Valentina

Futuristic Homes | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

12 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #InnovativeAppliances, #kitchenDesign, #KitchenElectronics, #RoboticHome, #TalkingRefrigerators

“Valentina, do you have the keys to my house? I have a cold and my house door doesn’t recognize my voice, I can’t get in the house.” That was a client who demanded a voice-activated entry installed at his door. One day, he had a cold and the computer didn’t recognize his voice. His wife was on a business trip, the kids had gone camping and he had left the keys in the house as he usually did, he trusted the system would never fail. He ended up going to a hotel until he figured out what to do.

Electronics are excellent when they work and hopefully can free our time of nuisance house chores. However, electronics are made by humans and will always fail. Alternative plans are in order. In this video, you will see a “smart refrigerator” it will tell you when your milk or eggs expire, it will talk to you about various need you have with food and many new features we are not used to seeing in refrigerators.

Today’s appliances seem to be made for wealthy people. The refrigerator featured here costs around $5,000, but this beautiful invention cannot be the only appliance in a kitchen, it calls for all other smart appliances to play the same role in a sophisticated kitchen. In a remodeling situation, it is not difficult to come up with the “magic price” of all the appliances needed.

Watch this video, it’s fun and probably you will fall in love with this beauty.

I welcome innovations that will let us use our time in a better way, to socialize with other human beings, to read, to write, to create beauty, to help the world, and hopefully, will not give us a robotic life.

However, I am always wondering what kind of listening-in devices new appliances have these days, just saying….a thought for you.

Allow me a little shameless promotion of my latest book on the subject of colors:
©Red – A Voyage Into Colors, Second Edition. On Amazon.

Red-A Voyage Into Colors-Second Edition

Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola has been a lifetime designer in interiors and fashion. Her extensive training and knowledge in both fields led her in both directions successfully. She is well-known for designing custom furniture. She cares to make spacious and functional pieces, always attentive to innovations, but she doesn’t forget to introduce the element of surprise, sinuous lines, attractive shapes and colors in the style fit for each of her special clients. She also focuses on color theory and psychology to transform people’s life. She is the author of ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors, Second Edition.
Check out her books on Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

Audacious People That Inspired Me | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

05 Jan 2020 7 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #AudaciousDesigns, #ColorfulHomeDecor, #extravagantDecor, #ExtravagantDesigners, #FlamboyantDecorating

I can spend hours in awe looking at homes of flamboyant, audacious people, those who decorate their homes as the last paradise on earth, or as if they are living in their own fantasy. In my reality, I rarely visit homes that leave an impression on me. People think decorating is all about rules, geometry, and functionality. Although functionality is a requirement for harmonious homes, playful fantasy is not, and somehow people think an undescriptive home is better than a fantasy home. That overwhelming feeling of admiration we feel when we are in front of a piece of art, that sense of sublime we feel when we see an originally decorated home doesn’t exist in today’s homes. Most decorating today is about minimalism, straight lines, and space-saver container furniture. I can understand that, builders are not interested in making artistic homes, they want to turn around more shoeboxes homes as possible in a very short time and saturate the market.

I am not complaining, I am only wondering how is it possible to live in a home that doesn’t show any fantasy, any hidden dreams and the playfulness towards life.

Iris Apfel Book on Amazon $21.99

One of the people I have extreme admiration for is a former interior/fashion designer, and a geriatric fashion model: Iris Apfel, I believe now is 96 years of age. Iris is a maximalist and has cultivated a personal style that is both witty and exuberant. She can mix high fashion with low street fashion, modern with ethnic jewelry, baroque with French-style and oriental furniture. She carried her vivacious personality in home decorating as well as in fashion.

Through her designing years, Iris collected incredible home accessories that show off all her personality. Iris is an original. She combines fabrics, colors, and patterns like nobody can.

C.Lacroix Book 2008
Christian Lacroix 2008 book on Amazon $41.25

Someone else got my attention years ago, French fashion designer Christian Lacroix with a totally different style, colorful and equally flamboyant as Iris Apfel.

