The Minister's Treehouse

Deborah sent me a note saying this oddity called the Minister's Treehouse -- an understatement if I've ever heard one -- is about as Steampunk as you can get using only wood. (For the record, I have no problem with "only wood steampunk.")


It's like a haunted Victorian manse.... only built around a tree. Maybe it's the tree that haunts it?


If you want to visit, it's in Crossville, Tennessee.

Pics via Oddity Central.

Mechanical Iris Peephole

Maker Chris Schaie has created this wonderful irising peephole for his workshop -- and yours too!

Chris says "It was created via a long discussion thread on brassgoggles (Due credit goes to Robo Von Bismark on said forum for the design inspiration) and a lot of trial and error." He's also working to "create a full sized door incorporating this design for [Bruce Rosenbaum's] upcoming 20,000 leagues exhibition in Foxboro."

It's available at Maker's Market for $385.

Interior Design Ideas for your inner self

INTERIOR DESIGN IDEAS

There is no better designer for your inner self than you, and here’s where hypnosis for designing the perfect life comes in. Hypnosis is a process which not only makes you self-motivated, but also helps you address any issue that might be staring you in the face. You might be considering how to lose weight and become shapelier. You might be wondering how to kick the butt, and have a smoke free life. You might even be wondering how to make that presentation at office without stuttering and breaking into a cold sweat.

But can hypnosis really help you in addressing these situations in life? Your memory tells you that hypnosis is for magicians; it’s somehow connected to voodoo and black magic. Hey! Isn’t hypnosis what the evil doctor did to that poor heroine in that Hollywood flick? I often find myself smiling whenever people approach me with these apprehensions. So I decided that I should write an article dispelling all these myths about hypnotherapy, and demonstrate to you how incredibly hypnosis for designing the perfect life works.

In my career of nearly a decade, I have had the opportunity to meet scores of clients at my practice in Oxfordshire in UK. We have together worked on solutions to their problems, ranging from divorces, business failure to drug addiction. People come to me for a variety of reasons – some people’s problems are more ‘on the surface’, for instance weight watchers, smokers, people with a drinking problem; some on the other hand have more deep rooted issues, which could deal with their self image, traumatic experiences in their life, divorce, deaths, career decisions etc. Together I and my clients have discovered that through regular practice of hypnotherapy methods, we can make a HUGE difference to our lives. Hypnosis for designing the perfect life is no joke, it can happen to you; all it takes is a little bit of patience and practice.

Moving on to breaking the myths related to hypnosis – it is not practiced by magicians; it is more a scientific and medical complementary therapy. The therapists who practice hypnotherapy are well educated and professional, no medieval apothecaries here! Another very popular notion about hypnotherapy is that is for “weak-minded people, who allow other people to control them”. Nothing could be more untrue. If you choose to undergo hypnosis, you will not be under any one else’s control. The reign will still very much be in your hands. A person undergoing hypnosis is aware of his/her surroundings, and can control how far he/she wants to go in the session. No one can control your mind, and make you kill their neighbor’s cat, so relax! It is just not possible.

Recently a lot more people are talking in favor of hypnosis. They think that hypnosis for designing the perfect life is a very real possibility. I have often told my clients that hypnosis is all about understanding what you want changed in your life, and concentrating towards changing it. With the help of a therapist, some audio tapes and books, you can well be on your journey of self discovery. Hypnosis is effective in tackling issues with emotions, habits, career, and personal development. Our mind can work wonders for us, and hypnosis just helps you connect with it better.

Breathtaking Interior Designs Are Always the Goal

Modern Interior Design Ideas

Why should the interior design of your home be any different from anyone else's? It could be so much easier to simply follow the crowd and show no fear about a lack of originality if every home was pre-packaged with a unit appearance. Here are some ideas to keep the interior of your home as conformist as you can, and perhaps these will allow you the simple peace of a non-designed house.

First - please be sure to remove all coordination from your home. Recent studies have shown that balancing the cloth of your living room upholstery to the window and floor treatments can spark sensations of appreciation and pleasure in household members and guests. It is therefore critical for the practicing conformist to remove all hints of matching or complimentary designs from his or her household.

After dealing with those messy matching issues, be sure to walk through the rest of the interior searching for original art pieces such as paintings, sculpture and folk art. An interior which includes originality in their wall décor would evoke a sense of personality and interest in guest of the home, and it should also be noted that these guests might then find themselves assuming the "good taste" of their host. That defeats the purpose.

To the delight of the true conformist, many interior designs are stagnating into set themes. But you must take this a step further, and be certain that no new design or decorating ideas
are found throughout your home. Do not allow any inspiration to come from, say, your favorite books, magazines, or movies. In fact, stop using any of things for entertainment. They will only lead to further thought "outside the box."

