Beautiful Interiors from Downton Abbey

Irwin Weiner ASID - If you love beautiful interiors, Downton Abbey on PBS is giving you some early 1900s British decorating inspiration - the Library has a secret door that leads to the Music Room (above) and Cora's bedroom has beautiful 18th Century silk bed hangings (below). This hotly watched episodic mini-series shows the upstairs-downstairs world of an earl's estate - the real-life Highclere Castle - and we're swept away with the titled family's life, the intrigues of the serving class, and how both are swept up in the turmoil of World War I. 

Get a good story of the real Downton Abbey here, and click here to see Linda Merrill's fantastic survey of the rooms and set decorations in her Downton Abbey feature on Silver Screen Surroundings. And if you're not familiar with the television series, watch the following video trailers for the first two seasons of the show ... and be swept away.

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Home Decorating Video - Color Tips

Irwin Weiner ASID - You know that color is one of the most feared concepts in all of home decorating. There's nothing worse than selecting a wall color that turns out to be something you can't live with. 

Photo: Simon Upton / TIA Digital Ltd

Fresh Home Magazine editor Neil Wertheimer was interviewed by Better TV and he gives us some practical tips for using color in today's featured video (see below). Let me summarize and editorialize. 

• For a DIY room makeover - go knock yourself out! - it's most logical to bring together all the furnishings and accessories in the room and then select a paint color(s) that unify all these more expensive elements ... like pulling a paint color from a sofa. I would add that you don't have to be afraid of ceiling colors. Don't leave them white by default. Consider ceilings just another wall, but since it's at the top of your room, add the illusion of height by having your wall paint hue mixed a few shades lighter. Paint the same lighter hue for the wall surfaces above wainscoting or picture moldings, too.

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Irwin's Kitchen Remodeling: the Demolish-and-Wait Phase

Irwin Weiner ASID - The ground has now frozen hard and is sometimes getting dusted with snow outside our country house in rural Pennsylvania. We're now approaching Week 6 on the project, and demolition has been completed on the walls and floors of our kitchen, back entry area (which has served as our laundry room and catch-all storage area with large old-fashioned potato bins), and a small powder room. Our contractor and his son and step-son banged and pried and pulled and hauled away at surfaces to take off the new and bring it down to the bare bones.

It's exciting to see the layers of old brick veneer taken off the kitchen wall, discover old boarded-up windows, and see the rough electrical and rough plumbing put into and through the walls. In these two videos, you'll see the progress we've made.

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CB2 Shakes the Interior Design Establishment

Irwin Weiner ASID - Did that headline get your full attention, home designeristas and -istos? With the opening of the new CB2 store at the front of the D&D Building in NYC, Crate & Barrel is signaling to the pillars of the design world that their lower cost, trendy, more youthful brand of interior design is knocking at your door. The styles and trends were fresh as Jay and I explored the new store on 3rd Avenue last week - but the immediacy of sales to anyone off the street or on the Internet challenges interior design professionals that here is yet another high design resource that is no longer only "to the trade." 

Not that the quality of manufacture was flawless as in higher-priced custom furnishings ... we saw the occasional askew legs on a cabinet which brought to mind clients receiving catalog merchandise in the past in all stages of disarray. Many of the pieces are made in India, which means a lower price but considerable shipping distance. One designer told me recently that she had a table shipped from one company (not CB2, to be clear about it) that looked as if the trucker had punched a hole through the box and put a huge dent in the tabletop. You take your chances when you avoid white glove home goods treatment. But all in all, sprinkling some of the beautifully designed objects you can get via catalog with other higher end custom pieces can create a pretty compelling look for most homeowners.

You'll get a great idea about the store's edge and younger vibe in this video of the grand opening at their Georgetown/DC store.

Here are some of our favorites from CB2

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