Kitchen and Residential Design

Blanco and Bosch

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:08:00 +0000

My involvement with Blanco has taken me all over the world and now they're taking me to Costa Mesa, California to see their new showroom. Blanco has teamed with Bosch appliances to create the kitchen showroom to end all showrooms.

Blanco makes incredible sinks and that I know all of the people on the US side of their business makes me endorse their products all the more strongly.

You cannot go wrong with Blanco.

Meet Miss Susan

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:53:00 +0000

My neighbors are off on some new adventure and I am left with their cat, Susan.

I've never bee a cat person but this creature somehow exceeds my notions of what a cat is. Anything that hunts down and kills palmetto bugs is OK in my book. Even though she sleeps for most of the day she's a pretty cool addition to life around here.

I doubt that I'll ever get a cat, but having Susan around is pretty enjoyable.

Out, out damned termites

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

The exterminator just left.

Life in a century-old, wooden structure comes at a price. Namely, drywood termites. Drywoods are one of the three kinds of termites we have in Florida. Whatever their species, they're bad news.

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There are termite species that live all over but they seem to particularly common in the sun belt. I never remember them when I lived in the Northeast. In Florida however, they are part of the scenery. Just like palmetto bugs, having termites isn't a reflection on someone's housekeeping. Even so, having them makes me feel dirty somehow.

When I first moved here, the only cure for them was to have the house tented and treated with Vikane. Vikane is sulfuryl flouride, a relatively inert gas. These days we spot treat with a product called Termidor and it promises to kill every termite in the area but at the same time be inert to me because I'm a mammal and have a spine, Termidor doesn't affect me. At least according the research Dow's done.

Back to Vikane for a sec however. Sulfuryl flouide is a greenhouse gas and its widespread use is a bad idea. In its place, spot treatments with Termidor are becoming the default mode for termites.

Part of me longs for a day when I could just eliminate everything but it makes sense to spot treat and not damage the atmosphere instead of the scorch and burn method I'd prefer.

The exterminator Steve told me that I shouldn't keep things so neat because he couldn't tell where the termites were. Pardon my hygiene. I'll start allowing dust buffaloes to form under my bed to make life easier for exterminators. Hah!

Does anybody out there have any experience with Termidor? Am I alone in living in an old structure and dealing with termites? I remember seeing termite nests in the trees in Costa Rica and Panama and being awed by them. However, seeing them in my kitchen is whole other matter. If they're in my kitchen, what are they doing to my floorboards and rafters? I need to quit thinking.

Out, out damned termites!

Cleaning hint

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I've been on a cleaning jag lately. If it's not moving, I'm wiping or Swiffering it. However, I've always run into a dead end when it comes to dusty lampshades.

I was cleaning my laptop the other day with a trusty can of canned air when inspiration hit.

Canned air cleans lampshades better than anything I've ever found. Try it yourself and you'll see what I mean.

From Panama to Providence: a Sunday story

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:14:00 +0000

I just got off the phone with my good friend Jim. I've known Jim for more then ten years. He and I met in Panama in the spring of 2000. We were two guys with similar interests who were pretty serious fish out of water in that land of rain forests and Canal Zones.

We struck up an easy friendship then, one that continues to this day. Of all the people I've come to know in my life, Jim stands out. He's a giant among men and I'm glad to call him my friend.

When he and I met in that land far away, he called Providence, Rhode Island home and I lived in St. Pete. When we said our goodbyes in Panama I never thought I'd see him again. Kismet intervened however, and we stayed in touch after we returned to the US.

Jim had some kind of vague business career I never quite grasped and about six months after we came back to the US he had an opportunity to take a position in San Francisco.

Jim called me one afternoon to ask if I'd be interested in joining him in a road trip from Providence to San Francisco. Jim had a greyhound named Alex and he didn't want to fly her to the opposite coast. Besides, he had a car he needed to get to California and he'd already decided to drive himself. Having me along would make the drive easier for sure. Further, if I were along we'd take our time and get a feel for the US as we drove.

Our plan was to drive south from Rhode Island, through Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania on Day One. We were going to head south before heading west. Day Two had us driving through West Virginia, Virginia and into North Carolina. Jim had friends who had a cabin in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and he wanted to spend a few days with them before we headed west in earnest.

We arrived in North Carolina with few incidents and were all ready to spend a great weekend in the mountains with Jim's friends.

Jim's friends were amazing and I'll keep them nameless here. They were gracious hosts and their cabin turned out to be so much more than what I'd expected. However, they had an old cat named Punkin and we had a greyhound.

Most retired greyhounds that get adopted can't be around small animals. Their chase instinct is too strong, when they see something smaller than they are and it's moving, they can't help themselves but to chase it down.

Knowing this as we headed into the weekend, all of us decided that we keep Punkin and Alex separated so that Alex in particular would never see Punkin, and Punkin would remain oblivious to Alex.

A great weekend revealed itself. The four of us played board games and cooked up a storm. There was no TV and no interference from the outside world; it was four people enjoying one another's company in the middle of nowhere. We ate, we talked, we laughed and we told stories. It pretty much defined my idea of an ideal weekend and the backdrop of the Smokies made it all the more perfect. The goodwill just flowed and the four of us bonded tightly.

The weekend was winding down by Sunday. Jim and I had to head west and our hosts had to go home to their regular lives in Greensboro, South Carolina. Jim and I had a full day of driving ahead of us and so as Jim packed the car, I decided to take a quick nap.

Within a half an hour I heard a wail from one of our hosts. He was beyond wailing actually, he was keening. His mournings were the sharpest calls from a man in pain I'd ever heard.

Just then, Jim came barging into the guest room with Alex the greyhound in tow. I asked him what was going on and he said "Stay here and hold onto Alex. She just killed Punkin." He was gone in a flash.