Use your head people. Actually, do not use it at all, because that is the best way to avoid any originality or sensationalism in any interior design ideas. It is, unfortunately, too easy to find simple inspiration throughout your daily life. It is imperative that you do not write any of these ideas down, and then you will have a chance to forget your initial reaction and idea and move along in your simple, easy, and non-threatening little life.

Interior Design Tips

An interior designer faces many of the same questions when faced with a residential client. Issues such as theme and fundamental style are not frequently an issue with the home client. But there will always be concerns about painting walls, the furniture currently inside the home, and of course the floors. There are tips to alleviate concerns and questions regarding these specific design problems.

"What about this color of paint? It is too bright/dark/soft/etcetera." The first and best tip to eliminate concerns about paint choices is to purchase a sample of paint to place on the wall. Then, there will be a true understanding of what the actual appearance of a color will be. However, many colors - especially darker ones - attain their true beauty from the look of the entire wall after being layered with several coats of paint.

Trust a color pallet and a designer, but of course only follow intuition. A color that is difficult to stomach may settle eventually to delightful surprise, or it may lead to a horrible bellyache. Only cover a wall with a design's color that will provide security and happiness in a homeowner.

"Should existing and endurable furniture be reupholstered?" An excellent tip to be considered: evaluate the furniture for style and value versus the cost of the reupholstering. An antique chair that fits the feeling of a formal living room that was purchased for many thousands of dollars would be an excellent candidate as long as replacing the original upholstery did not degrade its value or worth.

"I don't know what to do about my floor." Decisions about floor designs should be based on a person's budget, the room's use, and personal preference. Certain floor treatments are incredibly expensive, such as hard oak floors, and they may not be practical in an area where stomping kids thrash through the interior. Carefully weigh options such as dying carpet or laying rugs over existing hard floors. It is all a matter of personal preference.

Actually, all interior design should be a matter of personal preference. It is not worth any expense to put something in a home that will force a homeowner to cringe every time he or she looks around.

Singapore Influenced interior design

Interior Design Ideas

The main elements of Country Singapore interior design require a relaxed, down-to-earth interior design style. For a major Asia city, Singapore can be another hub for exciting eclectic style and modern contemporary singapore interior design. You'll be able to establish a room's rural motif with rustic floors in wooden planks, stone, or ceramic tiles. In overall color scheme should be concentrated on colors inspired by the Singapore natural features. Including yellow golds, rich reds, and verdant greens in conjunction with blues and terracotta tones.

When deciding Singapore interior design, keep things simple but graceful. Sturdy, large scale wooden furniture is ideal for this provincial design style. Painted furniture pieces are also with regards to the list for an appealing Singapore Country decorating motif. Furniture silhouettes in this fashion are relatively unadorned, but they usually feature soft lines which might be clean rather than too fussy.

Fabric is a wonderful component of Singapore interior design. Small scale printed fabrics are very popular and show repeating patterns of flowers or animals such as roosters and citrus fruit. The bold hues of red, gold, and blue are predominant in these rustically inspired prints. Another fabric commonly noticed in this interior style is toile. Sometimes called by its person's name Toile Jieo, toile fabrics and wallpapers usually pair an easy background with repeated scenes of individuals and animals in a very pleasing outdoor setting.

Singapore style kitchen décor is often the center point and center of the comfortable decorating style in the home. Wooden cabinetry is generally accessorized with wrought iron hardware, and countertops are adorned with woven baskets and vibrant ceramic pieces. A sturdy harvest table for meals might be accented by some painted wooden chairs which has a distressed finish and woven rush seats.

Jen's Steamy DIY Dining Room

Allison sent me to this dining room about an hour before Jen (of the infamous Cake Wrecks), the creator, dropped me a line.



I love the details the most:

These are handmade buttons -- from pennies! Jen has a whole post about how she made them. I love how they look.

She steampunked a gumball machine with bronze and aged copper paint, and filled it with ceramic number balls (I have the corresponding letter balls, but no place nearly as neat to put them...).

Do you like how the light reflects through the glass onto the ceiling? I sure do.

I had to laugh at these drawer pulls -- I've been searching around for a "bin pull + label" handle for a while, and have only found one, which wasn't quite right. Jen just used her existing bin pulls and added label holders meant for scrapbooking -- 5 for $3! The labels themselves with their spidery writing are with a free font called Schoon.

Good job, Jen. Definitely send us an update if you ever settle on the perfect chandelier...

