We’ve scoured the shops for what’s in this month. We love these colder months, it’s the perfect time to layer up, snuggle up with a cuppa and enjoy the simplicity and beauty of indoor living.
Blue Sofa, Lux Deco | Pendant shade, Naomi Paul | Mug, Lux Deco
Desk lamp, Heal’s | Wire basket, Amara | Cashmere throw, Heal’s
Brass vase, Cox and Cox | Cosy Planters, Knit Curver
For where to buy items, see links included. Enjoy getting your home ready for the new season.
This time last week, we were down south in sunny England enjoying the sights and sounds of Syon Park. This was the chosen venue for Decorex International 2015 – the luxury design event of the year.
The design scene in London was buzzing last week. The London Design Festival kicked off with Decorex right at the start of the week from 20-23 September. The venue was filled to the brim with contemporary luxury furniture, lighting, wallpaper and a variety of home décor from a host of notable luxury brands. The four day event is the leading event for design professionals, interior designers, tradespeople and consumers to find out what’s trending and new on offer in the interior design industry.
Right there at Stand F17, Moody Monday was present with seven other talented designers specially selected by Design Nation. We were there to showcase a preview of the new designs we’ve been working on with our wallpaper and cushions (more to come on our official launch).
Some of Moody Monday’s new vibrant designs
Some great interactions at our Group Stand with Design Nation
You might not have been able to catch this year’s event so we captured just a few snippets to share with you.
Stunning lighting by Luum
Garden sculpture by David Harber
Exquisite table setting by Harlequin London
Hand blown glass sculptures by Enemark and Thompson
Next year’s event will be at Syon Park, London again from 18th – 21st September 2016. Save the dates in your diaries.
If you love luxury furniture, you’ll love this collection. They’ve been fondly given the name ‘Common Comrades’. Designed for Mooi by Neri&Hu, this collection of luxury stools is inspired by those seen throughout China. Lyndon Neri and Rossana who founded Neri&Hu Design and Research Office are the designers behind them.
“A clever personification of the simplicity of country life, where everybody knows ‘who’ you are and ‘what’ you do”. The Common Comrades table family amuses us with its utilitarian simplicity & honest soul. – excerpt from moooi.com
Bestowed with names like Emperor, Merchant and Farmer, each stool embodies a personality within a community. It’s also fascinating to see how the designers have cleverly integrated kanji lettering, one of the three main writing systems of the Japanese language into the design of the stools.
We love the polished look with the bold red colour clearly adding to this effect. Undoubtedly making a stand-out piece in any environment. They can be used individually as a stool, bedside table or grouped together to create a unified modern style.
Made from solid birch and a red lacquered finish at the base, they represent a perfect balance of form, function and detail. Luxury furniture up our street. We can definitely imagine them teamed up with the backdrop of our Moody Monday wallpaper Secret Music collection.
Images were sourced from www.moooi.com
Photography by © Pegenaute, www.pedropegenaute.es
Architecture is one of our key interests here at Moody Monday. We furnish spaces and buildings with our wall coverings and interior accessories after all.
Conran and Partners, an architecture and design studio has been appointed to revamp the grade II listed Blake Tower into an exceptional residential London development.
The Blake Tower, which was named after the 18th-century poet, William Blake is part of the widely known Barbican Estate in London. The Estate is known as one of the largest examples of the Brutalist concrete architecture and represents a Utopian ideal for inner-city living.
It will be transformed from a youth hostel into 74 luxury apartments. The 17-storey building before becoming unoccupied in 2012 was home to 250 young people as London’s most inner city YMCA. The interiors will be inspired with the shapes of the Barbican’s buildings and the softening of the external public spaces which have established lush greenery and landscape in mind.
A range of one, two and three bedrooms, studios and penthouses will be available. Look out, all keen property investors.
Story and images via Dezeen
When you think of luxury hotels, many times a bit of beige comes to mind. Many a hotel are adorned with neutral tones coupled with hints of gold and black which epitomise glamour and opulence.
However there is another world of luxury hotel design that loves generous volumes of colour and striking patterns for the adventurous guest who’s looking for something different.
We’ve handpicked three luxury hotels you need to see for some colourful inspiration.
G&V Hotel, Edinburgh
In G&V Royal Mile Hotel Edinburgh’s breakout area, the creative mix of playful patterns creates a unique contemporary look. The fresh, vibrant colours of the oversized furniture also add more visual interest as it moves away from the muted tones popular in luxury room design.
The Soho Hotel, London
Designed by Kit Kemp, the 5-star Soho Hotel in London combines luxury with original design. With a contemporary English style, the striking interior of the rooms use interesting patterns on soft furnishings and walls.
QT Gold Coast Hotel, Australia
With its eye-catching and chic design, the QT Gold Coast Hotel brings designer fun to luxury hotel design. By featuring strong art elements and the well-planned use of bright colours, guests are given a real feast for the senses.
Images sourced from
Changes in season provide a natural rhythm for refreshing interior décor. With summer still with us, it’s not too late to pick up a few new items to breathe some new life into your living space. Whether you’re going for your usual must-haves or exploring new ways to step out of your decorating comfort zone, change can be very worthwhile.
We found some great eye-catching items on In-Spaces, one of our stockists here at Moody Monday. Our relationship with them began after a chance meeting at 100% Design in London and it continues to be a good collaboration. We are proud to work with a brand that is dedicated to great design and progressive in nature. This love for good design is evident in the products we’re swooning over today.
Vases: Starting off are these vases designed by the Edge Company. We love the interesting textures they both have. Definitely statement pieces for any home!
Lighting: Given we were all over lighting last month, it was perfectly natural to add this hanging lamp to our favourites list. This will undoubtedly add that touch of sophistication and a unique look to the lighting scheme of any room.
