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Home decor essentials for Pantone Color of the Year

While most of us are trying to keep our head above water as we survive the holidays, Pantone is looking ahead — specifically to 2022 — by announcing the color of year. Dubbed “Very Peri,” the periwinkle-esque hue marks the first time the company has created a color from scratch rather than delving into its vast archive of options. “It was really important for us to come up with a new color, because we have a very new vision of the world now,” Pantone Color Institute’s executive director Leatrice Eiseman told CNN, adding, “It is literally the happiest and the warmest of all the blue hues.”

Interior design experts coast to coast couldn’t agree more, telling us (practically in unison) that Very Peri is ab-so-lutely a fit for home interiors. “It’s bold, but also serene; it’s equal parts lively and tranquil; it has some bright energy to it, but it also feels comforting,” explains Think Chic Interiors founder Malka Helft of White Plains, New York. “And I love that it can add a lot of design ‘oomph’ into a space quite easily.”

Bringing more color into the home, says Shaolin Low, founder of the Honolulu-based Studio Shaolin, is always a good thing. “I think after the neutral years of gray, this an amazing departure and moves us toward eclectic styles we are starting to see pop up,” she says, adding, “It’s soothing, playful and feminine, which always makes for a great space, and it’s going to blend easily with the coastal styles we see here a lot in Hawaii, so I think it’s kind of a neutral pop of color — present, but not dominating.”

Lance Thomas of the Louisiana-based Thomas Guy Interiors agrees, saying that the color is actually a versatile workhorse we should all have in arsenals. “Very Peri is a great color choice to warm up a cool-toned room while keeping in a similar color family,” says Thomas. “Table lamps or draperies would be a great way to do that. Conversely, Peri can also be used to cool down a warmer-toned room.”

So, how exactly do we infuse some Very Peri into our homes? Well, there are pretty much only two ways to do it — go big or go small. If you’re going to go big, you might consider swathing an entire wall or space in the hue. “We love using a color like this in a serene space like a bed or bath,” says Nina Grauer, principal and co-founder of Dekay and Tate Interiors, which has offices in Florida and Colorado. “It packs a punch, but still feels relaxing and moody, which is the perfect vibe for those areas. It’s probably best to use an accent wall, even on the ceiling!”

Zane Kearney, Ruggable’s senior director of art and design, advises, “If you’re a maximalist you’ll want to be sure you’re using a good range of complementary colors like a nice teal or sage blue-green to keep it fresh and fun.”

If that is a bit too daunting, baby steps are a better Very Peri tactic for you. “Bedding would be a wonderful place to start,” recommends Paige Gray, partner and lead interior designer at British Columbia firm Parker & Harlow. Gray adds that color can also be injected via some paint on the front door, stacked subway tiles in the bathroom or a textured seagrass wallpaper behind the bedroom’s headboard.

It’s true, Pantone’s Color of the Year can easily be mixed into any space (and with minimal investment), thanks to decor stalwarts like paint, rugs, throw pillows and blankets, artwork, vases, lamps and accent furnishings like an armchair or a console. Says Hillary M. Stamm, founder of Manhattan Beach, California-based firm HMS Interiors, “I love Peri for the interior color of your bookshelves, for the dreamy drapes in the kitchen — this color has so much depth and breadth, it can easily be folded into any room.”

Below, you’ll find your very own Very Peri home decor cheat sheet, brimming with pieces that can quickly and easily be added to your home.

West Elm Watercolor Field Rug

Rugs are a designer’s secret tool for anchoring a space and creating distinct areas within a room — choosing one that blends in some Very Peri will hit two birds with one stone. “This rug would look great in a dreamy, whimsical bedroom with soft bedding and elegant accents,” recommends Leslie Murphy, creative director and owner of Murphy Maude Interiors in Memphis.

AmourLinen Blue Linen Sheets Set

A big fan of channeling Pantone’s Color of the Year via bedding, Gray loves this set specifically for its fabric. “I love when the color speaks to the texture of a product, and for Peri, my mind went immediately to linen. Here, a soft, livable textile application on the bed makes the color the focus and lets the fabric sing its praises.”

