#ContemporaryDining | Valentina Expressions

One Day In Napa | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Design

Moving away from the chaotic metropolitan area feels very good, I can already taste the pleasure of wines. Leaving behind the super crowded freeway and slipping down a country road feels even better. Nature starts to feel real and aromatic. The sound of the wine train that takes visitors from one vineyard to another reminds me very much of the local train in Puglia of many years ago with the beautiful round and imposing façade of an old smokey locomotive. The train greets us in the wine valley. Life here starts to appear slower and not marked by time, the only time that really needs to be marked is the harvest of the grapes.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

Sattui Winery

Locomotive wine train

It’s so nice to see long stretches of land planted with vineyards, everything is so lush and bucolic. I start to see the Mediterranean style homes the old Italian emigrants preferred, and old Victorian-style homes built before 1887, wrought iron on doors and gates, wine barrels everywhere as decorative items of stores and vineyards.

The air is sultry, of course, it’s a valley away from the sea breeze. Grapes don’t like winds or an abrupt change of weather, they like it hot and calm.

Napa Vineyards

Middle-class people inhabit the outskirt of the wine valley, they are mostly workers of the vineyards, homes are down to earth and convenience stores serve them. The change in lifestyle is immediately noticeable when approaching the fancy vineyard establishments where people go for wine tasting and shopping for high-class or imported food. Here, days go by tasting wines, eating specialty food, and international variety of cheeses. I think that’s the reason people are so relaxed here. Life is easier when it is not stuck in the same groove.

Mid-Day Sultriness

Napa Historic Building

The views are beautiful, no matter what. St.Helena is very posh, art stores, tourist shops, boutiques, and decorating shops cater to sophisticated people. Prices and originality are very high, I love to discover them all, at least I get my eyes filled with creativity.
This Italian original wine press is from around the 1700s, I would love to have it for my garden, next to my Bacchus’s face hanging on the wall.

ItalianWinePress

Home décor stores appeal to me more than anything else. In this store, the atmosphere is dark and minimalist. It displays home items generally a family with kids will not choose to have. The furniture here is theatrical and very playful.

Store Display

What do you do with a metal mannequin dressed in a cotton funky dress or with a rusted bucket and a thick rope spilling out? Nothing, they are nice details that make you wonder. The stone wall behind the bucket gives that natural character, in fact, stones, and metal are two elements found in nature. Between the 1950s-70s a lot of homes had stone interior walls as an accent, then builders got away from using stones and started to build homes without characters, resembling more like shoe boxes.

Ropes-Rusty-Vessel

This table is set for people who like to converse on intelligent topics, while they are sipping a lot of wine and eating small morsels of food, that’s the way I imagine it. It’s dark, minimalist, metal plates, golden tone flatware, glass top table, tall back wicker chairs, but I don’t think a lot of eating is happening here. This décor is suited for single people, high rollers, definitely not for a family with kids.

Table-Setting

I love this swivel chair, it feels like a seed pod.

Flag Swivel Chair

I was intrigued by these bergère chairs, they feel very baroque in style, except the legs are too short and the backs too high. They have been revisited in a modern key.

Napa Store

What I am trying to prove with this post is that an interior décor style must fit your lifestyle, otherwise, as beautiful or posh it might be, you will never feel comfortable in it. I will be happy to help you find your style. 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, they only follow the client’s inspiration, lifestyle, and personality. She offers online design consultations through Skype or Zoom and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of five books.

Amazon – Barnes&Noble

The Shape Is Round | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

The circle is a well-known convivial shape, it is the shape used when dining in groups and in most business meetings. The circle shape doesn’t have a start-end point, thus it represents unity and infinity. It is a protective sign, what’s in the circle stays in and what’s outside the circle will have difficulties coming in. The circle is the symbol of the sun, planet and stars and its influence is stellar.
In Chinese symbology, the circle represents heaven and the square represents earth. A square inside of a circle in Chinese art represents the union between heaven and earth. The yin yang symbol we all know so well is circular and it translates in duality with unified balance.

(Above photo: Scandinavian Designs)

The debate in my last dining room remodeling project was about a square or circle shaped dining table. For long years my clients got used to the square-shaped table. Their table style was outdated and didn’t fit the shape of the new room. Once I talked about these few points I mentioned above and a prospect to sit more friends to dine with them, they agreed the round table was the way to go.

This is a very nice couple well-established in their union and their way of life who have a studious approach to new ideas. The couple doesn’t make decisions on the spot or even in a short-term. The couple approaches new ideas as something that must be digested, pondered, discussed, studied in and out in all the angles until they both are overwhelmed and when finally can’t take it anymore involve me to finalize the decisions.

I opted to go with a circular glass table and circle back Molly chairs versus the more traditional dining chairs seen in every house I am invited to. BTW, at another project, I used the same Molly chairs with a glass square table for the same principle of the square inside the circle, representing heaven and earth. It went so well with that young couple, so different from one another and so unified.

BH&G

I can’t show pictures yet, the dining room is still in the making and not totally finished. The kitchen leading into the dining room is completed and because it is more beautiful than they expected clients refuse to cook in it. They say the risk of making it dirty is high. Wasn’t the idea of remodeling the kitchen to have a better, comfortable space to cook in? I don’t understand. Now the kitchen is beautiful, clean and lonely, like getting dressed up and have no place to go. The result so far is very happy clients, but I am still waiting to get an invitation for a dinner they cooked with their hands.

Let me be your chosen designer who can put stardust in your décor. I can help you with any style. Put your name in the box, leave a comment and I will answer you within 24 hours. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola has been a lifetime designer in fashion and interiors. Her extensive knowledge of colors and materials led her in both directions successfully. She is well-know 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 is the author of ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors. Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w