San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 23, 2014

San Francisco-based interior designer Antonio Martins, of Antonio Martins Interior Design, is pleased to be participating in his second San Francisco Decorator Showcase. Antonio Martins has turned an unimaginative master bedroom into a captivating space that takes a modern approach on historical elements.

Staying true to honoring heritage, an antique Portuguese Bilros bed, carefully preserved by Antonios family since the 18th century, commands attention and is the primary inspiration for the space. Made of Pau-Santo, an exotic rosewood, the design of the bed adheres to the strict guidelines of the period. I have always loved this bed, which incorporates our family crest, and the Showcase was the perfect excuse to bring it to San Francisco, says Antonio Martins.

As a celebration of Portuguese culture, the walls are covered by blue and white tiles (Portuguese Azulejos), faithful copies of 18th century patterns and designs. Offering a 21st century twist on traditional form and pattern, Antonio has expanded the tile size and shuffled the images to become a modern piece of art. I love the use of traditional designs and techniques in a whole new way.

A total of 243 oversized tiles were hand-painted by master decorative painters Linda Horning and Katherine Jacobus, working together for the first time on this incredible task.

The 2014 San Francisco Decorator Showcase is open from April 26 through May 26, 2014 at 3660 Jackson Street in San Francisco. The house is open Tuesdays through Sundays and Monday, Memorial Day. The hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday: 10:00a.m. 3:00 p.m. (last entry), Friday: 10:00 a.m. 7:00 p.m. (last entry), Sunday and Memorial Day: 11:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. (last entry), CLOSED MONDAY (except Memorial Day).

Tickets are $35 for general admission, seniors $30. More information on this annual charitable event benefitting the University High School scholarship fund, can be found at decoratorshowcase.org.

About Antonio Martins:

Antonio Martins studied hotel management in Switzerland, and worked for 11 years building a successful hotel career in Asia. From Hotel operations to Hotel design, he puts his marks in some of the finest venues in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Argentina and most recently Chicago.

His residential career began in San Francisco, while obtaining a Masters of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture and Design. An artist at heart, Antonio brings an eclectic approach to interior design, with an interesting mix of antiques, modern artwork and contemporary furniture.

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Antonio Martins Participates in the 2014 San Francisco Decorator Showcase Featuring a Master Bedroom That Tells a ...

When it comes to decorating your home, the choices are many.

From flea markets to furniture stores, from Costco to custom manufacturers, sources abound for furniture and accessories that can add function and style to rooms.

But with so many price points to choose from, how do we know where to spend and where to splurge?

Many turn to Lauri Ward for guidance.

Ward is the mother of interior redesign, the concept of decorating by rearranging and reusing things you already own. She's president of Use What You Have Interiors, a design firm in New York and Florida, and the founder with her husband of the Interior Redecorators Network (www.interiorredecorators.com), an organization of decorators who are trained and certified in her methods. She's also written four books on interior redesign, including "Use What You Have Decorating and Downsizing Your Home With Style."

As the nature of her work implies, Ward doesn't advocate spending with abandon. Many times, you can find what you need just by "shopping" your own home, she said. It just requires developing an ability to look at your possessions with new eyes and see their potential.

But sometimes, she said, paying more for good-quality pieces is a smart investment that saves money in the long run.

"If you get good basics and classic pieces ... they will just always hold on," she said.

Ward said she would put money into a good-quality seating in clean-lined, classic styles and solid colors no exaggerated rolled arms, no plaids or prints that won't stand the test of time. You can always update sofas and chairs with inexpensive throw pillows that can be replaced or recovered whenever your tastes change.

Ward believes armless chairs are smart for the living and dining rooms, especially in smaller spaces. At the dinner table, armless dining chairs let you fit two people at each end of the table on holiday dinners, she noted. In the living room, armless upholstered chairs take up less space than bigger chairs with arms, and you can get into them from three sides, not just one.

