Marrying Painted Furniture | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Tuesday, Feb 12 2013

You have a tired piece of furniture, you like it so much, perhaps it has been in the family for a long time or you just care for the environment and don’t want to dispose of it. The solution is to repaint it.

It is fun to let the imagination run free when repainting furniture.  You are imagining the new piece in a particular corner, you found the right color or pattern you like so much and get equipped with all that is needed to do the paint job, but then you might realize that particular color or pattern will not fit with the décor of your room.  Before you get innamorate of a certain design,  the first think to do is to ask yourself if color and pattern will go with your room décor. When you are absolutely sure, purchase all the material needed. A couple of times it happened to me. I was totally taken by a certain design that I ended up changing the rest of the room to fit the painted piece.

If you are restyling a room based on the new color of your painted furniture, remember that nothing transforms a room better than colors do. Colors in nature work just as you see them, bring them in the room, they will work just as good. A room exposed to South can take bold and rich colors on walls, furniture and accessories. For rooms exposed to North, you might want to use bold colors only in accessories.
Take one or two colors from your painted furniture and use them as your color scheme for the room. Then the fun part comes. Select one color that doesn’t even exist in your painted furniture piece and make it the accent color to help the room stand out. Note what I did in my color schemes:

First colors scheme: The green tones came from the green lines of the dresser, by introducing a raspberry color the room become vibrant. Although green is a calming color, it might not be suitable for everyone, especially for those people who have a low value skin tone.

Second colors scheme: the grounding color is black found in the chair legs, coffee table and credenza top. In the next slide, notice how the same piece of furniture looks so different with different colors around.

Third color scheme: I picked up the brownish tones from the same credenza with diamond designs, changing the feeling of the room completely. Have you noticed the rug has the same diamond pattern of the credenza? It just happened by chance.

Fourth color scheme: I chose to play with the brown tone of the colorful chest of drawers. The yellow in the drawers was my inspiration for a yellow tone floral chair. Floral chairs offer many colors to mix and match other chairs in solid colors.

Fifth color scheme: painted golden and silver stripes characterize this dresser drawer, to which anything can be  matched. I chose the golden tones, bright, warm colors and added texture with the accessories. The feel is sunny and natural.

Sixth color scheme: In alternative to paint a piece of furniture, you might want to consider covering that piece with faux leather, or wallpaper. Color black grounds a room, but also, as a graphic color, lends itself to many color combinations from classical to modern.

Today’ s wise designer must know how to romance a room and how to dance around client’s budget.

If a client needs guidance in painting a piece of furniture that can say “I am an original” , I will gladly do that, it is part of my services and color is my expertise. Ciao,
Valentina

http://www.Valentinadesigns.com
http://valentinaexpressions.com

Copyright © 2013 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer and former Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe since 1990. She blends well fashion with interior and colors the world of her clients. She has been described as “the colorist” and loves to create the unusual. She is the author of three books, the latest is a book on colors RED-A Voyage Into Colors. Find them on 
Amazon http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9 
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

 

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F For Furniture – A Movable Thought | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Friday, Feb 1 2013

Welcome to my A to Z Challenge on the subject of HOME

The word furniture comes from the 1570 French word “fournir” (furnish in English). Furniture was the prerogative of the higher levels of society and nobles who lived in castles while the less prosperous sat on benches, stools or on the floor, ate at whatever table available at their disposition and often slept on beds of straw. Furniture had a double purpose: to decorate a room as we intend it today and to be mobile. In fact in many European countries where romantic languages are spoken furniture was also called “mobilia” a Latin word which means mobile. The word is still in use today.

Vacation time of the rich and nobles was like a house moving of today, they took along chairs, tables, trunks and household stuff when they left their castle and went to visit their peers in their castles. Visiting people’s castle was a common custom as today we go on vacation and stay in hotels, except that our hotels are fully furnished and clothes is the only thing we carry around.

Furniture and adornments were meant to convey the wealth of its owner. Rich oak was the preferred wood for container such as trunks and credenza; upholstered chairs in velvet or expensive materials divided rooms elegantly in vignettes; turned legs accented and beautified any boxed furniture; elaborate window treatments kept the cold winter out and gilded and decorated walls lined with expensive art really told the story of how wealthy the family was.

