A Charmed Life & A New Book

Australian born Author and fellow blogger Vicki Archer seems to live a charmed life in the South of France, the place she has found and now calls home. Like many, I adored her first book "My French Life" and her new book "French Essence", continues to drag me into her dreamy world. The photography by Carla Coulson is divine and Vicki's styling is second-to-none. I have posted my absolute favourite page in her new book above. I decided on this one page as I don't want to spoil it for you. This book is definitely one to add to the Christmas wish list! Congratulations Vicki on another huge success!!

Nb. French Essence is available now in Australia & New Zealand and will be sold on Amazon later this year.

Meet David

Today I want you to meet David, my blogger colleague from Belgium! His blog The Neo Lifestyle is a beautiful blog about all beautiful things that inspire David.

Image on David's blog.

So he has written yet a lot of intresting articles , as of the apartment he lives in (here).

A view from David's apartment.

David dreams of ever living in a country house (here).

David's future country house interior.

He wrote about a party at the castle of Axel Vervoordt (here), about the beautiful Museum of Nissim de Camondo in Paris (here) and about the gorgeous Hotel Verhaegen in Ghent (here)

A party at the Castle of Axel Vervoordt

Museum de Nissim de Camondo

Hotel Verhaegen

And through his blog I learned to know the interior designers Sandra Nunnerley (here) and Garrow Kedigian (here).

Sandra Nunnerley

Garrow Kedigian

So please go to visit David's blog The Neo Lifestyle and enjoy all of his articles and beautiful images!




xx
Greet

all images The Neo Lifestyle blog

Black & Spiro Today

Here is our current window display at Black & Spiro {above}. It's very bright, I must say, even for me! It's been a crazy week here at B&S. Usually the September school holidays are a quiet time for us. It is usually a time we call the lull before the storm with the onslaught of Christmas coming! However, for some strange reason these September holidays have been crazy. Lots of deliveries arriving as you can see below. A few clients will be very happy at the end of this week once they receive their beautiful armchairs!!

A Summer Table

This lovely table setting screams Summer to me. I love the fresh green and white colour palette. I also love the little succulent arrangements. They actually reminded me of the lovely succulent arrangements Chelsea over at Frolic created recently as below.

image 1 - victoria pearson via brown turtleneck sweater,

image 2 - frolic

Bathroom Shelving & Stools

The concept of open shelving in a kitchen or lounge room is often talked/blogged about but I do also like the idea of open shelving in a bathroom. These images above, which I have saved in my files, certainly show this concept very well. I like the idea of soaking in the bath tub looking at my beautiful things in the shelving surrounding me.

Another great idea for a bathroom, if you have a bath tub, is to use a drum stool next to the tub to put a book or a glass on. We have some lovely blue and white stools {and other colours too} in the shop at the moment which would do the job. I use one at home next to our bath and it is fabulous. I often have a pile of magazines on mine...nothing like reading some magazines in the bath at the end of a long day!!


image 1 & 2 via the lettered cottage, image 3 - anna spiro

Art meets architecture

Yesterday, Jan and I were invited by a building contractor to vist their newest model residence. A beautiful English country house constructed of brick covered with lime mortar and oak wood frame, covered with roof tiles.

A water colour of the house.

It was the first time that we were invited to a presentation of a house of which the interior was not finished yet! Only the construction was finished.

But to me it was a splendid idea because the house is for sale now and so the future owners will have the ability to choose the interior design and flooring after their wishes.

Hopefully the new owners will choose for my company Lefèvre Interiors for the interior design!

The entrance of the house.

The backside of the house.

Notice the bow that is formed by roof tiles!

Beautiful window.

Outside, on a board, there were seen pictures from the start to the finished construction.
Very nice to see!

Picture of that beautiful window, view from the inside.

Inside the house you could study the plans of the house.

A fantastic idea of the contractors was, that they brought in some pieces of furniture to create some atmosphere in the house! Wonderful really, as you can see on the pictures here below.

On the invitation card was mentionned "Art meets architecture".

And indeed there was the presence of an art dealer with some wonderful pieces of art!

Jim Dine

Jim Dine

Jim Dine

Bernar Venet

Christo

Christo

Do you like the house? Tell me!

xx

Greet

contractor : Tradiplan Villas & Renovations

architect : François Van Damme

art dealer : Guy Pieters Gallery

Traditional French Upholstery ~ L'Atelier du Cap Gris-Nez

I posted about Pascale's wonderful workshop
about a year ago. It's definitely time to revisit
the work she's done since then. To recap, Pascale
owns her own upholstery shop in France. She uses
the traditional methods of upholstery and does
absolutely beautiful work. Her workshop is called

L'Atelier du Cap Gris-Nez.

Pascale is here hard at work in her workshop.

The fabric on this chair is simply gorgeous.

This chair looks traditional and a little
run of the mill until you see what is
used as the fabric.

Who would have thought to just use lace
on the back of the chair? This chair
definitely belongs into a sultry boudoir
if I may say so myself. Absolute genius.

Some fun play with polk-a-dots.

Velvet striping, how luxurious.

I especially love the plum tones.

Can't beat antique french furniture.

How gorgeous is that?

This is an old telephone bench. Here's the before photo.

After everything has been stripped off.

Now that it's been painted, the fabric goes on.

What a transformation!

Simply dramatic and gorgeous.

Last but not least, a vivid purple chair.

Hope this gives you some ideas for your
upholstery projects. Aren't Pascale's
creations divine? If you're interested in
more of her work, you can see my original
post from last year here.

Photos from L'atelier du Cap Gris-Nez