Vintage Love ~ Chair!

Something about wood and cane... :-)

source

Vintage Love ~ Credenza / Sideboard

Couldnt help drooling ~

source

  

Buddha Scapes on Colours Dekor

Tara ~

Tara ~ the female buddha (according to Vajrayana sect of Buddhism)..this idol is also considered a Tibetian version of goddess Saraswathi

A hymn for a calm mind...

This Tibetan Buddhist Mantra  is a prayer for White Tara. "White Tara is an emanation of Goddess Tara who has the power of granting Longevity. She is also the special Goddess who helps devotees in overcoming life's obstacles. Mantra chanted by Khenpo Pema Chopel Rinpoche, from the CD 'The Blessing from H.H. Penor Rinpoche for World Peace'. "youtube

Another chant for good health...

it is believed that  this Tibetan Buddhist Mantra helps to eliminate not only pain of diseases but also helps in overcoming the major inner sickness of attachment, hatred, jealousy, desire, greed and ignorance. Mantra chanted by Khenpo Pema Chopel Rinpoche from the CD 'The Blessing from H.H. Penor Rinpoche for World Peace'. - youtube

Read through this website for more information on the Mani Mantra ~  Om Mani Padme Hum

At his holy feet

Now over to Patricia's Buddha Scape link party...Peace Out


PS: It is said that white Tara was born from the tear of Avalokiteshvara, the buddha of compassion, White Tara grants long life. Her three facial eyes represent the three doors to liberation (the three emptinesses) and the other four on her palms and soles symbolize love, compassion, joy and equanimity. read more >>here

House Beautiful ~ At Home with Rama Ananth

Rama Ananth, a fellow blogger, an excellent author, and a fitness enthusiast, shares her beautiful home on The Design Enthusiast. I am glad that she agreed to do a guest post and let us peek into her carefully planned and thoughtfully done up home.

So fasten your seat belts ..and off we go to Bengaluru, India to peek into Rama's lovely Spanish Style villa

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Our House: Buena Vista ( Beautiful View)

Our house was conceived with lot of love.  Ananth always loved Spanish architecture, and always used to tell me that if he ever built a house he would go for the Spanish style. We just left it at that for neither did we have a plot to built a house nor were we looking for one for everything had gone beyond our means.

Then one day, one of his very close friend said there was a beautifully located plot in Whitefield and that it was owned two friends jointly and they wanted to sell it off as they had no use for it.

  They were somewhere in Bombay. He said we should grab this opportunity and just buy it as an investment. This place Whitefield was quite far from the city, it was not well connected by bus or any such thing. Only retired army people and some Anglo Indians lived there in old palatial bungalows.

However the plot was huge and the area though not developed was quite good, peaceful and quiet. There were just a Niligiris shop  selling  some bare essentials. Since it was affordable we bought it, and forgot everything about the plot.

Then as years passed by we found living in Indira Nagar on the 100th feet Road was becoming impossible, with all the noise, and pollution, and random constructions everywhere- all the beautiful houses were being demolished to be built into apartments, the traffic had also increased tremendously, it had totally become a commercial place- literally a concrete jungle.

Our children too were growing up, and living in the cramped apartment and with my husband's office too in it was becoming very tough.We then decided, that it was time we built our own house, and moved away from all the chaos.

But there was a catch Whitefield was still not developed, it still lacked  all the facilities. Our son who was in 9th at that time would have no proper bus to reach his school, my daughter would have to drive for 1 hour in the peak hours to reach her college. And as for me I would not be able to go out as often as I wished to, because of the  same problems.

Anyway, finally we decided to just go ahead and make plans for building the house and later on worry about the various problems.

It was very exciting, we went through various books to see what type of Spanish house we wanted, and finally Ananth came up with the basic design, which we gave it to our neighbour and close friend Jyoti Dhingra who is an Architect/ Interior Designer, to work on it.Then another business friend was given the Contractor's job, and so on,  till we had all our close friends working at some level or other on our house project.

Then we bought a very good book which was going for half price in some book shop- we were lucky, we immediately grabbed it, and from that day it was like a Bible for us.