Elegant Designs Modern Leather Table Lamps in Periwinkle with Fabric Shades

A must-have Peri item on Grauer’s list? This set of gorgeous leather-textured lamps that are great for bedside tables or anchoring a living room console. Pro tip: Grauer recommends swapping out the shades for a custom option.

Top Plaza Natural Amethyst Geode Cave Healing Crystal

“I recommend using Very Peri in small doses as the vibrant color in the room,” says Sarah Stacey of Sarah Stacey Interior Design in Austin, Texas. “For example, when covering your whole room in color, you could use a muted petrol on walls, navy on your sofa and have hints of Very Peri on accent chairs or small accessories.” Case in point: This awesome geode that is bursting with periwinkle hues. “Decorating with natural stone is always elegant and timeless,” Stacey advises, adding, “Place some amethyst in bookcases for layered styling.”

Baccarat Papillon Lucky Butterfly Sculpture

“If you want to just add a few touches of Peri, think throw pillows, an accent chair, vases and even flowers,” recommends Grauer. Case in point: This stunning objet d’art from Baccarat. Uplifting to look at, the glinting crystal butterfly (in the purple hue!) is a gorgeous piece to add to a desk, coffee table or bookshelf.

Chasing Paper Got the Blues Print

Statement-making art that is also oversized and easy on the wallet? Yep, it exists — even in Very Peri hues. “I loooveee this piece and am planning on using it in a project,” says Low. “It’s feminine, playful and soothing, all the things I used to describe Peri packed into one piece of art. It’s simple and bold without being overwhelming.”

Le Creuset Mug

We all need an excuse for more Le Creuset in our lives, and luckily Stamm found one for us, saying that this periwinkle-hued Le Creuset coffee mug “is gorgeous for your open-kitchen shelving…and your early morning coffee!” You can get a set of four on Amazon for just under $60 too.

KDC Tile and Marble Blue Ceramic Subway Tile ($14.69 per square foot; wayfair.com)

KDC Tile and Marble Blue Ceramic Subway Tile

“I love a bold powder room, and what better way to integrate Peri than to mimic the subtle gloss and watery hues of seashells in a stacked subway tile,” says Gray, who loves this long and narrow option from Wayfair.

Crane & Canopy Admiral Blue Fringed Throw Blanket ($130; craneandcanopy.com)

Crane & Canopy Admiral Blue Fringed Throw Blanket

Pretty much every designer we chatted with recommended investing in a Very Peri-hued throw blanket, and this pretty option from luxe bedding and bath retailer Crane & Canopy is among our favorites.

Ruggable Urbano Lilac Rug

“If you have a Ruggable, you already know our rug covers are interchangeable — so you can swap out your existing rug cover with a nice neutral-toned rug that uses Very Peri as a pop of color,” says Kearney, who suggests this lilac-and-gray geometric area rug.

Deconovo Grommet Blackout Curtains

More than 47,000 Amazon reviewers agree that these blackout curtains are worth the purchase — especially in Very Peri. Perfect for a nursery or kid’s bedroom, the curtains not only add a dose of Pantone to the room but also work to keep little ones sleeping by blocking out natural light.

Gracie Oaks Periwinkle Woven Raffia 3D Embossed Wallpaper Roll

Zhuzh up an accent wall with some color and texture. “The natural fibers of seagrass give subtle tonal variations to the Peri color here, which will result in a deepening presence on the wall,” advises Gray.

Everly Quinn Corouthers Velvet Geometric Throw Pillow

“Throw pillows are an easy way to add a pop of Very Peri into the home,” says Murphy, adding that this 18-inch-by-18-inch velvet option — which serves our purpose in the dark blue or purple colorways — would “add some drama in a black-and-white living room.”