Mirrors: Adding vanity mirrors create dimension and interest, instantly lifting the look of an interior especially a hallway or living room.
Cushions: Their extensive range of wall paper and soft furnishings are also worth a look. Be sure to add a fresh splash of colour to your sofa with gorgeous contemporary cushions from Moody Monday’s Secret Music collection.
From home décor, fashion to art and prints, In-Spaces’ mission is to offer quality products from talented emerging and developing designers. They explain their ethos clearly: “We pride ourselves on a passion for design, a true eye for talent and a genuine joy for the work we do”.
With a little creativity and time spent looking in the right place, this summer could bring with it much more than you expected – a better loved home. Visit www.in-spaces.com for more inspiration.
All images sourced from www.in-spaces.com
We’ve already seen that adding tactile or visual texture to wallcoverings can add a striking and luxurious look to your interior. But when it comes to using this technique, a few things are worth mentioning.
One of the most common methods is the use of textured paint, which creates the look and feel of a canvas, which can then be enhanced by using additional materials like sponges, wood, ribbon, lace, sand, leather, birch and many more. Special tools are used to create texture walls, such as putty knives, brushes, towels, sponges, rollers and combs. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to create a simple and impactful texture in your wall paint is to use a dry brush with hard bristle or even a broom:
Although textured walls do require for extra time and patience, they are very charming and luxurious, guaranteed to get your guests talking. And on the up side you don’t need to make all the walls in your interior textured, as these walls tend to be the high point of attraction in an interior, so you can keep the rest in a complementary, plain design, to make the textured wall the highlight of the room:
If you ask us, textured walls are an effort well rewarded: they add authenticity and personality to the room, allowing you to express your own creativity.
Walls don’t have to be flat or covered in paint to be attractive. So continuing the theme of using texture in interior design, in this blog post we have looked specifically at textured wall coverings. As with all unusual interior choices it’s best to keep the textured wall surface to a limited area, as not to over crowd the space by having all walls covered with the textured pattern.
As we mentioned in a previous post, texture can be either tactile or visual, creating the illusion of tactile texture. Naturally, wallcoverings follows these two styles as well. In this post we’re looking at tactile texture, and we start with a very exquisite example used on interior walls:
This is a creative use of ceramic tiles by David Pergier. We particularly like this wall as it conveys the power of 3D textures and the nice glossy surface of ceramic tiles. Also notice how the wall texture is broken into sections by the use of smooth vertical stripes. This further emphasizes the intricate areas, by creating a playful contrast and breaking the monotony of the wall.
One other way of using tactile textured walls is by creating feature walls in an interior space – be it at home or in a shared space. Here are two interpretations, both created using clean, plain white materials:
While adding texture to the walls may be enough to create a highlight in the room without needing to add colour variations (as in the examples we’ve given so far), sometimes colour can help go the extra mile, and create a truly unique mysterious or playful atmosphere:
These two examples add an extra dramatic effect to the spaces by using dark colours (left) and high contrast, bright colours (right). While both these examples create a powerful look for the interior, they need to be surrounded by contrasting surfaces, to help highlight them. As such, notice the plain green hue used in the example to the right, which naturally draws your eyes to the textured stripe in the middle.
Texture in interior design is often used to add highlights to specific areas of the space. We also perceive texture in relation to the adjacent surfaces, the viewing distance and lightning of the area. For example, to highlight a rough surface, this is best placed next to a smooth surface. The roughness is emphasized when the surface is viewed up close and grazed with light (lit from the side), which highlights the texture through shadows and light spots. Moreover, changing the angle from which light hits the textured surface, and the view angle, creates a different visual effect. Here is an exemplification:
Textures in design can be of two different kinds, either tactile or visual. Tactile texture refers to the actual feeling of a surface – smooth, rough, soft, hard, etc., whereas visual texture appeals to our perception, what a texture might feel like. Oftentimes, through the use of visual texture, a surface can create the illusion of a specific tactile texture or an added depth. Here’s one great example, of how lighting is used to create a different visual effect when looking from a short or longer distance:
In practice, all these textures can be used in interior design to add distinctiveness to the room, and visual textures in particular can create a stunning effect. Some of our favourites (exemplified below) include the use of patterns (left) and tactile textures (right):
Adding textures to an interior is a sure fire way of creating a visually interesting space, but we also recommend using caution, as too much texture can create a cluttered and over stimulating appearance to the space.
If you live in a moody weathered country, but would still like to enjoy the blossoming season, we’ve prepared some tips for you in this blog post. We’re presenting our top two favourite tips for arranging a cosy, inviting conservatory into a delightful design, perfect for city or suburb residences:
Tip #1: Base colours. The main purpose of a conservatory is to bridge that gap between indoor and outdoor living, and one way of doing this, is by allowing sufficient light into the space, and making the best use of it. To take full advantage of the glass walls and ceiling, use colours that reflect it back. Our favourites include a monochrome arrangement, a plain white design, or a naturalistic colour, such as green:
Tip #2: Complete the look. While keeping the space neat and airy is essential, don’t let it turn too boring. One challenge for conservatories, is the lack of hard walls, which are generally the no. 1 choice for decoration. To compensate, we recommend using soft furniture as a great workaround. Use a few bold design cushions to add personality to the space and at the same time make is look more cosy and inviting. We recommend using colours and patterns that liven up the space, especially if you’re looking to add a contemporary twist to your conservatory space. In the example below, we recommend three of our cushions that come in high contrast colours, to spice up the look of this conservatory:
From the top, the cushions recommended to complete this design are: ‘Black Keys’ Cotton Cushion, ‘O What Sweet Delights’ Turquoise Blue Silk Cushion or ‘Modulate’ Cotton Cushion. Our entire range is available here.