Alchemist's Chamber at the Baltimore Symphony Decorator's Showhouse

My friend Kara sent me this link from Pigtown Design -- it looks like steampunk has made another showhouse fundraiser -- this on in Baltimore. (By my count that's 3 -- San Francisco and Philadephia.)

This one is by McLain Wiesand, a custom furniture builder and restorer.

The Best Interior Design Collection

The Best Interior Design Collection of Dark Brown Home Furniture. This is the dark brown furniture gathered from many source in the internet. This design may suitable for your home interior like living room, bedroom or other place in your home. The color almost using dark brown, combine with other color like white or black. You can choose the dark brown furniture suite to your home style and your mood
dark-brown-home-furniture

Warm house interior with modern lighting by Thomas Chan

Rooms create the atmosphere for your living space, whether you live in a home, condo, beach house, cabin, dorm room, or an apartment. There are so many different photos and ideas out today on decorating different interior spaces. This house is designed for bachelor in Guangzhou, China. The aim was to make spaces functional when they are used on the regular basis and in the same time luxurious and unique. In addition to a lot of hidden lighting the interior’s atmosphere in evening or at night is very dramatic.
There are three floors in the house with the basement floor which features single lane pool, sauna, yoga rooms, golf practice green, table tennis area, gym, fully-equipped cinema guest suites and maids’ rooms. The ground floor includes living and dining areas, lounge and meeting rooms, the kitchen and car garages. The home decorating idea that is displayed is warm and cozy and extremely sophisticated.

Ideas for Interior Design

Interior design ideas these days are dime a 12. If you watch a television show that is dedicated to interior designing for one hour, once you come out, you would have enough knowledge that you can design for complete home. The main drawback of a television show when compared to applying these ideas in life is these are tough to document. If you don’t sit next or in front of the TV and scribble down madly onto paper piece, it is really difficult to remember all the ideas that you get watching the show. The key for a successful interior designing is planning.

Replicating or trying to copy an idea or design from a TV show for your home could include additional planning or steps which might not be shown in an hour or a thirty – minutes of a show. This being the reason it is necessary for one to go through the entire dry run of the design or idea before we actually execute it. There is a fair chance for figuring out and taking corrective measures to make sure a hassle free application.

The only resource for ideas and information for interior designs is not Television. Books always remain as a better help for designers of any experience and background. The information we get in the books is more or less explanative and thought-out material when compared to a TV show. As book demand more basic information and material than a Television show can have in a limited segment of time. Not only this, books are written by two or three authors together for such subjects and are also edited before it is released to the readers in any form. So, the information would be edited and re-written by two to three parties. Exceptions for the rules are always there but, this would be the normal scenario.

If you feel reading a book is time consuming for tedious task, then you can always choose to read a magazine article as another source of information for interior design. You always have the benefit of pictures or visual representations of the designs and its concepts in a magazine that you can look into or hold on for a particular period of time. Professional interior designers collect all these articles in big numbers along with the visuals and keep them in a format that can be accessible to everyone easily. This is a perfect source for getting specific information, feel or look that is difficult to describe in actual terms of industry for a client. Terminology used in these articles are self-explanatory although people who don’t have much expose to this jargons might find it difficult to understand few phrases or concepts that are used to define the interior design areas. Most of us are aware of the words ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ design but, the magazines would not find it difficult to say ‘Americana’ or ‘Minimalist’ for these terms. You need not think its incomplete just because you are not aware of these phrases, you have to understand that the process of learning takes time and hence is exactly termed as a process.

If you have enough creative ideas with you, go through different magazines and have an unique and distinct style design for your work that are within the ideas and guidelines for interior designing. If you feel you are not much comfortable with your style and find it easy in the traditional design segment, then collate all the ideas pertaining to this category and stick to the ideas or guidelines provided in the information you have collected.

Taking a little of information from these various sources and compile them into a creative collection of ideas that can help you access this information any time in future to compare with your own vision and ides would be a best way to understand information.

Neoclassical Kitchen Style

This images is a Neoclassical Kitchen Style

Art Donovan's Newest Creations

Art is a longtime favorite here at The Steampunk Home, and it's been a while since we've seen a new piece from him (he's been too busy curating the steampunk exhibit at Oxford, among other things...) Luckily for us that dry spell is over.

Pictured above is the Oxford Station Wall Lamp. It's my favorite of the new pieces -- I love how it combines Art Deco lines, an long Edison bulb with such a large glass shade that reminds me of early surgical operating rooms (for some reason...)

This is the Ferryman Reading + Research Lamp.

Art says: "Captain Nemo had a tremendous library on board his vessel, the "Nautilus".
What the good Captain didn't have was a proper reading lamp."


