I’m Hooked on Michelle!

Not too long after the inception of DesignTies in January of this year, one of the first blogs I discovered was Michelle Morelan’s A Schematic Life. I was immediately drawn to her writing style, her sense of aesthetic, the interiors and design she showcased, and of course her beautiful one-of-a-kind renderings! The fact that she lived right here in the lower mainland, British Columbia… bonus!!

Recently, though, Michelle has been showcasing original and what I feel are absolutely stunning abstract paintings. I mean… I was a regular and loyal visitor of A Schematic Life, an admirer of Michelle’s designs and renderings… but now I’m just plain HOOKED! I’m hooked on Michelle Morelan… and everything she produces!!

So hooked, in fact, that I felt compelled to showcase some of Michelle’s work for Hooked on Fridays, a weekly blog party hosted by Julia from Hooked on Houses.

If you haven’t already discovered Michelle… and if you’re not already hooked on her like I am… you will be after you see what I have to share with you!

Introducing… the enormously talented interior designer, Michelle Morelan!!

There’s a silly tale to this photo. I had met Michelle for a yummy lunch at a restaurant called Joey’s. After lunch we found ourselves in the ladies room admiring the art hanging on the walls, the fantastic granite trough sink and the overall design of the space. It really is a lovely bathroom!

Out comes my camera and I start TRYING to take photos of the space. Nothing would turn out! Then we decided we wanted to take a photo of us together. Hmmm. That involved using the timer feature!! Disaster! Finally… after several takes, I captured the one I’m sharing with you today (my hair is much lighter now – I don’t look like me!). We laughed so hard at how inept I was with my camera!! :-)

So didn’t I promise you some Michelle Morelan design?!

Let’s start with some of her fantabulous interiors… all photos b0rrowed from her website, Michelle Morelan Design.

Lovely, lovely interiors!

Those of you familiar with Michelle know her for her unbelievable renderings! My blog partner Kelly was VERY fortunate, recently, to win an original Michelle rendering of her living room. Using only a photograph to guide her, this is what Michelle produced:

I can’t begin to tell you how excited Kelly was to receive this special illustration!

Here’s one that really struck my fancy… Michelle travels when ever the opportunity presents itself, and this illustration is of Amsterdam.

I SOOOO want to go to Amsterdam. I’m sure it would look just like this!!

Sometimes, when Michelle sees a photo of an indoor or outdoor space on a blogger-friend’s site that she loves, she’ll surprise them by creating a beautiful rendering and posting it on A Schematic Life.

Like this one… Maria from Colour Me Happy took a trip to Provence a few years ago and stayed in this beautiful rental villa:

Wouldn’t you love to stay here, too?!

Or how about this fantastic room designed by Joni from Cote De Texas?

There’s also this lovely rendering of Brooke’s (Velvet & Linen) front door…

Another that I can’t leave out… a beautiful room designed by Patricia Gray

Finally, I can’t leave out the rendering Michelle made specially for Tobi Fairley. Tobi was recently in Vancouver and Ivan Meade from Meade Design Group hosted a brunch in honour of her, inviting many Vancouver-based bloggers – myself included! At that lovely gathering Michelle presented her with a wonderful rendering of a fantastic Tobi-designed room!

Lovely, lovely renderings!!

Now… if you’re not already hooked on the talents of Michelle, you will be after you see her creative and – in my opinion – simply stunning abstract paintings! All photos were borrowed from Michelle’s blog, A Schematic Life. Where possible, names and other information about her paintings were captured. I hope I got it right!!

The Dance of the Sun and Moon

18” x 24”, Acrylic on Linen

Study in Yellow Oxide

36” x 48” Acrylic on Canvas

 

Bark Study

Inks and gesso on canvas, 18” x 24”

 

Collage

Assignment for Mixed Media class at Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design

 Ink on rice paper, acrylic and gels and drafting ink on watercolour paper, 20” x 30”

 

No Name Identified

(My impression = a birch tree forest)

Acrylic and gesso on wood, 12” x 24”

 

No Name Identified

Acrylic, watercolour, ink and chalk with gesso on watercolour paper

 

No Name Identified

Oils, 30” x 48”

Lovely, lovely paintings! 

Are you as blown away as I am?

I want one!!

I’ll say it again… I am hooked on Michelle Morelan!! Her skill, vision and talent, her ability to capture light, texture and colour in ALL her designs, her love of pure design and her commitment to the arts – all are attributes that I enormously admire!

