School of Hope

About 2 years ago, I did some volunteer work on a school down in Tijuana, Mexico called Colegio de la Esperanza. It was a La Rosa Blanca Workshop hosted by the Americas Foundations and Ilan-Lael Workshop. We worked with artist/designer James Hubbel and landscape architect Ilisa Goldman on a most beautiful school created with mosaics and fluid organic building shapes. It is always a work in progress and there were many jobs to do: tending the gardens and landscape, tiling the interior and exteriors of the buildings, pouring concrete for walkways and stairs, etc. These photos will give you a look at what a beautiful school it is turning out to be on top of a hill in an impoverished city.
There are so many children in Tijuana and young families and a lot of them don't go to school. Every student at the school is sponsored and they receive a good education with a huge exposure to the arts, not only visual but performing. All materials used for the job are donated. If you are interested in supporting this school or foundation or a student, you can go through the website or here for a student.

Photos by Rebecca Ward

Making Progress

Since so many of you ask about what I'm working on right now, I thought I would show you. This is one of my clients right now that is pulling together pretty well. It's a remodel of a condominium. The major design challenge for this project is: WHITE. This client loves white. She currently has white carpet, white walls, white vertical blinds, white tile countertops over white cabinets. She mentioned that when she moved in and had the walls painted white, she made sure it was pure white and not an off-white.This, of course is unacceptable in my book. Everything looks so monotone and bleak. So we are incorporating hints of color in the neutral cool tones and natural woods and stone. Implementing these in a clean, contemporary look I think will achieve the same aesthetic the client likes about the color white with adding some life and interest to her home.
I'm very excited about using large grey limestone tiles on the fireplace wall. Grey limestone is probably my favorite of all natural stones. (What a surprise coming from someone whose favorite color is grey!)

Bamboo Wallpaper Revisited

I remember as a kid, studying the bamboo wallpaper that the original owner of my parents house had put into the dining room and the shiny metallic bamboo wallpaper in the bathroom and not caring for it at all. The wallpaper was from circa 1979. I was a more than a willing helper to my mom in stripping the hideous paper from the walls (or painting over it as we did in the dining room - whoever installed it never wanted that sucker to come off those walls!)

Here we are 30 years later and I'm about to commend some bamboo patterned wallpaper from Farrow&Ball! Is it my tastes that have changed or are these patterns significantly better than they were 30 years ago? It's probably both. I will say that the color choice given here are much more diverse and fun than the originals I loathed. Check out some of the fun patterns and colors!