Like the one your grandmother uses with her sewing. Only much, much cooler.

This one has a neat "flame in globe" bulb -- as if you were an alchemist experimenting with catching fire. Eventually Edison would beat you to it, though...


Thanks for sharing, Art!

Lenard does not refer to any figures connected with a branch called art

Lenard's Ferronneria is full of fantastic pieces. My Polish is lacking, so we'll rely on what he says about his work:

La Ferronneria that is Machinecreating. This is a third generation of retransformed machineries known from somewhere else. These subjects have a fictitious function and their author endows them with a compulsive-obsessive syndrome. These mechanisms are made of nobly ageing metal with a discreet contribution of mirrors, electric current, and with intangible participation of models stylized in a retro way.

The whole art is influenced by Hertz formulas, Brewster angle, Kardan shafts, Oldham clutch, Junghans watches and other great creators. Spiritual patronage is exercised by rabbi Löwa ben Becalel. However, the author does not refer to any figures connected with a branch called art.

Cranked-up Comfort -- can you get any more mainstream than this?

My in-laws pointed me to the article "Cranked-up comfort" in the Houston Chronicle this weekend:

We’ll take our wood unvarnished, finished only by time and years of hard use. We’ll take our metal unpolished, its strength trumping shine. Giant gears of metal or wood become wall art or table tops. Factory carts roll into family rooms as coffee tables.

The look wears many names — industrial chic, rough luxe, Belgian modern — for the rugged materials that pair with refined natural materials such as linen and leather on comfy, inviting sofas and chairs.

It's about mass retailers and designers adopting what we call steampunk:

Sarah Kammlah of Fredericksburg, a designer with the Carol Hicks Bolton collection for E.J. Victor (www.ejvictor.com), calls her twist on the look “steam punk.” “It’s like you took Matrix and Age of Innocence and mashed them together.” Her recipe for a post-industrial look: mix one part Victorian, one part industrial and a twist of punk.


(If you call it that, you must be reading this blog, right? So dish, Sarah Kammlah, and send us some pictures!)

Playroom Reading Nook -- Corners of my Home

The blog originated as a place for me to collect ideas and images for my own home, but I've been oddly reticent to share what I've done in my own home (18 month renovation and counting!). When you spend so much time looking at pictures of work by professionals -- designers, photographers, artists -- you get to a point where yours will never measure up. (And let's not mention the work to get a home "photo ready.") I thought what I'd do instead is share "corners" -- small bits of my home that I'm especially proud of.


This is the reading nook in the (new) upstairs playroom (we built on 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a playroom over our garage). The steampunklet and I sit here for bedtime stories... It's also a great place to web surf when she's playing. (Another step backwards and you would see the lincoln logs that are just out of the picture... :) )

The sconces are repurposed old fire alarms that my father in law gave us. I asked designer Roni Koltuniak how I could use them -- she suggested using them as sconces and arranged to have one of her tradesmen drill the holes that cast such awesome shadows (she also had a big hand with the paint color choices, which I discovered I'm not very good at!).

Here's a peek into the bathroom -- it's panelled in red and picks up the sconces and the chair. (Please ignore the temporary blinds!)

Sources:
I'm pretty frugal, as you'll see from this list...

The red chair is from a local Salvation Army Thrift Store -- I forget if I paid $50 or $75 for it. The brass reading lamp is likewise from a thrift store, so long ago I've forgotten how much I paid for it. The side table is from Urban Outfitters for $60. It's still available. The clock is by Timeworks, found on One King's Lane for $49. The jewelry case is thrifted. The black wooden skull I picked up on a visit to Chichen Itza, I think it was $15. Goggles were a gift from the steampunklet for Christmas, from Restoration Hardware. If you can't live without a fire alarm of your own, there's one at Urban Remains Chicago for $695!

The bathroom tile is basic white subway tile by American Olean from Lowe's. (Laying it in a herringbone pattern is what makes it look luxe!) The red paint on the bathroom panelling is Benjamin Moore Heritage Red. (I'll do a post on the bathroom once it's "picture perfect.")

The ceiling fan is Lowe’s Harbor Breeze 74” Twin Breeze. The walls are painted Woodruff by Laura Ashley Home (also from Lowe's). The trim is Valspar Lincoln Cottage Black (Lowe's again -- see a trend?) I can't track down exactly what model the carpet is, but it's a Stainmaster carpet with very subtle Victorian swirls in it.

What do you think? I love it! It reminds me very much of the minimalist steampunk post I did a couple of years ago -- the lack of clutter seems especially approriate for a playroom, which has plenty of it's own stuff to go around.