Be sure to make your way over to Michelle’s blog, A Schematic Life, and see for yourself just how fantastic Michelle is… you’ll be hooked, too!

Thanks to Julia for hosting her weekly blog party, Hooked on Fridays. Be sure to make your way back to her blog to find out what all her partiers are hooked on, too!

And before I forget… Kelly and I host a weekly blog party of our own: Rewind Wednesdays. Take a moment to learn all about it by clicking right HERE!

A Lovely Day = an Incentive to Walk AND a Special Vancouver Neighbourhood

Hello DesignTies readers… it’s Rewind Wednesday!!

Victoria here. This Wednesday – today - it’s my turn to re-wind and re-publish one of our favourite DesignTies posts. Because I’m crazy about houses I thought I’d re-share a post originally published on March 14th.

I hope you love my walk to the skytrain as much as I do… well, WHEN I make that walk!! Usually, after a long day at work, I’m anxious to get home so I take the bus instead. But as you’ll see & read in the article below, when I DO make the walk, I enjoy myself very, very much!!

I hope you’ll join us as we Rewind this Wednesday… read how, and find Mr. Linky, at the bottom of this re-post.

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There’s nothing like a sunny day in the beautiful city of Vancouver!

Believe it or not, this is the view from my office – and rain, fog, snow or sunshine it’s always special! True to form, Thursday (the day I took the photos above) was no exception to the rule. I knew it was cold outside, but I also knew that this was a perfect afternoon for an end-of-my-workday walk to the Skytrain. Fresh air, sunshine and and an hour-long walk through some great Vancouver neighbourhoods… sounds like a great way to unwind, hey?!

Vancouver has some fantastic neighbourhoods and one of my favourites is Mount Pleasant; the neighbourhood of my childhood. And my walking-route to the Skytrain takes me straight through Mount Pleasant’s Most Beautiful Block. Such an appropriate name for this lovely tree-lined, heritage home filled street!

If you’ve been a reader of our blog from the publication of our first post – well ;-) from our second post – you’ll know that I LOVE houses! The houses along 100 block West 10th Avenue have always filled me with happiness!! 

There are two different architectural styles that dominate the street – Queen Anne Style cottages and large Edwardian style houses. The Queen Anne cottages came first to the neighbourhood and are dated to the early 1890s. These houses have elaborate wooden decorations including delicate brackets, shingles and turned porch columns. Beautiful!

And my favourite of the Queen Anne cottages…

While I’m crazy about the colourful and romantic Queen Annes, I’m TOTALLY NUTS over the Edwardians! These lovely houses – built in the early 1900s – are simple wood frame buildings with full front porches and heavy porch columns, horizontal wood cladding, dentil mouldings, brackets under the gables… just lots of beautiful but more simplified details (when compared with the Queen Anne style cottages). I’m particularly taken with the houses that have an upper storey balcony with an arched opening and balustrade. So attractive! I can totally imagine the room behind that window as my room!

And on the Most Beautiful Block, all the houses – Queen Annes and Edwardians alike – are very colourful!

Take a look at this special house – the garages in the back have been decorated with fun neon signs. I believe that most of the large Edwardians on this block are multi-residential condos.

The house below is my absolute favourite on the block! Such a perfect example of Edwardian style!!

Thanks for touring 100 block West 10th Avenue, the Most Beautiful Block in Vancouver. But you know what? Vancouver – and it’s surrounding cities – have so many beautiful neighbourhoods! Don’t for a moment think that this is all that we have to offer! :-)

So… over this spring and summer I’ll be taking you on house and neighbourhood tours that will leave you wishing you lived here in Beautiful British Columbia (yep – that’s what we call ourselves – Google it!). Of course if you already live here in the Lower Mainland, your love of the city will be reaffirmed ;-)

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Because the above photos were taken in the late winter/early spring and the trees were bare, I had hoped to get over to 10th Avenue this last weekend so that I could snap some photos. You would have loved seeing the streetscape: large, mature, moss-covered Ash trees lining the street, bridging over top to make a canopy of leaves and branches that filter the sunlight, and postage-stamp sized lawns that are sumptuously green with colourful and decadent gardens!

Unfortunately I never made it into the city! Darn!!

If I promise to walk over there during my lunch hour tomorrow to take a few photos, will you promise to come back and see what I post? I hope so!! :-)  Watch for pics just below THIS paragraph!