Huh?

I shook off my sleep and walked out into the kitchen while leaving Alex behind in the guest room. I grabbed Jim and asked him what was going on.

Apparently, Jim was loading the car and had Alex outside with him. Our hosts had no idea that Jim and Alex were outside so they let Punkin out the side door.

As Jim was loading the car Alex walked up to him with something in her mouth. He assumed it was a squirrel but he realized (and to his horror) it was Punkin the cat.

Alex had just killed our host's cat.

How do you come back from that? Alex was just being herself, a dog. However our hosts had just lost a member of their family. My heart goes out to them still but the relationships formed that weekend were destroyed utterly.

I don't blame them really. And how to deal with it from Jim's and my perspective was a total mystery.

Really, what do you do when your pet kills a friend's pet? Miss Manners never addresses situations like that.

Our hosts were the very picture of graciousness after the fact and I have nothing but good things to say about their response to the situation.

Jim and I didn't linger after Punkin's murder, in fact we drove twice the distance we were supposed to that day just to have some distance between us and the event that ended up defining that weekend. By the time we'd reached Columbia, Missouri we figured we'd come far enough and stopped for the night.

Alex the greyhound didn't seem to be affected by what had happened in North Carolina though Jim and I were torn. Alex was learning how to be a dog after seven years of being a racer. Jim and I were trying to express our condolences and save face at the same time.

We talked about nothing but through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. Before we knew it we'd crossed the Continental Divide and as amazing as the experiences we embraced were, there was a shadow over all of it.

Our relationship with our hosts that weekend never recovered and a week after the fact we were in San Francisco.

I don't really mourn the loss of Punkin, but I do mourn the loss of two good people. I wish I could have the friendship back that we forged that weekend. But alas...

But really, what do you do in a situation like that? What's the appropriate response? How do you bounce back from a murder among pets?

It's island time again, kitchen island that is

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow morning at 9:30 EST, CBS Sunday Morning will dedicate its 90-minute broadcast to an exploration of kitchen islands. Sunday Morning reporter Nancy Giles will travel the world over and two of her stops on this trip to find the exotic, the unusual, the beautiful and the functional will be in kitchens designed by world-renowned kitchen designer Johnny Grey.

The first of the two Johnny Grey designs Sunday Morning will profile are The Threshing Barn in Arlesford, England. Notice how he took the traditional form of a threshing barn and created a space that's perfectly suited to life in the 21st Century. The forced perspective at work in this kitchen is remarkable.

©Johnny Grey Studios

Talk about a lesson in how to define a room within an open floor plan. Wow.

The second Johnny Grey design Sunday Morning will feature is on the other side of the Atlantic in New York. In this room, Johnny introduced an element of hand crafted, nearly whimsical flair to an older home. As a side note, the following kitchen was one of my inspirations when I was starting out as a designer and it's really great that the editors at Sunday Morning see in it what I do.

©Johnny Grey Studios

Of all the flourishes in kitchen design I've ever seen, the leg on the island in the final photo has to be my all-time favorite.

So remember to tune into CBS Sunday Morning tomorrow, May 20th at 9am EST to see Nancy Giles tour of the islands and to hear Johnny as well as his clients as they talk about what it's like to live in the spaces they call home. If you miss the broadcast or if you're somewhere where you can't see it, go to CBS Sunday Morning's website and you can see the broadcast there.

Johnny Grey Studios works in the UK, Europe, North America and anywhere else where someone is calling out for an original, thoughtful design. You can contact the studio and see more of Johnny's work through the Johnny Grey Studios website. Johnny's blog, Grey Matters has more information and thoughts on kitchen islands, so head over there and join the conversation!

Guess it's over: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of all stripes weigh in on the same topic. After a great run, the Blog Off as it exists now will end of this week. The topic is essentially wrapping things up and saying goodbye. Here's my take:

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The Blog Off has been winding down for the last six months or so and those of us who put this thing together every two weeks have been facing that incrementally. After the last post, my partner in crime Dog Walk Blog and I were discussing what to write about today.

For the last six months, he and I have had a "next topic" conversation every two weeks and I'd start each one with the suggestion that we place a "For Sale by Owner" banner ad on the Let's Blog Off landing page. I was only partially kidding.

Like everybody else on the internet, we'd hoped to have this thing make some money somehow. Despite our shrewd minds and marketing acumen, we never did figure out a way for this thing to pay for itself. Putting this together every two weeks took a lot of energy and time and for the last few months it's become clear that the Blog Off was turning into a time and energy black hole.

We're busy men, but so is everybody. When we started this thing we were both established internet presences. Our goal was to help people expand their audiences and in that regard I think we succeeded. It was a singular thrill to watch as the Blog Off participants went from the circle of our online friends and expanded to include new bloggers all over the world.

My goal over the course of this program was to reach out across borders and it was an amazing thing to see participating posts come in from places like Venezuela,Canada, Portugal, Scotland and Italy. Even though the Blog Off is winding down, our connections around the world mark a really interesting path forward. Not just for us as internet people but for people as a whole.

It's been a great ride to read other peoples' perspectives on subjects like art and autumn and I hope we provided a forum where people could flesh out their internet personae. It's one thing to be an architect, but when an architect writes about the topic of home or the legacy he or she inherited, it provided a window into the soul of that architect. I'm using architect as an example only. Our participants have ranged from architects to teachers to waitresses and everybody's perspective has always been welcome.

I guess this means that I have to start blogging again.

