Celebrity's Living Rooms

Elle Decor is a great magazine to get decorating & colour inspiration.  The magazine's website features celebrity living rooms.


To the left is Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell’s Manhattan living room. It contains a Louis XVI sofa purchased and Moroccan poufs.

Donatella Versace’s living room in Milan - a rich golden palette,  a pair of large Empire-style urns, a painting from the school of Panini, and the graphic sofas feature in this living room.

This features the home of actors Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor.

This living room gives a warm beachy vibe in the Washington, D.C., home of actress-writer Alexandra Wentworth and news anchor George Stephanopoulos.

The living room of Fleetwood Mac musician Lindsey Buckingham, and his wife, Kristen - the centerpiece of the living room is a custom-made sofa upholstered in an intricate Brunschwig & Fils fabric, decorated to a pop art collection.

Turkish delights

The Australian Spring 2010 edition of Vogue Living reviews the work of a New Zealand born designer, Christopher Hall, known for his interior design projects, furniture pieces, ceramics, and textiles that are influenced by shapes, patterns and silhouettes he sees around him in Istanbul.


The picture to the right is one of Hall's interior design projects. It's an extravagant washroom that forms part of a villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where guests wash their faces after eating - wouldn't we all love to fit one of those in our homes!


Below right is a picturesque photo of Hall's store in Istanbul - the colour pallette here is awesome - soft greys, whites and blues that resemble Porters Paints' 'Nebular'.

Vogue Living explores the house of interior designer Zeynep Fadilliogh, who made world headlines last year when she changed Istanbul's skyline with the glass sphere of the Sakirin Mosque, the first in Turkey to be designed by a woman. This home on the banks of the Bosphorus, contains an explosion of colour blended with luxurious carpets, velvets and artefacts.  The main living room as shown on the right contains rich warm hues of magentas and reds, against the cooler coloured walls of grey purples which tone down the colour intensity of the carpet and furniture.

Soft Focus - French Greys and Whites

I love the colours of the September/October 2010 edition of Vogue Living Australia.  The key theme is Soft Focus: Simplicity In a French Village, featuring designer Jacqueline Morabito, who transforms a Provence guesthouse into an oasis of light and timeless charm.  The white and greys are given character with a splash of sea green (the vase and the shattered glass in the backgroud).  It goes to show you don't need loads of colour to create a gorgeous room.  The white on white doesn't necessarily have to be the white box minimalist that featured in the 1990s - the whites and greys can be used to create interiors that feel soft, calming and romantic...

'The Colour Cafe' concept

After a year and half study in colour design and a thirst for inspiration in creating different colour pallettes, I decided to set up The Colour Cafe blog as a forum to share inspirational ideas on colour pallettes.  Colour pallette ideas can come from virtually anywhere and the combinations are endless. You can have fun with colour pallettes not only for interiors in your homes but also in every day living - from what colours to wear to work tomorrow to colour choices in preparing your client presentation slidepacks!


Creating a colour pallette is something you don't need to think too hard about.  Take for example the collage I put together to the left.  It's a collation of awesome pictures that I absolutely love from my favourite blogs worldwide.  In putting this collage together, I have discovered I absoutely love the coastal colours of blues, sea greens, soft teals, pastel pinks and purples.  I love greys either by themself in different shades or chroma reduced soft colours - very French provincial.