Orblogdo – Page 5 – Orlando Soria

Sep / 30 / 2016

Orlando’s Obsessions: Wild for Wallpaper

Dear Wanters of Wallcoverings, Do you find yourself hating your naked walls, wish they were covered in glamorous, warm wallpaper? Do you feel like your life lacks meaning because your home isn’t interesting enough? Do you wish there was a material on your wall that took tons of labor to install? If so, you should think about adding some wallpaper to your life. I’ve gathered up some of my favorite wallpapers from Homepolish projects and shared some tips for installation on Homepolish Magazine. Check it out immediately! CONTINUE READING >>>

Sep / 28 / 2016

LA Needs to Stop Tearing Down Its History to Build Garbage

Dear Architecture Lovers, When I moved to Los Angeles eight years ago, I lived in the area of Hollywood very close to West Hollywood. I remained in that neighborhood for the next seven years, until last year when I moved to Silver Lake to live in a condo overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir with my boyfriend. Over the years I noticed West Hollywood started to explode with construction. That explosion has extended all over town, from the crazy expensive homes being built in Venice to the amazing (and insane) transformation of the Arts District downtown (which is literally nothing but bulldozers these days)….

Sep / 23 / 2016Sep / 25 / 2016

Hommemaker Guide to Nice, France

Dear Travel Diary, It’s kind of impossible to talk about my beautiful trip to Nice without talking about the mass murders on Bastille Day. Edouard and I went to Nice only a few weeks after the tragic/disgusting/outraging attack on July 14th that killed eighty-six people. We went back and forth as to whether we should go to a place that so recently suffered such an overwhelming tragedy. Was it safe? Was it appropriate? But we ended up erring on the side of not allowing murderers to determine where we go and what we see. Edouard is from Paris, and I get the sense…

Sep / 21 / 2016Sep / 22 / 2016

In The Studio: Goula Figuera

Dear Design Diary, I’m not exactly sure how I came across the sublime work of Goula/Figuera. Maybe it was Instagram. Maybe it was somewhere online. But I remember immediately losing my mind over it. The Barcelona-based team of Álvaro Goula and Pablo Figuera are doing something that I think is unprecendented and unparalleled in today’s world of lighting. They’re making works of art that have a functional illuminating purpose. Their pieces are playful and sophisticated at once and it’s impossible for me to look at them without thinking of one of my favorite artists, Joan Miró. Their work isn’t derivative,…

Sep / 19 / 2016

A Dining Room Makeover for Gray Malin

Dear Lovers of Gorgeous Colorful Photography (i.e. Gray Malin’s gorgeous work), I met Gray Malin a few years ago when we worked on his living room and outdoor space. He and his husband Jeff were a joy to work with, so I was excited when they called me up to re-imagine their dining room, which they’d never been stoked about. Previously, it was filled with furniture they had from their previous homes. As is often the case when adjusting old furnishings to a new space, the pieces in the room didn’t feel quite cohesive. The size, finish, and style of their furniture didn’t…

Sep / 16 / 2016Sep / 16 / 2016

Studio Tour: The Ethereal Paintings of Beth Winterburn

Dear People With Naked Walls, I was wandering around a big box store yesterday, eyeing all the new stuff they have, really enjoying myself, when I came across something that irked me a little bit. Giant, gross photographic prints stretched onto canvases and sold as filler art. You see this type of filler art everywhere, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. There are definitely great online resources for beautiful reproductions by real artists (Minted Art is one of my favorites). But there’s also a lot of junk out there. So when I saw these nasty fake art reproductions yesterday all…

Sep / 14 / 2016

The Modern Furniture I Need for Fall

Dear The End of Summer, Even though it hasn’t rained in LA since 2007, it’s been cloudy and romantic here all week. Most people would find this depressing. For me, it’s the greatest blessing I could ever hope for. Since I live in a land that hasn’t had weather in years, where it feels like we’ve been living on the edge of apocalypse as long as I can remember, I love anything even remotely resembling atmospheric drama. What’s so great about cold, rainy weather, you ask? Well mostly I like it because it forces you to stay indoors. And what’s…

Sep / 12 / 2016

Orlando’s Obsessions: Grand Dining Tables

Photo by Ana Kamin courtesy Homepolish Dear Dinner Partiers, Dinner at home with friends is one of my very favorite things on earth. I just love the intimacy, the laughter, and not having to compete to get a table in an excruciatingly loud restaurant where I can’t hear anything and spend the whole dinner just nodding and smiling so it looks like I know what is going on. For this reason, the first place I look in a home tour is the dining room. I just love an inviting dining room with a big table that seats at least 8….