I am glad my home is not any less than the flamboyant, audacious people that inspired me in my design career. In my theatrical home, I broke all decorating rules because I can and I made it very colorful.
“Life is a theatre and this is my comedy,” I said it. Ciao,
Valentina

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. It’s about life experiences and how Valentina can incorporate them in her clients’ homes. She is the author of five books, the latest ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors, Second Edition is about colors. All Books are available on Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

Coming Of Age | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

03 Jan 2020 13 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #18YearsOld. #AdulthoodParty, #CominfOfAAgeHighFashion, #ComingOfAge, #ComingOfAgeParty, #YoungstersPresented

This article was published in Electric Press, literary magazine, London. Here is the link:
https://issuu.com/electricpress/docs/epfebruary20/36
https://issuu.com/electricpress/docs/epfebruary20/38

It feels like yesterday my coming of age, 18 is a magic number. One feels on top of the world, invincible, unbeatable, conquering the world seems easy as it should be at that age, beauty is just blooming, strength is at its best, everything is possible. Kids dream of the day they will become 18 years of age, then that day comes and goes, it lasts one year and it is over. Life after that takes a different meaning.

In the high stratosphere of society, youngsters coming of age, are presented at court, just as in Downton Abbey, when rebellious Lady Rose is presented officially to the King and became a legal adult, that also means the chaperon is no longer needed.

In a less stratified society, youngsters are still presented today to their friends, teachers, family, neighbors, and perhaps to some city dignitaries as it happened to me many moons ago. The mayor of the city was invited to my party. It took place at the “Sail Club” an upscale place for the upper crust and notables of my native city of Bari in Puglia, Italy.

I arrived at the Club in a landau carriage with a horse and a coachman. I was dressed in a long shimmering silver dress my mother made, the kind Hollywood actresses wore, tight at the waist, spaghetti strap at the top with ample décolletage and flared out at the bottom. The dress shaped me like a siren at the shore.
My first dance was with my father, we glided on the dance floor like two leaves in the wind at the sound of Strauss’s Waltz. We opened the dances. The night went on with special food and drinks served by waiters in white gloves and formal livery. My head was muffled, I felt in a precious glass bauble.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Coming Of Age Key

At one point, during the evening, the Mayor of the city came up to me with a red velvet cushion and presented me with a symbolic key to the city. He declared me officially an adult with all the duties and responsibilities the coming of age brings. It was magical and powerful, it felt important. The Mayor of the city kissed me on the cheek and wished me a good life. I heard someone crying in the background…

Next February, I have been invited to my goddaughter’s coming of age, she will make 18 years of age.
I received the picture of her red dress she will wear on that day for a party in the same “Sail Club” in my hometown, still there, still celebrating so many young women.

I will refrain from showing the beautiful red dress she has selected, perhaps she will want to blog about it, instead, I will show you what I will wear at her party. My outfit is a bit retro. These are my accessories, my dress is red and black, short a bit above the knees, the nylons have a seam in the center back, very 1950’s.

Red Pochette

My father was not royal or a blazoned noble, he was a regular bloke with a regular job, who wanted the best for her daughter and a memorable 18 years old party. He is no longer in this world but the memories are grand.

Let’s enjoy the small things in life, those are the things that make life worth living. Ciao.
Valentina

Fashion Services
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. She is passionate about colors and encourages her clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear. She produces her own line of clothing and accessories and designs custom outfit for special occasions when her clients requested it. To better help people all over the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of four books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on

Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

A New Challenge | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

02 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #AdekHanukaiProducer, #Challenge2020, #InteriorDesignProfession, #KMVT15ValentinaInterview, #NewBeginning, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

I love to be challenged, especially at the beginning of the year. Resolutions are useless, nobody keeps them passed January, challenges are almost an attach to self -discipline. I am in every time someone challenges me. This month, I am participating in Paul Taubman’s blog challenge, writing one blog a day for the entire month of January. http://www.facebook.com/groups/UltimateBlogChallenge

On January 1st, I never do any work, I refuse to get closer to anything resembling work. I am starting from day 2 of the blog challenge by telling about my work as a designer. Often people think designers live in a gold bubble, have a golden life in a high stratosphere, and are fortunate people to discover where fantastic items, fabric, furniture, and rare clients are. Some of this is true only when a designer reaches a certain level of fame. Starting out is a hard climbing uphill for 90% of the designers unless behind them there is an angel ready to shell out lots of money to subsidize the new profession.

