#Furnishing | 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

Finally in Colors | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

After 25 years or more, unconsciously she felt the need for colors. Her household is made of three men and herself, the only woman, unless she has girlfriends and occasional visitors over whom are not part of the everyday life. Although she decorated her house with taste and classic pieces, the décor has too many beige and black furniture having qualities traditionally ascribed to men. I was invited to speak at her organization on the subject of colors. She attended it and immediately got convinced she needed a transformation. What a transformation has been…..!!!!!
(Click on each photo to view it larger).

(New color scheme)

My goal is to bring femininity into her life, provide some private corners for meditation, writing cards, reading, or receive a close friend for tea instead of sitting in the kitchen. The house is spacious with many unused rooms (the boys are no longer living there). I am creating an office room, energized with colors, where she can perform her work duties, without feeling in an office box. I also introduced her to Ikat pattern and kilim designs mixed with modern lines and some ethnic details.

I can tell you my first time in this house, I started yawning the first five minutes I was there due to too all areas covered with beige, white and black. It was a good thing, because it prompted me to bring color accents everywhere, from rugs, to sofa pillows and bar stools; from wall paint to wall art; interesting mirror shapes and glass accessories; new furniture and new room arrangements. After all, I was called to bring colorful energy. Editing has been part of the restyling concept. It has been necessary to eliminate too many old furniture, too many accessories cluttering each surface, too many styles living in the same space and too many animal figurines. While heavy editing was going on, my new stylish furniture and cheerful colors were pushing in.

(Guest Bedroom)

(Sitting Room)

In a few more weeks the house will be transformed forever and she will never return to beige again.

I will be ready to show the finished product then, for now I can just show vignettes of my restyling concepts. She is now one of us, lovers of colors. She is part of my “get rid of black color” movement.

Colors are contagious for your happiness, be careful how you use them, you might get up in the morning totally cheerful with a smile from ear to ear. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer working in the USA and Europe since 1990, specializing in 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. She also has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15 and on RAI – Italian National TV. Author of three published books, the latest ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors is on the subject of colors.
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w