Bedroom Renovation

This is my first post using the Blogger app for iPad, as well as my first post in quite a while. The photos were taken with the iPad on a recent morning. The mantle is from a local antique shop, and the items in the built-in bookcase include rocks picked up on a trip to Colorado, and souvenirs from trips to Hong Kong and Vieitnam. The chest I bought at the Salvation Army when I lived in Manhattan. I put the top down on the VW cabriolet that I owned at the time (later sold to Victoria Secret supermodel Frederique Van der Wal, but that's another post), parked it in the underground garage until about 1 am when I bribed the doorman at Trump Parc to let me pull the car up to the front door and move it into my apartment through the lobby and into the passenger elevator, which was a big no-no according to the building rules. The big mirrors were purchased at a shop in New York's Soho and first came home to my former loft on Grand Street. They were shipped south when I moved back to the states from Paris, and I painted and stained them to match the newly refinished greige color floors in the bedroom. The mountain chair was purchased at the Place Jeux du Bal flea market in Brussels, and were featured in an older post with the hay bale coffee table, my entry in the contest hosted by Brook at the Velvet and Linen blog.

Minimal Elegance

Source: Uploaded by user via James on Pinterest

I've been busy working on renovations at Garvinweasel, with four simultaneous projects underway, nearing completion now in the study, dining room, and two hallways. Pics soon, but for now here's one of my inspiration photos from Pinterest.

DIY Before/After

Inspiration

Source: Maisons de Charme, Printemps 2008

DIY update

Lots of work underway here over the past few months. The master bedroom, seen here from the future master bath suite, is actually done now, and I hope to post an update of the finished version soon.

India, she is my love song.

 All photos (c) jamesxvi

 In late February I visited India for the first time, a three-day business trip to Bangalore, and during my one day of site seeing explored the ancient Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in the town of Srirangapatna in the Indian state Karnataka. My driver waited down the street as I walked to the temple entrance, where after removing my shoes and leaving them with hundreds of other pair arranged in no particular order along the stone foundation, I was allowed to join the stream of Hindu worshipers entering the courtyard just beyond the tower seen below. 

 

 Courtyard view.

The building beyond the courtyard was a labyrinth of hallways, the air filled with sandal wood incense. Rooms  off these halls contained statues of Hindu Gods, each doorway manned by a robed swami. I was careful not photograph any of the worshipers, so these photos belie the fact that there were a lot of people around me, they simply were crowding the doorways and worship areas in the center of the building, leaving these stone pillared outer halls virtually empty. 

On the road, we stopped  for some fresh coconut milk.

 

On returning to Bangalore, the grueling traffic made the hotel seem especially welcoming after a long day. I was delighted with my stay at the Leela Palace, where I had breakfast on the the dining terrace (below) every morning.

With yoga instructor Sanjiv, 7 am, Feb 17, 2011.

 The hotel offers a 6 am yoga class in a lovely pavilion just off the pool (below). Each day I was there the yoga class had two to four pupils, and I had the pool to myself afterward for a few laps before breakfast.

Then hi-ho, hi-ho... off to work.

The moon over Bangalore, through the car window, as we drove to the airport for a 2:30 am connecting flight to Paris Charles DeGaul airport.

God bless the executive chefs at Air France... foie gras at 30,000 feet.

My hiatus from posts here is, well, complicated. I am working on the house and hope to return soon with an update and new photos of work in progress. Thanks for stopping by.

- James

Twilight Pond

Photo: jamesxvi

Axel Vervoordt Interview for German TV

I can't understand anything the interviewer asks, and while Mr. Vervoordt answers in English, the German translation audio dubbed over his voice makes it difficult to make out what he is saying most of the time. If I can translate the transcript, I will post a follow up with some quotes. You can watch the interview here.

The Selby Contest at CB2

This picture of the renovations underway was first seen here last November for Brooke Gianetti's Brickmaker coffee table giveaway. While comments were plentiful and complimentary, my entry didn't make it to the top, but now I have found another contest to try, and I'm pretty excited about it. I am a big fan of the eccentric and inspiring photos taken by Todd Selby (below) for his blog, The Selby. Home furnishings company CB2, an off-shoot from Crate and Barrel, is sponsoring The Selby Contest, with a grand prize that includes a $10,000 CB2 gift card and a photo session of the winning home by Mr. Selby. They require three pics, and you can see mine, and vote for Garvinweasel, here. You can cast your vote in under 15 seconds, so I hope you won't mind that I ask for your support, by way of vote, and if you'd like to repost or link back, even better and very much appreciated. And by the way, if by some chance I should win, I will donate the card to a charity... it's the right thing to do. Wish me luck, and thanks for your support!

Copyright 2010, Todd Selby

Vervoordt r.e. Kanaal

I found an interesting site about a project by Belgium's Vervoordt family. I heard about this when I was living in Brussels in 2008, that Axel Vervoordt's son Dick was planning a development around the Kanaal complex, where the Axel Vervoordt company has their workshops and showrooms. This extensive site contains an explanation of the master plan and its inspiration, descriptions and floorplans of the properties that will be for sale, biographies of the architects and designers behind the project, information about the Vervoordt Foundation, dedicated to supporting the arts and preserving the Vervoordt collection, and probably much more. It is in Dutch, but I viewed the site in Google's Chrome browser, which did a pretty good job of translating to English.

I have been on hiatus for a while now, focusing on renovations at Garvinweasel, with lots of projects underway simultaneously... never really a good idea in my experience, but sometimes things just work out that way. I hope to post some new photos soon of the original floors stripped of a century and a half of coverings, including at least two coats of paint and two layers of carpet. This is one tough project, slow going, and I have a backup plan for new plank flooring should I just give up at some point, so wish me luck.