Casa Flora: A Boutique Apartment That Makes You Feel like a Resident of Venice

Sometimes when I travel, I like to pretend that instead of a tourist, I’m actually a temporary resident living in the city I’m visiting. I would add a local farmer’s market to my itinerary, check out a local cafe, get recommendations from the barista on his/her favorite restaurant, and try to see the city with a slow pace instead of rushing to every city landmark and tourist attraction. There’s something incredibly romantic about temporarily adopting a city as your home, which is the mood that the Romanelli family wants to create at their boutique apartment rental, Casa Flora.

Adjacent to Casa Flora is Hotel Flora which the Romanelli family has operated for more than 50 years. After deciding to explore a different concept of hospitality, owner Giole, his sister Zoe, consultant at Hotel Players Francesca Brasolin, architect Matteo Ghidoni and interior designer Laura Sari turned Casa Flora (which was originally a workshop meant to display student design) into a temporary home for design savvy travelers seeking to explore another side of Venice.

This luxury apartment consists of three bedrooms all equipped with their own private Turkish spas with a hammam, a dining room and a kitchen, all accented with lush plants and, of course, 100% Italian design made by young designers and local artisans.

The interiors of the apartment is meant to resemble a lagoon, and so each room has its own playful color scheme of either light pink, blue, yellow or green. Contemporary furnishings give the apartment a fresh, modern vibe while the home decor and photographs on the walls give the home an authentic sense of place.

The best part about the apartment? If you find yourself in love with any pieces, you can opt to buy it as a souvenir to bring home.

Every part of the home is bright, lush and airy, making it an appealing place to stay while on vacation.

The briarwood and brass table in the dining room is one of the common places in addition to the kitchen. For guests who seek a truly authentic experience, they can arrange bespoke services such as cooking classes, food workshops, wine tastings, meals prepped with an on-site chef, visits to the local market and shops, and even a private shoe-making session, complete with a local shoemaker who comes to the apartment to create custom shoes for you to wear on the trip back home.

What: Casa Flora
Where: San Marco 2313, 30124 Venice, Italy
How much? Rooms start at approximately $734 per night.
Highlights: This boutique apartment rental is light, bright and airy, a contemporary stay in a historic city. We love that you can arrange bespoke activities that will help enrich your stay in Venice.
Design draw: The entire home is filled with Italian design and nothing else. Made by local artisans and young Italian designers, every piece in the home is available for purchase should you find yourself in love with any piece.
Book it: Visit Casa Flora

Photos by Valentina Sommariva.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/casa-flora-boutique-apartment-makes-feel-like-resident-venice/

Native Union Smart Charger International Is a Passport to Power

One of the smallest details responsible for the largest headache for anyone regularly working abroad: the dearth of accessible and compatible electrical outlets made available in most hotels. Seasoned “work anywhere/everywhere” pros carry power adapters (and portable chargers) in multitude to keep their gear powered up, but most adapters tend to be bulky and ugly multi-piece affairs. Thus, our glowing approval of Native Union’s Smart Charger International, a svelte and modern solution designed to keep 2-4 peripherals topped off.

Available in 2 and 4 USB port options, both Smart Charger International units come with Type A, C, and G power adapter plugs, compatible with power outlets most commonly found in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. The larger 4 port model is the more versatile of the two, covering USB-C users with the addition of a dedicated 3 amp USB-C port; the other three delivers up to 2.4 Amps per connected device.

As someone who travels with two phones for international purposes, we see the multi-port design an especially welcome option for overnight bedside charging.

Be sure to check out our 10 Carry-On Essentials We Always Travel With, and our What to Pack for Travel, Women’s Edition guide for additional recommendations.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/native-union-smart-charger-internationa/

The Brain Embassy: An Inspiring Co-Working Space in Warsaw

Co-working spaces have been popping up in cities all over the world as more people work remotely. If you’ve ever worked at home, you know how hard it can be to get work done with a plethora of distractions around. Having a place to count on when you need to crank it out is key and luckily Warsaw, Poland, has recently joined the co-working revolution with The Brain Embassy. The 3000-square-meter space was designed mode:lina, in cooperation with Adgar Poland, consisting of room after room of inspiring workspaces that will no doubt get the creative juices flowing.