The Dutch were the first to use Turkish rug as table coverings and not as floor covering. They believed furniture was to admire, to use and never to crowd a room, in that it would detract the light and the spirit within. However their reason might have been a more practical one. Dutch people scrubbed and cleaned their homes every day and when entering the house, took their shoes off on the unfurnished and very bare first floor, which was considered an extension of the street. With slippers on their feet, they entered the livable home on the second floor. However, the cleanliness of their homes did not reflect the cleanliness of their bodies. One would think that the same people who scrubbed, cleaned and shined their homes, would take an exceptional effort to keep up with personal care and hygiene as well, but that was not the case. Houses did not have a room for bathing and the multiple layers of clothing that kept them warm during the hard winter months, discouraged bathing and exposure to fresh air: “the bark stays better on the trunk”.

Strangely enough, not much as changed since then, except that furniture are less decorated, more functional, respect the rule of ergonomics, often are very technological with more than one function and we don’t take them on our vacations. In decorating, we like to reproduce past styles to feel a connection to history. The Dutch four-post bed is still in use today, as are alcoves and banquette seating under windows. Family portraits and various art pieces still line our decorated walls. Entering someone’s home it’s hard to remain indifferent one way or the other. Furniture will immediately communicate the status symbol or non-status of the owner and the style will speak about the owner’s personality.

As for cleanliness, I wonder often if people have learned anything or if technology has even helped. It’s not uncommon for me, being a designer, to go into a house for the first time and find a royal mess and stale air. The answer is to be found in the question: “what do people do with their time?”. Ciao,
Valentina

http://www.Valentinadesigns.com
http://valentinaexpressions.com

Copyright © 2013 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola has been a lifetime designer in fashion and interiors. Her extensive knowledge of colors and materials led her in both directions successfully. She is well-known for designing custom furniture. She cares to make spacious and functional pieces, but she doesn’t forget to introduce the element of surprise, sinuous lines, attractive shapes and color in the style fit for each of her special clients.
She is the author of three books all available on

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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Good Day Sisters! By Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Tuesday, Sep 11 2012

Today I am going off topic from my usual design and style. I like to repost a piece from one of girlfriends and artist who wrote it after she attended a talk at Stanford University.

Tiffany (left) Valentina (right) having fun at a restaurant.

“They Teach It at Stanford:
In an evening class at Stanford University the last lecture was on the mind-body connection – the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.
Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well-being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very GOOD for our health.

He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym. There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged? Not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky.

Let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health”.
Maria Grazia Romero is a renowned artist in the San Francisco Bay Area http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/87298-maria-grazia-romeo

I am taking this opportunity to thank Jamie, my new-found friend here on WordPress
http://www.grandmothermusings.com for my nomination of “One Lovely Blog Award”. Jamie says that “Sharing little slices of life makes the journey more exciting!” I could not agree more.

Rules for the One Lovely Blog Award:
1. Give credit to the awesome person who nominated you and post the Award on your site.

2. Describe 7 things about yourself.

3. Nominate 15 other bloggers. I will tweak it a little.

7 Things about Home Designs Master
1. A few moons ago, I moved away from the Old World to only find myself doing things in the Old World style in the New World:

a. My laundry yard is where I hang my clean laundry to dry in the sun and wind. Will never own a clothes dryer.

b. Microwave cooking is not for me, it’s very bad to cook in it. Will never own a microwave either.

c. In my garden, I created an orchard, where I grow many types of food, Summer is harvest time. I preserve them for the winter, going through so much cooking, stuffing, canning and pickling, but my winter looks colorful, abundant and healthy.

d. If I am not using parts of my home at night, the lights stay off in those area; only keep lit the rooms I am using at certain given time of my evening.

e. For a good health of the home and the health of people living in it, I keep windows open to circulate fresh air all through the day. In the morning, when I get up, I open the windows and when I cook, the windows are open also. During remodeling process, I make sure to include plenty windows in clients’ kitchens and bathrooms. It is important these two spaces have egress for steam, vapors and odors.

e. I learned to make facial masks and skin, hair, or body treatments with food in my kitchen.

My way of living is in tune with my eco-friendly designs, which I offer to my clients, if they care to save money and live in a natural way.
The government didn’t have to tell me what to do to respect the Earth, I was born into a saving mentality.

