the DINING AREA
When we decided to sell our house and downsize to a condo, I really thought the plan was to move to Maui, not double down in a major metropolis. But we concluded that we needed to grind for another 10 years in the big city and ended up leaving our 1930’s Spanish style house, set amongst lush palm trees in the Los Feliz hills, for a new glass tower in downtown Los Angeles.
This transition had me stumped when it came to decor. The vintage rattan, cane and wicker I’d been moodboarding would be incongruous with floor-to-ceiling views of the angular skyscrapers and dreary asphalt of the concrete jungle. But soon my eyes tuned in to the natural elements outside my windows: the swaths of sky, buildings of unearthed rose quartz and green granite, pastels of sun faded surface, the muted tones of the LA skyline and grey-blue glass reflecting car filled streets like dappled light on a slow moving stream. We see spectacular sunrises and sunsets, and every night headlights on an 8-lane river of highway take the place of a starry sky.
Once my focus was adjusted, I knew the spirit of the cityscape could be simpatico with my nature-loving, curve-loving aesthetic. We took an approach which, I think, is most well-played in the dining area of our open floor plan. As long as we carefully selected furnishings that were both sleek and sensuous, as long as there was precision to the form and finish, then the organic would be simpatico with the cityscape. Then we could incorporate natural wood pieces like Dims’ molded wood Cleo chairs alongside a 1980’s post-modern Jerusalem stone table base, and have it make sense. Dishware, which leans a little more refined than rustic, was an easy choice. We still have to settle on a pendant light to hang above the table, but I have my eye on a few which check a lot of boxes.
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