Home Designs Master | Valentina Expressions

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

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

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

Curious Seating Arrangements | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

21 Oct 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #DinnerManners, #DowtonAbbeySeries, #FormalDinner, #TableEtiquette, #TableSeatingArrangements

I think Downton Abbey, the famous TV series, worldwide famous British TV series has revived the good manners custom, sitting properly keeping good posture, and elegant dialogues where “vulgarity is no substitute for wit”, said Maggie Smith. The series has brought to light traditional customs of kindness, gentility, and elegance of movements to astonish the whole world that has watched the series with the face stuck to the TV for six years and still watching. I am one of them. I loved this program so much, that I bought the entire series since it stopped and watch it every year from October to January.

Watching the shows, I have been very attentive to details and never missed one.
I could not help noticing the seating arrangements for breakfast and dinner. At breakfast, Lord Grantham sits at the head of the table, but for dinner, he and his wife Ladyship Cora sit in the middle of the table. Those are the honored positions, only reserved for the hosts, the most important people sit on their right and their left in order of importance, the least important people end up far away at each end of the table.

Downstairs, in the servant dining hall, the butler Mr. Carson is the only one who sits at the head table. He is the authority in the management of the grand house and deserves respect from all the servants. It’s so very different being important upstairs and being important downstairs.

Back in time, at royal courts, Kings or Queens sat at the head of the table surrounded by the most important people close to them on both sides, the rest of the guests sat as far as possible in order of importance, the plebeians sat at the very end of the table, where they couldn’t be heard.

Today, the seating arrangements are slightly different from the Edwardian times of Downton Abbey.

In my native Italy and most of Europe, the host is the most important person at the table and he/she sits at the head table on a chair with or without arms. If an elderly person lives with the family, that person has the honored seat at the head table and nobody starts to eat unless the elderly start first, or say “Bon Appetit”.

In America, the head seat is an armchair, thus there are two on each end of the table.
My friend, an author, Teagan Geneviene, says: “I’ve heard those chairs called “captain’s chairs.” Maybe we Americans are always so contentious at dinner that we have to have someone be the “captain” with the role of trying to keep things civil so meals don’t become food fights.” So funny.

Formal Table Seating For Groups Divisible By Four

Anyway, in most houses, a sitting down dinner has pre-assigned seats with place name cards or the host will indicate where the guests will sit. Follow the lead of the host, eat everything in your plate, and when the host stops eating the guests should stop too, it’s just one of many well-mannered dinner customs. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

It’s my hope that through my writing and my stories I am enriching your aesthetic sensibility towards design, style and inspiring you to live in beauty. I love to encourage my clients to show their personality through their home décor, or the clothes they wear. I have loved my profession as an interior-fashion designer since 1990. Consultations online are available. Check out one of my books on the subject of colors, ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors.
Amazon
Barnes&Noble

You Are the Glass | Valentina Cirasola | Designer and Author

26 Aug 2019 4 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ColorfulGlass, #GiantGlassFlowers, #GlassArt, #GlassSculptures, #HomeDecor, #InteriorDesign, HomeAccessories

“A pile of sand made you, strong but fragile, soft and malleable, sharp and smooth. You melt under the delicate touch of the forger. You face fire with courage as if nothing happens in that hot furnace, but something does happen. You become sensual, your curves are more sinuous than a curvy woman, you take on brilliant colors for the pleasure of your admirers’ eyes and you come out shaped into a masterpiece. We want to possess you. We want to caress and feel you, we want to shelter your fragility, we want your shapes to embellish our life. You are the GLASS”.

I wrote this thought one day at a client’s house. I was putting the final touches together, beautiful accessories, scented natural candles, shimmering crystals, skillfully decorated ceramic plates by French and Italian artists, colorful lamps and the glass peppers on the kitchen island. I fell in love with them. They looked juicy and appetizing in their glass form just as much as they do in real life. They vibrate healthy energy. It took a bit of an effort with this particular client to show her that colors exude positive energy and she needed so badly in her all-beige home. Now she is totally into colors and even when she gets dressed, she asks herself if Valentina would love the colors she is selecting. If the answer in her mind is NO, she will not put it on. I must have converted another person to colors.

