obsessive compulsive decorating disorder (and a design challenge too!)

maison21 has spent a good part of the last two weeks pulling together concepts for a new loft redecoration project. his client wants the mix of vintage, antique and modern that maison21 considers his forté, but would also like to add in lots of industrial chic and ethic flavors as well, and maison21 couldn't be more excited about that! we love when our clients want to mix it up a little! even better when they want to mix it up a lot!

the downside of coming up with fabulous new concepts for a client, especially a little outside of our normal decorating style, is that we then become obsessed with the concepts, and our own home begins to have that not-so-fresh feeling (at least in our eyes). sadly, m21 is then faced with redecorating both the atelier and his client's home, all at the same time! oh, the struggles we decorators face!

in addition to whatever we are doing for a client, we have our other everyday decorating obsessions to contend with- things we've either seen in person, or online, or in the magazines, or just ideas from our wild impulse for change. thank goodness for our blog though, or we'd be constantly broke as well as worn out from the non-stop redecoration of our own home! but now we have a virtual outlet to mix our new concepts and old loves, without actually resorting to buying a thing. or not buying much anyway- we've never completed a project yet without a new present or two for ourselves in the process. we just can't help ourselves- we have obsessive-compulsive decorating disorder (OCDD- look it up in the DSM).

in addition to our hunt for cool industrial chic for our new client, maison21's obsessive love for the work of michael taylor has been reignited since the publication of the new book by stephen m. salny. we need to california chic up the atelier something fierce! we're even thinking of going beige- and up until recently, as frequent readers might know, maison21 has considered beige a dirty word... our other current obsession is the work of francois and claude lalanne, most specifically their iconic sheep sculptures. obsession is not nearly a strong enough of a word for our need for some lambies- we might actually perish if we don't get a flock of our very own. thank goodness christie's didn't offer any of the sheep during their recent auction of the YSL estate, or we'd probably be in jail right now for passing a bad check in our attempt to secure 4 or 5. you see, we want need them so we can use them around our dining table instead of chairs. how chic would that be? and yes, we're willing to do time to make it happen...

photo stolen from an aesthete's lament

so for our fantasy redecoration project, we've tried to pull in elements of our current obsessions, together with some concepts we're using for our current client, and apply them to the dining room here at the maison21 atelier:

first we're going to beach and ceruse our floors (remember this is a fantasy, we all know that m21 will never actually do anything about his tragically messed up floors).

then we paint- gulp- beige on beige, in this case, benjamin moore white dove oc-17 for the trim and bm malton #1073 on the walls. we might even wash a glaze of the white dove over the malton for a venetian plaster effect. we are soooooo scaring ourselves here- did we really just say wash a glaze? yikes.
on our new cerused oak floors, we're going to toss a blond cowhide:
next, 'cause we've got waaaay too much beige goin' on now, we'll to punch it up with some black (sorry, maison21 could never live by beige and beige alone), so we're going to hang the 30" version of moooi's random light as our chandelier. our dining room is postage stamp tiny, but we loves a big-ass chandelier in it anyway. sometimes the best thing to do with small rooms is go big
for our table, we again nod to mr. taylor's style, and want to use a form from classical antiquity- like this chic bronze dolphin tripod table base from 1stdibs (we have long had our eyes on a similar one here locally, which has an excellent oxidized patina. we'll have to treat the finish on the one from 1stdibs to bring the shine down a notch):
since we used an animal form for our dining table base, we're afraid our beloved lalanne sheep are a no go for seating (probably too big for our small room anyway- we wouldn't want our tiny dining room to look like the holding pen before the sheep become lamb chops). we'd still like to indulge our woolly obsession though, and mix it up with an industrial vibe, so we'll take a set of industrial stools (again, 1stdibs) and customize them by covering in tibetan lamb (uh oh- more beige). using stools instead of chairs feels modern (and a bit quirky) to m21 right now, so it will work to tie in our ultra-modern lighting choice; their dark iron patina helps too.

against the only wall of our dining room without windows or doors, we'll use a teak root console, like mr. taylor liked to do in his latter days. we will NOT be using the sculptures shown in the photo, though. no no no.

above the console, we'll hang a black and white cy twombly (remember, this is a fantasy, k?) with lots more black than white, again to kill the beiginess of it all.
we'll probably have to frame our twombly in a big ol' gaudy gilt frame to keep the modern-antique tension going- like the frame of this mirror from michael taylor's line:

last, because even in his fantasies, maison21 can't waste money where he doesn't need to, we'll finish our room with mesh curtain panels from west elm. they are cheap and chic, and fit with our beige-y modern-eclectic vibe just perfectly, so why not?

last, to close this rather lengthy virtual room post, remember our design blogger's challenge from last summer? with the big-ass gaudy chandelier? we'd like to do it again with this post as a starting point- just pick two disparate elements from this post- from boring beige to bold black random to chic bronze dolphins (or alternatively, take your picks from the eclectic pieces in the m21 inventory slideshow at the top right corner of our blog), and combine your choices with your own latest decorating obsessions (whatever they may be), then post the results on your blog, and m21 will link to everybody that plays along! (a great way to get exposure for your blog if you're a new blogger, btw). we hope you'll play, as last time it was so much fun to see how different designers interpret the same elements is such unique and clever ways- so come on, indulge your OCDD! it's fun and FREE- what more could we ask for right now?

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