busy busy

I'm a bit busy on the design of a house, so I don't have a lot of time to write a lot now. It's a good thing that these images speak for themselves. Interiors and stunning lamps designed by Workstead. Go see for yourself on their website.

new work, new inspiration

I still owe you my last reports from the best of Buenos Aires, including a visit to a beautiful poloclub with a hotel. But in the mean time we have returned to our beloved Amsterdam. And I'm already working on some exciting new projects. I have been asked to decorate a new house, from scratch, and I'm very happy with this new project. While I was going through some magazines for inspiration, in Marie Claire Maison I stumbled upon an extremely talented, inspiring group of designers/architects in France: Ciguë. They do big projects, like renovating old barns and designing new houses, in breathtaking countrysides. But also smaller houses for which they invent very clever, and cheap solutions. I wish I was them!

good bye BA, part 5: La Maison

At the moment, for a few more days, we’re living in a part of Buenos Aires, Palermo Hollywood, that’s famous for its restaurants. You only have to turn a corner, or walk a few steps down the street to have your pick of all the flavours of the world. And lucky us to live quite near La Maison, our favourite restaurant for a cosy night out, with the two of us or with friends. La Maison is run by Fleur, she’s French (or Canadian, I’m not sure), and she and her staff make sure you have a pleasant night.

You can sit outside in the garden, and enjoy the funny drawings on the shutters, or inside where it’s more quiet and formal. Lovely, elegant food like toast with poached egg yolk and truffle, tarte tatin with goat cheese, and gambas au Pastis. Maybe I should go back one more time and make sure that this time I have room for dessert.

good bye BA, part 4: Voltaire

One of the things that I like best when I'm traveling is when I've stayed long enough to have a favorite place for coffee at walking distance. And at the moment it's Voltaire, around the corner from where we live, at Carranza y Voltaire. The two friendly owners make the perfect coffee, have the best little chocolate cakes and don't mind if our lively twin girls open all the bags of sugar. That's what I call home!

bikes with passion

I love people that work with passion, I love elegant, sexy, clean designs, and I especially love it when they are environmentally friendly.

And, being Dutch, the easiest form of transportation is going by bike. Even in Buenos Aires, where buses and cars rule the world. And that’s where those four things come together.

Because industrial designers Nata Burta and Alejandro Sanguinetti from Monochorome recycle bikes that result coolest ones that I have ever seen, produced in the most ecofriendly way and using the best materials, which is also ecofriendly because they last longer. The beautiful leather saddles are handmade, so regional craftmanship is also sustained. They encourage, even invite, people from all over the world to copy their way of producing, so eventually those bikes don’t have to be flown all over the world. Until that moment, you can have it shipped to where ever you want.

I whish I could take one home! I guess I will have to wait untill someone opens a shop in the Netherlands.

sweet Colonia

Now that we’re almost leaving Argentina, we are very busy finishing our to-do-list. One of the items on it was visiting Colonia del Sacramento, in Uruguay. It is across the river from Buenos Aires, it only takes about an hour by boat, so an easy journey to a lovely, old, romantic little town. Like our first experience with Uruguay, we were enchanted by the sweetness of the people, the respect for nature and culture and the easy pace. And the view on the river, from both sides of the old town, is stunning, especially at sunset.

We had a lucky shot with our hotel, Colonia Suite, which we picked from TripAdvisor, and it was the perfect choice. Colonia Suite is a bed-and-breakfast with three rooms in a lovely house, where we had the big garden room, with our own balcony with stairs to the beautiful garden. The owner, Fred, was the sweetest man, who made us feel really welcome, and prepared a big breakfast for us every morning. He also arranged a wonderful dinner in Energais, a private restaurant in town, where we had drinks before dinner in the garden under the stars, between giant cactuses (which we incidentally had been admiring during the day) and a view on the river and Buenos Aires.

good bye BA, part 3: El Arevalito

When I was planning my trip to Buenos Aires, a lot of people warned me that you really have to be a passionate meat lover because everybody was supposed to be eating meat night and day. Not true! Maybe as a reaction to all the meat, there are a lot of restaurants that excel in vegetarian and/or organic food. So you can choose wether you want to eat meat or be a vegetarian, even for a day.

One of my favourites is El Arevalito. The owner of the restaurant used to live in Amsterdam in the early seventies, where she ran a restaurant in a squat, called Kosmos. She’s a respectable lady now, but she has a free spirit, and her little restaurant breathes her energy and colorfulness. Plus, she and her team of cooks make the loveliest dishes. The menu changes twice a day, for lunch and dinner, so you can be absolutely certain that everything is fresh. A pick: stir fried organic rice with vegetables, toast with caramelized sweet onion with a fried egg and cheese on top, fresh salad with wafer thin sliced radishes, avocado and cucumber, spinach pie. And that was only for lunch.

good Bye, part 2

One thing that I'm really going to miss is the beautiful park in Palermo, also known as Bosque de Palermo. A beautifully landscaped big park, with a enormous rose garden that seems to be in bloom always. Especially Saturdays afternoons are good, when everybody is there to have a good time, skate, ride a bike or a horse cart, or just to sit and see the sun setting and the leaves turning. A bit like Central Park.

good bye, part 1

I can't believe that we're almost leaving Buenos Aires, to go back to our beloved Amsterdam. (absence makes the heart grow fonder) And I still have so much to tell! I'll try to keep it short, here's one of the little pearls in BA, the cemetery of Recoleta, where the rich families of the past and the present are put to rest, so to say. Beautiful, touching and even romantic.

get you paintbrush

Every six months Maaike Koorman and I develop six color forecasts for Kleurinspiratie, a website made by Sanoma. Sanoma publishes some of the best read interior magazines in the Netherlands, like VT Wonen, 101 Woonideeën, Eigen Huis & Interieur and Ariadne At Home.

On the website you can find ideas and tips for paint and painting, you can upload an image of your own house to see if a color would work for you, and you can get new inspiration for colors and see how new combinations of colors can create a totally different mood. On Kleurinspiratie you can read how it works. It's in Dutch, but if you're interested in a translation in English, send me a message.

For the summer we made these six forecasts: Berlin Blues, Ceylon City, Pink Cyclamen, Oriental Industries, Cupcake City and Dusty Boulevard. I'm really happy with these new moods. I hope someday soon people in the Netherlands will overcome their fear to use color, because I can see where I am at the moment, Buenos Aires, that it works just great. More of that later...

And it's also good to see that you can still work together even if you are both on a different part of the world, thanks to Skype.

be brave

Buenos Aires has a lot of creative people running around, working a lot, and making a whole bunch of beautiful stuff. I love the way they present themselves to the world. Either they open up their own shop, or they join hands and show their wares together. So you can find a lot of unique pieces and unique shops here. Catalogue does more, it not only provides a space for Argentinas best individual designers, it also shows their best pieces in an inspiring fashion magazine. I couldn't find a website, but you can find the shop, where they also sell the magazine, at Honduras, around the corner from Carranza.

for the love of lavender

I'm addicted to the scent of lavender, so I'm unconsciously always drawn into shops that sell lavender soap, lavender bath salts, lavender satchels, dried lavender, what ever from the lavender is presented in. Like Epoca Bella, in the street that I live in now. They sell all sorts of scented things, all in beautifully wrapped and presented. Next to a big bottle of lavender bath salts, I also found some other nice, handmade gifts (that I can't show now, without spoiling the suprise). And some inspiration, like the built in cabinet made from old wood, and a lovely old display made of wood and glass. If I ever open up my own shop, I would like one of those. Plus the old fashioned till.