Allow me to tweak the rules of the award and nominate the following 10 exceptional blogs for the One Lovely Blog Award. Many thanks to all of you for spending time with my writing and sharing your experiences and thoughts with me. Ciao,
Valentina

http://healthdemystified.wordpress.com/
http://zenandgenki.com/
http://openplatforms.wordpress.com/
http://myhomefoodthatsamore.wordpress.com/
http://cancerkillingrecipe.wordpress.com/
http://jeffsinonphotography.wordpress.com/
http://bluebutterfliesandme.wordpress.com/
http://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/
http://thebigbookofdating.wordpress.com/
http://thismansjourney.net/

Copyright © 2012 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola has been a lifetime designer in fashion and interiors. Her extensive knowledge of colors and materials led her in both directions successfully. “Vogue Italy” magazine featured Valentina as the guru of staging in the theatrical way. Among designing and remodeling homes, designing custom-made furniture and writing books, Valentina is now teaching etiquette, table manners, table setting and life style. Her new book on the subject of colors is almost ready to be published. Stay tuned for Red-A Voyage Into Colors. Visit her at: http://www.Valentinadesigns.com
Check her previous books on 

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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Urban Gardens | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Thursday, Aug 16 2012

My fascination with gardens takes me to a constant research to find innovative solutions for my clients and for my garden as well. I do gardening and grow the food I like to eat as a form of relaxation and as another way to get closer to Mother Earth.

I came across this new idea called “Urbanana” created in Paris by French practice SOA Architects. The building of Urbanana sits between two residential buildings in the middle of the city and it is an open glass space dedicated to a cultivation of most bananas species, especially the type that is no longer available in Europe.
Inside of the building, on the bottom floor, there is an exposition area, a restaurant and even a boutique. There is no flooring above the exposition area, where the plants are growing, but a system of bridges fill the interior spaces to provide access to each section and to give maximum daylight to the plants. In this giant green house, artificial and natural lighting help plants maturing naturally, following the succession of seasons.
All Urbanana images belong to SOA

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This is a superb initiative and I hope more people will come up with similar models to reproduce many types of vegetation. Looking at the bird’s eye view picture, all those banana trees add a feeling of a tropical island in the middle of a busy city. I can smell the banana scent in the middle of Paris!

For homegrown food, we can take this model to make a less imposing structure and still produce natural food with only natural light, water and love. Vertical gardens can be attached anywhere in the outdoor space, on walls, on heavy fences, or made as freestanding structures. This has been my goal since several years ago, when I decided to become a weekend city farmer and turn my backyard into a healthy source of tasty food my way.

I have made wreaths of tomatoes and peppers to dry under the sun. In a few days the will be turned into sauces and compote for the winter. My winter table promises well and my friends will be really happy. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com
http://valentinaexpressions.com/

Copyright © 2012 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola has been in business as an interior designer since 1990. 
She has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. 
She designs architectural landscape as a complement to the residential design concept.
Check out her books on 

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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What’s Under Your Feet? | By : Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Tuesday, Apr 24 2012

I have been incredibly busy creating and preparing new products for the Internet and the launch of my third book on the subject of colors. Yippee!
RED-A Voyage Into Colors will be released in the next month. In 2009, when I said I will be writing 5 books in the next 5 years was absolutely true. This third book is on time with the realization of my goals. Goals without actions are just daydreams, as we all know. Aside from this I am designing and remodeling a home in France through Skype line without moving an inch from my desk in California. Technology is my second name.

This is in brief what I am doing, but behind the scene, there is a lot more going on, so much so that sometimes things go unobserved. Yesterday, I was exercising in the park and saw the kids’ playground flooring made with soft tiles (photo above). I have seen that area for ages, but I really never paid attention. Designers give it for granted that people know what we know and it is not true. It gave me the idea to write about it.

In Italy, some times ago, I designed a wine cellar in the Renaissance style. My Client went to the island of Murano, near Venice and had the glass master reproducing historic Renaissance wine glasses from a photograph.
I hate to tell you how much he paid for a set of 12 glasses, but that was exactly the reason I used soft tiles on the floor of his wine cellar to protect those absurdly expensive wine glasses from hitting the ground and breaking.

Soft tiles are a good application for kids’ room and kids’ playground. They are perfect for study and library rooms, basements, or if you need to make an area in your home silent, even bedrooms. They are relaxing for the knees, inexpensive, come in many colors, even in wood texture and they are “green”.

What are they made of? They are made from a non-toxic EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) foam. There you have it. Soft tiles are wonderful.

