INDUSTRIAL WITH A TWIST

A bit of an industrial look or vibe is currently (still) very popular amongst interior savvy people.
Big lamps shaded in mat black or grey hang above many cool dining tables in funky homes. Beautiful! But what if you don't have the budget for these vintage industrial lamps or what if you like color? What are your options?

Muuto has the perfect lamp for you! The Unfold pendant. Made of soft silicon rubber, in many colors, with a perfect mat finish and very affordable. Check out these beauties and see which color fits best to update your own home with.

you can find the muuto unfold, and many others, at mint interiors store.

MINT LOVES FOOD AND DRINKS

I always start my day with a green juice and a soy or almond latte. Ingredients of the green juice may vary but it is always a green one.

This one is with spinach, romaine, cucumber, mint, pineapple, lemon and lime.

Soy latte with skinny quark and homemade granola with nuts.

Every day for lunch I make a salad at home. I either eat it there when working from home or take it with me to the store. It takes me about 5-10 minutes to prep. Loads of vegetables, protein and always some healthy fatties. Either avocado, seeds and nuts, salmon or and egg. Just throw in whatever you like and whats in your fridge. I always make sure my fridge is filed so I have options to vary throughout the week.

Dinner is usually lots of vegetables again with either meet, fish or poultry but we often eat vegetarian as well. A least twice a week.

Yesterdays we ate this great summery salad filled with cantaloupe, strawberries, good quality buffalo mozzarella, parmaham and garlic chili shrimp. Lots of color on a plate makes me happy. I am a designer after all ;). 

PINK

We had so much going on the least few weeks both personally and at work, my head is still spinning... And the end of school year stuff is also hitting hard over here. Always the same story but I never get used to it and it always stresses me out. On top of that I decided to do a 4 day detox cleanse and can only "eat" juice and soup. Today is day 3 and still going strong :).
But I needed a pick-me-up-lift-me-up to mellow me out and what always for me is creating moodboards. I love looking at pictures and putting them together for a great mood/vibe. Currently I am overthinking to painting my cabinet downstairs in a great pink color, including a kitchen wall (my man doesn't know yet) so a pink mood was the obvious choice today.

And yes, it worked, I am mellow... :)

A MINT INTERIORS PROJECT WITH A NATURAL FEEL

Last week I did the presentation for a family home in Amersfoort. The home is currently being renovated and the family will move in end of June, if all goes as planned. They asked me to help them with the layout of the room, a color scheme, playbook for the kids, window treatment and some furniture that needed to be replaced.

They wanted a cosy, warm but natural vibe in the house, with a space for their young kids (1 and 3 ) to play as well and lots of natural light. Not to much color but quit natural. They already choose and light oak looking floor, made a large extension to the back of the house with high doors/windows and made spots in the ceiling.

Not to loose this hight and light I opted for wavy linnen curtains in a misty grey color in the back of the house. Just sublime if you ask me. This way you keep comfortable and protected without people being able to look in but you don't have heavy and to formal sort of curtains. IN the front of the house we wil place wooden blinds to filter the light and to keep clear of peeping Toms ;).

My clients assumed the spots would be sufficient as a lighting source, but I convinced them to add some other lighting as well. You really do need different sorts of lighting from different sorts of angles to make it feel comfortable and pleasant, otherwise the light can become unpleasant and just functional. See an earlier post on lighting here.

Ofcourse we could not do with a couple of my favourite pieces! The Woods wallpaper from Cole&Son, the Dunbar sofa from Fest Amsterdam, the Milk lamp from &Tradition and cushions from both Ferm Living and By Molle. (see here and here)

After the presentation they were so enthusiastic about the plans that they will be implementing them during the next couple of weeks.

STYLING TIPS BY MINT INTERIORS

As an interior designer people often ask me for tips to style their homes. Styling really is a whole other subject for me then designing. Obviously you take a certain vibe and style into account when designing for a room/home but the details are often specified later. In my case that is.

Here some Styling 101  to get you started.

1) dont scatter everything around the house/room and put little stuff all over the pace. This tends to look messy.  Create a couple of places around the room where you group little plants, photographs etc., stylingspots if you like. You can use your dining table, a cabinet, stool, bookshelves and other places to crate these little stylingspots.

2) You can use the same color or color scheme for all your styling items. This way you can get more "extreme" in the design of the items without it going "all over the place" and you create a very serene look. For a bit more funk you can choose 1 or more items in a contrasting color, so they really stand out or go all the way with color. Whatever you do make sure you vary in lengths and size of the items to make it an interesting collection to look at. 

styling by karin meyn

3)  When it comes to frames: places your posters and artwork in frames on a drawer, cabinet, or even against a wall. Place them slightly one over the other, or hang them on the wall. Here you can go neat and go for a "frame-like" style or just put them randomly as you see fit. Framed or with masking tape. When you use frames there are endless varieties to choose from. You can stick to 1 kind of frame and color. But you can also use different sizes and types of frames and paint them in the same color. Or just go all the way with different frames and sizes and colors. Whatever rocks your boat and makes the look complement the rest of the home.

photography and styling by mydeer.

Styling is all about putting the dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Do what feels right for you, what makes that you feel at home and what complements the room.  Go for it!

MINT INTERIORS LOVES KIDS

I love designing for all sorts of people, young, old, but especially for kids. There are so many cool kids accesories on the market nowadays that litterally everyroom can be transformed into cool little places. It is a great excuse to buy all sorts of pretty stuff you wouldnt buy for yourself. But hey it's for your kids so than it's ok. ;)

I wanted a black and white room for both my kids. With hints of dark blue and army green for him and mint and pink for her, but they both argued with me when I suggested it, so I didn't.
They apparently dont understand black and white doesn't have to be boring and want rooms with a) all Ninjago / Skylander posters (over my dead body!) or b) all colors of the rainbow, with highlights in gold and fuschia pink (which is a color I really dislike). I will just have to wait until I can make another little kid happy with a black & white themed room ;).

Black and white can be a very versatile and subtle way to style a kids room. You can add a little pastel color to soften it up a bit or a dash a bright color like yellow or red to give a cool and playfull vibe.

Miniwilla has really nice posters for kidsrooms and a lot in black&white. I love the funny and a bit awkward doll cushions by lucky boy sunday. 
Ferm Living also has some cool black&white stuff like wallpaper and cushions.

pic credits for liveloudgirl, eeflillemor, smallable and uberkid
Some really great and inspiring blogs and websites with lots and lots of kids inspiration.

DOWNTIME

Still after glowing here from a relaxed couple of days / long weekend.
Thursday and Friday the kids had some days off from school. We choose to spend the Thursday together as a family. We started out with a relaxed and lazy breakfast and some games. Later we baked pancakes for lunch and went to Amsterdam to eat some ice-cream and see what we felt like doing afterwards. It was super busy, but the weather was great and so was the atmosphere. We enjoyed some great coffee at Screaming Beans, I bought a sweater at COS, and we just had fun. On the way back we ended up on a sunny terras with some bitterballen (a Dutch hearty treat) and cold beers. We decided to keep the holiday vibe going at went out for dinner in our local favorite.

Friday and Saturday I went back to work in my store, and on some current projects.
We had dinner at friends (one of my very first real Mint interiors clients!) and Sunday I had an all women's boat trip in the canals of Amsterdam. Lots of laughter, sun, wine and food.

first Mint project / not styled

Amsterdam by boat

Amsterdam by boat