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The edge of the world: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic in an event called a Blog Off. This week's topic is "The Edge of the World" and we're being encouraged to write about an event where we pushed past the boundaries of what we knew to be true at the time. Here's my take:

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The Bahamas is known the world over for a geographical feature it shares with just a handful of places around the globe, blue holes. The Bahamas' blue holes are essentially sink holes that lie submerged in salt water. In most of them, fresh water and salt water coexist in an uneasy truce. The salt water sits in a clearly defined and visible layer on top of the fresh water and diving into a blue hole is a really wild experience because you float between the two extremes.

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The photo above shows Dean's Hole near Clarence Town on Long Island, The Bahamas. Dean's Hole is the world's largest submerged blue hole. This aerial shot explains pretty clearly why they're called blue holes. Dean's Hole is 202 meters deep, that's 663 feet. The water surrounding it is at most a meter deep, so that's a pretty profound drop off.

Not too far from Long Island is Cat Island, a nearly deserted paradise I've been running away to for the last five or so years. I've written about it extensively in the past and I have a story to tell that dovetails into this Blog Off Topic perfectly.

This photo shows Fernandez Bay, the beach where I stay when I'm on Cat. The first arrow shows the location of the cottage that welcomes me back every time.

The second arrow points to a salt marsh and the location of an unmarked blue hole referred to as "Boiling Hole" by the locals because when the tide goes out it bubbles and gurgles and when the tide comes back in it forms a whirlpool over its entrance.

Kayaking in a salt marsh can be tricky.

In a kayak, you're sitting right on the water and it's difficult to get any kind of perspective on where you are.

This means that it's difficult to judge distances and it's hard to see underwater features until you're directly over them. Add to that skewed perspective that you're in one of the most hostile environments you can find and not getting lost becomes a huge priority.

Salt marshes are full of dead ends and the advice my friends and I had to work from consisted of "Stick to the deeper channels, watch the tides and look for a wide spot of shallow water." Deeper is a relative term because the water's incredibly shallow everywhere. Keeping an eye on the tides is vital because getting stranded in a receding tide is a recipe for disaster when outside help is non-existent. Monitoring the tides was important too because the only way to spot the blue hole was to watch for bubbling or a whirlpool.

After a few hours of looking for our blue hole, we realized that there were all kinds of wide spots of shallow water.

Here are a couple of shots of my friends and I taking advantage of being lost and putting ashore during that first trip back into the marsh.

Would that Boiling Hole were as readily identifiable as Dean's Hole on Long Island or any of the other blue holes on Cat. But alas, we were looking for the hardest one to find and I always like a good challenge.

After around three hours of paddling and exploring, we were about to call it a day and admit defeat. We couldn't find Boiling Hole and that was that. Everybody was exhausted, hungry and more than anything, thirsty.

I am more persistent than my friends I guess' because I insisted that we explore one more stretch of marsh before we called a day. By this time, there was a slack tide and I knew that if we were going to find that blue hole we were going to have to paddle over it directly. The slack tide too told me that we had to get out of there within an hour or we risked being stranded when the tide finally started to go out.

We were at the edge of the world and I wanted to reach just a bit past it to see what was there.

Within about five minutes we paddled over this:

We'd stumbled over the mouth of Boiling Hole.

Boiling hole drops around 100 meters straight down and the water surrounding it is at most 40 centimeters deep. It was the wildest thing to suddenly not see the bottom of the water after having scraped against it for the previous three hours.

Boiling Hole is connected to a spring and about five feet under the surface, the water turns into the best-tasting spring water you can imagine. Within seconds of our discovery, my party donned masks, snorkels and fins and our trek turned into one of the coolest things I've ever seen underwater.

The blue hole was some kind of an interzone and the salty parts of it were full of reef fish. The freshwater parts were filled with water plants that could never survive in the sea. There were crabs and other invertebrates that had evolved the ability to move between the two zones. I'd never seen an environment like it. That we couldn't see the bottom of it was a bit unnerving and knowing that if we stayed there for much longer we'd be sucked down into it when the tide turned made us hurry our exploration. Slaking my thirst while still underwater was a pretty wild experience too.

My friends and I were miles from other people and hundreds of miles away from modernity. Being back in that salt marsh provided a blissful isolation I've found in few other places. But at the same time, that isolation came at a cost. As fascinating as it was to explore that environment for the first time, it was uncomfortable and exhausting.

However, in the intervening years I've explored that salt marsh countless times and have been back to that blue hole frequently. I don't get lost back there anymore and it's a real thrill to guide people back to a blue hole that feels like it's mine somehow.

And now that I feel comfortable back there I can concentrate of paying attention to the lemon sharks, the green sea turtles and the mangrove jellies that call that marsh home. What's hostile to me as a Homo sapiens is welcoming to may other forms of life and it's a real treat to see the world from their perspective from time to time.

I pushed past the edge of the world that day and I'm a better man for it. Because of that experience, I can relate to other people's frustrations and fears better, I can understand my need to know everything better, and I can see how different organisms co-exist in an environment that completely foreign to my own species. Frankly, that's why I explore.

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As the day goes on, a table will appear here like magic. It will list all of the participating bloggers in today's event. Click on the links to see how other people approached this topic.

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A Coverings preview

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Coverings is next week and I can't believe it's here already. It's a show very near and dear to my heart and I've been attending it for years. Every year, my involvement in the show increases and as of last December, I'm on the show's staff. For the last six months I've been running all of Coverings' social marketing initiatives, hence my near absence from this blog since the end of last year.

During the show next week I'll be working five straight 18 hour days so I doubt I'll be filing any dispatches from the show floor, but during the week following either Todd ( my energetic collaborator) or I will post a wrap up of the new stuff that made its debut during the show.

For now though, here's a preview from some of the major manufacturers who'll be exhibiting next week.