Let me know if you have an interest in saving your glasses, you knees, or you kids’ face. I am here at your service and nothing is ever a difficult job for me, not even from here to across the pond.

As I mentioned above I offer design consultations on-line, as a new feature of my business since two years ago. Tell your customers, friends and people in your circle that now they can hire me, see me though a computer screen, they will still receive architectural drawings from me if they need to get the house designed and remodeled, without Valentina being there, resulting in a huge savings for them. The traditional face-to-face consultations are still available. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.Valentinadesigns.com
http://valentinaexpressions.com

http://youtu.be/kWuB7I8uJjg
http://youtu.be/eC2LVXANG5U

 

Copyright © 2012 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Italian Interior Designer in business since 1990. Being Italian born and raised, Valentina’s design work has been influenced by Classicism and stylish, timeless designs. She is a designer well-known to bring originality to people’s homes. As an Italian designer and true to her origins, she provides only the best workmanship and design solutions.

She is the author of three books available on
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

 

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My Christmas Village | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Wednesday, Dec 21 2011

I can finally take care of “building” my village. This year many days ran together, during the course of many weeks I lost at least one day every time and wondering where did my time go. How did I manage that? This year has been a real lesson for me and I will take care of my busyness at the beginning of next year, but now it is time to think of my Christmas village.

Years ago, I fell in love with hand painted houses representing Charles Dickens’s village. I was new in USA, seeing Christmas villages in stores were new thing for me, just as everything else was. I started to collect as many little houses I could until one day I had no more place to store them and stopped the collection.
The village I build for Christmas every year is my fantasy, not a real village. The style of architecture does represent Victorian England of early 1800s, the small statues of people are dressed in Victorian fashion, so darling, but everything else is a fantasy. I have a theatre for plays, comedies and ballet performances, the Opera House is grand. I have many pubs and restaurants, hotels, various shoppes, antique stores, a seamstress’s house, playgrounds for kids, the light house and a barn, an ice skate ring with moving people (battery operated), a few library buildings, a train station with a sound of a train coming and a real moving train, a battery operated toy. In my village there is no police station, no hospital, no government buildings and no schools. Hey, this is my village and in my fantasy we all learn from each other, we are all good to each others and help one another.

It takes many hours to put the village up, string all the lights inside the small houses, creating attractive streets and passages over bridges and gardens, arrange the houses to design an inviting village with the main drag with all the fashionable stores just as if I were a certified city planner. I like to place street benches next to cozy corners or views, kids and carriages in the right spots and attach all the sounds to make the village come alive. I like to keep all the lights and sounds turned on all day, but at night it becomes magic. The lay out of my village varies every year, streets and things to do are never the same and I amaze myself how many solutions I can create. It’s playtime!

I leave the rest of the room in suffuse lighting to allow the village to be on stage, when is completed it is quite beautiful. December is the only time of the year I can live almost in history, I get to step back in time to experience a much simpler and slower life even though is only in my fantasy and through toys. Perhaps during Charles Dickens’s time they said the same thing about a slower living style before the 1800s.

In a separate area of the room, away from the village display, I don’t miss to set up a spirituality corner with my little manger made in Germany by wood workers artists who are still designing small items all by hands and some angels made of Venetian glass made in Murano. LED light strings and candles everywhere illuminate the rest of the house.

The custom of turning on shiny, bright and colored lights in December comes from the burning the “Yule Log” in Germany, a medieval pagan festival that occurred every December to celebrate the winter Solstice and the short dark days of winter. The burning of the Yule Log was a way to welcome light, the return of the sun and it represented Jesus as the light of the world.

However I want to look at it, I am one of the few people who decorate Christmas in a different way. The important thing is to celebrate a new light that will take the darkness of the winter away from our life and project us into the New Year with a renewed spirituality and new goals toward the humanity and ourselves.

I hope you will come up with your own different display too and please remember I am always ready to decorate and design with you.
Have a Happy Christmas and happy holidays. Ciao,
Valentina

www.Valentinadesigns.com
www.Valentinaexpressions.com

Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior and Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe. She blends fashion and interior well in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and loves to create the unusual. She is the author of the forthcoming book on the subject of Colors entitled RED-A Voyage Into Colors, due to be published very soon.