Valentina on Construction Site

To produce something spectacular takes hard work and the behind of the scene moments are not that attractive. Designers often hang out in the industrial areas, dirty and unsafe places, where things are built. As an interior designer, I have dealt with fabrications of cabinets, wood, stone, iron, lighting, furniture in shops and warehouses located never in the richest and elegant areas of the city. One time, for only a second, I didn’t get caught in a crossfire of gangs shooting each other. The daughter of the iron fabricator got a bullet in her head and remained a paralyzed vegetable for life. She was at the time only 16 years old and I witnessed that very sad moment.

Designers must be psychologists dancing around clients’ troubles, quarrels, stress, and problems. They must know how to keep the peace and how to use the clients’ budget. We don’t want to talk about liability….of my!

If I was told all that I had to face in the real world at the end of my design studies at the university, I am not really sure I was going to stay in this design profession. However, knowing me and my love for design, I would have challenged everyone. In the meantime, thirty years have passed by and I carried on both professions, fashion, and interior design. Have I arrived? No, I have so much more to do, keep evolving in new future challenges.

If you want to see my evolutions, click on the video. TV producer Adek Hanukai, interviewed me this past summer on his show at KMVT15. The name of the show is simply “Valentina”.

What is your challenge this year? Wishing you a splendid 2020 all the way through. Ciao,
Valentina

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. She is passionate about colors and encourages her clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear. She produces her own line of clothing and accessories and designs custom outfit for special occasions when her clients requested it. To better help people all over the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of four books.
Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors, Second Edition on
Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

It will be soon 2020 | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

01 Jan 2020 8 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #DressingUpEndOfTheYear, #EndOfTheYearFashion, #Fashion2020, #GoldColor, #GoldenFashion, #REDAVoyageIntoColors

The end of the year is the most special day, at least it is for me. I was taught that the way I end the year and greet the new year is the way I will live the entire year. If I laugh or cry, if I eat a Lucullan dinner or have only a sandwich, if I dress up or not, if I am in the company of people or not, that’s the way it will be for the rest of the year. I do believe in these things, our thoughts become actions, as we know, thus at the end of the year I dress up, wear a pair of red “knickers” for good luck, eat special food and make noises.

Dressing up at the end of the year can be tricky. December is a cold month even here in California. Shops offer cold sleeveless dresses and everything flimsy, unfortunately. I don’t want to get sick on this night and still want to look stylish.
I found a metallic quilted coat to wear with my golden outfit underneath, it’s warm and comfy.

Laurier-metallic-quilted-coat – HSN

This year as part of my fashion collection, I made a couple Nobility Shoulder Wraps with the cold shoulders feature. The silver/bluish is in my Etsy shop, maybe someone will purchase it for Valentine’s Day and I will wear the golden/greenish tonight with a black top (in my photo).

Golden Nobility Wrap

I chose to go out with pants, boots, and gloves to keep myself a bit warm, all three items are in the gold color scheme. There are a lot more colors to wear at the end of the year besides black and red. Gold is for people like me, goal-oriented and high achievers, it fits my personality.

I am on high heels most of my working days, but I never wear heels taller than I am. The heels of my golden boots are not super high, I will manage to keep the boots on all night without pain.
Remember high heels like skyscrapers are only good when laying down…..

Golden Pants-Boots – Midnight Velvet

The lining of my quilted coat is black, thus I decided to go with an elegant black top to wear under the nobility wrap, black pochette, and a black shimmering long necklace.

Make-up is my usual soft golden coloring, red lipstick and perhaps a bit of shimmering powder on my face.
I never want to look like a panda bear and you?

It’s time to go to a show. Beach Blanket Babylon is in my plans tonight at the Club Fugazzi. It’s a cabaret show, vaudeville-style. The show is a riot, it has been running for over forty years with a changing script every 2-3 months. I will laugh until my stomach muscles hurt.

