Say hello to the Lights Up! Walker 5 Arm Chandelier AKA my new personal favorite light fixture from Lights Up!. I am a huge fan of faux bois everything and these shades are no exception. Gorgeous! If faux bois isn’t your thing, don’t worry — this chandelier comes in 31 shade fabric options and they are all made from 100% Recycled PET fabric! If that’s not enough to make you fall in love, you even have a choice between candle clip shades (shown above) or a large drum shade (shown below). How great is that?!

Click to check out the Lights Up! Walker 5 Arm Chandelier and the entire Lights Up! collection.

I know I mentioned Richard Woods when talking about the 9 by Design house on the West Side Highway. I thought I’d swipe a few images from his site and tempt you to go visit it. Woods plays with graphics and materials in unique ways, playing with expected conventions and artfully amping them up. Before I checked out his website I was familiar with his faux brick house and his furniture, but I hadn’t checked out his entire body of work. Here are a few favorites:

all images from richardwoodsstudio.com

Wow! I cannot believe the difference in Desire to Inspire’s Kim’s bathroom! It’s in my all-time favorite color combination, taxicab yellow, black, and white. She even managed to throw in a little bit of green. This is how you do vintage modern – Kim has the perfect combination of old and new pieces. Check out all of the little details, like the light fixtures and those black and white hooks. Make sure you look at the entire renovation process that includes the BEFORE pictures over at Desire to Inspire.

All photographs from flickr member (and Desire to Inspire author) kimhas7cats. One of my very first flickr contacts, back when there were only five cats. Thanks you for adding these to our Fresh New Spaces group Kim!

So, what did you all think of 9 by Design? I enjoyed it a lot. What impressed me the most was how they transformed their ho-hum apartment so quickly with just a few moves – clearly these folks have a knack for this. Well, I suppose that was already clear, but still.

If I had to compare it with my all-time favorite, Flipping Out, it’s no contest. I would WAY rather watch a fastidious, hilarious gay man with a rapping assistant and co-dependence issues with his housekeeper flip houses than people with a family larger than the Brady Bunch. Of course, I am a childless single person, so shows about kids usually make me really anxious or really bored. It looks like the ways the Novogratzes design is more interesting. While Jeff Lewis creates beautiful homes and his taste is impeccable, it’s also pretty predictable. The Novogratzes, on the other hand, use a lot of unique flea market pieces and do creative things like getting siding from Richard Woods for their projects. I noticed they started small with one of his dressers, and now they are going all out on the exterior – pretty cool! Also, I can’t imagine how many palms one must grease to get this kind of construction done in Manhattan. It seems like a nightmare.

All in all, I was pretty amused and enjoyed the show a lot. Did anyone else watch? What did you think? Which would you rather watch, this or Flipping Out? Or would you rather turn off the TV and design your own dream house instead?

This is totally stupid, and it’s been done before, but it still made me chuckle here and there. An appropriate Cribs for the current economy starring Seth Green: