Interesting Home Interior Design

New! Christmas Dining Room Decorating Ideas - take this idea for decorating a dining table and make it your own original concept for Christmas dinner.

Feng Shui has helped our home environment feel more harmonious, find out more about how it works with interior decorating. To help take the guesswork away from making changes in your home try 3D Plan Modeling it could save you money in the long run. Proportion and Balance are key ingredients for design and decorating, The Fibonacci Series and The Golden Mean are useful tools to help you design to pleasing proportions and create balance, and don't forget to look at a structured way for New Home Planning. You can also see the home being constructed from start to finish as a detailed photographic diary.

The topic that interior designers like the least is construction, it's mundane but if you learn a little it can go a long way to making you achieve much better schemes, so look at construction for interior designers to get you started. or are you thinking about becoming an interior decorator, read all about it.

Outdoor living

Paris Hilton in Bed

Paris Hilton in BedBedBed

HOST Development

HOST Development has $5000 Down Payment Assistance funds for first-time buyers! That’s on top of our usual $5000 closing cost grants.

A total of $10,000 in assistance may be available to you to purchase a 2, 3 or 4 bedroom home at Helensview that is LEED certified. Prices are between $189,000 and $229,000.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a nationally accredited benchmark for green building. For more information on LEED and what it means for future Helensview owners,

Jeffrey Cortland Jones

at Christopher West Presents
Artist Reception, Thursday June 3rd, 5pm - 8pm
First Friday: June 4, 2010 5–9pm


christopher west presents is pleased to announce a A Rush and a Push, an exhibition of new paintings by Cincinnati–based Jeffrey Cortland Jones. Opening reception for the artist will take place on Thursday, June 3rd from 5 pm until 8 pm. The exhibition will run through June 26th.


Jones, a native of East Tennessee, received his MFA in painting from the University of Cincinnati in 2000. He sees painting as a physical activity and a material process rather than as a language that conveys narrative meaning. He is interested in how chance happenings and the union of formal opposites such as geometric versus organic and controlled versus spontaneous, challenge and instruct the work. His work has recently been exhibited in New York City; Brooklyn, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Oakland, CA; San Francisco, CA; Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Philadelphia, PA; St. Louis, MO; Atlanta, GA; Indianapolis, IN; Nashville, TN, and Chicago, IL; as well as in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Haifa, Israel; and Berlin, Germany. This is his first exhibition at the gallery.

House For Sale

It was with great surprise that I received an email this morning from a Connecticut realtor notifying me of the presence of the late H.C. Westermann's house on the market. The current status of the house had been the subject of questioning recently; although there has been scholarship published about the house, what happened to it after Westermann's wife Joanna Beale Westermann passed away some years ago was unclear to myself and others. Westermann's house was, perhaps, the culminating work of his extremely productive and storied career as an artist. Having braved difficult living conditions for nearly his entire life, he put his all into crafting the home that was the stuff of dreams for himself and his wife, as it was literally dreamed up by the two of them. Westermann painstakingly built the home from foundation to ceiling, all by hand and with very little assistance, using the most exacting standards of craftsmanship at great physical and financial cost. He was so dedicated to old-world methods of working that he refused to use Philips-head screws in constructing his house and used the finest wood he could find. Attached to the living space was a combination artist studio and gym, making the property place where he could both work and live with his wife in the relative seclusion they had so long desired. Hand-carved detailing throughout the home and studio mark the house as being Westermann's creation and reflect some of his life experiences. Sadly, Westermann passed away before he was able to move into the house. His beloved wife Joanna Beale Westermann lived there until her death.

So that brings us up to speed. The elephant in the living room is, who should have Westermann's house now that himself and his wife are gone? It is unclear whether it was in private hands after Joanna's passing but before right now, but it seems to me that it would be a travesty and perhaps an ethical issue to allow this incredible place to become a private residence. Does one person or family deserve to privately own what could be an incredible opportunity to educate the public about a very important American artist? On a very human note, is it ethical for someone to live in a house that someone labored so incredibly hard to build but passed away before being able to enjoy? The best answer is that a museum or cultural non-profit foundation should acquire the house, preserve it, curate it, and open it to the public. The artist's house as museum is a concept well-articulated by now; School of the Art Institute of Chicago does a fabulous job curating and maintaining the home of the late Roger Brown. To cite an architectural example, people travel from around the world to visit the home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. Perhaps it is a bit idealistic to propose such a scenario as the only option; especially in current economic times it would be assuredly difficult for most institutions to take on such a large project as this. Another scenario would be a private collector or group of collectors purchasing the house; this could still yield some scholarship and hopefully occasional public access to the space.

