Last week I was feeling uninspired and started the week off with some favorite works by Paul Klee. It seemed like a very good way to start off the worst day of the week, so today I’m going to treat you to some inspiration compliments of Raoul Dufy. Speaking of, did anyone manage to make it to the exhibition in Mississippi this summer? Does anyone know if that the end of the tour? I can’t seem to find any additional cities after Jackson. I kept thinking I’d make it, but sadly I never did.

Taormina

Casino at Nice

Red Concert

Harbor at Deauville

Blue Mozart

The Orchestra. I like to compare this to his sketch below. It reminds me just how much I stink at line drawing when I see how masterful his is:

I found all of these in a little book from The Pocket Library of Great Art. It cost me $2.50, a whopping 2.5 times the original cost, which was 95 cents in 1953. What a little used bookstore treasure!

The next batch comes to us from flickr member tattywelshie, found in our Fresh New Spaces group. Some of the things I love about this space is the fearless yet restrained use of wallpaper, the mastery of blue (even in the fireplace), that the rest of the palette is clean and bright, the use of metallics and glass, and that tattywelshie believes in eco-friendly design and tries to design in an environmentally responsible way:

by the way, in case you weren’t impressed enough already, here is what the room looked like before:

Oh, this just in, tattywelshie has a blog right here. It looks like it didn’t get very far, so let’s hound him and make him share more with us on it!

all photos from flickr member tattywelshie

I was watching Mad Men the other night, and I loved the scene where that scumbag Pete Campbell was trying to woo the Madison Square Garden developers to let him provide their P.R. and squash the nutball commie preservationists who were trying to save Penn Station (McKim, Mead, and White, 1910). I love that Mad Men focuses in on these pivotal points in history, and evokes a feeling of being on the cusp of momentous change. A phoenix of historic preservation rose from the ashes of Penn Station; its demolition was the catalyst that brought people like Jane Jacobs, Ada Louise Huxtable and a slew of like-minded architects together to fight the good fight for preservating historic buildings and better urban planning. The episode inspired me to take a moment of silence to honor this Beaux Arts Masterpiece.

all images from newyorkarchitectureimages.com

It’s time to start thinking about back to school again, and we want to remind you that we have a Modern College and Dorm category to help you find everything you’ll need for college. Well, except for this:

If you have any good ideas, blog posts you’ve done, favorite dorm room links, or images you’ve taken of your dorm room, please send them in via the comments section. We’d love to see them!

Do you ever get in the design doldrums? Clearly you are a blog browser – do you ever get style ennui? Sometimes I feel very overloaded with so much information that I fail to see freshness because my brain is short circuiting. How do you get the juices flowing again?

One thing I do is climb up and take down one of my many art and design books (I’m a bit of a book hoarder and I’m starting to get a little scared for myself after watching this crazy show called Hoarders on A&E the other night (by the way, this show is really good at inspiring you to clean out the attic, the basement, the fridge, and any other place clutter can gather!). Last week it was this charming little book on Paul Klee that I picked up at my favorite used bookstore on the planet for two bucks. Not only was he a master of form and composition, but Paul Klee mastered color baby! Next time you are in the design doldrums, I highly recommend going to the library and checking out a monograph. For now, I’ll show you a few that jump-started my creative engine:

The next time that I fear picking out FLOR tiles is overwhelming, I’m just going to grab some that make this pattern:

Or this pattern:

This color palette is very Don Draper’s office:

Hmm, in a room this combo might come out looking a little 1980′s Miami, but it could still be great in a nursery or used with the just the right amount of each hue:

Seriously, if you are a clutterbug and you want to be scared straight, check out Hoarders over here.