• Apavisa (Booth 2519) is heading to Coverings with Archconcept, a new collection of patterns in stone, metal and cement finishings that are inspired by the latest manufacturing technology and trends in architecture. This revolutionary range of porcelain is well suited for indoor and outdoor applications.

• Azteca (Booth 2211) will awe attendees with Jasper R40, a new ceramic tile series serving up a marble look that will enliven walls with its striking shade variations. It is available in a 23-x-40 cm format and four colorways: Cream, Beige, Grey and Jade.

• Azulejos Plaza (Booth 2106) will impress attendees with Ecowood, a porcelain stoneware wall tile comprised of 85% recycled content. It comes in four colors and can be used outdoors.

• Baldocer (Booth 1914) is bringing digital front-and-center to its porcelain collection, spotlighting its innovative methods for adding distinctive decorative touches, such as high and low reliefs, colorations, stone and wood lookalikes, and more. The outstanding range of tile formats is available in 43-x-43, 40-x-60 and 57-x-57 cm.

• Casalgrande Padana SpA (Booth 4700) is showing Architecture and Bios. The first newcomer is a fully vitrified porcelain stoneware collection that’s a sophisticated, high-performance option for floor and wall covering, indoors and out. The line is available in a range of 12 colors and a finish reminiscent of brushed cement. Bios brings sustainability to the surface with its unique antibacterial properties, achieved by blending the material base with mineral particles. Such tiles have become a requisite for LEED-ID credit eligibility, and have won extensive recognition.

• Ceramiche Coem & Ceramica Fioranese (Booth 4714) are sister brands spotlighting interesting introductions. Check out Pietra Valmalenco from Coem and Cottage from Fioranese. Pietra Valmalenco offers a contemporary stone look whereas Cottage features a rustic wood style.

• Ceramiche Refin (Booth 4123) has three new products that capitalize on the latest technology. Among them, Cromie is a collection of chromatic ceramic tiles based on the scientific criteria of brightness, saturation and shade.

• Cisa Ceramiche (Booth 4806) will unveil Modula, a beautiful series that replicates the look of natural stone, and Royal Marble that recalls the traditional elegance of the real material. Both are available in four colorways and various sizes.

• Crossville (Booth 3200) found inspiration in concrete and refined stone to create Structure, a minimalist design that contains at least 20% consumer certified recycled content. The new offering is apt for commercial and residential installations, and is offered in large format and plank-shaped sizes.

• Duradek (Booth 3842) is debuting at Coverings with five new products incorporating Tiledek. It’s a PVC waterproof membrane developed specifically for exterior tile applications and featuring an anti-fracture/crack insulation barrier, making it choice for concrete installations.

• Emac Complementos (Booth 2114) has collaborated with prestigious Spanish fashion designer Francis Montesinos to create a collection of high-style aluminum profiles named Novopeldaño Art. The installation possibilities are limitless—as a stair nosing, in countertops, worktops and more.

• Emilceramica SpA (Booth 4718) is presenting On Square. The new collection exemplifies the elegance and simplicity of balance, bringing together 45 blocks of cement reproduced on the ceramic surface to maintain the richness of the material. The contemporary offering comes in four colors in 80-x-80, 60-x-60 and 30-x-60 cm formats. Additionally, look for inspiring introductions from three of company’s sister brands: Ergon, Provenza and Viva.

• Florida Tile (Booth 3223) is touting Gallant HDP and PietraArt Stone Mosaics. Gallant gives marble, onyx and travertine a run for their money thanks to the high definition technology used to mimic the looks. The porcelain floor tile is appropriate for all residential and commercial wall and countertop applications as well as for residential flooring. The Stone Mosaics marvel with a wide range of colors, sizes and textures to complement all tastes and installations.

• Granada Tile (Booth 4465) will be calling attention to three new whimsical works of cement tile art—Normandy, Alhambra and Barcelona. All are part of the Echo Tile Collection that is made of durable and recycled content, and are ideal for bathroom and kitchen applications.

• Lilywork Ceramic (Booth 2903) is debuting Arabesque, a tessellated field of mosaics that is fully color customizable within the Lilywork palette. It’s a look that would make for a lovely addition to walls, floors or even pool surrounds.

• Litokol Spa (Booth 4534) is giving grouting mortar a fresh new look with Litochrom Starlike. It features antibacterial properties and is spot on for gluing and jointing all tiles and mosaics, even those rated R12. Additionally, it has a high-resistance to chemicals and abrasions, and is available in a myriad of colors and combinations.

• Metropolitan Ceramics (Booth 2800) will roll out Quarrybasics Abrasive, a product providing excellent silicon carbide coverage that prevents slips and enhances the look and longevity of quarry tile.

• Mosaico+ (Booth 4330) has four exciting lines that will liven up interiors and exteriors with intense depth of color, dimension and texture. Among the newcomers is Dialoghi, which is a magical meeting of materials—glass and metal, metal and wood, etc.—that offers a truly compelling look and is available in three sizes.

• Oscar & Izzy (Booth 2554) is a newcomer to the international expo and is bringing fun to the show floor with its retro-inspired collections of decorative ceramic tile. All lines boast bold illustrations and bright colors, and are offered in 4-x-4 and 6-x-6 inch and subway sizes.

• Sabine Hill (Booth 4175) is showing for the first time at Coverings, spotlighting its collection of eight classic cement tile designs that masterfully meld modern and organic shapes in endless colorways. All of the offerings are meant for wall and floor coverings in both residential and commercial environments.

• Settecento (Booth 5012) is showing Lodge, which is a glazed porcelain portraying the essence of rustic, reclaimed wood. This natural beauty is available in four colors, two sizes (9-x-38 and 6-x-38 inches) and two surface finishes.

