Tabletop - Casual Dining

Small details are coming back to how we set our tables. It's all about low-maintenance combined with lovingly handmade  - Fabric coasters, placemats and hot pads directly placed onto a wooden or a simple linen cloth table creates what us editors like to call casual chic.  WIth more of us cooking from scratch and our growing love for slow cooked meals we are bringing our hot-pots directly from the oven to the table.  This woolen mat from Cinq Design prevents you burning the table from your hot casserole dish. It's certainly not about formality it's about showing off how you care about the food you are serving to your family and guests.

What's really interesting is we want to put our homemade food onto products that have had the same care, detail and love put into creating them. We don't want mass produced food and we don't want product that feels like it has been created for the masses.  All product by Cinq Design

From Cocon Shop

From Cocon Shop

 Photos by Ku Nihto

Photo by Sayaka Minemura

Photo by Sayaka Minemura

Sustainable Design - Working With Grass

Photo via MOOD

Market Backpack From Brook Farm

photo by Maria Yastrebova; Bedroom SnOOped via Linen and Lavender

Photo by Nagano Toyokazu

Cinq Design

White, cotton tabi from Nagano Prefecture are fashioned from an American flour sack from Sri Threads; Grass mat by Billet

Bla Bla chair by Marina 68 Studio; photo by Maria Yastrebova

Neon Love Neutrals

SnOOp's  Editor Amanda Talbot shows off her Nike trainers; Shokki collection by Laurent Corio 

I'm not going to say sorry about how SnOOp is harping on about the only way to make neon's work in the home is to combine the bright pops of colour with sophisticated neutrals. I promise this will mean by the time this fashion fad is over you will not end up with a space that will be "OMG what have I done".  

FOR MORE NEON INSPIRATION CHECK OUT OUR POST ROUGH NEON and Scholten+ Baijings collection for HAY

What Happened This Weekend

"My son and I made a new coaster this weekend," says Masami Akatsuka founder of Cocon Shop

"This is my new bike and I am in LOVE. The colours are so wonderful. The only problem is I can't keep it outside so I spent all weekend trying to come up with a solution how to store it indoors," says Kate from Chocolatekate

"This weekend was my 30-something birthday party. My house is a long way off finished but I love having friends over to eat, drink and celebrate. It was hard not to snap my friend J looking very handsome in my living room, candle-lit and surrounded by mine and others' art work, says super talented Textile Designer Ruth Singer".

If you would like to take part in next weeks "What Happened This Weekend" please send your picture and quote here. Remember it has to relate to your time at home.

Child's Play by Yusuke Suzuki

Here at SnOOp we like to challenge and make you rethink how you design a room and challenge a designer to think beyond the country they live in and look at other cultures for inspiration. In the East it's not uncommon for people to prefer to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor that can be rolled away during the day to save on space. 

Imaginative photographer Yusuke Suzuki  has created a page turner of a bed  that looks like an oversized book. At night it is opened up for sleepy heads to sleep in and during the day it is shut closed to create enough space for children to play in their room.

Let's Colour Project by Dulux

It's no secret SnOOp loves colour and adores an initiative that can change peoples lives and communities.  I guess you can call this Power to the People and Power to Paint or for a more official title 'Let's Colour Project' by paint company Dulux. Dulux is working alongside Dulux Valentine, Coral, Flexa and Marshall to transform grey spaces with colourful paint. A mission to spread colour all over the world. The brand is  working together with local communities across the globe, rolling up their sleeves to paint streets, houses, schools and squares.

 and here it is in action! An incredible initiative captured on film by award-winning director Adam Berg to highlight the journey of colour across the globe as people and colour combine to regenerate public and private spaces... watch and be ...inspired!

Designers Guild - House Tour

With its plain white walls and bold hits of contrasting colour and pattern, this London home proves that bright can be beautiful. I know a lot of you have seen this house on other blogs but as this was my production that I styled I thought it deserves to be on SnOOp. I hope you don't mind.

The very talented photographer James Merrell and myself went to visit this house a couple of years ago. The owner Lisa Giles at the time worked as senior stylist for the queen of colour, Tricia Guild - owner of iconic British interior design brand Designers Guild.

Liza and her architect husband Matt have embraced Tricia's trademark style of using bold, original fabrics and wallpaper and her extraordinary ability to mix colour and pattern.

Flock wallpaper adds wonderful texture and a little glamour to a space. Liza loved old French fringed window voiles and Twenties fringed lampshades.

Liza's cushions are all made from old English fabrics and toiles which have been collected over time.

Liza displayed Twenties dresses for their sophistication and glamour and she adored the informal geometric prints and colours from the Fifties. She liked to leave them on show in her glass-fronted wardrobe.

Liza liked to create moodboards so she could have inspirational things around her to encourage her to begin those projects that were waiting to be done. Liza loved old mercury glass in mirrors - the more distressed the better. The reflections they give are slightly different to a new one.