Sep / 9 / 2016

This Week At Homepolish

Photography Courtesy Homepolish Dear Homepolishers, Each week (for the most part, unless I’m traveling, which has been a lot lately I’M SORRY OK?) I sift through the amazing projects Homepolish completes in cities across the U.S. and highlight some of my favorites. This week’s pics are filled with gems, from beautiful cozy Hollywood homes to exciting New York start up offices. So follow along with me as I show you what’s up at Homepolish!

Sep / 7 / 2016Sep / 8 / 2016

Epic Everyday: Dinner and Movie at Home

Dear Urban Apartment Dwellers, Having people over for dinner is one of my favorite things on earth. I’m becoming a crochety old man you can’t take anywhere. Every new restaurant I try out seems to be louder and more sceney than the last. Also, if I go to one more tapas or shared plate restaurant I’m going to scream. If I wanted to serve things myself or try to split one meatball seven ways I would just do that at home. Thank you. As you may have seen on my Instagram, I’ve teamed up with American Express to share ideas…

Aug / 17 / 2016

A Midsummer Night’s Color Scheme

Source: Homepolish Dear Summer, I always kind of think of summer as June, July, and August, but over my years in LA I’ve come to understand that summer starts in May and ends in October. For this reason, I’ve realized there’s still time to up my outdoor hosting game before the season ends. IT’S NOT TOO LATE YOU GUYS! So I’ve decided to share some of my favorite summer hosting items with you. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Three of my favorite trends of the year are blush pink, metallic finishes, and indigo blue. I know what you’re thinking, trends are…

Aug / 12 / 2016

One Painting, Three Ways with Saatchi Art

Aug / 5 / 2016

Predicting the Future of Design on Architectural Digest

Photograph by Tessa Neustadt Courtesy Homepolish Dear Crystal Ball, Are you curious what the future holds for the world of interior design? Will shibori take over where ikat left off? Will people get tired of all these white walls and go crazy painting everything in bold, saturated color? And will everyone finally get rid of those “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters? Find out the answers to these questions and more in my latest collaboration with Architectural Digest. Love, Orlando READ FULL STORY HERE >>>

Aug / 3 / 2016Aug / 3 / 2016

Dream Come True: New Hommemaker Editor is an Insanely Talented Ceramist!

Photography by Jess Diab Dear Working Momz, Between shuttling the kids I don’t have to nonexistent soccer practice, preparing an imagined dinner for the husband I don’t have, and balancing all that all with the actual job I actually have, I’ve been spread a little too thin to work as much on this site as I’d like. One of my favorite things about Homepolish is how engaging and exciting my job is. But the problem with something being engaging and exciting is that it doesn’t leave you much time to do other stuff. This is why I came to the…

Jul / 27 / 2016

This Week At Homepolish

Dear Reader, I kinda feel like the apocalypse has arrived. Over the weekend I went camping with some friends. We awoke in the morning to beautiful flakes falling from the sky. It was magical, but also terrifying. The flakes were ashes from a nearby wildfire. Since the air was thick with smoke and we couldn’t breathe, we hightailed it out of there and headed back to Los Angeles. In a non-shocking turn of events the skies above Los Angeles were orange and filled with wildfire pollutants. The smoke from the fire (in the Angeles Forest, where we had been camping)…

Jul / 20 / 2016

What’s Up at Homepolish

Dear Design Diary, It seems sometimes like the internet is a never-ending hole of content. People are posting links on Facebook that come from sites I’ve never heard of. Like political stories that seem important but come from sites with names like rawstory.com (is that a legit site? How would I know? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ACTUAL EDITORIAL INTEGRITY?). Even sites like the New York times are using clickbait titles for their articles. EVERYONE HAS LOST THEIR MINDS. If finding pertinent political information is this hard, finding quality design content can be equally challenging. This is why I’ve decided to start…