• Solistone (Booth 4270) is stepping into the commercial arena with a new division of products designed specifically for commercial architects and interior designers. Primarily composed of porcelain and ceramic mosaics, the line also uses unconventional materials, like seashells, to create innovative surfaces suitable for interior and exterior walls and floors.

• Taulell (Booth 1723) is premiering a variety of new products, one of which is Ónice. Neoclassical in nature, it features the spectacular shine of onyx stone and is available in seven sizes.

• Undefasa (Booth 1911) unites classic and contemporary designs in its two new collections, Country and Rajasthan. Both styles’ color palettes are based on the tones of natural stone, and can be used as floor or wall tiles; Rajasthan can be installed outdoors.

• Zirconio (Booth 2111) will zoom in on its incorporation of inkjet technology to create Dolomite, a captivating color-body porcelain that seamlessly imitates the look of natural stone.

If you're a design pro in greater Orlando, please be sure to register for the show today by following this link. Remember, it’s all free and as a bonus, I'm giving a talk on Twitter and Facebook on Thursday that's worth AIA, ASID and NKBA CEUs and then again on Friday I'll be presenting a modified version of that same session on the show floor. I hope to see in Orlando!

Flowers: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. This week's topic is flowers.

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Most of the Let's Blog Off staff live in climates more temperate than mine and they're out every afternoon enjoying the riots of tulips and daffodils that explode across the north at this time of year.

I remember well those spring flowers and I'd be lying if I said I don't get a pang for them from time to time. Things like tulips and daffodils can't grow in places where there aren't true winters. I live in such a place and if the price I have to pay for not having to endure winter is that I have to give up spring bulbs then so be it.

Ponce de Leon landed in Florida on Palm Sunday in 1513 and named my adopted state "Pascua de Florida," that means "The Feast of Flowers" in Spanish. He certainly named this place correctly.

Though we may not have tulips and the rest outside of a florist, those of us in this part of the world get a consolation prize that's nothing short of one of my favorite things about life down here. Namely, there's always something in bloom. And I mean always, year-round.

Between the orchids I grow on my patio to the jasmine and jacarandas, I'm surrounded by flowers now in ways I never knew were possible when I was a kid in Pennsylvania. Despite the fact that I've been a Floridian for 20 years, every time I come across something blooming in January or February I react to it as if it were the most exotic thing I'd ever seen.

The novelty of tropical plants never grows old. Nor for that matter do the flowers I see every day. Here are some photos I've taken of my neighborhood over the last few years and flowers are forever figuring into my photo safaris.

So put me down as a fan of the flower.

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As the day wears one, a list of participating bloggers will materialize below. Give everybody a read. And while I'm telling people what to do, leave a comment below if you have a good flower story or observation.

Easter in the Bahamas

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Vendituoli) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Eleuthera, Bahamas

As many of you know I am presently in Eleuthera, Bahamas and this weekend is Easter and its a bit different than in the US. In the Bahamas, Easter is a big religious holiday and more the way that I remember it as a kid. For instance, this Friday is Good Friday and you will find very few stores or businesses open. Some may be open for a few hours but not many will be open at all. That's a memory that I have from childhood and I can't even remember why. Saturday is a normal day and everything is open and if you have forgotten anything this is the day to do so because you won't be able to until the following Tuesday.

Easter Sunday has many ceremonies and church services but you won't even be able to get gas.

The Bahama's as a region is a very Christian country with churches of every denomination.
Monday is Easter Monday and again everything is closed and is generally a day of celebrations. All the various congregations on the island set up great feasts at one of the local beaches and everyone goes, eats, enjoys themselves and as a general rule it is the first time Bahamians will go into the water for the year. That part is funny because the water here, even in winter will be 75-80 degrees and it can be 90 degrees in the shade but they won't go into the ocean. I have to admit I now have a bit of this too. Water that is 80 is what I now consider "refreshing" and below that well--- I just wait.

Ten Bay Beach

Easter Monday is celebrated on the calmer Caribbean side such as this and every settlement has its own beach. Here in Governor's Harbour everyone goes to Receiver's Beach which is about 6 miles away. Every congregation provides food and drinks and families from all over the community join in. Strangely it seems that almost every Easter Monday that we have been here it rains and I mean--- It Rains. Most of the time it seems to be at the end of the festivities so it isn't really a problem.

Life here and not just at Easter is much like it used to be as I remember from my youth. Things are slower and holidays are holidays- everything is closed. Yet in the last few years, I've begun to see changes happening and stores and some businesses are staying open longer. They have started on the trends of the US and I have mixed feeling about that. When I need to get something, I'm grateful they are open but at the same time it signals a change in the times. Even here.

For further reading please stop by:
http://www.thebuildingblox.com/

Installing kitchen cabinets

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Vendituoli) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

The kitchen cabinets were ordered and have arrived. Now it's time to install them and in most cases some advanced planing is required. This especially holds true if the installation is for a remodeling project. We'll assume that the cabinets that were ordered are the correct ones so the first thing that I do is some checking.

Is the floor level?
The way I do this is by setting up a laser transit in the room such as the one below.

Laser transits have many uses.

Once this is set up it will spin and create a perfect laser level line on the wall. I then take a chalk line and snap a line that matches that one. I now have a level line to reference and by measuring from that line to the floor at various points I am able to determine if the floor is level. If the floor isn't level then I can make marks down from my reference line to create a level line with another chalk line. Now I know where shimming or trimming will be required.

Are the corners square?

This is easily accomplished with a standard framing square and allows me to see if I will need to make adjustments. I also need to check the corners to see if they are plumb as many are not.

"Some floors and walls have uneven (high or low) spots, which will affect the installation. It will be necessary to locate these uneven areas and shim or scribe cabinets in order to make the installation plumb, true and square. Use the following procedures to identify your uneven areas."