ArtEqualsJoy Original Painting Floral Still Life Art

Judy Pickett, founder of the Raleigh, North Carolina, firm Design Lines Signature, is all about channeling Very Peri into her clients’ spaces. “I could see this color used anywhere from a child’s room, to lacquered cabinetry in a sophisticated home bar, to the tile color on a spectacular backsplash,” she advises. We can see why she loves this 10-inch-by-14-inch artwork from Etsy — it’s the perfect way to add a pop of Peri into rooms big or small.

One Kings Lane Luigina Rug

Both Thomas and Helft agree that this beautiful area rug is a surefire way to add a subtle dose of Very Peri to your space, whether it’s a living area or a smaller nook like a library, bathroom or mudroom.

Pottery Barn Teen Watercolor Rainbow Ombré Comforter & Sham (starting at $29.50; pbteen.com)

Pottery Barn Teen Watercolor Rainbow Ombre Comforter & Sham

Multiple designers recommended bedding as an easy way to incorporate Very Peri into your bedroom, including Stamm. “Pottery Barn Teen has a fantastic ombré watercolor duvet and sham, which is gorgeous and full of Pantone vibes. I would anchor a teen’s bedroom with this and build around the color,” she says.

Decor Therapy Oversize Miron Cheeta Printed Throw Pillow

Love you some print? Luckily, so does Low. “I’m always down for a little animal print, and this pillow is the perfect muted, animal style to throw on a bed, a daybed or even the middle of a sofa,” she says.

Estelle Colored Glass Champagne Coupe, Set of 6

We’re totally on board with the colored glassware trend right now, and this pretty champagne set from West Elm hits all the right notes. Says Stacey, “Champagne coupes are so fun to use, and these purple glasses add a pop of color and will look great amongst all of your clear barware.”

Jarka Vintage Turkish Rug

Lighten up your space with this one-of-a-kind beauty from direct-to-consumer vintage rug retailer Revival. Clocking in at a 4’11 x 8’5, the flatwoven rug is made from 100{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} hemp and features a minimalist design that puts the yarn’s periwinkle hue on display.

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Best Art Books of 2021

In a lockdown year, with travel reduced, there was no movable feast quite like an art book. Art is made by all sorts of people, everywhere, all the time, along many different paths, some of which are illuminated by these intriguing publications chosen by our critics, Pay Per Touch.

The maverick American artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), who managed to be nowhere and everywhere in the art world through his invention of Mail Art, was lucky in his longtime friend William S. Wilson, to whom, over 60 years, he gave thousands of letters, collages, drawings and clippings. Wilson saved every last scrap, and a jampacked sampling of them makes up this gold mine of a book, edited and curated by Caitlin Haskell with Jordan Carter. Funny, biting, morbid, it’s a page-turner for sure, and accompanies a show at the Art Institute of Chicago through March 22). (Art Institute of Chicago, distributed by Yale University Press)

Edited by the curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, this catalog for one of the outstanding exhibitions of the season — originating at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, it’s now in Houston — proposes that the culture of the African American South, as defined by music and vernacular art, is the bedrock of American culture itself, with a strong influence on new art today. The book vividly illustrates and deepens the show’s powerful argument. (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, distributed by Duke University Press)

This book lovingly excavates the career of a Greek modernist painter who designed sets for Maria Callas and kept a Greek Classical figurative tradition alive in paintings of homoerotic nudes. Tsarouchis (1910-1989) was both too radical and too conservative for the art world of his time and fell into oblivion outside of Greece. Edited by Niki Gripari and Adam Szymczyk (and including a selection of the artist’s writings, this tender tribute brings him back. (Sternberg Press)

The London exhibition by this name reunited six major mythological paintings that Titian produced for the Spanish court. One of them, “The Rape of Europa,” belongs to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where the show, now called“Titian: Women, Myth & Power” is making its final stop (through Jan. 2.) A slender Gardner-issued publication devoted to that picture is an indispensable companion volume to the handsome London catalog. (National Gallery, London; published by Yale University Press)

