Jonathan Adler Joins "It Gets Better": Interior designer Jonathan Adler has contributed...

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My First Rental: Interior Designer Jonathan Adler on Sleeping in a Nursery

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, November 10, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

"My first rental apartment was kind of a bittersweet affair. It was sweet because I roomed with the most divine girl named Julia, whom I love—she's a really good friend of mine—in a very, very glamorous doorman building on 9th Street between 5th and 6th [avenues in NYC]. The bitter part was that I was sleeping in the nursery, which had baby-blue infant wallpaper with little balloons and elephants, and it was just big enough to fit my full-size—wait for it—futon. So needless to say I couldn't sleep for a year because I was sleeping on a futon but it was a very, very pleasant place to spend sleepless nights staring up at the happy balloons and elephants."

· Jonathan Adler [official site]
· All Renters Week 2011 posts [Curbed National]

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Adventures in Interior Design: Featured today on L.A. Times blog...

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Room Juice: Custom Online Interior Design Store Profile

Specialty: Affordable online interior design services

Price Range: ($) Budget

Ever wish you could get just a little design help? Assistance in selecting the right paint color, ideas on how to accessorize your room, or advice on what the best furniture layout would be for your space? Nothing too involved... just a little guidance from a professional to get you on the right track...

Enter Room Juice, an affordable online design service that lets you choose the plan that works best for you. You provide measurements and pictures of your space, and Room Juice provides exactly the assistance you need - at the budget you specify. Want a $400 modern Moroccan facelift for your bedroom? You betcha! How about $2000 overall of your living room? Absolutely! With Room Juice, you call the shots. Services range from paint selection, to furniture layout, to accessories, to a total makeover. Prices start at $49, and results for all services (except a complete makeover) are delivered within a week.

For more about Room Juice, visit their store page over at Marketplace.

Image via Room Juice

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Inside the Up House: Today Hooked on Houses shares interior...

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Under 500K Club: Swanky Exterior But Carpeted Interior for Condo at Crown Towers

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, May 4, 2011, by Sally Kuchar

We have a new addition to the Under 500K Club: unit #203 at 666 Post Street, aka Crown Towers. It's a 1-bed, 1-bath unit on the second floor and it's asking $425,000. First, a disclosure: we've been sort of obsessed with the facade of this building for a very long time, so we might be a little biased in our impression of the unit. That said, let's get the "ugh" out of the way. There's a lot of carpet. There is carpet in every room except the kitchen and hopefully the bathroom (not pictured). And it's new carpet, so you're going to feel extra bad when you're ripping it out and replacing it with something else. There's no laundry in the unit. The kitchen's got an odd layout, but we don't think it's gone too far off the deep end. You might want to upgrade the counters and the backsplash, and even the cabinetry if you want to throw some cash around. Monthly HOA dues are $385 and parking isn't included. Please argue amongst yourselves (in the comments) about whether or not 666 Post is located in the Tenderloin, Tendernob, Downtown or Union Square. We're filling it under Tendernob.
· 666 Post, #203 [Redfin]

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The Printed Page: Interior Design For Men, by Nate Berkus, Barry Sonnenfeld, More!

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, February 22, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

This month's Esquire has a full feature devoted to interior design for men—and we're not talkin' man caves, people. We're talkin' sleek, stylish, sophisticated spaces with nary a a trace of the NFL store to be found. Want to achieve that whole "man at his best" look (with or without buying the entire Esquire Home Collection? Heed the advice of the following humanoids:

Nate Berkus, celebrity decorator and host of The Nate Berkus Show:
· Buy an L-shaped couch that's low-slung and tufted, preferably. Also acceptable: a tuxedo-style sofa. It just sounds manly.
· Definitely get some piece with star power. Name-dropping designers such as Milo Baughman and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is a manly must!
· Your coffee table must be a "raw piece of wood on iron base." Period.

· All futons must be removed immediately and replaced with a couch bed.
· You need one rug, and his name shall be sisal. (Or jute, sea grass, coir, or anything else tan-colored and natural.)
· "Try checking out books of European castles and English country houses to see how they divvied up their enormous rooms." Then, re-assert your manhood by pounding a Guinness.
· You've got two choices in life: facing the TV or facing your guests. Choose wisely.

Barry Sonnenfeld, film director/producer:
· Buy and use a heated toilet seat regularly: "Just when you are overwhelmed with life, full of tension, sciatic rage, and anger toward everyone, coping with everything going wrong and no one giving you a second thought, you plant yourself on the seat and are instantly engulfed in a warm, relaxing, embryonic welcome."

Ted Allen, one-time "food guy" on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy:
· "Instead of putting a giant, cock-blowing marshmallow in your living room, buy good armchairs with footstools; perfectly comfy, and the ottoman doubles as another seat."
· Have tabletops made of thick glass, stone, or tile. Manly and stain-resistant!
· If you do have a bar cart, use it to transport whiskey and only whiskey during a party.