The design concept is based on the human brain, hence The Brain Embassy name, which has over 100 billion neurons that receive, process, and then transmit information by way of synapses, helping us to think, act, and discover. With that in sight, the designers created a series of innovative spaces that reference the human mind with things like three-dimensional elements that were inspired by neurons and synapses.

Besides creating thoughtful co-working spaces, the designers aimed to design the spaces in hopes of establishing a community of like-minded people.

Conference rooms were inspired by great minds, like mathematicians, artists, chemists, architects (spot the room above with building blocks), scholars, photographers, and fashion designers.

Photos by Patryk Lewiński.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/the-brain-embassy-an-inspiring-co-working-space-in-warsaw/

Functional Design x Sculptural Art: New Works’ Latest Collection

Copenhagen-based design house New Works recently showcased their latest collection at the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2018. Grounded in four core values – Natural, Experimental, Rough and Craftsmanship – the pieces from the collection are a cross between functional design and sculptural art, ranging from light fixtures to furniture to decorative objects. Each piece comes in a variety of finishes and colors that, when placed together, blends in seamlessly to create an elegantly beautiful and refined room.

To see the full collection, visit New Works.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/functional-design-x-sculptural-art-new-works-latest-collection/

CB2 x Fred Segal Pool Party Collection for Outdoor + Indoor Fun

Last Fall, Fred Segal collaborated with CB2 to bring a California vibe to a collection of casual home furnishings. To mark their second partnership, they’ve extended things to the outdoors to launch the CB2 x Fred Segal Pool Party Collection that will have you hopping a plane to LA or dreaming for summer to get here ASAP. Either way, this playful series of goods will prep you for a little indoor/outdoor living and entertaining.

This go-round includes both indoor and outdoor furniture, accessories, and even outdoor games, that merge CB2’s modern sensibilities with Fred Segal’s legendary California style, all in a mostly patriotic color scheme, which also happens to be part of the LA-based luxe retailer’s signature branding.

Strip Beach Towel

Lips Beach Towel

Succulent Sunprint Tassled Throw

Eye Candy Outdoor Pillow

Be Who We Are Outdoor Pillow

Navy Stripe Outdoor Rug

Sunset Teak Lounge Chair

Pool Party Outdoor Sofa

Pool Party Outdoor Chair

Hollywood Sofa

Brass Bird Table

Cacti Indoor/Outdoor Coffee Table

Cacti Glow Brass Table Lamp

White Terrazzo Serving Pieces

Stripe Pool Party Cooler

Melamine Plates

Love One Another Pool Party Float

Look See Feel Be Love All Bocce Set

To shop the Pool Party Collection, along with the original collection, visit the CB2 x Fred Segal online shop.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/cb2-x-fred-segal-pool-party-collection-for-outdoor-indoor-fun/

My Home – Planning The Last Phase of the Garden

This is going to be the year of the garden. I’ve decided it’s high time it was finished. We’ve been chipping away at the hard landscaping for three summers now and what with one thing (hell, we bought and renovated a cottage in the meantime), and another (the house needed decorating too, damn it!) it’s taken longer than anticipated. But my patience is now wearing thin. Another winter with the dog traipsing in mud every time he spends a penny, has convinced me to bring in the professionals. But being the control freak that I am, I can’t leave the design up to anyone else. I may not be a garden designer but I know from bitter experience that if you don’t sweat the small stuff you won’t be happy with the results. So for the past few days I’ve been teaching myself garden design with a nifty online tool.

Wanna See?

Before I reveal the master plan, I’d better explain where we’re at. For reasons of convenience we’ve started at both ends, leaving the middle pretty much untouched. And that’s the bit that we now need to tackle. I’m too ashamed to even show you a photograph of our sorry looking lawn. I did show some of it last summer when I shared ‘my garden style‘, but I have to confess, that lawn was a tad retouched. Correction. It was heavily retouched.