The book was: Casa California  Spanish Style by Barbara Clemente. Back then, we didn't have proper access to internet, like today. We had to do lot of research. It was tough running around finding things, and when we could not afford some of them,  doing it all by ourselves, was the only option, or finding an alternative, without losing sight of the main theme, for, everything had to look and feel Spanish.

Although it was difficult, it was not  impossible, for in India too there are  many things available,   only one has to patiently look for them and place them/ use them properly.

We wanted to use wooden rafters for the ceiling, but wood was very expensive, so we thought and thought and, finally, our Architect Jyoti got a brilliant idea, Bamboo- she said we could use that instead of wood, which turned out to be cheap, yet beautiful and very innovative and also suited the theme of our house. Our contractor had a Bamboo farm, and he selected the right size for our use. 


Then came flooring, we decided to go  in for terracotta tiles for both inside and the outside. Wow! again we not only saved lots of money, we also got a beautiful and highly durable,totally natural flooring for house. The color terracotta simply looks lovely and it gives such an earthy feeling. It not only keeps us warm in winter but also keeps us cool in summer, what more can one ask?

The same tile fellow agreed to design our roof tiles also for us, because we wanted it to look like  Spanish tiles, which has a slightly rounded cylindrical look, like the old tiles you might have seen in Indian villages, but of slightly good quality.

We found a very good cane boutique shop, just by chance, which designed cane furniture, so we selected our entire cane furniture from the various books that she had. We had our front door, a copy of an antique door we found in our Spanish book, done by our own carpenter, who not only made the door, but also all the doors/ windows and the staircase.

The stained glass panels too was done by a dear friend of ours.

 Since we had lots of space, we decided to go a for a standard size swimming pool. And I had my own Aerobics Hall too, where I could conduct my classes.

Then another business friend of Ananth was handed over the landscaping of the garden, we liked the Moorish style garden, and Shakeeb our landscape architect came up with a very simple yet beautiful  Moorish garden for us. We also requested him to give us a perennial garden so that, there is never any need to change plants, and also plants that would not need much maintenance or need a lot of water.

Now comes the decorative tiles which is must in every Spanish house, which is what gives it a charm not to be found anywhere else. When we found the designer handmade tiles very expensive,  we made beautiful tiles ourselves. Our daughter and son pitched in here. We went and bought a good tile design book, and once they got the hang of it there seemed to be no stopping, for they came up with beautifully painted tiles in a jiffy. We had them put everywhere in our house.

We had a dream to build a beautiful, comfortable airy cottage, with a budget in our mind, and, I must say we managed to stay more or less within our budget, without straying too much from  it. And believe me, we had not even been to Spain, when we built this house, we visited Spain only after 6/ 7 years after it was built. It took us about 1 year to built this house. Isn't it amazing, that if one is focused to accomplish something, it can be accomplished?

 Oh, I forgot we even have a proper bell-- a huge brass bell which we have hung in our terrace, making a special arch for it to hang.

Well,  there are so many little little details, it would take me ages to go into each and everyone of them.

To cut short an already long story, I would like to end this with a comment made by an Architect from California, James Madson of Madson Design:

Hi Rama,
I think your home is beautiful, and a wonderful example of architecture gracefully informed by different traditions.  It's a great fusion of California Spanish Colonial with Indian motifs and materials.  The gable overhang at the front of your house is particularly notable, in that you captured the character of Spanish Colonial, with their heavy exposed purlins and corbels, but used slender bamboo beams and knee braces instead-- this manages to be loyal to both traditions simultaneously.

Just click on the pictures of our house displayed on the right side of my blog: Photoset from flickr, Our Spanish Villa In Bangalore India.

Did you enjoy the tour of our house, which part of the house did you like the most?

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Thank you Rama, for the tour and the write up. Every corner reflects the love which went into putting this place together. Rama, blogs at Time,Time, I have all the time...and shares her love for travel, writing and life in general...So hop over to her blog and see why its on my daily visit list :)

Previous home tours >> Here

Pictures courtesy/copyright : Rama Ananth

Letting things go ~ Downsizing

Downsizing is a painful yet, a very refreshing process.