Mary Alice Stephenson, TV personality:
· Do not throw a fur blanket just so on the bed. Particularly if it's still got the head on it.
· No silk or satin sheets, ever.
· This is not college—both a flat and a fitted sheet are a must.
· This is not college—wrap the white comforter in a duvet cover, please!

· Esquire [official site]
· All man caves coverage [Curbed National]
· Ten Commandments of Manhood: Lessons Taken from Esquire's Furniture [Curbed National]

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House of the Day: A Shingle-Style Estate in Exclusive Suburb Needs A New Interior

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, April 7, 2011, by Rob Bear

Have a nomination for a jaw-dropping listing that would make a mighty fine House of the Day? Get thee to the tipline and send us your suggestions. We'd love to see what you've got.

Location: Greenwich, Conn.
Price: $20,000,000
The Skinny: Greenwich, Conn., is among the priciest of American suburbs, a collection of imposing houses located some 30 miles outside NYC. But it's Greenwich's most exclusive neighborhood, the waterfront village of Belle Haven, that takes suburban pricing to new heights. Take this peaked-roof shingle-style cottage with views of Long Island Sound. Though it only occupies 2.11 acres and needs, in our opinion, a significant interior overhaul, the estate is asking buyers to fork over $20M. Now, we're not saying its overpriced—after all, this is some preppy version of Shangri-La we're talking about here—but that's a lot of green for a peek at the water. There are some redeeming features, however, like a heated swimming pool with pool house, nine bedrooms, and a mahogany-paneled dining room.
· Belle Haven Shingle Style [David Ogilvy]

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Moonlighting: Venus Williams Puts a Little Tennis Elbow Grease Into Interior Design

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, January 27, 2011, by Sarah

Welcome to Moonlighting, a new Curbed column in which the talented Raina Cox of If the Lamp Shade Fits takes a look at design players whose first job may not have been design. Some triumph, some flop, and some should never, ever give up their day job.

Not content to dominate the world of professional sports, tennis superstar Venus Williams—named one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes last year—fancies herself a creative soul. She produces a line of tennis wear, is a published author, and happens to head her own interior design firm, V Starr. Founded in 2002 near Williams's winter home of Jupiter, Fla., the company was set to take advantage of the early Aughts building boom. V Starr soon ran afoul of the Sunshine State's strict interior designer licensing laws by operating for a year without a license. It was sidelined with a cease-and-desist order from the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design and rallied by filing the proper paperwork.

Williams again stepped over the center mark by calling herself a "certified interior decorator" in the firm's literature, which at the time was a no-no under the notoriously strict Florida law. Williams's "certification" came from Certified Interior Decorators International, a private organization that requires members to pony up $295 in yearly dues, pass a 40-question exam, and hold a certificate from a recognized interior design program. Yet Williams's design education consists of a still-unfinished correspondence school course that she frequently tweets about; her decorating "credentials" are no longer mentioned in V Starr promotional materials.

But Williams is enthusiastic about decorating and draws parallels to her sport. "Design mirrors tennis as you have to find a new design solution for every project, every new space, each new city, and understand the nuances of each client," she writes on V Starr's official website. "I love taking in the varied architecture of different countries."

Given her busy tour schedule, Williams isn't able to devote much time to V Starr. "She really enjoys meeting with the clients at the initial meeting, at first design and at installation, depending on her schedule," said a former project designer with the firm. The company's brochure promises all clients only a basic meet-and-greet with Williams.

So who hires a tennis champion to decorate their home or business? V Starr has designed McMansions for sports stars, a model for a high-end Florida builder, and the studio of PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley. Oddly enough, even when he was dating dating William's sister and fellow tennis legend Serena, film director Brett Ratner did not choose V Starr to decorate his Hollywood home.

That's the official word! But for our take on it all, click through this photogallery of projects from the V Starr portfolio:

· V*Starr Interiors [Official website]
· Venus Williams Prevents Her V*Starr Interiors Skills From Rusting [Curbed National]
· Design Dames on Forbes' List [Curbed National]
· The Private World of Hollywood Honcho Brett Ratner [Elle Decor]
· Come to Win [Google Books]
· Rising star: tennis great Venus Williams tries her hand at interior design in a move that hints at her life after she retires from the court [BNET]
· If the Lamp Shade Fits [official site]

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Video Interlude: How Many Interior Details Can a Filmmaker Capture in 10 Seconds?

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Tuesday, January 18, 2011, by Sarah

Answer: a lot. So many that grabbing that still, at right, was a really, really difficult feat. The 10-second film after the jump, from filmmaker Ross Harris, by way of Boing Boing, shows shot after shot of Harris's house in Los Angeles with flipbook-like speed. Elle Decor-worthy the space isn't, but seeing so many details of the property in such a short timespan is phenomenal indeed. Have a look.

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Linkage: Paintings of Books; Interior Stylings; Kitchen Artwork; More!

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Marcel Wanders Expands to Cosmetics Design: Industrial and interior designer Marcel Wanders...

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