Valentina’s books on the Italian regional cuisine are doing very well. They are available on

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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A Watchful Eye | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Monday, Aug 22 2011

Economic recessions and depressions are often a cause of violent riots, insurgency and disobedience of law. Growing differences in socio-economic classes are creating dissatisfaction among the working people who are seeing their purchasing power diminished day-by-day and witnessing an unstable future with no return.

The latest riots in Vancouver in June, riots in Italy and London in August arose precisely from these feelings of resentment towards richer and well-to-do classes. I don’t want to be alarmist, but it could happen in this country too, after all we have our hands full of economic problems and we are certainly not exonerated from these occurrences.

I have studied security systems for a while and I have collected much precious information from manufacturers of these devices. I feel an urgency to bring you tips on how to protect your home, your valuable, but above all, your loved ones, not only in case of riots, but to protect yourself against burglary, vandalism, fire and other accidents.

Your attention should go to the front entry first! I suggest keeping your front door closed and locked at all time, even if you are inside the home. The door should have a deadbolt lock, which is not easy to open with a simple ID card and a peephole that has 180º view. The front door must be well lit with wall sconces on both sides of the door and above lighting.

Install lights around your home, in critical or dark areas install exterior sensor lights and make all the pathways bright and pleasant to walk through. Set economical timers for the interior of the house to turn the lights on and give the appearance that someone is at home when you are not. Intruders don’t like lights or noises.

Shrubs and bushes should be trimmed, especially around windows. Overgrown bushes will protect burglars and criminals from being seeing while they are gaining easy access into the home. All the windows should have the same type of locks and pins, so once the mechanisms are memorized, they will be easy to use.

Security System is one thing you should not try to do on a discount, spend the money!
A well-designed security system should protect you against burglary, vandals, fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, household flooding and other dangers. Experienced, trusted local authorities such as police and fire brigades should monitor it.

A wireless security system offers a better protection, in that it is easy to conceal, will not interfere with the beauty of a curb appeal and there is no hard wires the burglars can cut.

Wireless security camera is a must. In combination with other wireless security devises, cameras are also a way to monitor children playing in the yard.
Make sure the wireless security system you are going to purchase is easy to operate for everyone in the house, it must have a maintenance plan to cover parts and service and that it will not go off by a dog walking by your home, winds or heavy rain. Night vision is not only for war actions. Infrared technology allows you to record your house at night and guard you against night intruders.

Every day simple actions to protect yourself:
1. Don’t ever hide the keys of your house under plants, doormats, or above the door.
2. Leaving boxes of recent purchases such as computer, HD T.V., or appliances outside your door is a good way to show that you have made an expensive purchase. Cut up the box in small pieces and place it in the trash.
3. Photograph and make a video of all your valuable, retain the receipts of those purchases and deposit everything in a safe deposit box along with valuable documents, insurance policies, wills and all that pertain your life.
4. Keep house keys and cellular close to you at night.
5. How about Neighborhood Watch Association? This is where you can get informed on what happens around your community. Join a group near your home.

Some things in life are replaceable, but certain others when they are gone, they are lost forever. Are you willing to loose them?
Should you need advices on security systems, I shall be here to help with your needs, just leave your name in box below. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola, is the principal designer and owner of Valentina Interiors & Designs. She is a trained designer and has been in business since 1990. She works on consultation and produces design concepts for remodeling, upgrading, new home, décor restyling and home fashion. Valentina was featured in Italy on: “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California. She also has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Find her books on:

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

 

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In The Napa Style | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Friday, Jul 1 2011

Ah, Napa Valley! The valley of Californian wines and the place where Bacchus is celebrated every day and every moment of the day is a good time to sip a glass of wine.

Napa is all about a life style made of nature, naturally grown food, relaxation, spa treatments, exercise and living a healthy life with the vice of wines.
This is not a place for a crazy nightlife, late night dinners and dancing until the small hours of the day. It is about a simpler, earthy life, growing food, producing wines, making home-style bread, farming bees for honey and enjoy bucolic scenes.

However, there is nothing simple about the homes of this wine country. Homes in the valley might be modest and unpretentious, but driving up Napa Valley hills and getting lost among the tall vegetation and lush terrace vineyards, one can see fantastic villas, some of them revolving around the entire hill-top. These large homes, large almost as small castles are intended for entertaining large parties, dinner events and musical gathering.