Edited by Christine Macel and Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska and produced for a major show at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, this book documents the contributions of more than 100 female painters, sculptors, photographers and performers to the history of modernist abstraction and, by including artists from Asia and South America, demonstrates that abstraction itself has always been a global phenomenon. That many worthy figures aren’t included only makes the case for a continuing corrective art history stronger. (Thames and Hudson)

Edited by Howie Chen, this compendium brings together archival documents related to the formation, in New York City in 1990, of Godzilla, a collective of artists and curators intent on pointing out the exclusion of Asian American artists from the contemporary art world and pushing for their presence in that world. The book includes protest letters, news releases, and the minutes of group meetings. The result is a how-to in advocacy politics, a study in the complexities of identity politics, and a chorale of treasurable voices. (Primary Information)

Following the Guggenheim’s 2018 reveal of the mystical abstractions of Hilma af Klint, the Museum of Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Basel and Tate Modern further expand the mostly male ranks of European modernism to include Sophie Taeuber-Arp, one of its greatest polymaths (and colorists), whose egalitarian view of art and craft proved that abstractions in woven wool can trounce the oil on canvas kind. Edited by Anne Umland and Walburga Krupp. (Museum of Modern Art/Kunstmuseum Basel)

The painting on the cover of this exceedingly large volume recently set an auction record for the artist, but don’t let that spoil it for you. This lavish book, edited by Luis-Martín Lozano, contains many rarely seen paintings bolstered by numerous drawings, extensive photographs from her life and reproductions of related works by other artists. (Taschen)

This catalog, with a leading essay by the curator Katherine Jentleson, accompanies the largest show of the great visionary Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-1982), painter, sculptor, doll-maker, environment-builder and Christian, at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (through Jan. 9). Some of her drawings announce “God is Not Dead,” in bold colorful cursive writing. Rowe is the fourth great American outsider artist to receive a major catalog since 2007, after Martin Ramírez, Bill Traylor and Joseph Yoakum. May the trend continue. (DelMonico Books — D.A.P., New York)

This small cornucopia of a book, edited by Alison M. Gingeras, accompanies the first American exhibition of the formidable Polish artist and activist Erna Rosenstein (1913-2004) at Hauser & Wirth (through Dec. 23). It shows the stunning variety of her work, not just its many shades of Surrealism and biomorphic abstraction, but also its affinities with Fluxus, Nouveau Realism and Art Povera. Her life and work are detailed against the vivid tapestry of postwar Eastern European history — itself an education. (Hauser & Wirth Publications)

Doris Lee (1905-1983) worked simultaneously as a fine and a commercial artist, illustrating “The Rodgers and Hart Songbook,” while exhibiting paintings with the still-extant AAA Galleries in Manhattan. The paintings, which combined Grandma Moses with the textured color fields of Milton Avery cheerfully reflect this duality. This catalog, by Melissa Wolfe, and a traveling show at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pa., (through Jan. 9) should begin to end her obscurity. (Westmoreland Museum of Art and Giles Ltd., London)

This year’s unhappy Tokyo Olympics at least leave an architectural legacy: the lean, low-impact New National Stadium, made of the unfinished cedar that Kengo Kuma has made his authorial and ecological signature. This immense architectural tome — spanning three decades, weighing in at 11 pounds — establishes once and for all that sustainability and style need not be set at odds. New photography highlights his serene Nezu Museum and brawny V & A Dundee; temporary experiments in New York and Milan; and a Fukuoka storefront whose 2,000 intersecting cedar struts frame the world’s most elegant Starbucks. (Taschen)

He first declared a bicycle wheel to be a work of art in 1913, but it took nearly half a century — with the 1959 publication of Robert Lebel’s catalogue raisonné of his early painting, his ready-mades and his cryptic notes — for the New York art world to crown the discreet and debonair Duchamp as King Marcel. Long out of print, it’s now been re-editioned and bundled with a supplement that maps the influence of Lebel’s book over the decades, all housed in a handsome slipcase. (Hauser & Wirth Publishers)

