sidewalk talk

Any of you that have been reading along for a bit may have noticed my growing obsession with bold black and white prints.  Of course the crazy black and white striped painted rug project really celebrated that obsession.  And I have a Pinterest board dedicated to my love of black and white as a combo...

I stopped in Portugal right after my recent trip to Greece and quickly became obsessed with their pavements.  Sidewalks - to simple Americans like me.  But the Portuguese people take pavements/ sidewalks to a whole new level and I instantly fell in love! They call their fab cobblestone pavements Calcadas (note, there is supposed to be a squiggle below the middle C but I can't figure out how to add it on this American keyboard....) and were created by hand by individually laying pieces of limestone cut into tiny blocks and placed into these amazing designs (by hand!!).   Streets are lined with them as are the many squares throughout the cities.   It all started in 1849 with the groovy wave design above.  It lives in Lisbon in a place called Rossio Square. 1849 people!?!?  It looks so fab and modern I would have thought it was created in the middle of this century at least! 

I couldn't help myself and took a lot of photos.  A lot.   In between eating many Pasteis De Nata (the most heavenly dessert on the planet) ... I averaged about 6 of those treats a day (sadly, not exaggerating and still hitting the gym daily to work them off).  Anyhow, thought you might like to ooh and aahh over these groovy designs too.  Below are some of my faves.

 I still have to sort out my bathroom walls and am feeling inspired by that wave design!

Oh, and lots of former Portuguese colonies have created their own pavements as well.  My friend Rob snapped the above photo while he was in Brazil last month.  So fab!

For those of you just tuning in and wanting to know more about me you can by going here... and you can read about the start of my journey as an interior design intern here and if you didn't already know... I created a facebook page... check it out and "like" it! and follow me on twitter and you can even follow my boards on pinterest too!

until next time...

the formerly almost 40 year old intern