I hope you all have a great end of the year and a splendid 2020 all the way through. Ciao,
Valentina

Fashion Services
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. She is passionate about colors and encourages her clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear. She produces her own line of clothing and accessories and designs custom outfit for special occasions when her clients requested it.
To better help people all over the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of five books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

The Evening Of Seven Fish | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

26 Dec 2019 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ChristmasCelebration, #ChristmasEveDinner, #ChristmasFood, #ItalianChristmasTradition, #ItalianFood

It was a long shopping the day before Christmas eve, from one fish market to the other to find the freshest fish, and then it was the longest day cooking the seven fish dinner on Christmas eve. The search was about finding langoustine, mussels, clams with a red tongue, razor clams, sea urchin, sea truffles, octopus, baby cattle fish, any bluefish for grilling, lobster, oysters and any fauna the Mediterranean Sea produces.
The sitting down dinner started at 6:00 pm and lasted close to midnight when we finished with a champagne toast, then church at midnight.
That was such a long ago in Italy in my parents’ home and it was the same in most of the homes in Italy. The celebration on Christmas eve was an incredible custom, we ate until our hearts were content and welcome the new spiritual Christmas light in our homes.
As it happens in all families, at one point kids leave the nest, when my turn came, I moved as well to build my life and all of that ended. My new-found friends could never eat a large amount of food and never had the time to be sitting at the table for so many hours. The Christmas celebrations took a different turn.

Somehow I maintained my tradition on a smaller scale. On Christmas eve, I prepare a few fish specialties and Christmas day is about meat. On the eve, caviar opened the dinner experience, followed by shrimps with fregola and dandelion cooked in a clay pot, cod and potato cakes, blue crabs, Christmas cookies, coffee, and Belgium chocolate with sea salt.

Caviar and prosecco

Shrimps with Fregola and Dandelion cooked in a play pot

Cod Potato Cakes

Blue Crabs

Christmas Cookies

This was sufficient for Christmas eve, Christmas day was a different experience, oh my! Everything was delicious and even though I feel like a blimp today, I am very happy. 😀
The end of the year requires courage, the Italian rule is to have 13 courses dinner, one for each month of the year and one extra to honor the new year 😱. This one is no longer my habit.
I hope your Christmas was good and serene. Ciao,
Valentina

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion designer, author of 5 published books so far, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. She has conceived a few new books of various subjects to which she is working simultaneously. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking, and travel. She never gives up trying new things and doesn’t fear failure. Three years ago, Valentina became a TV producer/host and she produces shows under her label: Valentina Design Universe. The goal of her shows is to entertain, inspire and inform, while she is living her passion.
Get a copy of her books here:
Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

My experience in a tailoring in Salento

26 Dec 2019 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #Ballerina, #BallerinaDancingOnStage, #Dancing, #DegasTailoring, #ItalianBallerinaSchool, #TutuDesigns

It is my pleasure to reblog Paola’s post of her experience designing her first important tutu’ at Degas Tailor in Italy.
This is what the owner of the shop had to say: “It is always a big pleasure to dress beautiful and prepared ballerinas such as Paola. She is one of the Maestro Domenico Iannone’s pupils at Compagnia AltraDanza and a student of Maestra Sabrina Speranza at Unika School Academy in Bari. Paola reached a high level of grades performing at an international competition and she wore this candid white tutu’ made here at Degas.”
Brava Paola, you will go a long way! I wished I was there to see you wearing that beautiful tutu’.

Paola is very diligent with her training, very competitive, she is focused on her goals, and she is a high grades student in high school as well, but it is not enough.
As she rightly says, the ballerina school is very expensive and when only one person provides for everyone in the family, it becomes a huge challenge to continue her studies. She needs funds, let’s help her out, it’s Christmas, what’s one more gift? Here is the link to donate any amount: https://www.gofundme.com/f/continuation-of-my-dance-studies/donate
Thank you 🤗❤️

Paola, your lucky star is near, make sure you catch it when it falls off the sky. Wishing you a good rest of the holidays and a splendid year. With love,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Dancer Attitude

Hello everyone, in the past few months my life was on the high notes: I went to the Salento area to visit a tailor shop called “Degas” where you can create your tutù for ballet competitions or shows. It can be considered a normal dance shop because you can find ballet shoes, leotards, skirts, pointe shoes and all the necessary for every ballet dancer!😍 It seemed I was in another world!

