.jpg "HANNAH HAMMOCK") Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the streets, or just swaying to the beat in your favorite summertime swing, the hammock. While relaxing in a hammock is heavenly, I’ve recently discovered there are some major health benefits associated with sleeping in them, as well.
Lucky for me, the two giant oak trees in my backyard are perfectly spaced and aligned for hammock hanging. Although I have a traditional rope hammock and have woken up from peaceful slumber with a waffle pattern on my skin, there are many other options. You seriously might want to consider hanging a hammock indoors once you read more about the health benefits of hammock sleep. View full post »
.jpg "Brian Bedroom") City Bedroom by Laura Mannes Design Furniture can be functional and beautiful, or both. There is only one piece of furniture, however, that provides an intimate and intricate connection to your personal energy, and that is your bed. It’s the place where medical experts say you should spend about one third of your life sleeping soundly in order to achieve maximum health benefits. If your body is your temple, then your bed and bedroom is an important key. I strongly believe in design continuity throughout a home, with bedrooms getting a free pass. The challenge with bedrooms is determining what kind of environment inspires both relaxation and energization. For some, a minimalist design and color palette works, while this style might be a boring existential nightmare for others. Glamour and sophistication is always popular, but many people find their bliss with simple Zen. The proper mattress is essential to attain restful sleep- another story in itself. I like bedrooms to be transportive-enabling you to leave your worries behind and dream sweetly.
The NYC bedroom I designed on the left has Asian touches with a rattan McGuire bed, Dwell duvet and shams, and pillows from Room and Board. Custom walnut nightstands. The hand-made woven shades are from Conrad.
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.jpg "DSC_0284") Yesterday was a gorgeous Mother’s Day- second lucky year in a row! My daughter and I went hiking in the Palisades, on the cliffs and in the forest sitting high above the Hudson River. The combination of walking through the cozy green forest with the expansive river views was balancing, while peering over the edge, straight down the cliffs several hundred feet, was quite the opposite. Overall, hiking here was a more cerebral/internal experience for me than last year’s Mother’s Day at the Bronx Botanical Gardens, which was like spending the day inside a massive color wheel. Since we all love color and can always use some inspiration, here’s that post – back by popular demand.
“Most of us know the colors we like and whether or not we feel comfortable in an environment. However, deciding which colors fit our own space, which colors will make the room feel just right, is very intimidating. My advice: Take your camera, and head outside into nature, where the best color combinations exist in abundance and light.
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.jpg "Machu Picchu") Machu Picchu Having recently returned from Machu Picchu, I, like so many others who have visited the site, was greatly moved by the incredible architectural and engineering prowess of the Incas. Machu Picchu, the awe inspiring masterpiece of environmental and aesthetic design set atop a high ridge in the Peruvian Andes, was built without the use of wheels, iron, steel, mortar-or autocad. Yet, the site’s superlative engineering has endured over 500 years, protected from the region’s heavy rains, mudslides, earthquakes, as well as Spanish Conquistadors! View full post »
.jpg "Greg Smith Contemporary Art and Editions") Greg Smith at Contemporary Art and Editions “Edgy Suburbia” is an oxymoron. Mercifully, on rare occasion it shows up in one form or another like a breath of fresh city air as did ‘Contemporary Art and Editions’, a fine art gallery in downtown Millburn, NJ. The gallery, a pristine and modern open space, shows contemporary art with an energy not readily available in suburban galleries.
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by Laura Mannes
Laura Mannes - Hey David, Glad you liked the piece. You helped inspire it! Hope you are enjoying your travels. Keep writing blog posts, please!
David - What a piece! Thanks for including me in it! Would you mind if I link my post to yours? It seems you’ve done such a brilliant job and quite frankly, it seems even more thorough than mine!
I miss sleeping in a hammock. The benefit of not traveling full time is having a home hammock to shack up in!