When Ariel Roth’s clients,a young family of five in a suburb of Boston, asked her to dress down their formal dining room, she went right for the wallpaper.
“They wanted the rooms in their early 1900s Colonial to be fun and comfortable,” says Roth, an interior designer with Helios Design Group in the Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. They enthusiastically embraced her suggestion to cover all four walls of the formal dining room with whimsical wallpaper. “We used the word ‘happy’ a lot,” the Boston designer says.
The wallcovering she chose? Flat Vernacular Swallowtail, an organic, stone-like pattern in a mix of sweet and earthy colors. She pulled out the pink with simple drapes, and grounded the room by painting the millwork in Benjamin Moore Old Navy.
Photo by Michael J. Lee
I wrote about this space last year in the Boston Globe Magazine, a year ago. Here, I pulled similar pieces so you can pull the look together on your own. (Or call the designer, I’m sure she’d love to hear from you!)
A few weeks ago I did a small roundup of modern rocking chairs to accompany a decor story in the Boston Globe. (Every Monday my lovely colleague Jaci Conroy writes an interior design article for the Globe and I pull together a corresponding group of furnishings & accessories.) I found so many great modern rocking chairs + contemporary rocking chairs that I figured a blog post was in order.
These all have great styling and are a far departure from traditional rockers or overstuffed gliders for the nursery. We have an Eames molded plastic rocker in sky blue on the Cape that we bought for my son, though I think it’s in our room now. Sometimes I use it on our little deck. I didn’t include that iconic example here, but there are other examples (mid-century modern furniture replicas), like the #16, the Swerve which has jaunty cut-outs and a full wooden base.
I love the look of #5, a very spare rocker from NYC shop Matter, and of love the tall mint-upholstered one by Normann Copenhagen. And if only I could place that blush colored Artifort rocker in the model apartment I’m decorating. Probably thought, the one that makes the most sense for my lifestyle is Gus Modern’s GT rocker (#13). It is definitely a contemporary rocking chair in style, but with enough cushion to be comfy.
Shop 30 modern rocking chairs from StyleCarrot partners and other favorite shops.
1 Comback Rocking Chair by Patricia Urquiola for Kartell, $890 at YLiving.
2 Taxed Rocking Chair by Segis, $1,309.99 at AllModern.
In 1942, Finn Juhl and his first wife, Inge-Marie Skaarup, built a house in Ordrup, designed by Juhl. They hung many works by Danish art painters of the time: Lundstrøm, Richard Mortensen, Eigill Jacobsen, Robert Jacobsen, and others. I’ll post photographs of the house later, but right now I today I thought it would be fun to see his art collection. I wish I could identify the artists; I will write to the press person at the museum and add the attributions when/if I get them. UPDATED: I found the brochure I brought home with me which identifies the artwork.
ABOVE: Richard Mortensen | Jean Deyrolle | Vilhelm Lundstrom | Richard Mortensen
ABOVE: Vilhelm Lundstrom | Richard Mortensen | Jean Deyrolle | Vilhelm Lundstrom
ABOVE: Asger Jorn | Asger Jorn | Vilhelm Lundstrom | Jean Deyrolle
ABOVE: Preben Hornung | unidentified | Georges Braque
Richard Mortensen | Alfred Manessier | Carl-Henning Pedersen | Gino Severini | Alfred Manessier