Emery & Cie - incredible decoration store in Belgium

Hello everyone,I have been wanting to post this for a little while. When I was in Antwerp in October, I discovered as I was walking in the city centre, the beautiful showroom of Emery & Cie. This is the decoration shop of the great Belgian architect Agnes Emery. You can find some incredible Moroccan inspired tiles, some fabulous lighting, tableware, paint and wallpaper. I was very lucky to be able to take pictures in this enchanting showroom. If I had to renovate a bath or a kitchen, I know where I would by my tiles. I am completely in love with the cement tiles. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of this very atmospheric shop:

Website: Emery & Cie Shop in Antwerp: Reynders Straat, 202000 Antwerp Shop in Brussels: 78 Quai des Charbonnages, 1080 Brussels

Das siebte Zimmer - Welcome to paradise

Hello everyone, Have you ever heard of das 7. Zimmer (the 7th Room) in Hamburg? I think this is the most poetic place I have ever seen in my life - and this is one of the reasons why I was happy moving to Hamburg. A lot of German interior magazines, such as Living at Home or Schöner Wohnen work with this shop and when I read them when I lived in Berlin and came across a piece of furniture I liked, a lot of the time it came from das 7. Zimmer. So when I moved to Hamburg, this is the first shop I visited - and now I live just around the corner.

If you have never heard of the shop, you can pass by a hundred times without noticing it. The shop has a tiny (and usually beautifully styled) shop window in the Hegestrasse with a sign indicating the opening hours and a note saying: there is more  to see in the barn on the other side of the street. The actual shop is situated in the attic of a very old building in a courtyard. The stairs are very steep and there is not much heating but it is definitely worth it! The place is just magical and full of candles with some loud classical music in the background giving the place an incredible atmosphere. Everything there is unusual with a lot of French antiques and a couple of original Eames and Tolix chairs here and there. You have the feeling of being all of a sudden in another century. I hope you will visit this place if you have the occasion to. Please let me know your thoughts on this very unique place!

Das 7. Zimmer Hegestraße 7 20251 Hamburg

Monday   : 13:00 - 19:00 Tu. – Fr.  : 11:00 – 18:30 Sat.            : 11:00 – 16:00

Lovely scaffolding

Yes, scaffolding can be lovely! You read that right.Today I want to share something I saw in the streets of Hamburg, just before my holiday in Antwerp and Amsterdam. I am still working on the photos and thinking about which stories I want to tell you about. They are currently working on the building of the beautiful gourmet food shop "Viola" in Hamburg Eppendorf and instead of disappearing behind the scaffolding, the shop-keepers had the lovely idea to just decorate the scaffolding with ribbons and Japanese washi tape. I think it is a fantastic initiative for a shop to do something like that, it makes the customers curious rather than letting the shop become invisible behind the scaffolding.

By the way, I love this shop and there will be a blogpost about it soon, to complete the "lovely Hamburg" series. I will not let Viola disappear behind the scaffolding, I promise!

Speak to you soon!

Elodie

Red berries bouquet

In autumn, I like to do bunches of berries. The last longer than flowers and look beautiful with a little bit of sunshine.

lovely still life #1

Still life photography is the depiction of inanimate subject matter, most typically a small grouping of objects. Still life photography, gives the photographer more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition. This is the definition given by Wikipedia. In this series of photos, I only used ornamental apples, in a Japanese bowl I received as a gift for my engagement from my dear friend Fabienne.This is a first try, but this is the kind of photography I enjoy, I hope you like it too!

I found the little black stand at the hello handmade market  on Sunday in Hamburg. It is from the label 3PUNKTF. I visited the market with my Hamburg blogger crew: the lovely Clara from tastesheriff, Susanne from Serendipity and  Maria from villa ♥ stoff - and came without my camera, but all I was thinking about was my blog! and I found some pretty cool props for my photo shootings!

my living room or I'm not a minimalist

So here are some more photos from this week-end photo shooting with the wide-angle lens. I hope you like them: The lovely cat sitting in front of the lovely bookshelf Our bookshelf comes from the Scandinavian shop bolia. We have been researching a lot, before buying this one. For me it was very important, to have a bookshelf that can fit books, magazines and records. I also love the colour of the wood. The only problem is its weight, when you need to move...

