When I think about how I want my decor style to change now that we're making the transition from beachy Los Angeles to the high desert Southwest I often think of Emily Henderson's show Secrets of a Stylist. She would take the differing styles of each member of a couple and then merge it into one style that would work for both. I think we've come up with just such a style for our life in the Southwest. It's Southwest/70s Modern.
Imagine this post is you and me sitting together looking through a catalog and talking. I'm not saying much about the pieces seen here but just the look is what really inspires. I don't know that you need me here saying, "I really like this because, blah, blah, blah." Right?
So let's talk about the house hunt. We are definitely interested in an older home for a variety of reasons. First of which is that all the newer homes have postage stamp size yards and are jammed into a couple of acres like rushhour on an LA freeway. Not what we want after leaving that jam-packed city. Older homes of course always require some sort of restoration, even if some of it has been redone. There is always something that could fall apart at any moment or needs dire attention. So there's always a bit of nail-biting there too.
This spring it seems like all the shops are stuffed to the gills with beach and sealife motifs. Even here in the Southwest there is way too much of the stuff. If I were still in CA I'd be gathering armloads of the these things because a lot of it is pretty fantastic, but I made a pact with myself that I wasn't going to pretend to live a the beach in the mountain desert. All my beachy stuff is in storage and I'm not quite sure what I'll do with it. Some of it I'm sure can be repurposed but there are some items I will probably just leave in a storage closet for a while. I can't think of anything that I absolutely can't use again but it will all be different in a new setting. And I definitely can't justify buying more beach decor.
So my eyes have been trained on getting to know Southwest style better and finding my place in it. Like any style too much of a good thing can get pretty kitschy. I saw a house for sale here a few weeks ago that was so overboard with Southwest decor that it honestly looked like the Pirates of the Carribean ride sets at Disneyland. Stuff hanging everywhere. It was the perfect example of a good thing in excess gone wrong. Every surface was tagged with some Southwest motif. It was kind of sad actually because there were a lot of elements which on their own were pretty cool.
There are no shortage of homes with pure Southwest architecture here and I do have a fondness for them as long as it's not taken too far. I have learned that I am not a big fan of curved archways or windows with semi-circle tops. We've looked at a few one-story traditional Southwest style homes and I'm all for them as long as they have a modern, square-ish touch to them. But inside we will need a nice mix or clean modern and just a touch of the southwest.
CB2: Applique Blues 16" Pillow
One of the elements I really love are polished brick floors and I've seen some pretty brick wall fireplaces that I really like too. One of the homes we looked at had herringbone patterned brick floors and it was so beautiful. This was in my favorite interior of a house we've looked at and it still has my heart. It's pure 70s with a touch of Southwest.
So when I began thinking about developing a post about Southwest Modern 70s style, I started by finding the butterfly chair on CB2 and then intended to branch out to other shops for more options. But then I just kept finding more and more on the CB2 site that really caught my eye and did a fantastic job encapsulating my vision of Southwest Modern 70s. So I am sharing a whole roomful of options from CB2. Love ya, CB2.
This lamp reminds me that I need to share with you the concrete lamp I got a few weeks ago. Now that I've gotten my computer all properly set up so I can download photos my world has opened up again for blogging and photos. Lots and lots of stuff to share with you!
A nice, mellow throw to round out the room. This is just a taste of my vibe on Southwest Modern 70s Style. I'll be sharing lots more with you and I have to say I'm actually kind of glad that the move and house finding process has been slower than we hoped because it's given us a lot of time to get to know ourselves in this new environment and to see what is out there, rather than rushing into a home or into decorating a home.
After resourcing everything I have for my office and finding so many things I love that we could incorporate into our home I feel like I will make much better decisions, save money and time by already knowing what I like and where I can find it. I've also been keeping a list of local artisans who I could resource to have a few things made.
I'm still dreaming about making my own long, rectangle dining table and now I know some people who can help me with that. Exciting. I should see if there are any furniture making classes here in town. There are at least as many world-class artists here as there are in LA but the competition to get access to them and their work is vastly lower here. That's a good thing for us.
Hope you enjoyed this Southwest Modern 70s Style review. I am making a prediction now that Southwest is making a comeback across the design board. One other thing I wanted to mention was how interesting I think it is that there is such a connection and similarity between tribal weaving patterns across the globe. It's so interesting to think that those patterns may have all initiated from the same time and place and then spread across the globe as man migrated.
Thanks for coming by. Have a great day!
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