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Decorator offers tips on where to splurge, scrimp

My Stuff #39;s Chair
I really should hire an interior decorator. This doesn #39;t really match my stuff #39;s desk. Subscribe for tons of fun: http://dft.ba/-gisikw Stalk me on Twitter: ...

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Riteish Deshmukh? Interior decorator?
You have seen Riteish Deshmukh playing comic roles, now watch him designing homes. Check out http://www.ideapopcornstreet.com/ for more videos.

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Riteish Deshmukh? Interior decorator? - Video

Interior Decorator On Trial Over #39;Designer Show Houses #39; On Long Island
According to one Northshore village official the popular attractions are illegal. CBS 2 #39;s Carolyn Gusoff has more. Official Site: http://newyork.cbslocal.com...

By: CBS New York

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Interior Decorator On Trial Over 'Designer Show Houses' On Long Island - Video

Mr. Buatta shows off one of his interiors. (Mario Buatta: Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration/Rizzoli)

I like a place that looks lived inmagazines and books everywhere, pleasing decay, declares celebrated interior decorator Mario Buatta. Im kind of a hoarder. I love to have objects around me.

A champion of clutter, Mr. Buatta has spent his life gleefully rebelling against the aesthetic impulses that led to the fanatically clean house with all-white, modern interiors where he grew up on Staten Island.

Manor House Master Bedroom, Morristown, NJ. (Ernst Beadle)

Known as the prince of chintz for his devotion to that most cluttered of prints, Mr. Buatta built his 50-plus-year career on English country-style interiors that delight in old-fashioned abundance: cabbage rose-covered couches and canopy beds, paintings hung by sashes and bows, chinoiserie, big vases of flowers, brightly colored walls, bibelots and books. His rooms are vibrant, colorful and specific, a rejection of the tasteful dreariness of gray, white and beige interiors found in so many homes. The aesthetic appeals to both old money and new money that wants to look oldhe counts Barbara Walters, Jackie Onassis, Henry Kissinger and Mariah Carey among his clients.

The Observer recently spoke with Mr. Buatta, who last fall celebrated the publication of his first book, Mario Buatta, Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration, a 432-page overview of his work that he playfully dubs the Buattapedia. Alas, he declined to be interviewed in his apartment on East 80th Street. My apartment looks like a wreck! he exclaimed, citing clutter and dust that were excessive even for his tastes.

What are the first things you take into consideration when you start decorating a house for a client? You have to create a background for them, a stage for them to play out their lives. It should be a place that will flatter them. You want to make your rooms happy, and its good to have night colors and day colors. I could never live in an all-white house, because I was born in an all-white house.

What was the house you grew up in like? Very modern. My mother was a neurotic, and she hated dustI think of dust as a protective coating for my furniture! If you lit a cigarette, shed start cleaning out the already-clean ashtrays. She would vacuum herself out of the house. My father, who was a musician, would often come home late, and she could tell whether he was there or not by the footprints in the carpet.

You wont ever find too much white in a Buatta design. (Scott Frances/Architectural Digest Conde Nast Publications)

How did you develop such a different aesthetic? My aunt Maryher house was all English chintz, Duncan Fyfe, Chippendale-style furniture, chinoiserie. By age 11, I had bought my first antique, an English, 18th-century lap desk with a wood inlay and painting on the front. It was $12, and I bought it on the 50-cent-a-week layaway plan. I was not allowed to bring it into the house, because it was secondhand. I had to put it in the garage and spray it for three days. But by the time I moved out, I had my bedroom, the garage and the attic all filled up. I was always a collector.

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Thoroughly Un-Modern Mario: The Prince of Chintz on Dust and Decorettes

Los Angeles (PRWEB) April 10, 2014

Dacor, manufacturer of ultra-premium kitchen appliances, is pleased to announce it is the official appliance sponsor of the internationally-recognized 2014 Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club Decorator Show House. An annual event, 22 celebrated interior designers will renovate Manhattans legendary, The Mansion on Madison adjacent to The New York Palace hotel. Featuring fine furnishings, art, technology and a new Dacor kitchen, guests will pay to tour the 26,190 square-foot mansion with proceeds benefitting the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. This year, House Beautiful, a sponsor of the kitchen, is working with Dacor on this project, which will be seen in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

Since its inception in 1973, the show house has raised more than $19 million for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, which offers after-school and enrichment programs for New York City youth.