Glass Red Pepper

As an Italian, I grew up appreciating the beauty of Murano glass. The art of Murano is unparallel, colorful, transparent like tissue paper, delicate and precious. It always fascinated me how a pile of sand can be transformed into something so mesmerizing. One moment seems the glass lays there lifeless and as soon as the light goes through, it picks up a totally different dimension, inside the glass every little nuance comes alive.

I was at an art and wine fair this weekend and I fell in love with tall glass flowers, glass teapots, and glass sculptures, I would have brought home everything I saw.

Giant Glass Flowers

Glass Teapots

Glass Sculpture

Picture one of these colorful pieces in each room of modern sleek décor, one of those style with very straight lines, black and grey color combination and very minimalist. Do you see it? One of these art pieces will add color and character to minimalist room décor.

So many artists, so many ideas, so many choices. Going to fairs and art shows is one of the many ways I help clients. I find items they might overlook, or have no access to it.
I hope one of these glass artists will want to appear on one of my TV shows, the invitation has been extended. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors, and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle, and personality. She offers online design consultations through Skype or Zoom, as well as the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of five books. The two latest published books are ©The Road To Top Of The World – Amazon – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
and ©Naked Lemons – Amazon – https://amzn.to/33bVRyQ
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Neglected Home Entrance | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

13 Aug 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ColorfulMainEntrance, #DesigningFrontEntry, #InvitingFrontDoor, #MainEntrance, #TheImportanceOfMainEntrance

During the year, I have the habit of visiting my past clients, just to see how they are doing, asking if they still like the house I designed for them, or if they need anything new from me. I bring them a little gift as a thank you for being my clients, just a little something they can use, such as a box of blank cards, a set of pens, a new year calendar, a set of kitchen towels, a book of stamps, things of this sort. Rarely, I found someone at home, therefore I leave my little gift at the main entrance and then call to tell them there is something from me at the front door waiting to be picked up.

Why do I have to call them and spoil my surprise? A long time ago I realized people enter their home from the back door or the garage, Instead of going through the main entry. Of course, it is easier to park the car in the back to unload grocery, packages, kids, and everything else, then enter the house from there and most likely they end up directly in the kitchen. These people spend a load of money to decorate the main entrance they never see and enjoy.

Landing Main Entrance

The main entrance is used for guests who never park in the backside of the house or in the garage of their friends, they are honored through the front entry. The guests have the privilege to see all the beauty of the front entry, artistic lighting, plants, smell the scent of flowers, enjoy the decorative items whatever might be, stones, metal sculptures, fountains, statues or sounds of chimes. It makes me think guests are reputed more important than the people living there, who pay the mortgage, the property tax, pay for the gardener to keep all the vegetation manicured, pay the window cleaner, and at one point might have paid for a landscaper or a designer to make the front entrance inviting and beautiful. Is it really this way? Are guests more important than you are?

It reminds me of my mom’s house when I lived at home with my parents. My mom kept one room always closed, we called it the salon due to the large size of the room, which hosted the living and dining room together. Nobody was allowed to go in that room, except for cleaning it or when we had guests, which was often, yet us the family, were not allowed to use the room if nothing was happening. Things changed when I moved away, museum rooms did not exist in any of the houses I lived.

One day, I returned to visit my mom, I sat in the salon, I did it on purpose, brought along a magazine, something to eat with drinks, raised my legs on the coffee table and parked my derriere in that room she didn’t want us to use for so many years. She was furious about my belligerence, but I made her understand that as her daughter I was supposed to be more important than her guests, just because she made me. From that moment on I forced her to allow me to eat in her best dishes and drink out of her best glasses, in her company, in that salon she never enjoyed in all the years she had it.

Life is too short not to enjoy the beautiful things we worked for and surrounded ourselves.

Front Yard Display at Main Entrance

I just want to point out that being greeted with the usual mess of the garage (I have seen some horrific garage mess), boxes, dirty laundry, sports equipment, maybe cars, maybe the husband’s mechanical/woodworking machines, Christmas decorations, etc. etc. is not a good vibration, it’s not harmony and it’s not pleasant to come home to.

Picture this: you return home after a long day at work, your boss has been nasty, your kids have done something stupid, perhaps you realize your husband has a sexy secretary. your grandmother became a virgin again or it has been just the wrong day with Mercury retrograde. There is nothing in that garage greeting you with beauty, no nice scent to smell, no vibrant color to uplift your spirit, nothing to make you feel better, but your main entrance has all of that and it is neglected.