This is how our apartment looked...Our love for pre-loved furniture goes well with our green living ideologies.

Having moved to a different apartment with space constraints and layout challenges, we had to let go a few things bought with careful thought and a lot of search and patience.

 We decided to live without a few things around us, and put them up for sale, and let them go to other lovely homes. Some things went to people we knew and others to new homes. As of now, we have  our mid century modern dining table with us.(I am finding it difficult to part with it :(

I am glad I met some really wonderful people who have similar design sense (else they would not have bought our stuff!!) and appreciate good design and furniture.

Lots of changes are on cards. We plan to wait and see how things move and then begin our hunt for vintage and pre-loved furniture that would hopefully stay with us for a really long time. The last few days have been hazy..Trying to recoup and collect myself. See you soon

Tuesday Treat ~ Dana's Guest Post

Having toured her beautiful home via a previous guest post, I craved for more...So, I brought Dana back to write about her design choices and accessories which make her home, so inviting and homey!!..Now ...over to Dana, of mid2mod.com, and mid2mod, the blog...

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When Sudha asked me to write a guest post, I couldn't decide at first what to write about. My blog is focuses on mid-century modern decor and history, and I know her beautiful blog is somewhat more eclectic. Then I had an idea! I'd take this opportunity to showcase the decorator accessories and art in my house that I love most, even though some of it isn't mid-century modern at all.

Some of it I love for sentimental reasons, like this large vase that my great-grandmother received as a wedding gift over 100 years ago. The piece is quite large, and the detail in the swans' feathers is stunning.

My Mama Dell's vase, circa 1900

My daughter Jennifer is quite an accomplished photographer, although with a couple of sons under two years of age, she doesn't have much time for photography anymore. She did a series of images of doors which were magical, because they left you wondering what was happening...or had happened over the years...behind them. Here are two examples, taken in New Orleans, a city she and I visited often when she was a teenager.

Jenn's photo No. 723

Jenn's photo No. 622

I also really like a few pieces of art that I did myself. One is a grouping of six 6" x 6" canvases on which I layered colors of acrylic paint. I scraped or rubbed off sections before the paint dried. Then I fired silver medallions out of precious metal clay, which I affixed to the pictures and have allowed to oxidize over time. Another grouping of three was inspired by a cover of Elle Decor.

Acrylic with PMC medallions

Inspired by Elle Decor

I also love art by Brian Andreas. I have a pair of his prints in my entry hall, and I have one of his wood sculptures in a bedroom. Andreas's work always speaks to my heart, whether it makes me laugh or cry. The print is particularly meaningful to me, because it is the story of the wonderful life I shared with my late partner Carl, who died in 2006.

I don't think of it as working for world peace, he said. I think of it as trying to get along in a really big strange family.

There was a boy with skin as dark as the earth & a girl with eyes as blue as the deep & they loved each other so well that people could not tell them apart for in their hearts there was no difference between them.

And speaking of Carl...I love this trio of Danish candlesticks and the set of rustic, hand-dipped candles that he bought for me on one of the wonderful trips we made together.

The sleekness of Danish design paired with handcrafted candles

And finally, one of my favorite pieces of pewter is a vintage Castor Cooper vase with a horse motif. It was an eBay find a few years ago.

Castor Cooper pewter vase

Thank you, Sudha, for allowing me to share some of the personal items I treasure most. I hope they do your delightful blog justice.

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A guest post so well done! All I had to do was copy paste her content and hit publish :)..Thank you Dana, for the wonderful write up and lovely images. And thank you for sharing your thoughts and pictures of your treasured items 


I am a Danish and Scandinavian Modern crazy design enthusiast who is influenced by her Indian roots!! Dana and other wonderful bloggers are a serious source of inspiration for my design know-whats!!

