Ill Seen, Ill Said: Thomas O'Brien

Thomas O'Brien is my favourite home designer, not least because he seems as much a collector as a designer. And his spaces remind me more of haphazard professor's offices and gentrified old country houses and less of the self-consciously "undecorated" schemes we've been spoon-fed of late.

While I was browsing Aero Studio's Facebook page, I found the above picture. See the leather chair there? That leather chair really wants to live with Janey.

And I've always (always) loved the desk chair in the above photo. Only last night I found this post. It's an Irish chair! I might have known that sooner if I owned this book that I've had wishlisted on Amazon for yonks or if I had paused to wonder why its lines were so familiar and comfortable to me.

I've been changing some things around at home. I'm not the kind to top-down plan a scheme. But I always find a look at O'Brien's interiors sends me in the right direction. His mix of traditional and modern, masculine and neutral, bookish and airy always appeals.

Image credits: First photo via Aero Studio on Facebook. Second photo by Laura Resen, via Aero.

7 comments:

Alice OliveJanuary 24, 2012 at 8:27 AM
Masculine and neutral. Love that.
MichelleJanuary 24, 2012 at 9:57 AM
oh, I know! I always gravitate towards his aesthetic, so clean, but still elegant and moder but with a firm understanding of the classic I drool over...
cottagefarmJanuary 24, 2012 at 11:41 AM
an all time favorite of mine as well. My copy of "American Modern" is seriously tattered these days as I drag it around everywhere. You should get the book. There is something undeniable about O'Brien's designs and I find I always have some piece of them tucked at the back of my head.

following the link to the irish chair now ...
Tricia RoseJanuary 24, 2012 at 12:37 PM
Getting your own leather chair is more like liberating a dog from the shelter than buying furniture - there's an element of kismet to it. Maybe if you whistle it will follow you?
tamsJanuary 24, 2012 at 12:49 PM
That desk chair is perfection. How can something I never even knew about suddenly become an obsession in one second?

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