After a bad day, try this, enter the home through your well-decorated main entrance, you will hear it saying: “Come in, this is your home and nothing is going to bother you here”. The spirit of your home will take care of you. Do you believe a home has a spirit? I do and I can tell you some pretty stories, but I will leave that for another time.

I am not trying to change the world, people will live as they want, in dirty houses, with a messy garage, in all-white walls, minimalist empty homes, aseptic, lifeless homes, or kitschy decor. I am just trying to make a point, if you spend money for something, whatever it might be, enjoy it now while you are alive, do it for yourself, you are the most important actor of your life’s film.
“My life is a theatre and this is my comedy” ~ I said it.

Ciao,
Valentina

http://www.valentinadesigns.com

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. She is the author of five books, all available on
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest published books are ©The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
and ©Naked Lemons – https://amzn.to/33bVRyQ

Cheetah and Yellow | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

15 Jul 2019 7 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #AnimalPrintAccentWall, #AnimalPrints, #DecoratingWithAnimalPrints, #DecorativePaintRoller, #OrganicDecorating

A few days ago, I was wearing cheetah print pants with funky yellow shoes. I was waiting for someone to come to the appointment.
As usual, when I get bored waiting, I take a photo of my shoes or what I am wearing, I am not much of a selfie person. I find my selfie feet don’t have that frozen look all faces have in selfies.

Later, I posted the picture on my Pinterest board “So Chic, So Stylish“ and made a comment that, in my fantasy, I see an interior with that combination.
Good enough, I caught someone’s attention. The comment intrigued a person who asked me how I would see yellow and cheetah combined in a room.
We started to talk and pretty soon I had a solution for her.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Cheetah and Yellow Shoes

Cheetah Yellow Dream Board

(In this dream board, the lanterns and wood shell photos come from rajeesoodhome on Instagram)

In my dream board, I see a yellow love seat, and various rustic, wood type elements: bamboo floor lamp, a chiseled edge coffee table, wood accessories, a stack of colorful pillows and many different shapes of lanterns gathered in one same corner. The cheetah wall I think it’s impressive as an accent wall.
Animal prints require natural and organic material. After all, cheetahs live in the wild nature.

I researched on how to get the cheetah effect on the wall. It’s an easy DIY paint project. Jennifer at Etsy sells all kinds of decorative paint rollers. In this video, she explains so easily how to do it, mix paint with glaze and roll over the desired pattern. https://www.youtube.com/artisticpaintingstudio

I shall be waiting for the photos of the interior I conceived for this new Pinterest client, I am so glad she found me. Technology is just great when it works. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer since 1990, specializing in interior and exterior, color analysis, kitchen, bath, wine cellar, and outdoor kitchen designs. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. RAI–Italian National TV invited her to appear in “Cara Francesca Show” and she has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of four published books, one of which is on the subject of colors
©RED – A Voyage Into Colors.
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The newly published book is ©The Road to Top Of The World
Paperback and Kindle – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Why Humans Make Art? | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

10 Jul 2019 8 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ArtandInteriors, #ArtisticDecorating, #ArtisticInteriors, #ColorsandArt, #InteriorDesign, #InteriorsAsArt

Last week I appeared on KMVT 15 TV in the show Why Human Make Art. Producer Adek Anukai sees my interior design profession as art and art as an expression of life. This is is very true. Each one of us makes art every day, whether we procreate, we design a home or a garden, whether we cook exceptional meals or the way we build cities and illuminate stores, whether we create fashion or extravagantly wear clothes, whether we learn ballet, play a musical instrument, or to drive creatively like Italians. I don’t believe people who say they are not creative. Every one of us makes some artistic expression.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

©Sunglasses Mirror by Valentina Cirasola

Prologue by Producer Adek Anukai:
The psychologist Nathan Lents, believes that “throughout history, much artwork was made for no other explicit purpose than the production of beauty.”
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines art as “something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.”
It seems that the common drive in making art is to produce “beauty”.
Even at the dawn of mankind, humans drew pictures, danced, and sung. From the cave paintings to the breathtaking works of Leonardo Da Vinci, was the motivation the same? We paint, compose, sing, dance, write. We design beautiful dresses, jewelry, and decorate houses. We create new ways of expressing ourselves through the creation of “beauty”.