Here, a beautiful and vibrant tailor showed me how to create a professional or semi-professional tutù.

First of all, she showed me which fabrics I want for this tutù. She asked me what kind of ballet opera I would like to do and I said: Aurora from “The Sleeping Beauty”. Then we started to create my tutù. I chose a white tutù with 7 veils and a particular lace with floreal decorations sewn by hand on tutù. Then I…

View original post 162 more words

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Christmas Party – Just One Wish – Guests, Food, Music and laughter

22 Dec 2019 6 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ChristmasPartyOneWish, #ChristmasWish, #SallyCronin, #SmorgasbordBlogMagazine

We all have unfulfilled dreams and keep trying to achieve them. If I look at my dream boards of the past years, I must say proudly that everything I wished for me I got it. I call it hard work, perseverance, and discipline, sure didn’t happen by chance or luck. However, one dream is still out there, floating in the universe, and I am still asking myself what would take to make it, until one day last month, Sally Cronin of the Smorgasbord Blog Magazine announced she needed only one wish from her followers to organize a Christmas party. I participated, “you never know, more times you put it out there, more chances you have for someone to see it” I said to myself. The Dream I Am Still Dreaming is mentioned here in Sally Cronin’s Christmas Party One Wish. https://valentinaexpressions.com/2019/01/16/the-dream-i-am-still-dreaming-valentina-cirasola-author-and-designer/

Thank you Sally, for showing me part of the solution to realizing my dreams, a Coop might be the way to go, just like in the video. You are a very special person. I hope your Christmas is special and the New Year splendid all the way through.
Valentina

Christmas Reflection | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

16 Dec 2019 9 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ChristmasCelebration, #ChristmasGifts, #ChristmasGiving, #EcologicGiftsWrapping

Receiving gifts is an exciting moment, someone is thinking of you and wants to please you or make you happy with a simple gesture. You go through the process of tearing the beautiful wrap covering the box and reading the card attached to the gift. You think “I am so lucky someone took the time to do this for me on this occasion”. Finally, the gift presents itself to your eyes and suddenly you feel sad, your jaw drops as if you have seen a ghost and you are in disbelieve of what you just saw in the box. It is the same present you gave a year ago to that same person giving you the present, the gift returned to you recycled.

Yes, this is true, it has happened to me, I received a year later, the same gift I gave to that very person standing before me, telling me how much she cared for my friendship. My surprise was so big, I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. I exclaimed: “I wanted to buy me this gift last year, I loved it so much…, instead I bought it for you because you like everything I wear, I thought you would have worn it with pleasure, instead I am so fortunate it returned to me, it must have been really made for me.” End of discussion and friendship. She could have simply written my name on the gift to remember who gave it to her and recycle it to a different person. That year, I decided not to give Christmas presents anymore to no one. To most people, Christmas is only the time to overspend carelessly, the holiday itself doesn’t mean much else.

In this period of the year, I spend time with friends I have not seen much during the year, I call people in need of comfort and company, I cook special food, and sweets to share with others, I make simple things to give away, such as decorative balls for the tree and give thanks to many people who helped me in my life and business. I enjoy attending many Christmas shows and parties. This time of the year for me is all about the new light coming into my life, realizing new dreams, and thinking of new opportunities.

I want to give you some suggestions if you are into giving a lot of gifts. All factory items already come sealed in a lot of plastic boxes, often very hard to open. We must be conscious of the environment, let’s eliminate all the possible waste we can. This year wrap your gift in brown paper, better if it comes from grocery shopping, cut away the name of the store and use the rest of the shopping bag. I saw this picture on Pinterest with the photo of the person the gift is intended for, I thought it’s a great idea.

Our Suburban Farm

Jane Lee on Instagram has another great idea, she attaches parts of a newspaper over the brown paper, a fern branch with a wax seal and a handwritten message.

