Tag Archives: design

Brazilian artist recreates ‘Gilmore Girls’ town out of paper!

Posted on June 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

OK, so this might harm my image a little bit, but I watched Gilmore Girls. There, I said it.

The dialogues irritated me, the French gay guy was so phony it was annoying, most of the characters were dull and the girls actually pushed my wrong buttons too. But OH MY LORD those houses! Talking about your American Dream. This was before Desperate Housewives, so I had yet to see the homes on Wisteria Lane, but I wanted to live in Stars Hollow, I really did.

Stars Hollow aerial view. Not sure what town they used. If anybody knows, please let me know.

It off course is not a real town. In fact, it is a backlot at Warner Brothers studio’s called ‘Midwest Street, built in the 1940’s for the movie Saratoga Trunk. However, the town in the show was inspired by Washington Depot Connecticut, when producer Amy Sherman- Palladino spent a night in the local inn. A lot of the filming for the pilot and some later used street shots was done in Unionville Ontario, Canada.

A store front in Washington depot CT, the inspiration for the Gilmore Girl’s town of Stars Hollow

Brazilian artist Bruna Salvador Conforto, must have been watching in equal awe, yet she managed to use her inspiration for something more tangible. Some of you might know her for her recreation of the apartment from Friends.. in paper! That already was quite the achievement, but it wasn’t enough for Bruna. Her latest project is, you guessed it, a paper version of Stars Hollow!

The town of Stars Hollow, of the TV show Gilmore Girls, in paper as created by Brazilian artist Bruna Salvador Conforto

Lorelai’s home in Gilmore Girls recreated in paper!

For more movie and TV homes check out the Famous buildings and Movie locations section here at Homevoyeurs. Or test your knowledge in one, or more, of the TV home quizes. Time for a new one of those soon actually…

Book review: Prefab Houses

Posted on May 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

As you might know, I have a thing with prefab homes. Always have. I love the idea of a cleverly designed home, fit for a contemporary lifestyle, put up in a matter of weeks, sometimes even days. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I got this marvellous Taschen Book ‘Prefab Homes’ as a gift from friends. I am helping them with a design and install for a new bathroom and I recently had my birthday but still out of the blue they surprised me with this marvellous gift.The book is written by Arnt Cobbers and Oliver Jahn, two well-known architecture and design authors. I can highly recommend it. It’s the perfect coffee table book, with tons and tons of inspiring pictures and stories about various prefab home designs and their designers.

Prefab Houses Taschen

Prefab Home

Another page spread from the book Prefab Houses by Taschen

The book is also available in the Homevoyeurs webshop for $47,38. You might be eligible for free shipping!

Prefab Houses Taschen book

An early example of a prefab home in the book

Vintage finds and antiques revamped with old Silk Road fabrics

Posted on March 21, 2013 | 1 comment

In my other career as PR, I am sometimes lucky enough to work with highly inspiring clients. Momiq is one of those. An former colleague of mine recently started this company with her sister.

Momiq combines antique and vintage furniture with fabrics from the old silk road

They create wonderful, individual pieces of furniture using antique and vintage pieces upholstered with handcrafted colourful old and new fabrics. The fabrics used are mainly from countries along the old Silk Road. Among others, these are suzanis and ikat fabrics from Uzbekistan. Suzanis are embroidered pieces of cloth made by women in the region of Central Asia. They are an important part of a girl’s dowry and are also used for decorative purposes in Central Asian households. Colors are separately dyed and once the panels are complete and sewn together, the suzani is sometimes slightly mismatched because of this. But in these delightful flaws lies its beauty. Although the aim of Momique is to design in a sustainable way and re-use as much as possible, they also use new fabrics. These are all from established brands such as Designers Guild, Nobilis, Lorca and Osborne & Little.

Sobir is a walnut Fauteuil à la Reine from the Regènce period in France (1715–1723). The front side of Sobir is upholstered with a new fabric Papilio Plain II from Osborne & Little. An embroidered strip from Uzbekistan is attached to the front of the seat

Sisters Lidewij in ‘t Veld and Rosemarijn van Velzen – in ‘t Veld share a love for used furniture, colourful fabrics and different cultures.They roam the planet looking for hidden gems they can use when creating the collections for Momiq.

Sisters Lidewij in ‘t Veld and Rosemarijn van Velzen – in ‘t Veld, founders of Momiq

The first collection is called ‘Nomads’. Trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort used the term Nomadism for the trend where boundaries are blurred, and time, culture and place all roll into one. It is this what inspires Momiq. The first collection of chairs each bare the name of an Uzbeki word. Uzbekistan is a country on the old silk road.

Photography sunna & marcvanpraag.com