Picture source/copyright: Dana

Amazing Antiques ~ Canterbury Mahogany Magazine Rack

Bought this Genuine Mahogany Canterbury Magazine rack....It was after I got it home, I realized how expensive even its reproductions were in popular big box stores..

drawer - dovetail construction with original brass knobs

brass wheels

Time Period: Circa 1910

Style: English, Victorian

Wood: Mahogany

Images my own

House Beautiful ~ At Home with Dana

As promised, I am back with a home tour. Starting the series with a peek into Dana's beautiful mid century home. Infact, Dana is the one who suggested the title for this series. 

She is my Research guru and has an amazing blog which is my go to guide for everything mid century. She is a mini celebrity :-) (her home was featured on HGTV's rate my space). I always knew this was the house I needed to start my home tour series with. 


Thank you Dana, for the pictures and a wonderful write up. And now, over to Dana.....

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I’ve been reading Sudha’s beautiful blog, The Design Enthusiast, for quite some time now, so I was honored when she told me she wanted to do a home tour series and would like to start with my home.

I live in a mid-century ranch style home which was built in 1950. It is very small…only 1200 square feet…but it’s the perfect size for me and my two sidekicks Mister Ming (a Shih Tzu) and Isadora (an Italian greyhound better known as Izzy).

My 1950 ranch style house in Fort Worth, TX

Ming and Izzy

Bright colors greet you as soon as you walk into my entry. The varying shades of red, orange, green and turquoise are used in some combination in all the rooms of my home. The art is a large Miro print and two smaller Brian Andreas StoryPeople prints. I’m in the middle of a DIY upholstery project on a “new” vintage bench which will soon be where you see the leaning shelf. 

Small entry hall sets the tone

  

My living room is a long, narrow space with French doors at one end and a small alcove at the other. One wall is lined with the original built-in shelves. The hardwood floors are also original to the structure, but the slate tile in the alcove, which also extends into the dining room and kitchen, was added by the previous owner. The alcove, along with the master bedroom and the dining room which all extend across the front of the house, have ceiling-to-floor windows with wood blinds. My living room is decorated with mid-century modern furniture I found on Craigslist, at estate sales or at auction. 

Living room furniture is all vintage, except for my one concession to pure comfort, an Ekornes chair

Alcove with Carter Brothers scoop chair, Jens Risom credenza, which holds Kosta Boda and Blenko glass

Original built-ins which contain Haeger pottery and vintage pewter

My dining room furniture is a Drexel Profile set that I found on Craigslist a few years ago at an unbelievable steal of a price. The china cabinet houses my collection of Russel Wright Iroquois Casual.

Drexel Profile and Russel Wright china

Corner cabinet with more Russel Wright, as well as a collection of Harvest Time by Ben Seibel

I was born in 1948, so I am a "genuine" mid-century gal, and it only seemed appropriate that I use turquoise, the signature color of the 1950s that my grandmother loved so much. The room developed around a vintage bedroom set that I found on craigslist, and it soon took on a life of its own with a 21st century twist to the turquoise color scheme. 

Crate and Barrel bed and bedding with vintage bedside tables and chest

Vintage saucer chair

My second bedroom is a TV room for me and playroom for my grandsons. The closet hides toys, play mat and bouncer when they’re not visiting.

Yes, more vintage furniture...but I made the barkcloth pillows

The bathroom was already “updated” when I moved in. I would have loved to find it in original 50s condition, but the previous owners had opted for more of a spa look. 

The spa look isn't quite my style, but the previous owners did a nice job.

The previous owners installed stainless steel appliances, stainless steel countertops and slate flooring in the kitchen, but I’m planning a redo in the near future, so I won't show it yet. Maybe that will get me invited back to do another guest post on The Design Enthusiast.

Thanks again for the invitation, Sudha. I hope your readers enjoyed the tour of my house as much as I enjoyed sharing it.

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So folks,you see why I started the feature with her home right!! I strongly recommend Dana's blog and store for further design inspirations. Can't thank her enough for the wonderful post. Watch this space for a guest post from this wonderful lady and my major source of inspiration. You can leave comments and questions for Dana.

Pictures courtesy: Dana