Remembering one of Dostoevsky’s affirmations: “Beauty Will Save the World.” And it will. In beauty there is harmony, in harmony, there is peace, in peace there is prosperity and in prosperity, there is a good healthy life.

During the show, the producer asked me: “Art does not seem to be critical for our survival and in most cases has not been financially rewarding. Actually, for most people, being an artist is a lifetime uphill battle, but it does not stop anyone. Why not?”

Most of us have the desire to leave something to posterity. Often artists make art to prolong life into the future, even when they are recognized as great artists only after their death.

©Natura Morta by Valentina Cirasola

Art is a kind of rebellion. Nobody stops producing art even when is not profitable. Through art, people express their anger, anxiety, contentment, happiness, social events, or just memories.
I remember when I returned from Africa the first time I went there, the only thing I wanted to paint was the mesmerizing sunset I saw, bold and colorful. I wanted to immortalize a spectacle I had never seen before, a sky at dusk with purple, red, yellow, orange streaks, sometimes all mixed together. To these days I can’t forget those bold colors in the sky and even though the canvases I painted are no longer with me, those sunsets are sculpted in my mind.

Exotic Sunsets

People making art keep pushing even when nature creates impossible barriers. Deafness does not stop composers and blindness does not stop painters from creating their artworks. Artists want to defy destiny and prove that anything is possible because “beauty” is the only thing humans want to be surrounded.

©Guest Bath – Concept Two

©Guest Bath – Concept One

The producer/host of the talk show went on comparing my interior design work to modern art. He wondered how challenging must be to interpret everybody’s taste and creating spaces where people feel their lives have improved. Yes, it is very challenging, but that’s what I chose to do.
The show will air in September 2019. 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, 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.
Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Straddling A Bidet | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

03 Jul 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #Bidet, #BidetFunctions, #HistoricalBidetNotes, #HowToUseABidet, #TechnologicBidet

Just a week ago I had an encounter with a client who years ago inherited from a previous homeowner a bidet in her master bedroom and had it removed at once. A hole in the floor covered with a metal cap reminded her of that “thing” she referred to as “a dirty and offensive object”. Then, she proceeded to ask me what would I do with such an object if I had one in my bathroom. She was much surprised and much appalled to find out I do have one in my bathroom. With her hands covering her face 😱, she kept repeating the same phrase for a few minutes: “OMG, what a nasty thing….”. I asked her what she used the bidet when she had it. To rinse the mop in it, was her answer. At that moment my eyes went out of the orbits 😳. She didn’t know the bidet is used to clean private parts after any intimate moments.

The conversation with her reminded me of a few episodes I lived in Italy when I saw what foreign people did to their bidets. One woman grew a plant in it but forgot to put a plug in the bidet. After a few years, the roots of the plant grew in the plumbing of the building she lived and caused huge damages to the building. The law stepped in and forced her to pay all the damages caused to five apartments below her.
One other person washed her infant and the dog in the bidet but never used it herself. Someone else I met, used it as a urinal and couldn’t understand the reason in Europe people had a toilet and a urinal, that’s what he thought was the function of the bidet. It’s baffling how people move overseas without gaining minimal knowledge of what to expect or without the willingness to learn a new culture.

I am not here to criticize anyone, it just puzzles me that I am still faced with horrid comments from people who claim to have traveled all over the world and can’t accept different ways of doing things. That’s all.

Storybook of Dreams and Beauty

(Source: Found on Facebook). Thanks to Storybook of Dreams and Beauty for posting this beautiful picture. I wished a similar decorated example would occupy space in my bathroom.

19th Century French Bidet

The first bidet appeared in France in 1600 when taking a full bath was a rare activity. Only nobles and riches bathed once or twice a month, with the introduction of the bidet at least feet and private parts were cleaned every day, especially after love encounters, body function daily needs, and horse riding. The shape of the basin evoked the straddling on the horse, faucets face the user, not the other way around. Since the last century, the shape hasn’t changed much. The material did change from the rudimentary wood box with a lid to the high decorate porcelain of the 19th century to a minimalist style of today. The use of the bidet is still the same. Let’s say one works in the garden and gets only the feet dirty, that’s when the bidet comes handy. Think of it as a water conservation device, no need to take a full shower if only the feet are dirty. However, it is not a device that substitutes a full shower or bath.

