Beautiful art nouveau museum in Nancy

It took a while to remember that Nancy was the city of the movement for Art Nouveau. The museum Musée de l'École de Nancy houses the perfect amount of furnitures from that time that we cannot see elsewhere. It was such a pleasure to walk through the number of beautiful pieces, thinking about this very short lived period, which marked its end during World War I. I still remember how I felt as a student how it was such a pity that such a beautiful style went unpopular and extinct, because it was so difficult to combine with other furnitures, which is indeed true.

Our new B&O Beoplay

Imari porcelains from Sweden

Of course these are originally from Japan, but I managed to buy these off of Bukowskis Market's auction from Sweden. It's assessed to be from 18-19th century and genuine Imari from Kyushu. I got it for an incredible deal, because the auction happened to end at an inconvenient time and there was no bidding war. Funny (and nice) how these old Japanese stuff can be more easily and cheaply (re)purchased in this part of the world!

The plates would go super well with these lacquer bowls as the most recent and appreciated gift from mom.

My Frankfurt apartment is slowly getting furnished

 

 

 

Furnishing an apartment takes 2 months more in Germany, as furnitures are built as of when the order is put in. But the apartment is slowly taking shape now. For antique furnitures, below are useful auction websites for purchasing old European furnitures (and sometimes Chanel stuff), but just be aware of the transfer bit to reach your home. As one can imagine, many are shipped out of Denmark.

 

Lauritz

Buskowskis Market

Roman pool at the Hearst Castle

 

Can you believe that a place like this actually exists (maintained as such)? It's from the time of Great Gatsby, and was owned by newspaper mangnate Mr. William Randolph. This is one of the two pools at the Hearst Castle in California, in between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Check out some other rooms.

 

Photo credit: Twisted Sifter

Bubble chandelier

I saw this chandlier at the Fredriksborg Castle in the outskirts of Copenhagen. This castle is the largest Renaissance castle in Scandinavia, and surprisingly built by the same guy (King Christian IV) as the one who built the yellow houses I posted before. Christian IV ruled Denmark for an astonishing 59 years.

Wooden bowls from Laos

The Selby? in Laos

This was definitely a Selby worthy house! To get here, go up the Mekong River for 1.5 hours from the slow ferry port in Luang Prabang, and stop on the left bank before you reach the 4,000 Buddha cave. This house is in the whiskey village half-way through to the colorful temple at the far end.

    

  

Coastal living at the Brewery Gulch Inn

Brewery Gulch Inn in Mendocino was like a page from the magazine Coastal Living. You feel like you're visiting someone's home as the accommodation included a very nice dinner with lots of vegetables and a big living room like area that you can just hang around in front of the big fireplace.

From San Francisco, we drove on Highway 1, up along the Pacific Ocean for about 2.5 hours. In case you are bringing a helicopter, the website says they're very friendly to those arriving by air too.

Loving my new HK apartment

As much as I love the look of this place, the main feature is the view. Only in Hong Kong...

Elvi's new house