Designer
Selina Lake created this world style-influenced backyard vignette using a vintage
suzani, feminine-hued throw pillows, and a jaunty crystal-accented parasol. While you might not have all of these elements in your garage or attic, I bet you could round up a few to create a similar cozy outdoor space at your own home. I'm currently contemplating taking our old coffee table out of the garage and setting it on a back deck platform in our yard, adorning it with lanterns and throw pillows, and inviting friends over for a midnight Scrabble marathon.
After months of heated anticipation, I've finally had the blessing to read
Bazaar Style, an interior design book from beloved Designer Spotlight, stylist
Selina Lake, interiors writer Joanna Simmons, and interiors photographer Debi Treloar, which was just released in April. Chock full of salivating images of homes furnished with French flea market and
Moroccan bazaar finds, alongside modern design classics, big-box buys, and inherited antiques, the book will reveal the potential in your beat-up furniture and a can of
paint, inspire you to paint the surround of a window to frame the view, and liberate you to break conventions, be it by setting your table with mismatched china, or duct taping fresh flowers to the wall. While the photography alone would be enough to sell me on this title, unlike
some of its contemporaries, the ratio of editorial advice to image content is not negative, let alone meager; Lake and Simmons have channeled their industry expertise into hundreds of tips, suggestions, and solutions for achieving this unprecedented style in your home.
In today's Spotlight, the designer is actually an interior stylist. In other words, as
Selina Lake said in her recent
interview with decor8, her "role is usually to produce images, which are used to sell products, and to inspire magazine and book readers," rather than "to design residential and commercial properties," as an interior designer would. Her editorial experience ranges from decorating and house features to styled shopping shoots and makeovers.