The Mansion on Madison is truly an iconic New York landmark, and Dacor is thrilled to be a part of it, says Dacor CEO Chuck Huebner. Not only are we pleased to participate in this must-see design event, but we look forward to simultaneously supporting the regions youth through this premier fundraiser.

The show house will feature several Dacor products, including its Discovery iQ 48 Dual-Fuel Range and Discovery iQ 30 Wall Oven, the worlds first smart cooking appliances with a fully-integrated, connected tablet. The Dacor Discovery iQ technology empowers users to customize their cooking experience. From downloading apps to accessing intuitive cooking tools, Dacor offers home chefs products that evolve and change with their lifestyle.

Dacor will host four private events at the show house for new and current dealers, designers, and builders to experience the home. Additional products to be displayed include Dacors Discovery WineStation, Discovery 48 Integrated Built-In Refrigerator, Renaissance 30 Epicure Warming Drawer and Renaissance 24 Integrated Dishwasher.

Leading expert in kitchen and bath design, Matthew Quinn will lead the restoration of the mansions kitchen, utilizing Dacor products to bring functionality, aesthetics and comfort to the space. Based in Atlanta, Quinn is a principal at Retrofit Ventures and Design Galleria Kitchen & Bath Studio. Additionally, he is the founder of the Matthew Quinn Collection, a new showroom concept in luxury kitchen, bath and architectural hardware that blends the best available with his own expanding lines of kitchen, bath and closet products.

This historic mansion in Manhattan is the perfect setting for guests to see Dacor's newest generation of appliances displayed in a dream kitchen, says Dacor President Steve Joseph. Dacor leads the smart cooking revolution, and we are eager to connect with design enthusiasts at the mansion in May.

More than 15,000 guests are expected to tour the show house located at 457 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The show house will be open to the public through the month of May 2014.

About Dacor

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Dacor to Sponsor the 42nd Annual Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club Decorator Show House in New York

Southern Living Showcase Home at The Bluffs - Decorator Introduction
The 2012 Southern Living Showcase Home at The Bluffs (http://thebluffsofweiss.com) was inspired by the stunning Weiss Lake views of The Bluffs. Here the inte...

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TRI-STATE NEWS HEADLINES

From our newsroom to your inbox weekday mornings at 9AM.

LAUREL HOLLOW, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) Designer show houses are popularin wealthy suburbs and often draw thousands of visitors. But the village of Laurel Hollow says the attractions are illegal and has put an interior decorator on trial.

As CBS 2s Carolyn Gusoff reported, designer Claudia Dowling is charged with operating a commercial business in a residential neighborhood.

Dowling organized a designer show house at a historic Gold Coast mansion last year. Twenty-five decoratorstransformed rooms into showcases of their work, donating a quarter-million dollars in renovations to a homeowner trying to sell the house in exchange for public exposure of their crafts. Brochures were printed, and theshow house was set to open to the public on Labor Day 2013 before the village shut it down.

I thought I had the go-ahead, said designer Claudia Dowling. I certainly wouldnt spendall that time and money and other designerstime and money if I didnt think I had the go-ahead.

I didnt go out to harm anything.

Howard Avrutine, Laurel Hollow village attorney, said the law has to be enforced to protect neighbors.

Its no different than if I had a retail store, he said. Instead of selling shirts, Im selling my services.

If you lived next door to this home, would you want to see business activity going on on a daily basis for an eight-week period with vehicles coming in and out? Avrutine said.

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Interior Designer Faces Jail Time For Organizing Long Island Show House

Death Cab For Cutie - Death Of An Interior Decorator (piano cover)
From the album Transatlanticism.

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