Ad Home Design Show 2013 Photos

We had a blast on Pier 94 this weekend at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show, showing a custom entertainment center design and one of our new Aventa wardrobe armoire/ entertainment center combination pieces for the bedroom.

A great big thank you to everybody who stopped in at our space!

For those of you who couldn’t make it, we’ve compiled a few photos from the show.

Aventa TV Armoire Draws a Crowd

Aventa TV Armoire Draws a Crowd

Unique TV Furniture for Bedroom and Living Room

Unique TV Furniture for Bedroom and Living Room

Finish and Handle Samples

Samples of our wood tones, colored glass, mirror options and handles

Custom Wall Unit in Espresso Colored Glass

Custom Wall Unit in Espresso Colored Glass

Custom Wall Unit Front View

Custom Wall Unit Front View

Wall Unit Side View

Wall unit side view – glass shelves and mirror detail

Now that the show’s over, we have resumed normal business hours here at our factory showroom in Passaic, NJ. It’s just a few miles outside of NYC, so whether you were able to visit us at the show or not, you can always stop by and see a larger representation of our custom furniture in person.

Visit Us at the Arch Digest Home Design Show This Weekend!

Design Show 2012

We’re super excited to be exhibiting at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show again this year!

If you’re going to be near New York City this upcoming Friday, Saturday or Sunday (March 22-24) we invite you to come check out some of our furniture and samples of the materials we use when creating it.

Special preview tickets are also available for Thursday, March 21. Details are on the official site.

Find us at Booth 240!

There are always plenty of other high quality exhibits at the show as well, so it’s a worthwhile trip no matter what, and a fun way to spend the day.

The show is held indoors at Pier 94, 55th Street at Twelfth Avenue, NYC. Directions for driving, public transportation, even airfare and hotel discounts, are all available at the official site.

Get Discounted Admission

It’s still not too late to register for discounted admission using the instructions we posted a few weeks ago.

While we’re at the show, our factory showroom in Passaic, NJ will be closed to the public. We will reopen for normal hours on Monday, March 25.

So if you can’t make it to the show, while you’ll be missing what promises to be another excellent display of quality and creativity, you can still come check us out on the Jersey side of the river any other time you’d like.

We hope to see you at the show this weekend!

Aventa Collection – New Bedroom TV Furniture Includes Wardrobe Storage

Aventa Wardrobe Wall Unit in White

One of our favorite things about being furniture designers is the opportunity to create things that people really need, but don’t always exist in the marketplace.

The new Aventa Collection is our most recent example of this. While customers have been enjoying our modern entertainment centers and wardrobe closets individually for a long while, until now when customers wanted to combine wardrobe storage and TV display furniture in their bedrooms the only choice was to get quoted for a full custom piece.

As far as we’ve been able to tell, that was true everywhere. Even though it’s very common for people to have a television and clothes in their bedroom (you probably already knew that), many customers have attempted to shop around for comparable furniture and reported an inability to find any furniture designed to hold both without starting a custom design from scratch… until now.

Bedroom Furniture Has Evolved Forever

Our new Aventa Collection is so unlike anything that exists in the marketplace, we must confess it was a bit challenging to come up with a name for it.

We finally decided to call them bedroom wall units. While any entertainment wall unit could be used in the bedroom, entertainment furniture usually has a focus on elements like open display space and dedicated media and electronics areas.

This makes sense for a living room or other common space used for entertaining, but most people don’t need that in their bedrooms. It’s a far better use of bedroom space to combine the television with dedicated wardrobe storage space like hanging cabinets and armoire drawers.

As a result of these simple observations the bedroom wall unit was born, right here in New Jersey, a few miles across the Hudson from downtown NYC.

Custom is Still King

While the release of the Aventa wardrobe walls makes this furniture more affordable, we haven’t strayed from our roots of custom furniture design.

Like all of our furniture, even the “standard” units are customizable, with a few hundred combinations of finishes available and a number of handle choices. Finishes include black, white, mirrored, about a dozen wood finishes, and about two dozen colors of glass fronts.

Of course, our design consultants are always happy to do full custom designs. Do go ahead and give us a call at 888-266-1280 and give us an excuse to put pencil to paper!

Aventa 30803 Mirrored Bedroom Wall Unit

The Aventa wall unit above is shown with mirrored cabinet door and drawer fronts.

Shown here is one Aventa wall unit with a 3 drawer armoire configuration in the center, flanked by wardrobe cabinets on each side.

The unit has a wenge case (a very dark wood finish), mirrored door and drawer fronts, and rod handles in chrome.