Westermann's example is important to the discussion on artist house museums for two reasons. First of all, in a general sense the preservation, curation, and opening to the public of the homes of prominent deceased artists is a profound educational opportunity for generations to come. There is still an overriding general sentiment out there that art and artists remain an esoteric and pompous corner of culture, and what better way to help the public learn about and begin to understand an artist and his or her work than allowing them to visit their home? There is so much that one's residence says about them and their lifestyle that a painting or sculpture could never begin to capture. Secondly, in this case the artist's home is a work of art in and of itself. Idiosyncrasy, superior craftsmanship, and an appreciation for woodworking are apparent throughout most of the art Westermann created during his life. All of this is perfectly embodied in his home. Additionally, houses were one of the main themes that Westermann esoterically brought into play throughout his ouevre. All of this renders his home extremely important as a potential public treasure and as a scholarly opportunity for the art and museum world.

As Westermann continues to secure his place within the canon of postwar American art, I sincerely hope that this incredible opportunity for scholarship and the appreciation of his life and work is not lost due to the house being sold into disinterested private hands. It seems to me that The Smart Museum would be the ideal candidate to acquire the house; they have contributed much to the scholarship on and appreciation of Westermann through exhibitions and writings. Westermann's wife Joanna left many of his personal affects and much of his art to The Smart Museum when she passed away, so The Smart Museum is more or less the possessor of the world's strongest Westermann collection and the foremost authority on his life and art. If it cannot be The Smart Museum or another institution, I certainly hope whichever individual or individuals that purchase the house respect it for what it is and treat it as such. Only time will tell what happens, but hopefully it will be the right thing.

**Update, 7-28-2010**

-I contacted the staff of The Smart Museum about this opportunity, and they stated in response:
"The Smart Museum had also been alerted to the fact that H.C. Westermann's home was on the market. The Museum's leadership is evaluating the opportunity that this might present."


-Patty McManus, the Connecticut realtor who is in charge of selling Westermann's house, provided me with the following additional details:

"The wood studio is almost exactly as Westermann left it. It has been kept like a museum. The home also contains some of the shipping crates from his artwork, his lathe and a number of other items. The art studio still has his chin up bar, tools, etc. My client is willing to transfer the property with all of his items." She is contactable at pmcmanus@wpsir.com

-Fellow Westermann appreciator and artist R.L. Croft brought up a very plausible scenario that would be a great answer to the financial strife facing many museums at this time:
"It would be a shame for it to end up being changed or lived in without complete museum-like care. Someone wealthy needs to buy it, donate it, and provide funds for its upkeep. I certainly agree that the Smart Museum sounds like a logical choice, but any museum with money ought to be salivating to add it to a collection."

This week went pretty much to plan with the added bonus of a very beautiful shoot in London last night of a staircase illuminated by small LED light fittings recessed into the handrail on the stairs. I had the shoot down in Salisbury in Wiltshire during the day then drove into the West End (of London) in the evening for the night shoot. It made for a long day but the staircase looked superb I and really enjoyed photographing it. I've attached two pictures in today's blog and I'll be uploading some more pictures of the staircase onto my Flickr page over the weekend.

London is such an exciting place to work and when I finished the shoot at around 10.30pm I had a drink with my client then walked up Charing Cross Road from Leicester Square and the place was just buzzing. Soho was packed although I could only see a bit of it from my route back to the car and I really enjoyed the atmosphere.

The attached pictures were taken on the 5D MK2 with my 24mm tilt and shift lens for the medium range shot and my 17-40mm lens for the wide angle shot looking upwards. I usually correct for perspective whenever possible and this shot has converging vertical lines caused by tilting the camera back but I think it works well in this instance.

These LED lights are the future as the entire staircase was lit with 600W of energy (each LED light is only 2.2W) and in the event of a power failure the entire system runs at full brightness from a battery system!.

My Volvo V50 has gone wrong again - the clutch master cylinder has broken for the second time in 6 months and I had to drive the last few miles home with the car stuck in 3rd gear!. Apart from that it was a pretty good day and it's great to be back at work.