Few photobooks have the mythic status of “Chizu” (“The Map”), first published in Tokyo in 1965, for which the Japanese photographer Kikuji Kawada shot worn flags, dented Lucky Strike boxes and the walls of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima as haunted abstractions in blown-out, high-contrast black-and-white. The 1965 edition is a single volume with gatefolds — but a maquette in the New York Public Library shows that Kawada initially conceived “Chizu” as a two-volume project. The N.Y.P.L. curator Joshua Chuang and the historian Miyuki Hinton have overseen this painstaking reproduction, while a new bilingual supplement offers further perspectives on this rarest and most mysterious artistic response to the nightmare of World War II. (Mack)

Statues also die; some get a second life. The year’s most beautiful exhibition, at the Capitoline Museums in Rome, brought to public view the world’s finest privately owned Greek and Roman sculptures — and its catalog, edited by the archaeologists Salvatore Settis and Carlo Gasparri, is as handsome as it is learned. But if it’s Roman grandeur you’re after, get the lush coffee table book “Villa Albani Torlonia,” for which Massimo Listri photographed the aristocratic family’s Neoclassical mansion, its chipped goddesses and rusting heroes standing against acres of trompe l’oeil marble and gold leaf. (Both, Rizzoli)

The Impressionists were gripped by social life at the opera, the cafe, the seaside; the Nabis, two decades later, saw just as much modernity at home. This catalog of an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Portland Art Museum (through Jan. 23) presents the sometimes tender, sometimes stifling domestic imagery of Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton, Pierre Bonnard and — above all — Édouard Vuillard, whose dense, crosshatched scenes in the boudoir or at the kitchen table captured what one critic called “the daily tragedy and mystery of ordinary existence, and the latent poetry of things.” The curators Mary Weaver Chapin, Heather Lemonedes Brown and other contributors offer insight into domestic music performances, home garden design, and even pet ownership in fin-de-siècle Paris. (Yale University Press)

The seventh continent is not frozen but in constant flux — and changing faster than ever thanks to us. Probe the 1,000 engrossing pages of this landmark publication, edited by Giulia Foscari and UNLESS and inaugurated at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, and you will learn everything you never knew you needed to know about human society on an uninhabited landmass: Antarctic law enforcement, Antarctic communication technology, Antarctic water management. Terra Australis stands here as a nearly utopian built environment, and the book concludes with an indispensable “Archive of Antarctic Architecture,” with site plans and photography of more than a century’s efforts to inhabit the most extreme of environments. (Lars Müller Publishers)

Kara Walker offers an extraordinary tome: some 650 drawings, sketches and texts from her archive since the 1990s. It’s all here — Trump, Obama, the plantation, sexual demand and degradation, all the American phantasmagoria of her famous silhouette works and monumental installations; but also clippings, notecards, dream diaries, the artist wrangling with the fetters of prominence and racial expectations. In an essay, Walker wonders why she kept all this stuff; there must have been “some urge to talk about it later, an urge toward radical openness that any proper and studied artist would prefer to keep in check.” It’s a treasure. (JRP Editions)

This volume showcases 17 photographers from nine countries, graduates of a 2008-18 mentorship program founded by Simon Njami, a respected curator (and co-editor of this book, with Sean O’Toole). A few have become recognized — Sammy Baloji, Lebohang Kganye — while others, like Gosette Lubondo, are emerging just now into the continent’s photo vanguard, with a full spectrum of documentary and conceptual approaches. Here, 13 essays by critics approach the subject by theme — “Knowledge,” “Fiction,” “Desire”— and broaden their discussion to other emerging photographers as well as the archive. It’s a generous approach that proposes African photography as a fertile and expansive field of collective inquiry. (Kerber)

In an exhibition this year at MoMA, Black architects and designers imagined interventions in 10 American cities that would not only make visible but repair the effects of anti-Black planning, policy and spatial violence. It was an important show, if dense and all-too-brief. Fortunately, the catalog (edited by Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson) supplements these propositions with texts by prominent scholars and critics that give the project an open feel and cross-disciplinary weave. In preparing for the exhibition, the architects and designers formed the Black Reconstruction Collective, modeling the self-determination and liberation values they insist are necessary. (MoMA)