Cabinet layout and preparation

Studs and blocking?

As there is nothing on the walls yet I need places that I can secure the cabinets to. Putting a couple of screws into a Sheetrock wall won't cut it. If this is a new kitchen then critical blocking should have already been added. However in remodeling projects you'll need to locate and mark the studs so that you have a strong place to attach your cabinets.

Starting the installation.

I do my installations a bit different than many. Many will add a ledger board at the desired height and install the upper cabinets first while they can get right up against the wall. I start with the base cabinets as this is the system that works for me.

The first cabinet is critical. It has to be installed perfectly in regards to plumb, level and square or every one after it will be off by an increasing amount. At this junction its check, check and re-check until you have fully attached the cabinet to the blocking or studs. Once that is done you can attach, shim, plumb and level the next one. As you move along you will also need to attach the face frames together. Here I clamp the two units together and drill and screw them securely to each other with a finish head trim screw.

Clamping and securing frames together.

Installing the upper cabinets.

The next step for me is to apply the chosen counter top material, which I'm going to gloss over for now.

When that is done I am now ready to use the same techniques as for the base units but with a couple of great jacks.

A handy cabinet jack

I have already marked the wall with a level line to show where the base of the unit will be. Now with two of the above jacks in position, I put the cabinet on top of them and with the squeeze handles I can micro adjust it to be exactly where I want it with no real effort. Once it is set in place you just apply the screws and move to the next unit.

The finished project!

Planning and installing kitchen cabinetry takes time but the finished product is well worth it.

contemporary kitchen design by boston architect LDa Architecture & Interiors

For further reading please visit my blogs- http://www.thebuildingblox.com/
and http://www.socialmedia4builders.com/

Cookies: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of all stripes weigh in on the same topic in something called a Blog Off. The topic of the current Blog Off is "cookies."

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I love shortbread with something that borders on an obsession and I played around with if for years until I perfected a recipe that produces a buttery, somewhat salty, somewhat sweet and perfectly sand textured shortbread. The ingredients couldn't be simpler, the art to this one comes from the perfect oven temperature and time spent therein.

I used to try to make these with a spoon, but they have to be of a uniform thickness or they won't have the right texture. On a lark I bought a cookie gun one year and it yielded the perfect shortbread cookie. Who knew? Some people call them cookie presses, but I call it a cookie gun. It makes me feel more macho that way.

Anyhow, I bought a Wilton Cookie Press (gun! it's a gun!) Pro Ultra 2. It's perfect --plenty of shapes and it's easy to load and clean.

My Ultimate Shortbread

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Whip butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Stir in the confectioners' sugar, cornstarch, and flour. Beat on low for one minute, then on high for 3 to 4 minutes. Drop cookies by spoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven. Watch them like a hawk. Pull them out of the oven at precisely 8 minutes or they will scorch. Once they're out of the oven let them cool for a couple of minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar while they are still hot if you'd like.

That recipe will make enough shortbread to feed an army but fear not. Take the extras, throw them in a food processor, grind 'em up and make an amazing crust for a cheesecake.

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As the day wears on, there will appear below a table of all of the participating bloggers in today's Blog Off. Give 'em a read!

Introducing Todd Vendituoli

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Vendituoli) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:10:00 +0000

Hello everyone,

My name is Todd Vendituoli and you may have seen me in various places around such as Twitter, Facebook and many other venues. I have been a builder since 1984 and over that period of time I have worked on building new homes, remodeling and commercial renovations. Over the many years there have been vast changes in the construction field resulting from better tools and practices and that continues today. One of the changes that I have been recently pursuing is the area of social media, which I feel very strongly about. Social media is about the way people reach out to search for information, recommendations and more. It is not a passing fad, and will not be going away.

Due to the gracious offer by my friend, Paul Anater, I will also be writing here. Now the main focus of Paul's blog is Kitchen and Residential Design so logically that will be my focus as well. I am hoping that I will be able to provide you with additional insight in this area and look forward to your comments and suggestions.

So to start with I'd like to ask if there are any areas that you would like to see explored or maybe you would like a product installation explained or... Really I would love to hear from you and what interests you.

Drop a comment below or on one of the other sites or Twitter or Facebook... You get the idea and I'm easy to find.

Lastly I know I shouldn't but I will be speaking at the Coverings Trade Show in Orlando, FL this April concerning Social Media with some really great people and I would love to see you there.
(http://www.coverings.com/coverings2012/public/Content.aspx?ID=5069&sortMenu=105002)

I have listed the other places that I can be found below and would love to see you there too!

http://www.thebuildingblox.com/

http://www.socialmedia4builders.com/
And I can also be found around the web on:
https://twitter.com/#!/TALV58
https://www.facebook.com/todd.vendituoli
http://www.glpl.us/Buildingblox.com
http://about.me/ToddVendituoli

We, ourselves, have grammar pet peeves: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. The current topic is "Grammar pet peeves." Here's my take:
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I have too many grammar pet peeves to list, so I'll pull out a few that work my nerves the most. As an intro, I pride myself on my knowledge of the English language. I'm not a grammar purist and I don't correct other people, not any more at least. I love English because it's so flexible and it allows its speakers to take all manner of liberties with its structures and norms. However, in order to break a rule of grammar, one has to know the rule he's breaking and do so intentionally in order to avoid looking like an illiterate clod.

My knowledge of English grammar is a direct result of my studying other languages. I never "got" my mother tongue until I learned how to compare it to other languages. It's a bit of a paradox, but the best way to understand English grammar is to study another language. A good grammar handbook helps too.

I still have my copy of the Little, Brown Handbook from college and I say it's the best guide to English there is. Pick up a copy, it's worth the investment.