Jane Lee Instagram

Sometimes, I have wrapped gifts in my own architectural drawings for home remodeling I did for clients. It was another way to show people what I do and recycle the drawings. Also, I have wrapped gifts in fabrics to use as napkins or kitchen towels later.

Fabric as gift wrap

Please don’t stress out over Christmas, this is the time to enjoy a renewal of your spirit and collect the strength to start a new fabulous year. Ciao,
Valentina

Amazon – Barnes&Nobles

Amazon Author’s Page

Doors | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

04 Dec 2019 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ClassicDoors, #DecoratedEntranceDoors, #DoorDesigns, #Doors, #GateDoors, #ImportantDoors, #SecurityDoors

A door is a swinging or sliding barrier by which an entry is closed and opened. A theatre opens its doors when a new show is ready to be viewed. A door could be a gate to secure people inside a dwelling or a closure for some kind of cabinetry. The word “doors” can also mean an opportunity that presents itself unexpectedly. We give many meanings to the word doors, the fact is that before the Neolithic time human beings didn’t know what a door was, they lived well protected inside caves, the fire kept the humans warm and the wild animals away. I saw the first attempt at a Neolithic door in the museum Ridola in Matera, Italy. It was made with straw, mud, dirt, and pieces of wood.

(Click on each picture to view it larger).

Neolithic House, Ridola Museum, Matera, South Italy

Doors evolved in something more decorative as security became a necessity, even when that security served to hold people up in dungeons.

Door In Gioia, South Italy

Painters and artists at times have used doors to immortalize effigies of powerful people who gained high places in society. That’s the case of Swabian Emperor Frederick the II, ruler of South Italy, surnamed “Stupor Mundi” for his love of the arts and cultural innovations as a means to unify all races.

Painted Door, Gioia, South Italy

As times progressed, riches and nobles decorated their entry door with the family crests, faces of divinities or any symbol showing wealth, prosperity, and personal beliefs.

Door in Matera, South Italy

Castle Antique Door in Gioia, South Italy

Door Palazzo Fizzarotti, Bari, Italy

Even door hinges have had a place of importance throughout history. Inside La Salle d’Or recreated at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco we can admire the splendor of the French Court through a disjointed hinge that allows people to get a preview of who is in the room without being seen.

Salle d’Or-Legion Of Honor, San Francisco

Some doors provide a good blackboard for the fantasy of a Flâneur to unravel. Here on this door in Polignano a Mare, Italy, this passionate wonderer wrote a Shakespearian sonnet:
“Love runs to meet love with the same joy young pupils run away from their books, but love which must separate from love has the face of young pupils returning to school.”

Writing of a Flâneur – Polignano a Mare, South Italy

In Barcelona, the city where even the sidewalks are overly decorated, I saw many beautiful Art Deco doors in just as many beautiful buildings lining the streets.

Building in Barcelona, Spain

Prague, an austere and romantic city, displays very elegant doors with caryatids supporting pilasters, arches, balconies, and many classic architectural details.

Jewelry Store

Some doors are just elegant gilded barriers to keep the elite in and the plebeians out.

Royal Door at Prague Palace, Czech Republic

While other doors look like a fortress just because they conceal the secrets of a nation.

Romanian Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic

But then some playful people like to stick birds and flowers on their entrance door and others like to paint puppet’s faces.

Nature Decorated Door

Marionettes Shop, Prague, Czech Republic

As a world trotter, I take pictures of the details of a country. Doors attract me just as people’s expressions, customs, food, and languages. I conceived this roundup of doors only to say “Be Yourself.” The entrance door is your business card, it makes the first impression of who are the people living behind the door in a split of a second.
One of my clients is turning her house located in a nice downtown area, into air B&B. The entry door will be painted red as an indication that the interior rooms will be modern, upbeat, and very colorful. Don’t be afraid to paint your entrance door, to stick charms on it, to add faces and decorative elements, or to use a type of wood nobody else uses. Ciao,
Valentina

Author’s page

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. It’s about life experiences and how Valentina can incorporate them in her clients’ homes. She is the author of five books, all available on
Amazon – Barnes&Nobles