Victorian Fish Tanks

The Victorians had a keen interest in nature. House plants were a novelty as were fish. A few rare examples of Victorian era fish tanks do exist. The one pictured is a reproduction of a Victorian tank based on illustrations from the era.

Other tanks look more like modern rectangular tanks. The cast iron rectangular tanks provide some ideas on how one might decorate a modern tank to make it more fitting to a room's decor. This large image of an antique tank has great detail to work from (click here for that image).

Black and White Conservatory

I stumbled across this image from the Milestone Hotel in London. The hotel's conservatory is done in this striking black and white scheme. The striped draperies and black furnishings have an interesting balance to the all white room.

This pulled together style could be easily recreated for a conservatory, sun room or room with a white on white theme of woodwork and built in cabinetry. Painted or upholstered black furniture and the striped window treatments are the core design elements.

Something that makes the draperies really excel is the combination all done in the same fabric. There are roman shades, regular draperies and a double valance.

Furniture: Victorian Balloon Chair

Design Toscano is carrying this unique reproduction Victorian Balloon chair. This is one reproduction you don't see every day. It is also currently on sale.

Old world luxury home design, Clive Christian

Clive Christian is probably more well known for being the company that sells the world's most expensive bottle of perfume.

They also have a reputation for high end cabinetry based home interiors.

Most of their designs are based off of old world designs but done with a modern cabinetry layout scheme.

Something of note with most of their designs is that they incorporate three elements. Crystal chandeliers, lots of wood molding and mirrors. When you break that down these are relatively inexpensive materials available at any big box home improvement store.

Crown molding either stained or painted to match the walls is a fairly easy project even a beginner could tackle. Basic cabinets could benefit from added crown or base moldings stained to match. Front molding and finials are also readily available and could be added to the front of cabinet bases or open shelving. Crystal chandeliers can frequently be found at garage sales, flea markets and house fixture reuse stores. Walls can benefit from frames made of molding that are mounted to the wall. When doing so on a painted wall, painting the frames to match makes them look built in. The bedroom pictured could be mimicked using a love seat and two wardrobes. A used hotel furniture warehouse would be an idea source for a pair of matching wardrobes or armoires. The heavy use of mirrors is another features that is relatively easy to recreate. Standard unframed mirrors from a big box home improvement store could be installed on the wall and framed out with the finish moldings to blend into the wall.

The best office suite in DC.

The office suite pictured to the left is in the Old Executive Office Building, Washington, DC. It was the background of a recent interview with outgoing VP Dick Cheney. This piqued my interest in the location that served as the backdrop for the interview. The office used by the VP, is the former office of the Secretary of the Navy. The office suite has had multiple uses over the years and are currently the official offices of the VP.


If you look in the background of the first two images you will notice a solid black Belgian marble fireplace mantle. In an up close view it is heavily carved. The room still has the original, now restored highly detailed paint scheme and plaster work. The paint scheme features classical ornaments with nautical themes worked into the green and burgundy color palette. The large light fixtures are the original gasoliers that provided for both gas and electrical lighting.


The original state of the room shows a detailed wood floor patterned with multiple species of wood. This image also provides a good view of the ceiling detail work.




A close up of the restored wall motifs between the windows. The designs are extremely detailed but due to the color choices don't become busy or distracting when viewed in the room as a whole.




You can see in the image to the left the intense level of not only painting detail but plaster work detail, much of it finished in gold leaf. The office suite is a significant departure from the typical federal style light colored rooms of the White House and similar official locations. It is enough to make you consider running for office.

Find out more about this building at the Navy's history page.

Dark Style.....at JcPenney's

JcPenney recently came out with the Linden Street product line.

I was very surprised to find these kind of old world industrial style items at JcPenney. They are reasonably priced for the level of quality and right now most of the items in their Linden Street line are half price.

The items are available via the catalog, online and in stores, plus JcPenney is currently offering free shipping on orders over $25.

Discover the whole Linden Street line at JcPenney.

Dining room wall decor

I found this dining room image at Architectural Digest. The wall behind the table has a high impact but look closer, it is a very simple design.

An iron curtain rod hung high on the wall with a tab top curtain(s) in a basic fabric is used as the back drop. The images are hung using a series of hooks or chain to suspend them from the rod.

The main piece of art is the painting in the middle. You could use a featured piece of art or even an art poster if it was well framed. The surrounding frames appear to have photos or ink drawings. All of this could be done on a theme such as one main work of art by an artist and then use smaller prints from the same artist in the other frames.

This would also be easy to do with a group of frames from a thrift store painted black and filled with small prints, art images scavenged from a calendar or cards with art fronts.
Image: Architectural Digest