The lovely grey wall We thought a lot about the right shade of grey for the wall. I think dark walls give a very intimate atmosphere to rooms and give you a very good background for displaying art and playing with light. The fabulous Tiger print on the wall is from the fantastic design shop in Hamburg Human Empire.

The lovely home cinema I really love not having a TV in the living room. I think that they just look pretty ugly, even the wide-screen, expensive ones. The beamer is still in the middle of the room, next to the sofa, but I think that you can much easily forget it than a big television.  If you have the possibility to hang your beamer in a corner of your room opposite to the screen, you want to project to, it is even better. It really transform the DVD nights in a cinema experience.

What do you think? Do you like grey in general and grey walls in particular too? Do you also hate televisions? What do you think about my wide-angle lens? the room looks huge doesn't it? I am sure that estate agent use that type of lens when they do pictures of a flat to make it bigger!

Speak to you soon!

Elodie

Oh the lovely living room - The wide-angle experience

As I told you on Sunday, I rented a wide-angle lens this week-end: a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM  from Calumet Photographic in Hamburg. It was really easy and cheap - 23 € for the week-end instead of 722 € if you buy it.I would recommend anyone interested in photography to rent a lens from time to time. It  is such a great option for trying out different type of photos, like portraits, still life or interior photos. I wanted to try a good lens for interior design photography. My living room is very narrow and long, and it is pretty tricky to take good pictures of it with a standard lens.  The result is quite good, but it was not a revelation like the first time I used a  Canon EF -  50 mm f/1.8. So there you go, here is a picture of my grey living room with Mr. Cheds right in the middle sitting on his throne as usual!

and another one from another perspective:

madame love loves: La cerise sur le gateau

La cerise sur le gâteau (Cherry on the cake) is a beautiful French brand from the talented designer Anne Hubert. Anne is pretty famous in France, and her house has been featured in various interior design magazines. Her screen printed creations such as cushions, tea towels and pretty bed linen are very fresh. She uses a lot of neon colours and animal prints.

You can find some of her stuff at my perfect sunday in Hamburg (I got a gorgeous tea towel) or via her e-shop (in English and in French)

The very talented photographer Coco Amardeil has produced this very cute video for the launch of her new autumn/winter collection: NORMAL IS BORING - and I just love it. What about you?

Normal is boring by La cerise sur le gâteau collection automne hiver 2012 from La cerise sur le gâteau on Vimeo.

Magic mushrooms

I am sorry I have been away for a little while, but I had a nasty tooth operation and was so down that I even lost interest in blogging! It was so bad that I couldn't even taste the cake that Clara baked on Saturday for the Blogst Workshop. But I am back now.Look at what I found during our little walk on Sunday afternoon. I discovered a little mushroom family with red and white spots, well hidden under loads of autumn leaves. Red is one of my favorite colours for decorating - and I love the red and white combination: very Swedish! My kitchen is completely red and white.

 I have alway been a fan of polka dots, and those mushrooms, are just perfect. You just have the impression that they come out of the kitchen of a famous French chef patissier, even if they are most probably very poisonous.

Minibibo - mini white sculptures from Hamburg

Tonight I writing a post, I have been wanting to write for ages. Do you remember the white dinner in Hamburg?  I discovered the Minibibo during the white dinner as they were decorating the big table just next to mine. The "Minibibo Miniaturen" are a creation of Sylke Fischöder alias dekofysch. These white sculptures are kept under a cloche and illuminated with LED and the light intensity can be controlled by a remote control. This one is calles "Scene to eat"  This one is called "Speisenaufzug" (Food Elevator)

and this one is my favorite one: It is called the "Hamburger Kessel" (Hamburg Kettel). It just looks cute and poetic with all the animals, but it is based on a true story. Kettling is a police tactic for controlling large crowds during demonstrations. It involves the formation of large  cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a limited area. Protesters are left only one choice of exit, determined by the police, or are completely prevented from leaving. During a demonstration by anti-nuclear protestors in Hamburg on 8 May 1986, Hamburg Police cordoned approximately 800 people into a "kettle" for several hours. The sculpture is a poetic reference to this political event.

If you like this sculpture, you can get in touch with Sylke, through her Facebook Fanpage: Minibibo on Facebook