One of the people in my circle, hosted an Opera Night for sixty people sitting around bistro tables, all gathered in the Italianate courtyard. This place will be featured in the filming of the T.V. show I am hosting entitled Dreaming California, which will air in Italy towards the end of the 2011. I selected it because it projects that feeling of the Italian courtyard life of my past, so very familiar to me. Growing up in the South of Italy, I spent my childhood playing in so many courts and courtyards of my family and friends while the adults canned food for the winter, or made wines. And the memory is sweet!

Let’s leave for a moment the huge homes of the high-profile people of Napa Valley. Anyone can reproduce this earthy style with a few refined accents and with not much effort. Second hand stores are a wealth of inspiration and often old findings are real treasure. One thing to keep in mind is nature, which must be present in every space, then natural items from wood species to leather, from fabrics to glass and metals. Old and distressed fit the rusticity of the area. New furniture must look muted and not shiny.

Comfortable but massive seating is a must, possibly covered with the most natural eco-friendly fibers and directed towards the views to add to the comfort. Remember the rustic tables with straw seat chairs? Probably your grandmother had them all her life. They sit so well in any space, not just in the kitchen and if you want to substitute the straw chairs for long benches is even better to get that old farmhouse look.

Vintage wines or farming objects should be appearing every so often in the décor. Keep it rustic. Use recycled and salvaged items when possible, floor, windows and doors are easy to find at architectural salvage yard.

Stack the butler pantry with rustic dishes and drinking vessels. Add all the natural flavors of olive oils, vinegar, a variety of olives, sauces to spread over bruschetta like eggplant caponata and peperonata, natural salts, dry good like truffles and porcini, all the nuts, honey, marmalade and you will feel motivate to cook like a real gourmet chef.

Keep the cooking area modern enough with all the convenient amenities of the modern life, but the perception of the kitchen should be seasoned, reminiscent of simple time gone by.

A home decorated in the Napa style doesn’t have to be nested atop a narrow ridge and surrounded by its own lush vineyards. It is just as easy to reproduce it anywhere with patios, courtyards and verandahs decorated with the right elements for relaxation, as well as plants and flowers to enjoy the aromas of nature. Wine is the one and only element that should never be missed.

A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. ‘Much obliged,’ said he, pushing the dish away from him, ‘but I am not in the habit of taking my wine in pills.’ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French gastronome, (1755-1826), “The Physiology of Taste”.
I read this book so many times around. It should be part of a Napa style kitchen.

I am here to help you with any challenges you might have with your décor, or to advice you in the making of a particular style. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/2/eC2LVXANG5U
http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/0/kWuB7I8uJjg

Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Italian Interior Designer in business since 1990. Being Italian born and raised, Valentina’s design work has been influenced by Classicism and stylish, timeless designs. She will create your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away your comfort. She loves to restore old homes, historic dwellings and she focuses on remodeling. She is the author of three books available on

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Illuminate Your Summer | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Friday, May 13 2011

Light is life. Where there is light there is a crowd of people and where there is a fun lighting there is also a fun divertissement.
We all know how to illuminate our exterior paths, the garden and the house and we do it accordingly to the style of the house. Illumination is one of those items in the décor that can go extravagant, out of the ordinary, be a bit crazy.
In my house I have lamps and light sources different from one another and yet they live together really well, adding the conversation element too.
I want to show you how to illuminate your summer with solar lighting in the fun way and save you money at the same time.

Magic Solar Glowing Globes are good for any pathways, swimming pool edge line, or as stakes on the grass between vegetation.

Solar Stakes add a little comic life by mimic flowers and plants elevated to the nth power. Glass Solar Steaks go into the ground, the multicolored glass will illuminate in colors any trees, any shrub, any vast area of plain grass, now you only need imagination in creating your own secret garden fantasy.

If you have a swimming pool you can produce a nighttime underwater lighting show with lit up fountain creating water shooting scattered here and there on the water of the pool.
How about something to recreate pleasant sounds?
Whether you like quiet time with yourself, or entertain in style, these fake rocks are light enough to be picked up by one person and moved anywhere you like. Add speaker to them and your favorite music will fill the air.

A chandelier in the garden, what a novel idea! They are not what they seem, they are hummingbirds feeders in the version of small chandeliers, artsy, whimsical, colorful. Any place in the garden is the right place, hang them off trees, pergola and arbors. My hummingbirds are very happy these days.

