Living Concept

Rethinking the Balcony
To escape the frenetic pace of city life, Troy and L. Camille Thornton need only slip out through the glass door of their bedroom in SoHo. There, tucked away on an expansive deck, sits a verdant garden of rose of Sharon, lavender and andromeda, along with Hinoki cypress, Japanese maple and cherr.......more

	Knock, knock: How to make a grand entrance
	When Queen Victoria's beloved husband Prince Albert died in 1860, she decreed that all front doors in the UK be painted black in mourning. Most of her subjects complied and black became the norm across England almost overnight. In Ireland, however, there was a mild but effective rebellion: front.......more

Meet the chair men
*Anne Ashworth offers a guide to the big names in furniture* NAME-DROPPING is the key to winning points in a conversation about 20th-century furniture. You need to show awareness of the leading figures and important pieces. The La-Z-Boy recliner, made famous by Friends, does not .......more

	Taming Spaces: Living Large
	Some design magazines tend to obsess over the most efficient use of small spaces, but for Americans living in the new supersize suburbia, extra space may actually be a more pressing problem. The number of large houses (those bigger than 4,500 square feet) built annually has more than doub.......more

The Life Transparent
LESS than three years ago, when Nicole Kidman and Calvin Klein bought apartments in the all-glass Richard Meier towers on Perry Street, the transparent jewel box buildings were still a kind of novelty in New York. But it wasn't long before see-through exterior walls became the latest must.......more

Two Tastes, One Invoice

One day semanticists will figure out what interior decorators mean by the word fabulous.

"That torso is fabulous; that torso, it's the real McCoy," Matthew White, a decorator, said of a lithe classical nude on display in his living room.

The linen velvet sofas, designed by Mr. White,.......more

Behind The Red Door
Modern houses of the postwar era are now at the point where they could use a little work, not an extreme makeover, just an update. This was the case when the architect Alexander Gorlin was asked to renovate a 1956 Upper East Side town house........more

	Wardrobe organising
	*Keep your closet tidy with these simple accessories* What’s living inside your wardrobe right now, that you haven’t touched in years? That 80s sequin orange top which you hope would back in style? An old paid of leather pants that you expect to fit into, once .......more

Get Floored!
Do you pay much attention to the ground you walk on? How about when it is the floors of your home? Do you only behold it when you’re sweeping or mopping it? We thought so. Many of us don’t think floors are an integral part of interior design, and thus don’t treat them with the .......more

	Don´t Use That Tone on Me
	The couple, fresh from a lazy brunch on a Saturday afternoon, had barely made it into the Janovic Plaza paint store on Third Avenue near 23rd Street when the fighting began. Within minutes, all they had worked toward in two years of living together — the hard-fought trust, the humble accep.......more

High, Wide and Transomed
Average American house size: down four square feet. Average American front door size: up seven square feet. The new American home, which has billowed by 50 percent since 1970 to 2,320 square feet, deflated gently in 2002, for the first time in seven years, according to a Department of.......more

	Smart cover-up
	According to renowned interior designer Ann Fox, interior décor planning begins at floor level. Once the choice of floor coverings has been made, the furniture and wall colors and patterns are selected based on the colors and patterns on the carpet or rug. There are many .......more

My personal chandelier
A boring pendant lamp gets a mew lease of life with some Christmas dŽcor. It was during Christmas preparation that I realized how tired my living room looked. I had recently changed my sofa set and added a few new items, but the overall feel was far from updated. As I dusted and busied w.......more

	Inspiring interiors
	THEY are the faceless workers who turn dreams into reality, who help flesh out the character of a building. The awe-inspiring interiors of homes, hotels, offices and public buildings would have remained as lifeless concepts if not for the skills of competent builders, contractors and fit-out spe.......more

Scented paradise right at home
Visitors tend to exclaim in delight each time they set foot into Hannah Teh’s home in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. It’s not the architectural details or her furniture that cause such delight but her beautiful garden. Teh is one of the lucky few who can afford the expertise .......more

	Melodious Tone
	Singer Camelia’s apartment is a riot of colours that serve to add up her dream home Haven, August & September 2002 Text by Audra Jeyaraj Photos by SC Shekar, Reds Studio Hot star... Camelia is as vibrant and cheerful in person as the purple and h.......more

Under the canopy
Romance is back in fashion in the bedroom. Before you make any assumptions about what I’m on about, let me clarify that I’m actually referring to canopy beds, which have made a comeback into the bedroom after an absence of many decades. Having long been an essential featur.......more

	Andalucia’s chic offering
	The essence of modern living encompasses having a home that is comfy, classy and cosy. Tastefully decorated, the Andalucia apartments provide just that, says Meera Murugesan. The less is best concept certainly works wonders for an apartment as you'll discover at Pantai Hillpark.......more

White linen
There is just something about white interiors – it smells so clean and fresh like washed linens. Could it be psychological? Probably. The pristine colour has long been associated with all things good and pure, and it is no wonder that at the sight of white, your olfactory senses immediatel.......more

	Clever manipulations
	Radical design brings in a touch of modernism and fun This must have been one of the most unusual interior layouts with the use of the most unlikeliest materials. The bold combination succeeds in creating a soothing and refreshing touch. The red circular seat in the living room is certain.......more

Creating kitchens
Planning your kitchen to make it suit you our homes, we lavish our living rooms with the best audio and video equipment, and rack our brains to come up with the most comfortable and cosy designs for our bedrooms. But when it comes to the kitchen,we are stumped. A kitchen we must have, even if i.......more