(Boilly, La Toilette Intime ou la Rose Effeuille. Image @Wikimedia Commons)

Today, we can select bidets from the most modern and pleasant technology to assure us a healthy, clean life.
https://www.brondell.com/healthy-living-blog/what-are-bidets-and-bidet-toilet-seats/

In fact, in Japan, I have experienced a toilet with heated seat and enhanced bidet capabilities. Here is a funny video of a Japanese woman explaining the washlet.
https://youtu.be/L8ndLz4SGmU

For a less expensive solution, here it is a removable device. https://bit.ly/2FOuD7o

Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior and Fashion Designer. She blends fashion and interior well in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and loves to create the unusual, as much as she likes to restyle people’s images. She is a storyteller and finds inspirations everywhere to write her stories. She needs your story to design your dream home or your dream look. She is also a public speaker, a mentor, and author of 4 books. Check out her books on
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

The Special Status Of Number 3 | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

23 Jun 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #RuleOf3, #ThePowerOf3, #ThreeAsPerfectNumber

For centuries, in many cultures and for some inexplicable reason, number 3 has been considered the perfect number.
Tesla the most influential scientist was obsessed with the number 3 and created everything in multiple of 3.
Followers of magic and esoteric, think the number 3 has a magical power, in fact, the word Magic itself has 3 consonants.
3 represents the alignment of brain, heart, and body or the triangle in geometry with three sides.
Shamrock, the three leaves clover weed is the Irish lucky symbol, used in the 5th Century Ireland to explain the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to people converting to Christianity.
The Resurrection of Christ happened on the third day of his crucifixion.

In decorating is where we see the full expression of the number 3. We can decide to make a vignette by grouping 3 items, tall, medium, and small. This arrangement is pleasing to the eyes, shows harmony, rhythm, and style, or we can decide to create a gallery by grouping odd numbers together, 3-5-7-9 and so on.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Tiles-Lamp-Vignette

I created a gallery wall with antique mirrors, a ceramic ball, and an antique candle holder. It’s funny how the subject in my picture is about two people dancing and a street lampost behind them. It’s also curious to see the reflections in the small mirrors doubling the effect of the gallery.

Small-Antique-Mirrors-Gallery

I love to put colored glass objects near a widow. The reverberation of sun rays on the glass is amazing, colors change in different hours of the days.

Glass_Balls

In photography, the law of a 3 works well for a composition. This is my calla lilies studies grouping.

3 Calla Lilies Vignette

In various cuisines of the world, the trittico, a base for many sauces, is made of carrot, celery, and onion.
Food plated in odd numbers 1-3-5 always look better than 2 or 4 food items, sauces or dollops.

I experienced this tasty apricot dessert at the Culinary Academy, designed with 3 elements: a cake, a friable cookie, and apricot sauce.

Apricot Dessert

Human beings attach meaning to colors in 3 particular ways: nature, culture, and personal feelings.
In Nature – Red represents fire. Green is associated with plants, forest, and vegetation. Blue is associated with the ocean, seas, and lakes. Yellow is the sun which energizes us, a little daily exposure to the sun gives us a healthy life, bones and good vitamins; without a yellow sun, we would not exist.
In various cultures, colors pick up many meanings: white is a mourning color in India, black is either a mourning color in western civilization or the elegant color for parties and galas. Red in China is a fortune color, often used in weddings. Earthy colors define a South-Western civilization, bright and bold colors are for tropical areas.
On personal feelings – Often, we speak in colors and we don’t even notice it. Colors are abstract, they are electromagnetic waves, but one color expression can in an instant show our character. By using certain expressions related to colors, we vibrate the same way colors do, emanating sensations of temperature, feelings of love and anger, fear and joy, attention and caution, mood, state of mind and much more. Here are some fun expressions: “green with envy” – “bolt from the blue” – “red carpet treatment” – “yellow fever” – “green belt” – “yellow press” – “as brown as a berry” – “golden opportunity” – “silver screen” – “grey matter” (…) Except from my book:
© Red-A Voyage Into Colors – http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Ceramic Eggs

There you have it, number 3 seems to be the perfect number in any situation. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer working in the USA and Europe since 1990, specializing in interior and exterior, color analysis, kitchen, bath, wine cellar, and outdoor kitchen designs. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. RAI–Italian National TV invited her to appear in “Cara Francesca Show” and she has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of four published books, one of which is on the subject of colors ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors. Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The newly published book ©The Road to Top Of The World
is available in paperback and kindle. https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

