The coolest wallpaper: In Monochrome tones

From illusory to geometric, there is enough wallpaper to please the world.  I'm drawn to monochromatic wallpaper lately for its ease to embrace whatever else is in the room.  These ones are among my favorites.  Enjoy!
Cow Parsley wallpaper, Circus wallpaper, Balaustra wallpaper, Boa, Piccadilly, Malachite, Nuvolette and Tile Wallpaper. 

A Black and white adobe

The sofa by Maison Jansen was inherited by his grandmother.  I think the leather upholstery is just genius.  The tables are from the 50's.  If I ever find a table like these ones I would bring it home with me even if I need to buy an extra plain ticket. 

Eric Yerno, the owner of this home where a mélange of Art-deco, oriental influences and geometry beautifully coincide in a black and white background, is from France and moved to Spain in 1998 to open a PR firm.  Eric had help from Victoria Melian to make this home truly jaw dropping.  Published in AD Spain March issue, photographed by Pablo Suloaga and styled by Ines Sentmenat.  Enjoy!

In the living room, everything seems and feel so harmonious but never boring.  A ball chair by Eero Aarnio brings that unexpected touch to the gorgeous black and white living room. 

I adore this entry.  It has much stuff I love.  The photograph is framed in a Lucite box, the consoles are concrete and the bases have a very global feel.  I also adore that art deco bar at the end.

The sofa is designed by Pascua Ortega, one of Eric's favorite designers

 

The floors are stunning.  In some areas of the house the black and white floor seems to be installed in a random pattern.

Everything is about proportion and scale.  This small space in the bedroom has everything you need to get dress.  Love the inlaid console and the mirror.

The bathtub, encased in wood, seems to be longer that usual.  I love the shelf out of the window sill, such a great idea and space saver.

Apologies for the not so nice iPhone pictures.  Taken by me.

FRIDAY EYE CANDY

It's Friday and so it's the first day to start unwinding and getting mentally ready to do nothing else but enjoy family and friends.  My favorite day, as publicly stated here in this blog many times, is Sunday because everything seems to be perfect on these days.  Except when it rains and you have to get stuck inside the house all day, but even then it could be a great excuse to just sleep and recover from lack of sleep.  Here are a few cool things I hope we all get to do this weekend.  Enjoy!

 I miss them so much!  Love you Friends!

Does anyone know the exact location of this amazing place?  Please do tell!

Miu MIu Suede accented sunglasses for sale

Sadly I never got to try these fabulous sunglasses  before I asked a friend to purchase them for me in the US so when she brought them back and I finally did... it didn't go as expected.  Let's just say I'm no Miranda Kerr and I hopelessly have to sell them.  They never have been worn and they are in their original package as they came.  These one I'm selling are smaller than the ones used by Miranda Kerr.
Lens width: 53 mm - 2.03"
Bridge size: 25 mm - 0.98"
Earpiece length: 140 mm - 5.51"

IF YOU LIVE IN SAO PAULOor anywhere close contact me (bellevivir@gmail.com) if you are interested.   Thank you!

kicks inspirations

 Looking fabulous, relaxed and burning calories while wearing kicks.  Smart!

Yes you read that title right!  If you still refer to these comfortable and stylish shoe options as sneakers, I hate to break the news to you, you're getting old!  They are not sneakers anymore they are called "kicks" and no, it has nothing to do with the literal meaning.  It just sounds cool as they look as of late.  Get yourself a pair of converse and feel younger! 

By looking at these images this post should've been named Kicks and Celine.

 New Balance and floral pants.

 Celine and Isabel Marant red kicks.

Love this look!

 Such a beautiful color combo burgundy and black.  Yves Saint Laurent sneakers.  I mean kicks!

images via Chicisimo, Renata Santoyo, @cchristiernin (Instagram), Sincerely, Jules and Tumblr.

For the home: Planters

Bronze planters, Rams head terracotta planter, Black faceted planter, Tin and Twine planter, Nickel planter, hand painted metal planter, White square planter, Case study planter, column planters ,

It's Earth day today!  This beautiful and made-to-be-perfect, even though not so much lately, place where we live has a real threat called Global Warming.  To help make a difference to GW, as in every other kind of change we want to see in the world, we should start with ourselves, in this case our homes.  If you have a private yard why not plant a tree?  Plant it on a special date or for a special cause and make it memorable, if you don't have a private backyard then bring a tree inside the house.  Since the choice of the plant is only yours, I hope you can find among this suggestions a few ideas for planters.  Have green Earth day!

Versailles planter, Orange fiberglass planter, Block planter in bronze, Kingham planter, Decal Planter, Vaso planter in orange,  Block planter in black, Yellow tripod planter,  M2 planter, hammered planters, Hanging Planter

The absurdity of Autodesk - Why is Autocad so expensive?

For as long as I can remember, AutoCAD has been the standard for computer drafting programs in the professions of Architecture and Engineering.  Chances are if you own an Architecture firm, you have to buy Autocad.  There are a few other programs out there, but none of them have the universal acceptance of AutoCAD in the industry. 

Since I own an Architecture firm as well as many licensed copies of AutoCAD, I can tell you that it is not cheap.  A fully functioning version of AutoCAD will cost you between $4-5K.  They have a lighter version called AutoCAD LT that will cost you about 1/3 of the full price, but has less features.  Now I don't know if that sounds expensive to you, but I can tell you that $5k per seat is really hard to justify, especially if you are starting out. Here are some things you should know about AutoCAD if you are thinking of buying a copy anytime soon:

1- You have to buy AutoCAD through an authorized reseller. This is so that they can control the price and prevent discounting.  You can't buy it on Amazon.  You can't buy it on EBAY.  In fact, if EBAY catches you trying to sell a legal copy of AutoCAD, they will take down your listing as fast as they can find it.  I don't know if AutoCAD has a government lobbying group but they protect the sale of that product like no other piece of software I've seen.

2- Once you buy from a reseller, they will never leave you alone.  I think it's part of the contract they sign, but I literally had a reseller calling me weekly about upgrading my package to the new version before the new version was even out.  Which leads me to my next point.

3- There's always a new version of AutoCAD that makes your old version useless.  One of the things that I can't stand is that they keep enhancing the file extension on your drawing files, so that if an engineer saves something on AutoCAD 2014 and you have Autocad 2011 you won't be able to open it.  At least make a converter or something!  This is how they get you to keep upgrading.

4- Your AutoCAD depreciates faster than a new car.  If you purchased AutoCAD 2011 three years ago, it is currently worth about 30% of what you paid for it. So imagine you paid $4K for a piece of software and when you go to upgrade to the new version and they charge you another $4K.  This is because the new versions get more expensive and they devalue the older one.  Again, thanks.  

5- The real reason AutoCAD is so expensive----drumroll please---to offset the cost of all the pirated copies.  I actually had a software sales person tell me that Autocad would be cheaper if people didn't steal it.  So basically everyone who buys AutoCAD and does the right thing is paying the price for those who take it for free?  Sounds like health insurance. 

So what does all this mean?  It means that as soon as a company writes a decent drafting program and makes it affordable then people will leave Autodesk faster than a speeding bullet. It's only a matter of time unless Autodesk gets human and starts treating its customers with some respect.  After all, a copy of Photoshop is around $700.  A copy of Office is half of that. There's no reason that AutoCAD should be $5K.  Unless it comes with free health insurance.  Now that's a concept I can get behind...