To me, lighting is one of the essential factors in décor. No different from your sofa, coffee table, or even your art, it’s a facet of design that needs to be thought out very carefully. For example, I have these great Cleo sconces from Circa Lighting in my vestibule. Made of bronze and antique-burnished brass with a matte white shade, they were designed by Kelly Wearstler for Circa and make a statement. Architectural in their design, showing an ode to the mid-century look but a little jazzier with the metal component that protrudes and the backplate. And they’re functional, illuminating the stairway!

These Mélange Pill Form sconces are in my dining room made of antique-burnished brass with alabaster, also designed by Kelly Wearstler for Circa. The reason I chose these is because there is a beautiful soft light that radiates from them. You always have to remember where lights are going. These are in going in a dining room, so you want your lighting to be soft and subtle at night.

When you’re designing a space, remember to take in artificial as well as natural light sources. Many areas are delicate with just natural light. However, these areas usually have dark spots, and even though you probably don’t think much about lighting, having floor lights and lighting in areas that don’t have it is something to consider.

One of my favorite lighting designers is Lee Broom, and here you have one of his Little Lens Flair pendants, composed of two halves combining the solid and the transparent. The upper part is steel with either a black matte or brushed brass finish, and the lower part has a clear, cross-cut lens diffuser. It just radiates with a beautiful glow.

LED lighting is not new, but it has allowed lighting designers to be endlessly creative. So you can see why these loop types of sconces and lights are the rage. They’re fascinating, and though they used to be very expensive, they’re now, luckily, more affordable. The Glow’s Avenue vanity sconce from Etsy consists of four aluminum loops covered in satin white silicone on a black matte horizontal rod and backplate for a dramatic turn. Soft, warm light exudes from four 3000K LED integrated light rings permanently affixed to the rod. The rings have a rose gold toning added to the aluminum light ring giving an extra glow.

Another interesting use of lighting is to include multiple fixtures to create an architectural, linear sculpture. These circular sconces in frosted white available on Etsy make a statement and are beautiful to the eye, positioned as they are, artfully. What’s great about these lights is that they are entirely rotatable, which means you can move them in whatever direction you like.

If you have a cabin or a country home, these Harlow Pendants by Gabriel Scott would look magnificent. They would also look great in a mid-century home as well as in an industrial space.  

Another favorite of mine is this chandelier from Etsy. What I love about Etsy is that it not only promotes small businesses and artisans, but you’re getting a very expensive-looking fixture for a fraction of what it would be from a more extensive manufacturer who has a showroom and overhead and so on. And, you’re also getting an excellent deal, and that’s always important for me.

For example, this Waterful Bubble Chandelier from Etsy looks similar to the very famous, costly ones from Apparatus Studio, but this one is very affordable. round-shaped sconces in frosted white available on Etsy are positioned in this way, artfully, demonstrating how lighting can be art. What’s great about these lights is that their bubble construction harks back to the bubbles in your bubble bath.

Stairway lighting is also essential, and this is where you would typically find chandeliers. In today’s modern home, however,  you see a lot more fun in lighting, as you can see in these linear pendants that seem to be falling from the sky. These are from another excellent Etsy manufacturer.

One of my favorite lamps of all time right now is the Saturn lamp. It’s a floor lamp and looks magnificent and like an authentic mid-century modern piece. It would be a great addition to a living room, dining room, or den.

This portable light is from retailer Design With Reach (DWR), whose high-quality pieces are really fun. I recommend getting this for an area you don’t spend much time in but could use some lighting.

The Mercer Pendant, also from DWR, is a classic, round, LED drum pendant if you want something elegant and straightforward. It features an inner cloth shade encased by a hand-blown outer glass shade. You’ll never tire of its traditional shape.

The DOMI blown glass pendant light is a beautiful mid-century piece that’s timeless. It’s made of blown glass and is dimmable.

What’s fun is that people are decorating their bookcases in their houses now with bulbs and little lights, which is all part of the whole decorative movement, so if you don’t have LED lighting in your bookcase, you can always add some. Make sure you have power in the back and then poke a hole in the back of the bookcase. Then, don’t be afraid and put one in. They look great. This one is the Coprin Small Alabaster Lamp by Michael Verheyden.

My new favorite task lamp is the Gio Task Light that looks adorable on a desk and would look good in the kitchen if you’re looking at a recipe. But, it just looks good everywhere, truth to tell. I want to carry it with me as my purse to the next event/ It’s just an adorable little light.