Shahzia Sikander is known for disruptions of the Indo-Persian miniature painting tradition, which she expanded compositionally and infused with feminist and political themes. Rich with essays and conversations (edited by Sadia Abbas and Jan Howard), this catalog accompanies an exquisite exhibition on her early career (1987-2003). It follows her training in Pakistan, move to the United States in 1993, and navigation of U.S. social and racial realities; it leaves off in the frenzy of the War on Terror. It proves instructive to re-examine those years through Sikander’s keen grasp and artistic choices. (Distributed for Hirmer Publishers by University of Chicago Press)

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With more time spent at home, homeowners research landscape design ideas to create spaces for outdoor living, Business News

Landscape improvements can create functional living spaces. With the Covid-19 pandemic, homeowners are researching landscaping design ideas to improve their yards and create liveable spaces.

EDMONTON, Canada – December 5, 2021 /MarketersMEDIA/ —

“Professional landscaping has tremendous value. It gets people outdoors and improves their lifestyle while spending time at home. It also boosts curb appeal and can increase property value,” said Keith Riley, Founder and CEO of RenovationFind.com and Design Landscaping by RenovationFind.

Design Landscaping provides a valuable resource for homeowners looking for landscaping ideas and trends for their properties. Once they have a picture of the landscaping features and living spaces they want for their yard, they can contact a reputable landscaping contractor in their city.

Popular landscaping trends in Canada:
Multiple spaces for outdoor living: Incorporating more than one living area is a popular landscaping trend. An example of multiple living spaces would be a deck for dining and a patio in another area for relaxing or sitting by the fire.

Deck additions: Decks are a valuable addition to the home. According to this report, decks have a good return on investment and can recover about 72{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} of their cost at resale. Homeowners can use a deck as an outdoor living space.

Pergolas and arbors: Other wood-built hardscape features that are great landscaping ideas are pergolas and arbors. A pergola can provide shade over a deck or patio. An arbor signifies a pathway or entrance to an area of the yard. Both of these structures can support climbing vines and plants.

Outdoor kitchen: Outdoor kitchens is one of many landscaping trends that has risen in popularity thanks to home improvement reality shows. A backyard chef can have multiple grills, a wood-fired oven, countertops and storage, and even a bar to entertain guests while cooking.

Backyard campfire: Landscapers can create a firepit area using a concrete or stone patio. Define the space with retaining walls or plant beds, and get out the marshmallows. You can have a traditional fire pit, unique fireplace, or even a gas fire table for the space.

Landscape lighting: Illuminate these landscaping ideas with a well-designed outdoor lighting plan. Motion sensor lights can help illuminate pathways and deter intruders. Use soft accent lighting around landscape features and living spaces to create a warm ambiance. Ask your landscaper about solar-powered outdoor lighting options.

Water features: A pond, creek, small waterfall, or fountain are all options for backyard water features. Design Landscaping can help determine what would be best for you based on space and how much you want to commit to maintenance. Always have a water feature installed by a professional.

Artificial grass: Artificial turf has come a long way over the years. Varying blade lengths, thickness, colour, and texture make this fake lawn look like the real things. If you never want to mow or water again, it’s a good option.

Xeriscaping: Another low-maintenance landscaping idea is xeriscaping. Use drought-resistant plants and surround them with mulch or gravel. The mulch keeps in moisture, so they require less water. A xeriscape reduces water use by up to 60{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} compared to conventional landscaping.

Edible landscape: If you’re looking for landscaping ideas that put food on the table, foodscaping can be the answer. In an edible landscape, Fruit and vegetable-bearing plants, herbs, and edible flowers are planted among the other plants creating a visually attractive and edible garden.

“Investing in landscaping is an investment for your lifestyle and home. It gives us more reasons to get outdoors and enjoy time with our family,” said Riley.

Find more ideas with these 12 Landscaping Trends & Ideas.