Now relax, sit in this “Paradisio” alcove, with UV-resistant fabrics and maintenance-free material and forget the world!
There is so much more to do in recreating a summer of harmony: solar shower, outdoor heaters, nighttime fire and all the items I can pull together for you in a jiffy, while saving you money too. Leave your name down below in the box and I shall answer you in 24 hours time. Ciao,
Valentina

www.Valentinadesigns.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/2/eC2LVXANG5U
http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/0/kWuB7I8uJjg

Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola has been in business as a designer since 1990. 
She has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors.
 She designs landscape and hardscape as a complement to the residential design concept as a unity. Find her books on
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9
Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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Living In The Time | By: Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer Monday, Apr 25 2011

The concept of living in the time is about how to transform a living space in a more responsible and sustainable space while keeping it full of dreams and personal touches.
One of the most loved idea is the Outdoor as part of the indoor interiors. I don’t want to talk about trend, as I don’t see this outdoor idea going away anytime soon. We are more willing to live with the nature than being surrounded by cement, but the outdoor must have all the amenities, functionality and attention to details as any interior, to feel livable and comfortable.

Outdoor furniture should be carefully selected for durability under the weather. Teak wood is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species “Tectona Grandis” native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar. It is used in the manufacture of outdoor furniture, boat decks, cutting boards, indoor flooring, countertops and as a veneer for indoor furnishings. It is weather, termite and pest resistant even when not treated with oil or varnish.

One of my friend introduced me to Ifit (Ifil ) another hard wood from Guam and Pacific Rim. The extremely dense and reddish wood is highly termite resistant and was once extensively used for interior woodwork such as flooring, window frames, corner posts, cutting boards and other accessories, as it is highly polished. These type of wood species being durable and pest resistant become eco-friendly because they will outlived us and hopefully we will buy them only once, but their traveling will need lot of petrol to take them from their native lands to their next destination.

While decorating with sustainability in mind, think of a variety of eco-friendly upholstery fabrics, such as organic cotton grown without pesticides and not genetically modified. Organic cotton is printable in many patterns and choices are endless.
Hemp is stronger and more durable than cotton, needs half as much water to grow and doesn’t require pesticides. Hemp is just beautiful if it remains in its natural coloration, as shown on the chairs in my photo.
I was really surprised the first time I saw a Tencel fabric, made of wood pulp fibers. The moisture and temperature control is the wonderful benefit of clothing made from this unique way of processing a tree. The Tencel fabric pulls the moisture from the skin and releases into the air. Lounging around the poolside, or having a soft bathrobe made of wood pulp fiber is pure pleasure!

One other area that contributes to the making of a perfect outdoor living concept are the picture windows. It is very nice to admire the view from the garden, or the beauty of a night skyline of the city while sitting in a bathtub, but we must not think only of our inner pleasure. It is necessary to reduce home heating and cooling costs through air sealing techniques and house insulation. By plugging air leaks with caulking or weather strips, we can save more than 10 percent on the energy bill and by using Energy Star windows we reduce the heating bill by 30-40 percent compared to uncoated, single-pain windows.
Weatherized the entire home will provide year round comfort and savings.

Cool the house without air conditioning. The secret is effective use of fans, specifically fans which remove the hot air from the attic and fans which exchange the hot air in the house with cool air from outside.
A whole house fan is a large powerful fan that gets installed in a central part of the home (typically a hallway) and blows from the house into the attic.
As the house fan blows, the pressure in the attic increases and the pressure in the house decreases. The hot air in the attic then vents through roof and other attic vents. Of course this is a one time large expense.

Ceiling fans are less expensive and do a great job too in cooling the house without air conditioning. Tropical style ceiling fans will make a wonderful addition to any décor, whether it is traditional, rustic, tropical, or even elegant. Ceiling fans with blades up to 60″ or 72″ long are powerful and large enough to be right at home and keep us cool.

There is so much more to talk about the outdoor-indoor living, perhaps I will create a second part to this blog. In the meantime making a few improvements towards an intelligent living is already a good step. You, as a person, are an integral part of the environment. Cultivate flowers that will attract butterflies and grow your own food, it is possible even in pots on small balconies and you will elevate health and spirit. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/2/eC2LVXANG5U
http://www.youtube.com/user/affluentliving#p/u/0/kWuB7I8uJjg

Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola has been in business as a designer since 1990. She has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She is a designer well-known to bring originality to people’s homes.
She is the author of three books available on 

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/9agl5v9

Barnes&Nobles: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/valentina-cirasola

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