Last week I visited Arc Blanc, an extraordinary house in Hancock Park, and developer Ori Ayonmike, who is the vision behind it. I wanted to get a sense of where he gets his inspiration because I see lots of houses as a designer, and I’m always in awe of what I see with Ori.

Ori said he always likes home to feel like a hotel. “My father used to be in the hotel business, and my sister and I practically went to school in a hotel room, so I’ve felt this love for hotels from an early age, and I would want to bring that hotel-like look to the projects I develop,” he said. “Most of the time when you go to a luxury hotel, you’re in awe, and that’s really what I wanted to achieve, that emotional reaction you get when you walk into a place and say, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing.”

That’s the exact reaction I got from walking into Arc Blanc. My mouth fell open. Every project that Ori does has these details that are so beautifully thought out. Everything is so well-appointed with items that I haven’t seen really in any other project in Los Angeles. I have not seen the level of detail in any other project. So I asked him how he is inspired to create the minute details that everyone will see and feel: the staircase turnaround, the beautiful baseboards lined with porcelain, and flush with the wood.

“A lot of it happens on the fly,” Ori said. “You have a plan, and with anyone who builds and develops home, you know that, as you start to build, a lot of times when I have my guys leave for the day, I come back, and it’s just me, and it’s empty and quiet, and I start to walk around, and I go, ‘Why didn’t you do this here, that, there?’”

When the workers show up in the morning, Ori added, “It’s like, we’ve got to do this, and we’ve got to do that. And they say, ‘Oh no, you’re changing things again!’ And it’s been a recurring theme. But really, that’s where I get a lot of it. I come in, just me, and in that silence and peace, I’m able to come up with these ideas.”

Ori said he wouldn’t take credit for all the ideas he gives life to in his projects. “There are a lot of great designers and developers out there, and I’m always looking at stuff to be influenced, to get inspiration, which a lot of people do,” he said. “I’m always looking at museums and hotels.”

Developing a house means that you’re creating a home for someone you don’t know, Ori said. “And the thing is, you develop it in such a way that you want to make it special, where’s there’s that one buyer who comes in and says, ‘Oh God, I love this.’”
There were multiple offers on this home, as you can imagine. People were dying, people were crying, “I want this house.” And that must make Ori feel good.

“It does,” he said. “The last project I did which you featured on your channel, we had multiple offers in 24 hours. So that does feel good. When you put out a project, and someone loves it. And they’re ready to make the decision right then.”
I asked Ori about the kitchen in Arc Blanc. To me, it looks like an ode to Parisian design. I love how minimal it is, how clean it is. And the cantilevered table! I asked him how he came up with the plan for the kitchen.

Ori said he likes dark kitchens. “I wanted to do another dark kitchen. Last time, I did a black kitchen, so I didn’t want to do another black one, so the color is cacao. I wanted to bring in a dark vibe, but I also wanted to bring in some color, so we have the island in that and then the counter and cantilevered breakfast table in thermal ash wood. I wanted to bring in these dark tones to give you that movie vibe because you have the white oak floors and the white walls for contrast.”

I told him how much I loved the brass lamp on the island and that I had almost passed out when I saw the master bath. So many people ask me if you can mix your metals, and the answer to that is, absolutely, and this house is an ode to that. So I asked Ori how he mixed gold and black and beautiful porcelain and white oak remarkably well.

“As a designer, you start to create a palette and build these swatches together when you’re creating, and sometimes it’s almost good, and sometimes it’s not,” Ori said. “I always like to play with the ‘not sure.’ You know, when everyone is like, ‘I don’t know about that,’ that’s really where I like to be. So I come up with things that are not necessarily traditional. Like a stone that has black in it with brown cabinets. Usually, you wouldn’t go with black and brown in a space, but those are the kinds of things that I like to do that set my projects apart.”

I told Ori I loved the beautiful rich stone in the bathrooms juxtaposed with straightforward black or white fixtures, very clean. And how every bathroom seemed to be slightly cohesive and slightly unexpected.
“I wanted to do just enough where it feels like it isn’t complete, but it is,” Ori said.

I also told Ori how I loved his veranda, which has an arched opening to the street with a fountain below. He said that was intentional.