Design Landscaping by RenovationFind can assist with any commercial or residential landscaping project. Services include grading, sod, planting trees and shrubs, retaining walls, patios, walkways, plant beds, decks, fences, and more. Find a reputable and experienced landscape design and installer in your city with Design Landscaping. Because they have been certified and are continually monitored by RenovationFind, homeowners can feel confident they’ve found a trustworthy landscaper.

Contact Info:
Name: Keith Riley
Email: Send Email
Organization: RenovationFind INC.
Address: 11808 11 a ave NW
Phone: 7802184541
Website: https://designlandscaping.ca/

Source URL: https://marketersmedia.com/with-more-time-spent-at-home-homeowners-research-landscape-design-ideas-to-create-spaces-for-outdoor-living/89055604

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Release ID: 89055604

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Inside Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s Art Collection That Places a ‘Beautiful Black Face’ in Every Room of Their Home

Alicia Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz, whose real name is Keenan Dean, are one of entertainment’s hottest power couples. The pair are both heavily invested in music, and their synergy in creating long-lasting hits has solidified their names in the industry. Keys and Dean, who got married in 2010, share two children. The duo goes to great lengths to ensure their children see a bit of themselves in every part of the house.

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz ensure their children see a Black face in every room

Keys recently sat down with Marie Claire to talk about her longstanding music career while giving the publication a tour of her luxurious home. The architectural masterpiece boasts views of the Pacific Ocean as part of its appeal. It is also rumored to have been the inspiration behind Tony Stark’s bachelor pad in Iron Man.

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Inside a Historic Marfa Home Transformed by AD100 Designers

Reflecting on Marfa in 1985, Donald Judd wrote: “The area of West Texas was fine, mostly high rangeland dropping to desert along the river, with mountains over the edge in every direction. There were few people and the land was undamaged.” Decades later, that spellbinding beauty and sense of exquisite isolation remain, albeit juxtaposed with the artist’s own legacy—the Judd Foundation (anchored by The Block, his former home) and the Chinati Foundation, the army base he transformed into a museum for contemporary art. Today’s Marfa is a contradiction: a tumbleweed town and an international pilgrimage site, where Judd’s visions of unified art and architecture reached their apotheosis.

Timber bookshelves in the style of Donald Judd line the library; custom-made sofa in a Pindler fabric.

Boston Functional Single Arm Library Light

By Chapman & Myers 

Bow Basket by Annemarie O’Sullivan

It was that heady mix that set two creative New Yorkers, both natives of the Lone Star State, on the long drive to this one-stoplight oasis. “If you’re from Texas and involved in the arts, then all roads lead to Marfa,” says one, whom we’ll refer to as Cowboy for the sake of this western adventure. As his other half—let’s call her Cowgirl—recounts, “The moment I saw the town, I felt connected. It’s intangible…the big sky, the light, the breeze. Marfa is not one thing; it’s many things.”

Their plans to buy land and build a contemporary glass box were scrapped when they visited a 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival house for sale. Designed by Henry Charles Trost, a celebrated El Paso architect who cut his teeth in the Chicago School, the home occupied a hilltop plot not far from the center of town, with spectacular views and an adjoining empty parcel. Judd had even owned it once upon a time. Says Cowgirl, “It just felt true and beautiful and right.”

Terraced plantings of Russian Sage descend from the entertainment pavilion to the pool.

Custom-made ebonized benches and Bonacina 1889 wicker chairs mingle on 
the loggia.

Quilted Kapok Mattress

By Tensira

To reimagine the property, they turned to architect Annabelle Selldorf, whom they knew from New York and through Chinati. She updated the Trost house (whose original details had already been stripped away by the prior owner) through a series of deft interventions to the floor plan. On the main level, clusters of small rooms were combined to create a vast living space, with multiple seating areas, and a spacious chef’s kitchen, where an enormous island can seat six comfortably. A tight, sculptural staircase now descends to the primary suite on the lower level, creating a sequence of compression and expansion. “You had to make the trip downstairs into something exciting,” notes Selldorf, whose hand can be felt most clearly on what had been vacant land, where she devised a side-by-side guest casita and a garage/gym, as well as an entertaining pavilion up on another hill. “The architectural vocabulary is a simple series of volumes that speak to one another but feel distinct from the old architecture,” she notes of the structures, clad in clay-colored stucco and aligned to create beautiful transitions.