Jul / 18 / 2016Jul / 18 / 2016

A Personal Art Moment in My Master Bedroom

Photographs by Orlando Soria Dear Diary, For some reason last night, I started thinking about my first apartment in LA. So I did some self-googling and found an old picture of it on this blog: I moved into that place in 2007. What I love about looking at this picture is how creative and thrifty everything is. At this point in my life I had literally zero dollars. Everything in in the photograph is either a hand-me-down, handmade, or from Ikea. But I took pride in that space and I think it was really cozy and happy and homey. One of…

Jul / 14 / 2016Jul / 14 / 2016

A Colorful Makeover for a Bright Youtube Star

Photographs by Tessa Neustadt Courtesy Homepolish Dear Diary, Wanna see the craziest, most colorful design I’ve done for a Homepolish influencer yet? Check out my makeover of Joey Graceffa’s office (and his boyfriends cute outdoor lounge) on Homepolish Mag! FULL STORY THIS WAY >>> Love, Orlando

Jul / 6 / 2016

Orcondo Bedrooms & Common Areas

Dear Renovation Revelers, My final Orcondo post for Emily Henderson went live today and it features some of my favorite spaces in the condo: the bedrooms. If you love transformations, you need to see this. Here is a preview of the type of before/after action you can expect: Enticed? Head on over to Emily’s blog to read the rest. Love, Orlando FULL POST THIS WAY >>>

Jun / 22 / 2016Jun / 22 / 2016

Before & After: Orcondo’s Kitchen & Bathrooms

Dear Lovers of Mega Makeovers, As you know, Orcondo is all done with her plastic surgery and ready to face the world with her gorgeous new face! We’ve been revealing the condo step by step on Homepolish and Emily Henderson’s blog, so today we have some extra special updates to share with you. It’s time to chat about the kitchens and bathrooms. Which previously were the grossest spaces in the condo and now are the most delectable. Click on through to hear their courageous stories. Love, Orlando FULL STORY HERE FOR EMILY HENDERSON STORY & HERE FOR HOMEPOLISH STORY >>>

Jun / 17 / 2016Jul / 18 / 2016

Taking a Hollywood Hills House from Flab to Fab

Photographs by Tessa Neustadt Courtesy Homepolish Dear Home Renovation Lovers, One of my favorite projects was covered in some of my favorite publications (Architectural Digest and Homepolish Magazine!). But what you might not have seen in these publications is the SUPER DRAMATIC transformation this house underwent. I have to admit, Donnie and Ryan (the adorable couple featured above) had a great contractor who did the lion’s share of the work. But I was around to wave my Homepolish magic wand, making final decisions on finishes, wall-color, and obviously, furniture. Below is a mouth-watering collection of before and after pictures that…

Jun / 15 / 2016

Adding Warmth to a White Kitchen

Photograph by Tessa Neustadt Diary Diary, Are you curious how I got my white kitchen to feel warm and inviting? Just kidding, you’re just a diary, I doubt you’re curious about anything. For those HUMAN readers out there, feel free to check out my latest post for Homepolish Magazine, in which I give some tips on how to make your white kitchen as gorgeous and attractive as you are. Hurry! Love, Orlando FULL POST THIS WAY! >>>

May / 27 / 2016

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly at My Beach House Renovation

Photographs by Tessa Neustadt Courtesy Homepolish Dear Diary, If I had to make a list of my very favorite things to do in the entire world, looking at before and after pictures of houses would probably be near the top. There’s something insanely satisfying about looking at a gorgeous interior photograph and then looking at a totally ugly picture of what it used to look like. It’s like, no matter how pretty the after photo is, it’s always prettier in contrast to the revolting before picture. This is why when I meet people for the first time, I like to show…

May / 23 / 2016

Hollywood Hills Home Goes from HORRENDOUS to HAY!

Photograph by Tessa Neustadt Dear Renovation Lovers, My recently-completed project for THE WORLD’S CUTEST COUPLE is finally done and up on Homepolish Mag. Follow this link to read about how we transformed this place from MEH to EH MEH GED! I’ll be covering the behind-the-scenes (including DISGUSTING before pics next week here on Hommemaker). Love, Orlando FULL POST THIS WAY >>>