“This house is from 1924 and had arches when we purchased it, two in the family room. So we decided to use that as a theme, so we have nine arches altogether,” Ori said. “I wanted the repetition to bring in that old feel while staying modern at the same time.”

I recently put in a new built-in bookcase in my den, and I wanted to show you how it turned out. Built-in bookcases are instrumental to room architecture. They give a space depth, definition, style, and personality, while also providing extra storage. (Never a bad thing.) And because of that, they can increase a home’s value. (Also, never a bad thing.) 

And they’re not just for books. Collections and objets d’art that you love can take center stage on shelving, allowing you to see and live with all the items that you treasure daily.

I love my built-in. It took me forever to commit to putting it in. But, like you, I struggle with what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and I’m thrilled with the way it turned out. That’s because, as you know, once you have a built-in, it’s there to stay. You can’t take it with you to your next home, so make sure this is something you can live with forever.

A lot of detail went into my bookcase’s design and installation. A skilled carpenter first and foremost installed it. The cabinet door fronts are made with flat MDF (medium-density fireboard), necessary to get you the right finish. Then we applied a unique molding called “The Nina” because I did design the blade myself. If you’re in Los Angeles, you can have this made by me, or you can certainly try and mimic it because who are we kidding here? It’s not like I reinvented the wheel. This molding is a specific one that I love and designed, and many ones are similar to this. What’s important to note is that this molding is no more than half an inch at maximum. You don’t want to go more than that. And it was cut linearly and applied after the fact, on top of the MDF. Then was cut right in the middle, and everything was painted on site. What I love about these particular cabinet fronts is that they look like a molded wall. I wanted the cabinets to feel very natural in place, and I also wanted them to have a clean look, so there’s no hardware on them. I didn’t want to eye to be interrupted as it looked at the built-in.

The paint we used here is the same as the wall color because I wanted the piece to feel like a Parisian apartment and have it blend in. It’s a Benjamin Moore paint with a satin finish and doesn’t have a sheen to it, which I like. It’s easily cleanable and feels very smooth. One note on that: make sure your painter sands down the built-in over and over again before painting. That way, you’ll get a smooth finish.

I applied the same baseboard, which runs all through the living room onto the built-in to flush with the wall. It looked as if it had been part of the den for years. The baseboards are 7.25 inches high throughout the house, so I had the piece built with an eight-inch base and then ran the baseboard on top of it.

I styled these shelves to take some of my favorite books, remove all the dust covers, and then select which ones I would use by color. I know many people don’t like that idea and say books for reading, not for decorating, and that’s true, but these are all decor books. So in a way, I’m purposeful with my décor books. I want them not only to give me information about décor, design, and style from my favorite designers, but I also want them to look decorative. So it’s kind of a double entendre. For example, one of my all-time favorite books is one on Helmut Newton, a famous photographer. It comes with an acrylic stand, and having a book out on display with open pages looks excellent and allows someone to leaf through the book and enjoy it. 

Except for three, all the items on the shelves are vintage pieces I purchased a month ago when I went antique shopping in Palm Springs. Palm Springs has many great old antique marts, and the pieces I got are beautiful. They have lots of gorgeous details: they’re glazed, pottery, handmade, and artisanal. So go to your local flea market or even look on eBay and find some glazed pieces in different shapes and sizes and display them on your shelves. 

    I placed these objects in a way that made sense and had some form of symmetry and balance. If I had a book with a sculpture on top of it, I placed a bowl next to it. You want to keep similar objects, like sculptures, a little distance from each other. You should put four to five books in each section and maybe place a decorative object on top of them. If I have a vase on one pile of books, I’ll put a plate on another. 

I put a very large antique glazed amphora here in the corner because the space needed the height, and next to it went a very modern acrylic bookend stand, which I already had. Then I stood up three of the books that mimicked the color of the amphora in the stand. 

For some dimensions, my shelves are three and a half inches thick, the perfect thickness. I would have loved to have some LED light strips in here, but for some reason, I completely forgot to put them in. (This happens to me regularly, where I remember things for everyone but not for myself.) So if you can add lights, go ahead and do that. The depth of the shelves is nine and a half inches, and the depth of the main piece is 23 inches. 

One last thing to mention is you should have a few little acrylic stands. They’re lovely for displaying and enjoying your pieces, and you can place them on top of a set of books for height and texture. Styling your shelves this way allows you to have the books you love and the objects you love in front of you forever.