 Check Out The Entire Aventa Collection!

You’ve seen a couple of or new TV wardrobe/armoire wall units above. For today’s launch, the collection has 16 units. Want to see them all?

See the entire collection here.

Fall Colors: Fashion, Foliage and Furniture

Fall FoliageNow that fall has officially “fallen,” there’s plenty of talk about color on the web. New York has a fall foliage report with current information on the current state of fall colors throughout the state.

Always thinking ahead, the folks at Pantone published their fall fashion color report as early as February of this year.

While the trees and the clothes within your wardrobe may change more often than the furniture in your home, Autumn is the time of year when more people are thinking about the home as Summer vacations are over and cooler temperatures lead people spending more time inside the home (at least here in the northern latitudes).

While more traditional wood tones are almost always a “safe” choice, more consumers are making bolder choices such as black or white as modern styles become more popular.

Color for Interior Decorating

If you’re painting, redecorating or refurnishing this year, don’t underestimate the effects of color on mood. One common technique used by interior designers is to paint most of a room in a neutral hue except for one “accent wall,” which serves to bring a feeling of energy to the room.

This color of the accent wall is usually then reflected in the color of some of the room’s decor. It’s easy (with some searching of course, but for some that’s the fun part!) to find or create art, silk flowers or other accent pieces of a similar color to tie the theme together.

Don’t Overlook Color for Furniture

Marco Entertainment Center in Lagoon ColorIt’s often more difficult with furniture, however. That’s where we step in to help. The Marco Entertainment Center above is pictured with colored glass fronts in a color we call Lagoon. This is actually a similar color to one of those listed in Pantone’s color report, Ultramarine Green.

Immediately below is shown our Bingham Wall Unit in Wildflower Blue, followed by the Liza TV Stand in French Lilac.

Go ahead and click on any of them to find out more and see all the beautiful color and finish choices that are available.

Bingham Wall Unit in Wildflower Blue Colored GlassLiza TV Stand in French Lilac Colored Glass

These are some examples of our furniture in some of our favorite colors, but we actually are able to manufacture any piece of our bedroom or living room furniture in any of 24 colors of glass fronts, in addition to black, white and a wide variety of wood tones ranging from very light to very dark.

So if you are planning on brightening up your space with some color before the winter blues set in, give us a call and share your thoughts with one of our expert design consultants. We help our customers turn visions into reality every day!

Find Your Decorating Style

Photographer: Pieter Estersohn, Designer: Nate Berkus

When decorating your home, experts say use pieces that match your style. Now, this is great advice. Creating a space that reflects your style is important in making a space into your space. But the big question many of us have is, how do I know, what my style
is?

Recently, I saw a home design show featuring Nate Berkus. Nate was designing his New York City apartment. The focus of this renovation was a living room with statement bookcases. Nate was excited about this space because, to him, home is where the books are. This got me thinking, what is the one thing I can’t live without? What makes an
apartment into my apartment? And then I realized, my answer to this question would define my style.

I, like Nate, love books. I keep several by my bed. This led me to choose a nightstand with a shelf so I can store them all.

So now, you are probably thinking, just because I like something, how does that make my style? Here are a few examples.

- Do you like art? Do you like to display it in your space?

A low, long buffet or other set of
drawers can maximize storage space and
wall space.

- Are you a collector?

Would you like to have closed storage space to keep your stuff and display space to show off your collection? Try a wall unit that incorporates both! It can allow you to make your collection a focal point while concealing your other stuff

Share with us any ideas you have for deciding your style.

Dress Up Your Furniture


At Contempo Space, we offer custom design options to make a piece that’s fit to be absolutely you. But you can actually take it a few steps further.

There’s no reason that the custom process needs to stop with us.  There are a myriad of things you could do to your furniture as well, to help create a custom look that can
change with seasons, events, or just how you’re feeling.

First and foremost, remember that we are not talking about modifying your furniture.  Leave the tools in the shed unless you’re either a.) really handy or b.) OK with voiding
the warranty.

What we’re talking about here is using simple things like flowers, curtains, sheets, pottery, and other little accents to give your furniture a little more jazz.

For example, try draping a blanket or embroidered sheet over a chair (as seen above) or on top of a TV Stand.

Or, considering the wide array of storage options on Contempo Wall Entertainment Centers, there’s plenty of room for little decorative options such as framed pictures, potted plants, artwork and other small pieces.

