A beautiful vintage industrial home and café

What happens when you combine two foodies, South of France style, North American charm and a Michelin-starred chef? The wonderful café Maman, that's what!  Elisa Marshall and Benjamin Sormonte had been living and working in various places around the globe including France and Ibiza before taking over a former machinery shop in SoHo, New York. The pair left the tin ceilings, exposed brickwork walls and original 1920s flooring untouched and added vintage and antique furniture to maximise charm. They also installed an industrial window so that guests can watch Michelin-starred chef Armand Arnal in action. Oh how I could drop in there now and wile away a morning?! Their six-floor loft in nearby Tribeca is pretty beautiful too and follows the same industrial vintage style - but with a touch of romance - think florals, sheer curtains and pipes painted in gold. Let's take a peek inside the Sormonte-Marshall household and café Maman....
 

The loft

The café

 

Photos: Nicola Franzén - shared with kind permission. Lonny mag. Post inspired by It's Monday but it's OK

What a world they've created? Just beautiful, don't you think?

A few notes on where items in the home are from in case you're interested: vintage letters, dresser found on Krrb / bar cart, table and chairs found at Brooklyn Flea, plant pot from Anthropologie, hanging plant holders.

Two fab DIY ideas to steal- Marshall and Sormonte collected Pez dispensers, sprayed them gold and framed them - such a nice idea. The sofa  / day bed was made from pallets (see a step by step guide here).

You can read more about the home and café here. 

Oh and there were lots of questions about where the throw was from in this Swedish home on Monday - and now I have the answer, yay! (thanks lovely anonymous commenter!!) You can find more details in the post if you're interested. 

Got to rush off as I have a V.V.V.I.P guest arriving from London tonight - my Mum! There's a bed to be made, a bar to be stocked and some recipes to be whipped up (if only I had the helping hand of Armand Arnal!), go, go, go!

Have a lovely day!

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Peek inside the world's smallest luxury home

....And it's fab too! The brainchild of Tiny Heirloom, this super cool custom home on wheels, was handcrafted in Portland, Oregon with an aim for people to have the freedom to enjoy a little luxury and then be able to pass it on to the next generation. Beautifully built with everything you could possibly need (and a pretty cool interior to boot), home is literally where you park it!

How fantastic? Could you take off in one of these?

Where shall we head first...?

It reminds me of previous fabulous homes on wheels I've featured- including this alternative garden shed (so cute!),  an out house retreat in Nashville (available on AirBnB) and a vintage caravan (available to rent), who needs a real house anyway?

And do you remember the girl who renovated her garden shed into a work studio and then loved it so much she moved in and rented her house so she could pursue her art full time?!  And it seems there's a load more people following suit - you can read more about the tiny house movement here if you'd like. Makes sense? I also love '8 reasons I love life in a small house'.

I once surprised my husband with a stay at the world's smallest hotel in Copenhagen, Central Hotel og Café, it's honestly the greatest place I've ever stayed! It had a tiny reception with one key hanging on a hook for the one room, outside two bikes were waiting for us (do you remember the beautiful home of one of the girls who works there?).

While researching for today's post I discovered a lorry load of inspiring blogs dedicated to tiny houses including: tiny house swoon,  tiny house blog, small house big adventure.

I have to admit, I feel so inspired by today's post, it makes me feel I could live on our little sail boat and travel the world after all....

Have a lovely day! 

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