A view of the historic home, designed in the 1920s by architect Henry Charles Trost.

The kitchen’s large island can accommodate six on counter stools; antique pendant.

Helado Ceramic Bowl

By Tina Vaia

Along the way, Selldorf connected the clients with landscape mastermind Madison Cox, whom they visited in Marrakech well before Cox made it to Marfa. That first trip to Morocco was an aha moment: Their eyes widened as Cox welcomed them to Villa Oasis, introducing them to the work of designer Bill Willis, and guided them to sites throughout the region, whose landscape, building materials, and sensibilities reminded them of West Texas. In no time, an enormous shipping container filled with pots, zellige, and furnishings of all kinds was on its way to Marfa, where Cox conceived a series of outdoor spaces that blend the local vernacular with Moroccan traditions. Terra-cotta tiles line porches, walkways, and exterior stairs. Terraced terrain, fragrant with sage, descends from the pavilion to the pool—part of a larger strategy to limit lawns for water conservation. And iron pergolas devised with Selldorf offer shade thanks to rush awnings that will one day be replaced by creeping vines.

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Kozhikode home attracts attention for its design brilliance, landscaping | Lifestyle Decor

The verdant lawns and the beautiful garden that perfectly complement the elegant structure is the highlight of Arun’s brand-new house at Chetttikulam in Kozhikode, Kerala. The minimal features of the house have been enhanced with practical designs and space-efficient elements.

The elevation features the elegant, linear–box style. Fundermax wooden panelling and the show wall with rock claddings are incredibly attractive and grant more definition to the structure. The car porch, meanwhile, has been built-in GI frame with glass roof.


The landscape has been designed by retaining most of the trees in the plot. Meanwhile, the unique layout of the plot, which lies in varying levels, too has been retained. Tandoor stones are paved on the driveway.

Designed in 2554 sqft, this amazing abode has a car porch, living and dining areas, kitchen with a work area, three bedrooms and upper living area.

The stone wall adds a rustic charm to the sit-out. Meanwhile, the wooden furniture and shoe rack complete the quaint sit-out. The formal living area has been arranged in double height. The wooden tiled flooring adds the perfect contrast here. The glass wall above the double-height living area brings lots of natural light into the house.


The dining area is arranged close to the living space. White vitrified tiles have been paved on the floor here to separate this area from the rest of the house. The custom-made glass-topped dining table and the cushioned chairs match the minimal theme of the interiors.

The double-height stairway is built-in GI frame and has steps made in irul wood. An aquarium is arranged beneath this stairway. The wall beside the stairway has been turned into a photo wall where precious family moments have been immortalized.


The stairway leads to a spacious upper hall. This area has glass walls on three sides which helps in illuminating the house with natural sun rays. A simple hanging cot too has been arranged here.


The modern kitchen has been furnished in the pleasant colour theme of light blue and white. The cabinets are done in multi wood with PU paint finish. A quaint breakfast counter paved with black granite too is part of the kitchen area. Meanwhile, the black granite paved countertop is spacious. Interestingly, a few framed paintings have been used to decorate the walls here.


The bedrooms are well furnished and have all the required facilities. Full-length wardrobes, dressing areas and attached bathrooms are some of the features of the bedrooms.


The classy elegance of white and wooden combination dominates both the interiors and exteriors of this simple yet fabulous abode. The family, meanwhile, is thrilled that they have moved into their dream abode.



Project Facts

Location – Chettikulam, Calicut

Plot – 21 cents

Area – 2554 SFT

Owner – Arun R

Designer – Mukhil MK, Dijesh O and Babith SR

Concern Architects

Mob – 9895427970

Year of completion – 2020