Decals and stickers can be tacky, but for children’s furniture they can really help brighten up the room and add a little theme.  Imagine for example how some of
these awesome decals might look on your child’s freestanding wardrobe.

Photo via Interiorzine

Decorating for Dudes: A Guy’s Guide to Interior Design

Interior Design for GuysTypically, men aren’t particularly keen on decorating.  It’s generally a task they’re happy to let a female counterpart take over, even though there are several talented male interior designers.

Still a lot of guys just don’t get into interior design and even those with an appreciation of aesthetics may rarely try to incorporate that appreciation into their home spaces.

Here are a few tips for all you dudes out there to help make your interior design process a little easier:

Keep it clean, open and simple.  Doing these three things alone will have a huge impact on the success of your design.  Play to your strengths, use solid colors and keep your area free of clutter, and you’re already ahead of the pack.

Play to your hobbies.  Do you love baseball?  Put some baseball memorabilia on the shelves or vintage baseball posters on your wall.  Are you a cinephile?  Try putting up some framed movie posters around your room.  If you have any big hobbies or passions, use your home to show them off.

Integrate Electronics.  Electronics are a big part of any man’s home.  Your big TV and your big speakers are great, but don’t forget, they’re big!  You need to stylishly integrate them into the rest of the space.  Try an Entertainment Center or at the very least make sure they use matching casing.

Wood is a deep, considerate material.  Use wood accents or matte finishes wherever you can to add a deeper dimension to your space.

See that?  Decorating is easy.  Just follow these simple tips and throw in some of your own personal flare, and you’ll have no trouble creating a great space.

Photo Credit: Imagerymajestic

Loyal to Modern Design

The Bronson Room DividerMay 1 is commonly known as May Day, but it’s also been dubbed “Loyalty Day.”

Loyalty is an important thing.  Loyalty to friends, to family, to an idea…these are the things that define us as people and allow particularly great people to bring about progressive changes in our world that affect us all on a positive level.

At Contempo Space, we’ve always been loyal to the ethos of modern design.  We don’t just say our designs are modern – we truly believe it.  No matter what, our designs remain consistent with modern lifestyles.

From our efficiency-forward home storage solutions at Contempo Closet to our innovative wall unit and entertainment center products that are consistently updated to reflect the best in modern home entertainment, each design we put the Contempo name on is loyal to creating useful products for contemporary homes.

Whether they end up in small, rented urban apartments or spacious suburban houses, our designs stay lock-in-step with the needs of modern life.

Everyone’s loyal to something.  We’ve been loyal to modern design for over five decades and that won’t change any time soon.

Pictured Above: The Bronson Room Divider

Check Out This Treehouse!

Friday April 27 is Arbor Day, a day that we use to show thanks for the great resource of wood by planting trees.  It’s an important day since trees not only provide us with oxygen, wood and comfortable shade, but have also given us a delightful pastime – the treehouse.  Check out some of these awesome treehouses from around the web.

Treehouse 1

This treehouse in the British Alnwick Garden was photographed by Christine Westerback.

 

Treehouse 2

This tree house is from Marayur, Kerala, India

Treehouse 3

Photo by Emdot

Treehouse 4

From BeWILDerwood – the Curious Treehouse Adventure Park in Norfolk, UK.  Photo by Karen Roe

Treehouse 5

A backward treehouse by Wm Jas

Treehouse 6

Well, that’s something you don’t see every day – Free Spirit Spheres on Vancouver Island

Have you seen any great treehouses on the web recently?  Post a link in the comments and share with the rest of us!

Interior Design Tip: When You Redesign, Start with the Furniture Layout

When you plan a redesign, start with the furniture layoutIt’s a plain fact that your home will go through a couple of redesigns.  It’s human nature.  As we grow and change, our relationship with our surroundings does as well.  It’s necessary that our surroundings shift to reflect our growth as people, both mentally and physically.

When you decide it’s time for a total home makeover, start with the furniture layout.  Although it might be an afterthought in daily life, furniture is a remarkably important piece of the home design puzzle.    Furniture shapes and dictates the function of a room.  A room with an entertainment center is obviously a room for watching movies or TV.  A room with a sofa is obviously for sitting and relaxing.  And the style of the furniture will act as an indicator of the style of your home and guide the rest of your interior design.

The legendary modern architect Frank Lloyd Wright, aka the most important American architect in history, would design custom furniture for his interiors.  And that was the only furniture he would allow in his homes.  While you probably don’t have that luxury, you can at least plan accordingly, and set up a furniture layout that can guide and complement your new interior design scheme.

Photo Credit: Grant Cochrane