it yet, I thought I'd show you guys this beautiful home in Barcelona, featured in Dwell magazine.  I love the incorporation of the original elements with the more modern pieces.  And those amazing, original tiles everywhere! Plus, I always have this feeling anytime I see a home with books everywhere, that whoever lives there and I would be good friends if we ever met.

More on progress on my own very humble apartment later this week! :)

(Photos: Dwell Magazine)

Eclectic loft in Madrid

Hello loves! Found this beautiful Madrid home via Spanish design blog, Delikatissen.  I love the eclectic feel of the home.  It's got everything from Moroccan-inspired geometric prints in the bedroom, to vintage pieces like the Saarinen tulip table in the dining room, to whimsical features like a swing in the living room and the giraffe lamp by Jonathan Adler which most people put in a nursery rather than in a main room.  Plus, I think there's a monkey hanging from the ceiling in the living room.  Love it!

(Photos: Vartnya Hem via Delikatissen) 

The House Hotel

When I saw the beautiful House Hotel overlooking the beautiful Bosphorus, I immediately had two thoughts: "Ooh how pretty!" and "What the heck is a Bosphorus?"  If you've heard of the Bosphorus before, well done!  If you haven't, don't feel stupid.  I had to Wikipedia it too.  Apparently the Bosphorus is one of the straits in Turkey which connects Europe to Asia.  More importantly, it is the site of the Home Hotel, a luxury hotel that blends modern design and antique and ornate features with gorgeous results.  If I were a millionaire, I would stay here.  Would you?

(Photos: FOKaL)

Beautiful French loft

You guys thought I forgot to do an interior design post this week, didn't you? I admit that with all of the excitement and flurried activity that comes with moving, I did get a wee bit distracted from my usual schedule. But I hope that by showing you this home, I can make up for it in spades!

This tranquil, airy and gorgeous loft is located in the heart of Paris (they're just rubbing it in now, huh?).  If you're not struck by the beautiful oak wood floors, or the antique doors, or the amount of natural light flooding through the space, then perhaps the styling of this place will impress you.  In my opinion, this loft is a representation of something I have always believed to be true: European flea markets are SO much better than American ones.  When you read the article accompanying the pictures, you will discover that much of the unique and beautiful items found in this home, such as the gorgeous bathroom sink, the coffee table, and the red faux-Jacobson chair were all found in local antique markets.  Two more things I love: the chairs in the kitchen island and the bookshelf.

What do you guys think?

(Photos: Au Coin du Monde)

Spooky décor year-round

In case you've been living under a rock (and if you have, well done getting out from under there!) next week is Halloween!  I am a huge fan of this holiday for all of the wrong reasons.  I don't particularly like getting dressed up, I don't like slasher films, and my sweet-tooth doesn't quite extend to consuming buckets full of candy.  BUT, I love taking a day out of the year to reflect on the morbid/macabre, embrace all things black (this might be a leftover from the days when I was "goth" in high school), carve pumpkins, and laugh at all of the cute costumes the kids are wearing these days.  Plus, since I'll soon be moving to Spain where they generally do not celebrate Halloween, I kind of feel like I should go all out this year. Kind of like a last hurrah. 
Because I love Halloween so much, I've decided to treat you guys to a week of posts that are Halloween-inspired.  I hope to share things with you that will hopefully inspire you or at least make you smile. So here goes!

All around the blogosphere nowadays, you're likely seeing posts on how to dress your home up for Halloween.  While I have nothing against spiderweb chandeliers or bat garland, I thought I'd show you some ideas of how to incorporate spooky, Halloweenish décor into your home year-round.

To that end, you could start with some dramatic wallpaper in dark colors:

Or you could put up a poster of your favorite scary movie.  I particularly love these modern renditions of classic horror flicks.

Or you could incorporate some of these accessories into your home.  How about a c'mere hand hook for your entryway?

Or a freaky white tree sculpture?

Or Edgar Allen Poe dinnerware?  I love these plates. Not only are they pretty but they encourage you to eat up all of your food so you can read the story!

What do you guys think? Is spooky décor for you?

(Photos: Skull wallpaper, Birds wallpaper, Shining, Psycho, Hand, Tree, Poe Plates)

From Sweden with love

I knew I would show you guys this Swedish apartment the second I saw it.  It is absolutely beautiful!  I love the original wooden beams in the ceiling and the exposed brick which add such rustic charm to the living space.  There is so much to take in about this space. Did you notice that amazing bed frame and headboard?  What about the staircase that seems almost industrial and antique at the same time?  And in the entryway, though the flamingo wallpaper might be the first thing to catch your eye, pay attention to the arrow-shaped hooks by the front door.  So subtle but quirky too!

What do you guys think?

(Photos: Stadshem)