Holiday Style.....

We all love the holidays and remember the days of popcorn strung trees with mounds of foil tinsel and velvet covered Santa figures adoring our family tree, yes there were the good old days but not in terms of holiday style, back then there wasn't really a style, the holidays were more about friends and family, how times have changed. We all are familiar with the ''Charlie Brown Christmas Tree", now I'm sure that none of us want that in our homes.

When decorating your home for the holidays keep with the sense and style of your home. If you have a traditional style home like French country then try to use raw materials found right in our backyards, fill bowls with pine cones and group them in threes and that alone will create a stunning focal point on your kitchen table.

Whether grand style with 10,000 lights or more demure with a simple approach, decorating should be fun, make it a family affair, these are the memories that last with us for a lifetime. No matter how you decorate your home, Christmas is a magical time and lets all try to enjoy it with the people in our lives that are so dear to us.

Merry Christmas & all the very best in the New Year
interiors by joe distefano

click on image to enlarge

buttons buttons and more buttons

Tufted furniture, is a sure fire way to make a room or piece of furniture stand out, and become more then it is. Don't you remember Sunday brunch at your grandmother's and being in the sitting room and being so bored but always found an interest in counting or pouching in all the buttons on her tufted settee. Well grandma's back but a little bit more refined and not adorned with red velvet and piles of mustard damask and crush velour tassels. Now we are seeing tufting details everywhere form classic to modern and done in all sorts of styles. I'm sure there is one that will suite you taste. In a perfect world every home should have at least one tufted piece.

INTERIOR DESIGN SHOW 2009

It's about time, decorating is back.... after the 80's I believe that we went into a design recession, where people were now scared to decorate again fearing the awful "mistakes" that we made. So long to the days of boring chocolate browns and muted neutrals. It's time to embrace the new style of glitz and glam, color and pattern, mirrors, smoked glass, its all coming back. We are almost going back to a Dynasty era where we indulged in the most sinister of design ideas, but after the boom bust in the 80's it almost seemed therapeutic for all of us. And now with the recession back at our door steps, we tend to fall back on our habits, it's as if we all want to escape the reality of our world and saturate ourselves with the most opulent of styles and designs. Pattern sofas are the newest and most sheik trends in NY and L.A, it might take a while to adapt to these new ideas, but if your bold enough embrace the age world, then jump right in. Enjoy your home and don't take design to seriously, have fun with it.

it's all about bling in 09/10, the more sparkle the better


pattern is back, find anything you can get with a pattern and use it.



color; use it everywhere, from reds to smoked pewters, mix it with mirrors, metals and glass

vintage couture

This 1900 early style singer sewing machine is all the craze and I actually have one, bought it years ago and used it as a writing desk, and now people are using it in the most unusual of places. Mixing new clean lined loft spaces with vintage furniture, that may have been used to make some of the earliest American fashion house couturier gowns......maybe...??????

loose and de-contructed. Bringing nature in

There is nothing more beautiful or serene about bringing the outdoors in. Don't be afraid to go out into the woods or your garden, pick some interesting twigs or fresh blooms in the spring. Arrange them in a a very loose and none constricting style and let the true beauty of nature fill your home, with it's wild forms and most aromatic scents. Take a look at these photos where this technique has been done in the most elaborate and elegant of homes. We must embrace the outdoors and begin to re-examine the way we look at nature and our habitation with it. Designers around the world are starting to embrace the earth and all of it's "green" attributes, this is a trend or new standard, that has reshaped the way us designers take a look at spaces and forms. Allowing us to maintain and appreciate the beauty of our mother earth.

bathrooms and furniture

I love the way small pieces of furniture can add such character to a bathroom, even the smallest spaces. It's a great place to add some bath towels, soaps and bath salts. It adds a slight sense of coziness and softens the space from all the other hard surfaces. When adding furniture to a bathroom try and add antiques or pieces that one would not normally associate with a bathroom, it will help in achieving that designer look. If your spaces allows you to add more pieces like chairs or a bench to sit, after you come out of the bath, try to upholster them in easy wearing fabrics like terry cloth or durable cottons, like above in this bathroom by Brian Glukstein.

Try these tips in your bathroom
or powder room and be amazed
of the results and compliments
that friends will give you.

bold & bright...inspired by nature, but driven by fashion

Fig inspired rooms.....
Fashion, graphics and interior design have all moved toward brighter colors and purple or "fig" is one of the leaders.

Fashion runways inspire so much in our lives from cars, floral arrangements and wedding decor, but nothing follows it faster than interiors. The turn around time used to be at least 5 years from runway to hallway, but now thats been cut down to at least half the time due to the insatiable demand from consumers always wanting the next big thing in home decor.

There are those of us that will always tend to lean more to a neutral color pallet and those who will be stripping wallpaper, painting and changing the look of the room in a few years, no matter what type you are, stick with your convictions and enjoy your home no matter what the trend. Theres nothing worse than starring at a purple wall for 5 years, if you hate purple. Maybe just add some flowers, a pillow or a new lamp shade to quench you appetite for change.

" welcome to the White House Mr. President "

As one family leaves, another one enters. Now that President Obama has been sworn in and all the ceremonial stuff is done, the real work begins, re-designing the white house rooms. This monumental task falls on the shoulders of the new first lady Michelle Obama. This is a normal right of passage for all first ladies, to inject their own style and charm, and to make the white house feel more like a home, especially with young children.There hasn't been small children living in the white house since the Kennedy administration.

Caroline Kennedy's bedroom 1962 photo below

The first lady has quite the job ahead of her, working with the chief usher's office at the white house and trying to do all this on only a $100,000 budget, and keep in mind there is a total of 132 rooms in the White House. Of these, thirty-five are bathrooms; eleven are bedrooms; three kitchens; three dining rooms; one library;one bowling alley and 28 fire places, but not all rooms are going to be re-done. She has hired acclaimed interior designer Micheal.S.Smith, the same designer that has worked with super model Cindy Crawford.

Knowing the Obama family there will be a lot of new and interesting pieces and an infusion of pop culture. New photo's have not yet been released of the changes, I will keep you posted when they are.

the great conversationalist...

cof·fee–ta·ble /noun ///is a style of long, low table which is designed to be placed in front of a couch, to support beverages (hence the name), magazines, books (especially coffee table books), and other small items to be used while sitting, such as coasters. Coffee tables are usually found in the living room or sitting room. They are available in many different variations and prices vary from style to style. Coffee tables may also incorporate cabinets for storagThe coffee table, probably one of the most important pieces you can have in your home. It's one of the few pieces of furniture that our guests actually come in contact with, its one of the most tactile pieces we all have, due to the fact that most of the times we are in very close proximity to it. Whether your style tends to lead to more modern or one of a more traditional era, either way we all share this common thread in our homes, we all have coffee tables. It is widely suggested that the coffee table was first used in the ottoman empire as tea table, and then made more popular by the Anglo-Japanese era when the British empire was at its peak, adjusting the height and giving us the "coffee table" that we know today. With so many intricate styles or some with a flare for the exhibitionist in us, there are so many wonderful choices to choose from, thanks to the many great designers that see the need and are addressing the consumers appetite for what they crave.

here is just a sampling of what is on the market, there is something for everyone, even those with the most discerning taste.