On to the pet-peeves. (Yes, I know that's a sentence fragment.)

The first one out of the gate is the blatant misuse of reflexive pronouns. Modern English has eight reflexive pronouns. They are: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves and themselves. Reflexive pronouns refer the action of a verb back to the subject of a sentence. A few examples:

I saw myself in the mirror.
You drove yourself crazy.
He worked himself into a frenzy.
She grew that rhubarb herself.

You get the picture. The use of a reflexive pronoun is only correct when it's used in similar ways to the examples above. Reflexive pronouns have to have a verb between them and their antecedents.

I hear reflexive pronouns being massacred all the time and the one that gets beaten up more than the others is the first person singular reflexive pronoun, myself. It's usually misused thus: "I, myself, think that this is the best rhubarb pie I've ever tasted." Wrong, wrong, wrong; and using a reflexive pronoun that way makes the speaker sound like a boob. Don't do it. "I, myself..." doesn't add emphasis in the least; that's why English has adverbs and other parts of speech. "I think this is the best rhubarb pie I've ever tasted." is already making a statement. If you want to drive your point home even further, just add another clause to the end of the sentence. "This is the best rhubarb pie I've ever tasted and I've had some of the best."

Next out of the gate is the misuse of the first person plural pronoun "we." We indicates that the speaker is including other people in the statement he or she is making. For example, "My family and I were on vacation, we went to Paris." See how the first clause of that sentence limited the scope of the second person pronoun in the clause that followed it? It's imperative that a speaker limit the scope of second person pronouns to avoid dragging in innocent bystanders.

Writers from independent blogs to the New York Times misuse that all the time and it goes through me like a knife. When Sarah Palin's not putting her foot in her mouth, she's always making statements like "We're sick of President Obama." Who the hell is we? Please don't include me in your delusions.

If you have an opinion or a statement to make, stick to the first person singular and stand up for yourself. Say "I'm sick of President Obama." Use plural pronouns only with clearly defined groups. If you can't define a group clearly, then use an indefinite article and a noun. Here's an example, "Some people are sick of President Obama." Using an indefinite article in this way is not only correct, it's polite and it's a more accurate description of what's so.

The last one I'll get into here is a disregard to English's subjunctive mood. Modern English has four moods: indicative, imperative, infinitive and subjunctive. I've you've ever studied a Romance language, you know that those languages make ample use of the subjunctive. English reserves it to a handful of uses.

A quick primer:
Indicative is the default mood in English and example is "The dogs are barking."
Imperative is a command, "Don't just stand there!"
Infinitive mood describes a state of being without referring to a subject directly. Infinitives always have the word "to" in front of them, so a statement such as "He came to see you." is using the infinitive mood.
Subjunctive is a whole other animal and it needs a bit more explanation because it requires a different conjugation.

A verb uses its subjunctive mood when it expresses a condition which is doubtful or not factual. It is most often found in a clause beginning with the word if. It's also found in clauses following a verb that expresses a doubt, a wish, regret, request, demand, or proposal.

The most obvious example is when someone is expressing a thought that's contrary to fact. "If I were a rich man, I wouldn't have to work hard." Collectively, wishes such as this one are called "if clauses." By starting the sentence with "if," the speaker is setting the stage for a statement that's not true.

The subjunctive comes into play in other cases too. If someone asks to you come into his or her office but doesn't specify a time, the correct response would be "Is it necessary that I be there at ten?"

Did you catch that? It's not "Is it necessary that I am there at ten?" Because there's an element of doubt involved in the interaction, the sentence calls the subjunctive mood. In the subjunctive, "I am" becomes "I be."

The subjunctive mood is a lonely thing in modern English and many speakers are all to eager to ignore it. On behalf of the subjunctive mood, I will vouch for the fact that it likes company and it misses the attention it deserves.

English is a remarkably nuanced and flexible language and everyone who speaks it bends it to his or her own will. That's a good thing and I take liberties with it all the time. However, English is a language that's capable of incredible precision. That precision's only possible with a thorough understanding of the many, many rules of English's grammar and the widespread agreement that its speakers abide by the same rules.

I have been studying and trying to master my mother tongue for most of my life and it'll always a work in progress. I'll never have it fully mastered and that's one of the things that makes English so appealing to me. English has as many exceptions as it does rules and I have an incredible respect for anyone who studies it as a second language.

Native speakers have no excuse however. Grammar rules and guidelines are easy to find and though it takes a bit of effort, a facility with English isn't so difficult. If you're someone who writes, speaks or thinks for a living; you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of the Little, Brown Handbook.

Your audience will thank you.

These are my top three and rest assured, there are plenty more. If you're not participating today, what are some of your pet-peeves?

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As the day wears on, the other participants in today's Blog Off will appear today in a table. Click on their links and leave a comment.

Anthroplogie continues to offend

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I walked past an Anthropologie store in New Orleans this week and was mortified to see their store windows decked out in some bad reproductions of Mark Rothko's work and they were calling it and their new collection as "Abstract Expressionism."

I can sense that Rothko would have been mortified by not only his being classified as an Abstract Expressionist, let alone being the pivot point of a marketing ploy to sell overpriced, unattractive crap. Rothko was a Russian emigre whose family fled the last gasps of the Czarist pograms as the Bolsheviks conducted a bloody coup over the Romanov autocracy. He and his family barely escaped Russia with their clothes on their backs.

The Rothko family was fortunate to escape while they could and so they ended up in New York and then later moved onto the Pacific Northwest.

The Rothkos (nee Rothkowitz) family suffered mightily. They were poor but they managed to keep it together despite their circumstances. By all accounts, Mark Rothko was brilliant and he ended up at Yale.