My garden last summer

Phase 1

Phase one was what we now call the dining deck. It’s behind the garage and originally we were going to build a large kennel there for the dog. That was before we met our dog and found out that he ain’t no kennel dog! So now it’s where we have the barbecue, table and two benches. It’s very sunny and quite secluded so it works pretty well when there’s no more than four people and we’re not experiencing a heatwave. When there’s a crowd the table has to move to the centre of the garden, as above. Same when it’s a heatwave because there’s not the room for a big enough parasol on the deck and it would be so close to the barbecue it might actually catch fire.

The ‘Dining Deck’ as seen from ‘The Pergola‘

Phase 2

Phase two was the building of the pergola, which actually took two summers as we stopped to renovate the cottage. We desperately needed some shade in the garden which previously had none. Have you ever tried to get eight people under a normal sized parasol? The garden was just lawn, fence, and a tiny bit of paving when we moved in, so a fairly large structure was needed not just for shade, but for something other than fence to look at.

The newly finished pergola in 2016

Phase 3

Phase three I snuck in at the end of last summer and involved enlarging the patio immediately outside the house. The builders had left us with a postage-stamp-sized patio that wasn’t big enough for anything. The outside tap which is on the outside wall of the house was over a small patch of turf and as you can imagine that turned to mud very quickly. And the patio chairs took up the remainder of the space. I need room for pots! With no flower beds we desperately needed some green growing things.

The bigger picture showing what’s existing and what’s needed.

Phase 4

Well, phase four hasn’t happened yet. Yet.  And I don’t necessarily advise tackling a garden in this way. In fact I don’t. We’re now left with a lot of compromises. We don’t want to undo anything that’s already been done so we just have to work with the space that’s left.

Wishlist

1) Raised beds for plants. Green things just don’t do that well in containers and the soil we have is poor to non-existent. I’m looking at a lot of very sorry looking specimens out of the window and I know that it could look so much better. I imagined that the pergola would be rampant with climbers by now but it’s just not the case. I know the existing ones will look better by the height of the summer but I want them to look good all year round. The BF even bought a grapevine which was probably our biggest disaster to date. I also like the look of raised beds if I’m honest.

2) An artificial lawn. Fellow dog owners will know that dogs and lawns do not go together, but I can’t imagine having a garden that consists only of hard paving. I need to see green even if it’s not real. Getting it to look good is one of our next challenges.

3) Some more paving to bring all these elements together. And here’s the crux. Our garden is not big enough for lots of sinuous curves and hidden surprises. So it’s going to be a more formal garden. Luckily I rather like symmetry. But there’s a garage door to consider so it’s not going to be 100% symmetrical unfortunately.

I still have to make decisions about what kind of raised beds? How high? What will the lawn be edged with? Actually I’m thinking red brick for that – like the house and garage. How much is it going to cost to fill those beds with lovely plants? What happens (eeek) when the professionals question all my decisions? My measurements? My expectations?

This is the bit that needs attention in isolation.

So now I’m bracing myself for the raised eyebrows when I show this to a garden landscaper. And then I’ll show him the cardboard templates for the raised beds. They might get a few laughs. And it may get tweaked a few times before the final plan but I’m pretty happy with it.

 

You Might Also Like to Go Back and See

THE NEW GARDEN DINING DECK

MY VERY OWN PERFECT PERGOLA – REVEAL

TURNING A NEW-BUILD GARDEN PLOT INTO A WELCOMING OASIS

The post My Home – Planning The Last Phase of the Garden appeared first on Dear Designer.

from Dear Designer https://deardesigner.co.uk/my-home-planning-the-last-phase-of-the-garden/

A Building in Venice Becomes a Converted Loft by Venice Loft by Alexander Design

Formerly a 1926, 4-story building that was home to a telephone company, this multi-use historic building now houses offices, gallery spaces, and this penthouse loft that’s complete with a roof garden. Alexander Design restored and designed this Venice Loft with a monochromatic color palette of greys interspersed with woods, soft textures, and original industrial details.

The open floor plan benefits from the massive windows keeping the interior filled with daylight. Original columns offer gentle suggestions as to how to break up the space, which includes a living room, kitchen, dining room, sitting areas, an office, bedroom, two bathrooms, a gym, and a playful swing.

The kitchen was created by adding open wall shelves, a row of lower cabinets, and a massive island with storage below.

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/a-building-in-venice-becomes-a-converted-loft-by-venice-loft-by-alexander-design/