My job today was a BUPA care home in Ipswich where I photographed the interior for a new brochure. As usual for interior photography I used the 24mm tilt and shift lens for 80% of the shots and the 24-105mm for the detail shots. The 24mm T/S lens is a real gem and I would recommend it to anyone who shoots interiors or architecture. The ability to shift the front of the lens up and down (a bit like the old view cameras with the bellows between the back and lens) means that I don't have to tilt the camera up or down at all hence removing the converging vertical lines one gets when a camera is tilted up or down from the horizontal. Canon have now added a 17mm T/S lens to their range but at £2000 plus it's a bit too dear and I'll wait until the price drops a bit once the novelty of the new lens wears off a bit.

Tomorrow I've got another interior shoot for BUPA in Gloucestershire followed by a night shoot in London so it's going to be a long and busy day. On top of that I've got to arrange a hire car while the increasingly unreliable Volvo heads back to the dealership in Milton Keynes for more repairs.

I'm hoping to do some video editing training on Wednesday with Final Cut Pro then on Thursday I've another interior shoot this time in Salisbury in Wiltshire which is cool as I love driving across to that part of the country.

I've attached a picture in today's blog from the IUCN shoot in Switzerland back in May which illustrates the use of the tilt and shift lens. Here I took a picture looking down the staircase but because I've shifted the lens down rather than tilting the camera the vertical lines still look straight and natural. I really dislike architectural pictures that have walls sloping in and although this is sometimes done for effect I'm always careful to avoid this if at all possible.

I've just spent the week camping in the Cotswolds with the family and feel really refreshed and ready to go again. It was our first camping trip together and after a couple of wet days and some teething problems it all went very well. We camped at the Cotswold Farm Park near Stow on the Wold and I decided to take the Panasonic G1 camera along with us as it's small and compact but also has a good resolution and a great zoom lens. I also took along an old Canon FD lens that I use with the G1 with an adaptor and this gives top quality results too. I took a few shots of some animals around the farm with the old Canon lens and G1 and I've posted a couple to today's blog.

Next week is full which is great news. I'm looking forward to getting back to work and I'm glad I'm coming back to a really busy week.

It's been a really busy week and I love that feeling you get on a Friday when you get home and feel like you've earned a good rest because you've put in a good solid week's work.

This was the busiest week I've had for a while and I spent Monday in the office doing a solid day's post shoot processing followed by a shoot at a lovely care home in Wimbledon on Tuesday. Wednesday's shoot was at another beautiful care home - this one near Devizies in Wiltshire. The drive there and back was stunning as the sun was out and I took a back road route both ways. Then yesterday I spent the day shooting some video to show the operation of a high tech lighting control system for a lighting manufacturer which was great fun and got the old brain cells working flat out as we had a storyboard to follow

Today I left home at 6am for a shoot at a large distribution warehouse in West Thurrock where we had a 7.30am start. The shoot went well and I left Thurrock at 12.30pm and headed off to Luton for my monthly radio show on BBC Three Counties radio where I do an expert hour on the Lorna Milton show. I had to be there at 2.30pm for a 2.45pm start so basically I had 2 hours to do about 30 miles. I made it into the studio with literally 30 seconds to spare before I went on thanks to a massive jam on the M25.

I've had some very kind comments on the blog from some of the readers (thanks for the feedback - it's always good to get comments on the blog) about the high dynamic range (HDR) pictures that I sometimes post. I do use HDR techniques and mainly use Photomatix to layer the various images to together but I always then open them in Photoshop and work on the pictures extensively to ensure they don't look too artificial. I've attached an example of an HDR picture to today's blog which was taken at the Wyndhams Theatre. A standard picture showing this scene would have the highlights blown out and the light fittings and chandelier would not be clearly visible.

I've just got back home from a shoot in Wimbledon where I photographed a very smart retirement home for a brochure. It was an interesting old building right on the edge of the Common and apparently a lady once lived there who had an affair with King Edward 3rd so it's a very old and grand place as you can imagine. The drive home was pretty hot and stuffy though as the aircon on my Volvo V50 has broken again!.


Tomorrow I've got a shoot down in Devizies in Wiltshire which is a lovely part of the world and I always love driving in that direction (even without aircon) then I'm shooting a video in Milton Keynes on Thursday and on Friday I've got a warehouse and supermarket interior to shoot in Thurrock starting at 7.30am and then I'm on BBC Three Counties Radio in the afternoon from 2.30pm so all in all a very busy week.