A Conversation On Black Color | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

08 May 2019 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BlackDinneware, #BlackTableSetting, #ColorBlack, #EffectOfColorBlack

Recently I dealt with a client, a young bride whose husband likes a monochromatic color tone of black, grey, little white and no other colors. He is a high-tech engineer, apparently sees his world in greyish tones from his clothes to home décor. She writes:
“Dear Valentina, it is a common belief among youngsters that if we do not dress in black, we are not trendy, therefore those people like me who don’t overdo with black are considered outsiders. Furthermore, another common belief is that colors are a bit precarious and those who wear colors are unstable and insecure.”
I really don’t know where this one comes from. colors are LIFE and that’s a fact!!!

I told her: “Think about the blue of the sky and the sea, the yellow of the sun, the green of the woods … the color of every single flower…. colors are the nature that surrounds us. I believe that adopting the “all black effect” will make us move away from nature and wean us from all-natural things.”
In her note, my young client seems unhappy about not being able to express herself in her new home with the colors she likes.

The secret to creating harmony in a home depends on a few elements:
1. adapt the colors for interiors and accessories to reflect the characters of the people living in the house;
2. understand how people will use and live that space;
3. know how to compromise by mixing each desire for items or colors both people like. A pink bedroom with ducks, doilies, and ruffles is out of the question when a man who likes streamlines. modern and graphic colors sleeps in the same bedroom. The same way it is not appropriate to eat in black dishes, just because only one likes it.

Canvas Home.com

Following trends to the letter, as trends dictate, is not that good of thing either. For a while it has been fashionable to design black kitchens, to have a table set with black dishes, black cutlery, and black glasses. Youngster under thirty, are going nuts for this trend, my young client’s husband is one of them. Yes, it might be chic to see it in a shop’s window, however, serving food in a black dish….
Just imagine this picture:
you are sitting in a restaurant in Positano waiting for your plate of spaghetti and seafood to arrive. You are already anticipating tasting the sea. The plate arrives with an incredible aroma in a riot of colors that bombards you. There is the black of mussels’ shells against the orange of the mussels’ flesh, then shades of ochre and red in the clams, the red of the shrimps, finally a handful of green parsley all over. Imagining this specialty being served on a white porcelain plate is one thing, imagining the same specialty being served on a black plate is a totally different thing!!!
I already know which of the two my young client would prefer: the white plate and I would too.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Impepata Cozze

How can these trendy people drink a glass of red wine in a black glass? It is a crime, I am thinking to myself, and yet her husband does.
Drinking red wine in a crystal glass will confuse me just by looking at all the rays of colors reflected in the light. A crystal glass will also emphasize the jewel tones of the red wine and enhance the pleasure of tasting.

A goblet of red wine

I do not know if this obvious and simple example of the spaghetti with seafood in Positano or drinking red wine out of crystal glass and not in a black glass amazed my young client, but since she is on my same colorful wavelength, I suggested to describe this scene to her husband and watch his reaction. Eating colorful food in the right colored dishes is healthy for the brain/eye activity and it is a thankful celebration of each time we eat.

She tells me: “I know you love your food to be presented on the right plate, with the right shape, with the right colors and the right tablecloth. I don’t blame you for being so fussy, but precise. In the end, your way adds beauty and pleasure to the table”.

It was easy for me to interpret her thoughts and doubts about being in black all day long. Sincerely, I have the impression people surrounded by black clothes and black interiors mourn their lives. With all my heart, I hope to have converted my client’s husband to a bit of color.
This is a part of a short excerpt from a conversation that took place online between myself and my young client in Europe, a lover of colors and architecture, who lives in Switzerland and I have only met through Skype, never in person. Our professional exchange of ideas brought a beautiful friendship, one that doesn’t feel the distance, nor the oceans. Ciao.
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer working in the USA and Europe since 1990, specializing in interior and exterior, color analysis, kitchen, bath, wine cellar, and outdoor kitchen designs. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. RAI–Italian National TV invited her to appear in “Cara Francesca Show” and she has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of four published books, one of which is on the subject of colors ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors.
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The newly published book ©The Road to Top Of The World
paperback – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
Kindle – https://amzn.to/2H7ipGE