 In the mean time…

Rewind Wednesday!

Be summer-time lazy like us!! HaHaHa!! ;-)

Instead of writing a blog-post today, pull forward and re-publish (to the top of your blog) something from your archives!! Then…

Copy and paste the Rewind Wednesday button to your post. That way your visitors will know that you’re participating in DesignTies’ Rewind Wednesday blog party!

Please link back to the host blog, DesignTies, and encourage your readers to come visit us for a list of other Rewind Wednesday blog party participants.

If you’re participating in Rewind Wednesday please be sure to add your permalink (NOT your general blog address) in Mister Linky below. The permalink is the URL of your post. Simply copy and paste.

Go visit the other bloggers participating in Rewind Wednesday!!

Mister Linky

The following blogs are participating in our Rewind Wednesday blog party…

A double-award day :-)

Thanks to the totally talented Katie at Traveling the Blogosphere for giving DesignTies not one but TWO awards!! Katie gave us A Lovely Blog Award and Best Blog Award…

I’m sure the fact that Katie designed our blog has nothing to do with it ;-) Actually, she gave the awards to everyone who’s contributed travel destinations to her great travel blog. If you haven’t checked it out, pack your bags and go visit!!!

B sure to check out the chocolate in Belgium while you’re there… :-)

From neglected & worn to passionately RED!!

I’m re-invigorating this post for the “Trash to Treasure” blog party over at Kimm’s place, Reinvented! Be sure that you make your way over there so that you can see all the other treasures being showcased today… AND so that you can enter into Kimm’s giveaway for a $25 Home Depot gift card!! YOU know you want it!!

I woke up to a beautiful, warm sunshiny morning and I wondered what I’d do to fill my day. Lots of great things came to mind… shopping for a new pair of sandals, walking on the sea wall around Stanley Park, going for lunch with a friend… or maybe all of these things!

Then, just as I was formulating a plan for my day, Brian started making banging and sawing noises…

DARN!

How can I go out – guilt free – and enjoy my day while poor Brian is slaving away, installing a new window?!

Besides… truth be told, I have quite a list of projects that I want to accomplish this summer. And you know? I LIKED the idea of working on one of my projects!! Then I remembered that I didn’t have a transformation to showcase on Susan’s Metamorphosis Monday blogparty!! Oh no!! That sealed the deal… I gathered my gear and got to work!!

So what’s my project?

These simple, mid-century modern stacking tables were handed down to me from my Grandma. I’ve been carrying them around with me for years… and for years I’ve wondered why. They’re in horrible condition!

 

 

 

The thing is, even though I’ve wondered what to do with them and even though they’re showing years of neglect and wear… I love them. I love the simple line, I love the memories I have of playing with them as a child (stacking and unstacking them… for some reason they intrigued me!), and I love that they were my grandma’s.

So I decided to paint them.

I’ve been taken with painted furniture for some time. In fact, I have several pieces that I intend to paint… but those are stories for future posts! Here… take a look at some inspiration photos.

Lovely, aren’t they??!!

Okay, enough playing around! I really AM avoiding work, hey?!

First thing I did was sand each of the tables…

I rubbed and scrubbed, but I just wasn’t happy with the results. That’s when Brian – who was finished installing the window (he still has to trim it… he’ll do that tomorrow) – suggested we head to Canadian Tire and buy a hand-held sander. Excellent!! So… off to the store we go…

And we bought a cute little “Mouse”:

Let me tell you… I LOVE my Mouse! It worked like a hot-damn!!!

Now I was ready to paint!! What colour you ask?

A deep, beautiful barn-red called “Sundried Tomato” by Benjamin Moore.

I know… crazy! But we love it!!

They’re so lovely all dressed in Sundried Tomato red!!

The tables aren’t quite dry… but because I was anxious to share with DesignTies readers, I carefully stacked them (actually… they slide into one another) so that the paint wouldn’t scratch and I gently placed a vase of flowers on top. What do you think?!

So where will these lovely tables eventually live? My plan is to put them down in our family room… when it’s finally built!! I’m envisioning a room of brown & tan with red accents, and these tables will be a prefect addition!

I hope you like my the metamorphosis of my stacking tables… from worn to RED!

Now make your way back to Between Naps on the Porch and check out the transformations showcased by Susan’s many terrific Metamorphosis Monday blogparty guests!!

Victoria from Edin Interiors

P.S.