I think the contrast I like the most when it comes to interiors is when sleek, contemporary designs like this gorgeous cluster light are enhanced against rustic, vintage, industrial materials.

Via Casalil

By Day...
16/12/2010:
2pm: Crisis hit us...No more Royal Mail Dispatch Express labels. Over 350 parcels sitting on our packing table which we can't send.
3pm: Body gives in and neck gets stuck...purely and simply. I can't bent over, turn left or right without being in excruciating pain
5pm: off to bed to fool my body and make it believe I will relax
9pm: Steve emailed me from Hong-Kong where he and Mila on the first leg of their flight to N-Z
17/12/2010
8am: Neck back to normal, off to work
4pm: Call Royal Mail to track down supply order. Get told they may arrive the day after we've closed for the holidays. Stress level get a promotion...Email everyone I know at RM including IT and accounts to get someone to help...no luck
4.30pm: Call back RM. Luck strikes...The person on the phone tells me that I should have ordered them before...
And I'm sitting on my chair full of 'can do/there must be a solution' attitude...thinking...that's bound to help me...I have been working from 8am to 11 pm for the past 8 weeks, had our Customer Service Advisor leaving us suddenly for health reasons at our busiest time ever and all this girl can tell me is that I should have planned this...nevermind
6pm: Come up with a back-up plan to print label on normal office labels. Crisis sorted in 24 hours (call me Jack Bauer)
8pm: Order curry, skype Steve & Mila who are now in New-Zealand. Mila has already fed the cows, had ice-cream for breakfast and is watching Barbie...
By night
Since I saw this home in Elle Decoration, it has been the template of what I would like to achieve with our kitchen in London...a simple, yet functional space stripped of the unnecessary...no kitchen units on the walls to keep a sense of space, just simple shelves to display beautiful, organic tableware (mine is Vera Wang's Naturals first spotted at Merci in Paris and tracked down in the UK), ideally a mix of vintage, wooden furniture with industrial, concrete finishes and a big, big table to have at least 12 people around. So here is more images of one of my favourite homes.

Via Design shimmer

Steve and I have recently agreed to transform our lounge into something similar to what photographer Paul Massey did with his home. This is quite a big job. A lot of structural work is involved and the whole family (Lucas included) would have to move out for at least 6 weeks.
My friend Mandy who is trying to convince her husband to put large black floorboards in their lounge asked me how on earth I managed to do this..you know... to get him on board, to agree to what I want.
Umm...if I knew, I would probably write a book called :"How to convince your husband to let you do whatever YOU want in the house" and I would probably be rich :-)
The truth is that I never take no for an answer...I spent months showing him rooms, homes, styles I like and at first, I was only getting negative, grumpy and stressed out NOs but I would come back to it later on with similar styles but different images...Persistance girls, persistance!!
Now that we have also agreed to a new kitchen with polished concrete floor like this home in Amsterdam, I have to show him the kitchen below from Paula Leen's home...although probably not from my post with the comment above :-) Have a great week!

(C) Photography by Hotze Eisma via Emma's Design Blog