Armchair Traveler - Fire and Flame via Northern California

Casa Palmero - Pebble Beach

Armchair Traveler - Fire and Flame via Turks and Caicos

Gansevoort - Turks and Caicos

Armchair Traveler - Fire and Flame via Las Vegas

Loews - Lake Las Vegas

Fire pits, torches, lanterns and candles add drama, romanticism, light and warmth to an outdoor space.  We went armchair traveling this week for fire and flame design inspiration.  The use of gas lines and denatured alcohol as fuel for fire pits and torches opens up your design options.  As you'll see this week, hotels and spas have colored way outside the lines when designing with fire and flame and we love the dramatic results.

Get The Look - Outdoor Rug as Design Centerpiece

Photo Inspiration - Decor Pad

With the vast selection of outdoor rug designs on the market these days it is easy to create an outdoor space with a show stopping rug as the focal point of your design. 

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Discover - Modern Design Furniture

Cubes - Sunday Collection at Home Infatuation

A fun aspect of this blog is re-discovering our product through the filter of a weekly topic.  It was a challenging design exercise to shop HomeInfatuation.com with the modern design concept of volume over mass in mind as the filter for finding furnishings.

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Designer Profile - Rick Wittrig

The Olympic Third Rock by Rick Wittrig

Rick Wittrig's talent has taken him on quite a journey. Known for his innovative fire pit designs, the artist was raised in a small Mennonite farming community in central Illinois and has now become a well known artisan creating distinctive centerpieces for outdoor sapces. One of his latest creations was a commission by the Vancouver Olympic Committee to design a fire pit for the 2010 Olympics.

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Discover - Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying A Fire Pit

A good question to ask yourself before you make a purchase is “why do I want a fire pit”. How you answer will tell what style of fire pit you should be shopping for.

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Get the Look - From Temporary Event Vignette to Permanent Outdoor Space

I get a lot of my design and decorating inspiration from reading wedding blogs.  Event designers dream big with their clients and pull out all of the stops for this special day so the events are full of great ideas.  Take this great example I found from Atlas and Campbell Designs, and photographed by Abby Ross on one of my favorite wedding blogs Style Me Pretty.

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Designer Profile - Jeffrey Gordon Smith

A few years back I saw Jeffrey Gordon Smith’s Japanese Cottage in Sunset Magazine and I was immediately taken by his ease of marrying form and function in his design.  The other aspect of his work that struck me was his use of the elements water and fire.  I have yet to run across a designer who I think uses fire in their designs as well as Jeffrey does.

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Armchair Traveler - Outdoor Fire Pits and Fireplaces

Take a trip with me to some of the world's most luxurious hotels and resorts from the comfort of your desk or armchair.  In my opinion, the fantastic worlds that luxury hotels create for their guests are dreams turned into reality. So, I can think of no better design inspiration for our own outdoor spaces. 

Today we are touring outstanding fire pits and fireplaces.

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