I was thinking today that I haven't bought any camera kit for a couple of years now and I'm still blown away by the quality of image I'm getting from the EOS 5D MK2 and the original 5D too. I've got four L series lenses too which I've owned for a few years and I think we're arriving at a point right now where the need to continually upgrade to the latest camera is now over. I can't see me buying the next generation Canon Pro DSLR now unless something goes wrong with my existing kit or something groundbreaking comes out with say high dynamic range imaging built in but I can't see this happening for a few years yet. I think the resolution of the 5D MK2 (22MP) is enough for anyone unless you're routinely shooting full size billboard images, and for that reason I'm happy to stay with the kit I've got.


I get asked a lot by enthusiasts as to which camera to buy and my advice is always the same - buy a used DLSR body from a camera dealer with a guarantee and spend the bulk of the money on top quality second hand lenses as these really make the difference. A great lens on an 8MP camera will give a better picture than a cheap lens on a 20MP camera!.


I've attached a picture from a shoot I did at the excellent All Star Lanes boutique bowling alley in London - I'm lucky to have been commissioned by the owners to photograph all three of their venues in London and they are well worth a visit if you fancy a great night out in stylish surroundings. Here's a link to their website - http://www.allstarlanes.co.uk/
I took the pictures without people in on their site (the pictures with people aren't mine!!)

OK so another good day today as I finished off all the outstanding post shoot processing including yesterday's shoot in Milton Keynes which was an interior shoot for a large private healthcare client. Then I had a meeting with a new client in Aylesbury who have now commissioned me to shoot three locations for them over the next few weeks and they are also interested in my new Redshift Media company through which I'm offering video production and also Internet marketing via Twitter, Blogger and Flickr etc.

Tomorrow I'm off to Newbury for another healthcare shoot then on Friday I'm down in Bristol photographing a new academy school so all in all a really good week.

I get the feeling that our economy is very delicately balanced at the moment and I really fear for the next couple of years and beyond because of all the cuts the government are making. I only hope I'm being paranoid and that I'm proven to be wrong but so many of my clients - both architects and manufacturers - rely on education and healthcare projects to keep going.

That's why I think we as photographers need to offer more services and therefore more value to our clients to help keep busy.

Having said that I'm very pleased that the next two months look very busy so I'm going to focus on that and keep as optimistic as possible!.

I've attached a picture to today's blog from a shoot a while back where I took a series of 6 shots from the Clifton Suspension Bridge to show a motorway section lit with street lights made by my client. I stitched the pictures together in Photoshop to create a panoramic image.

Post shoot processing was the order of the day today (after a visit to the dentist!) and I finished processing all the pictures from the Talk Talk shoot and made a start on the Homebase shoot from Friday. The Talk Talk pictures look good and I'm pleased with them so hopefully the client will be pleased too. I need to keep up to date now as I'm out every day this week and next week is full too so I don't want to fall behind with the post processing. I always get a bit stressed when I know I've got a big backlog of work to catch up on so I'll be working late tonight and tomorrow to keep on schedule.

I've attached another two pictures from the Talk Talk shoot to the blog today. I noticed the reflection of the light fittings in the glass cabinet and used that to create a more interesting shot that a straight forward picture of the open plan office. I always like to use reflections when possible to add a bit of extra visual interest to the shots. I also love to use blurred people in the pictures to add a sense of scale as in the shot of the reception -to achieve this effect you need to have the camera fixed onto a sturdy tripod and use a shutter speed of around half a second. I like the blurred effect from an artistic point of view but it also means that people in the pictures aren't recognisable and therefore there isn't any hassle in terms of getting permission from them to take their photograph!.

It's been a really quiet week since my last blog entry but things have just picked up again big time!. I had a shoot today in London at the new HQ of Talk Talk (broadband suppliers) who are based in Notting Hill. I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps on my Blackberry and ended up walking bloody miles around West London before realising that the stupid phone didn't have a clue as to where I was supposed to be going. Having wasted an hour walking around London W11 I gave up and got in a cab and the cabbie then got lost too and had to resort to his A-Z!.

Once I got there the shoot went really well and I took some good shots of the interior of the building for my client who supplied all the interior lighting to the building.

Tomorrow I've got two jobs - one in Esher and another in Crawley. It's going to be a long day and I've got to leave home at 6.45am but it's great to be so busy again after a quiet couple of weeks. Then for the next two weeks the diary is pretty full so happy days!.

I had another two video commissions in today which is very exciting. The video clip work seems to be really taking off and I think this will soon account for 25% of my turnover. I saw this coming with the advent of search engine optimisation whereby Google promotes web sites further up the rankings if the site contains video content. I've just finished a video for one of my best clients and I'll post it in the blog as soon as they sign it off.

Next week I'm hoping to do some more training on the video editing software called Final Cut Pro which is the hottest editing program around. At the moment I pay to have all my footage edited and I will probably carry on doing this as my workload is high enough as it is but I am keen to learn the basics in case I need to edit something quickly for a client. The files from the Canon EOS 5D MK2 that I use are very big as it records in full 1080p HD so I'd need a powerful Mac system to be able to edit these but I think it would be a worthwhile investment.

I've attached a picture from today's shoot at Talk Talk showing the linear fluorescent lighting system in the canteen - the food was great by the way!.

First LEED Platinum Home in Virginia

This modern, award-winning abode is the first LEED Platinum home in Virginia. Located at 5803 16th Street North in Arlington, the home was built by Metro Green and designed by Kaplan Thompson Architects (the firm that also designed the popular net-zero energy Bright Built Barn). Although it's a little bigger than the ones we tend to mention -- 3,825 square feet with a tight footprint -- I think the home is worth mentioning for a number of reasons. First, annual heating and cooling costs are $180 and $125 respectively! In addition, 5803 has the following green elements:

• A Liveroof green roof;
• 1 kW array of photovoltaics;
• Geothermal wells and heat pump;
• Efficient SIPs walls and roof;
• Efficient spray foam insulation;
• High efficiency appliances;
• Energy recovery ventilation system;
• Low-VOC finishes and paints;
• 540 gallons of rainwater cisterns;
• Custom nanogel curtain wall glazing;
• Double-glazed, argon-filled windows; and
• Pervious paving and drought-tolerant landscaping.

5803 was designed to be efficient from the beginning. It received a HERS score of 51, Energy Star rating of 5+ Stars, and Energy Star certification for exceptional indoor air quality. Moreover, the site design features zero site runoff for a one-inch rain event. And in case you're in the market for a green home, check these links.

[+] Metro Green LEED Platinum home
[$] 5803 16th St North is for sale for $1.175k at Redfin.

Photo credits and copyright: Parker Daniell.

Oregon Shift House Seeks Passive House

Last week, Willamette Week Online published an article called "Futurehaus," which we linked to in our Saturday Week in Review. The article describes an Oregon Passive House project in the works by Root Design Build. The house is referred to as the Shift House, which, awkwardly enough, is not to be confused with the other Shift Home that we covered recently. But that's not to take anything away from it. With construction set to begin next month, upon completion in September, it'll be one of only a few certified Passive Houses in the United States.

Of course, the media has been giving attention to Passive Houses, and the broader public is becoming more and more aware of the standard. Passive Houses require three main things: an airtight envelope, little to no heating and cooling energy, and minimal overall energy use. You can read about the more technical standards on the Passive House website.

Root Design Build's Shift House maintains a somewhat traditional design, and the necessary energy efficiency goals will be sought by eliminating thermal bridges and using super insulation, roof overhangs, triple-pane windows, south-facing windows, concrete floors for thermal mass, and waste heat, etc. And with the tight envelope, the home requires a heat recovery ventilator to keep the air fresh.

Shift House will be just over 1,700 square feet, and Root Design Build has $300,000 budgeted for construction. Although the home will have solar panels, not counting energy from the panels, the estimated yearly heating cost should be under $200, if all goes as planned. Very interesting. We'll keep you posted as the Shift House moves forward ...

As a side note ... it seems popular to couch LEED criticism in praise for Passive House. Most certainly, LEED could be more rigorous in terms of energy performance, although it should be remembered that the goal of the program is market transformation. But as has been said by others, LEED and Passive House don't necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. Moreover, while Passive House zeros in on energy efficiency and tightness, LEED has a broader focus on other important environmental aspects, such as site issues, construction activity, materials and waste, water efficiency, and environmental air quality, etc. The goals and programs are slightly different. In any event, you know we'll be the first to tell you if we see a LEED Platinum Passive House.