In the 1930s he started to paint, and his subjects shifted from the Cubist/ Primitivist styles of his contemporaries to something utterly new. By the time the 1950s rolled around he was breaking new ground with a perspective that came to be called "multiforms." These multiforms were in essence individual photons of light, the smallest part of an artistic vision. Take a look at these paintings and imagine what he was looking at when he painted them.

That imagining is the whole point of Rothko's work. It makes me want to look at the parts that make up everything. No one had ever painted that way before and he pioneered the very thought of a pixel. He was painting in the 1950s something many of us take for granted now.

So what does any of this have to do with Anthropologie? Nothing, that's what. How do the get from this great, thoughtful art to this thing?

This sofa's offensive because it's hideous for starters. It's doubly offensive for its $3200 price tag. What makes it trebly offensive is Anthropologie's attempts to sell this crap off the back of Mark Rothko.

Don't buy into it. An ugly sofa is an ugly sofa, despite the marketing hoo-hah that surrounds it. There is nothing about a sofa with that price tag that harkens back to anything but bad taste. Enough, enough, enough.

I have no problem with $3200 sofas, provided they're well made and look like something other than a trail of cat sick. But asking people to spend that kind of money on a piece of furniture that's purposefully ugly and is being hawked by using one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century is just plain wrong.

What do you think? Would a sofa that looks like this and with this kind of back story ever figure into your home?

Go see this movie

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:35:00 +0000

I had the good fortune to see The Artist this week. I can't remember a film that's entertained me and made me think so much at the same time.

The Artist is a joint French and US endeavor and the entire movie is carried by this guy, Jean Dujardin. He deserves every accolade he gets.

Yes it's in black and white and yes, it's for the most part a silent film. However, it has a story to tell that won't quit. In addition to all of that haute film making, it has some great hoofing.

Not bad for a guy who used to be a Parisian general contractor. Would that all the building professionals I know tap danced like this.

Go see this film and if you have seen it already, let me know what you thought of it.

Notes from New Orleans and the cities of the dead

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:44:00 +0000

One of these days I'll get back to writing about kitchen and bath design but in the meantime, I'm going to continue to write about whatever comes to mind. Bear with me. I'll get back to my niche eventually.

via

I spent a good part of last week visiting some long-term friends (Kevin Smith and Brandon Bergman) in their new hometown, New Orleans.

While the rest of the world thinks of New Orleans in terms of Bourbon Street and the shenanigans that accompany Mardi Gras; or the horrors it suffered when the infrustructure failed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; there is much more to that city. It's a place that doesn't feel like the rest of the United States, and the city's conventions and norms make it unlike anywhere else. New Orleans feels like a place without a time or a country and it serves as pressure valve for the world.

I have a number of friends who've moved there over the course of the last four years from Florida. Collectively, I refer to them as economic refugees. People who moved to New Orleans to seek their futures as the city rebuilds itself in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans is back in a very big way and it's a real thrill to watch my friends there riding the wave of the Crescent City's rebirth; FEMA, BP and the Army Corps of Engineers be damned.

Rebirth isn't really the right word though. New Orleans has been through the mill since its founding in the early 1700s as La Nouvelle-Orléans. The city passed from French to Spanish and then back to French hands before it became part of the US. Huge amounts of that pre-US infrastructure still exist and it's impossible when in the heart of the city to keep an accurate count of the 18th-Century structures that are still in day to day use.

Beyond its architecture, the culture of New Orleans stands apart from the rest of the US. While it's a thoroughly American city, it retains a feel for its founding cultures that the rest of the US has lost utterly. One of the things that amazes me more than just about anything is its numerous "Cities of the Dead," as cemeteries are known.

I had the pleasure to spend a leisurely afternoon this week in Lafayette #1, one of New Orleans' cemeteries in the city's Garden District. Lafayette #1 was established in 1833 and is a perfect example of how the City has sent her residents to their final repose since the city's beginnings.

Unique in the United States, New Orleans disposes of its dead in above-ground crypts rather than burying them. The going story is that the crypts are a function of the city's low topography but that's not really true. It's as much a throwback to its Continental roots and the reality of its lack of space as anything.

The crypts of New Orleans, like everything else about the place, have an interesting story to tell.

Crypts are owned by families or organizations and the crypts sit on leased land.

When someone dies, he or she is placed on the shelf shown here and the crypt is then sealed.

After a year and a day, the crypt keeper opens the crypt and with a ten-foot pole, pushes the remains to the back of the shelf. At the back of the shelf there's a slit and the remains fall through that slit and drop to the bottom of the crypt. The crypt is now ready for the next family death and it's re-sealed. According to the lore of New Orleans, this is the origin of the expression, "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole."

On All Soul's Day every year, the people of New Orleans lay tribute in front of these crypts in the form of flowers, beads and other mementos. It's a touching gesture of respect of the deceased.

Not all crypts are owned by families. Some are owned by fraternal organizations or charities. While at Lafayette #1, I came across a large crypt owned by the Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys, an organization that still exists in New Orleans.

In the most touching example of an already touching practice, the ledge on the face of the crypt was filled to overflowing with toys.

New Orleans is an amazing city and one with a legacy it's all to willing to share with anyone who asks. So head there some time and ask.

That song that's stuck in my head: a Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic. This week's Blog Off is about songs that get stuck in your head. Here's my take.

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I fly in and out of the Tampa airport with alarming regularity. According to FourSquare, I've checked into that airport 28 times in the last six months. It's a great airport so far as airports go and obviously, I spend a fair amount of time there.

via The Decorating Diva

Every time I retrieve my car and drive home I pass a stand of oak trees at the entrance to the airport. All of them have a yellow ribbon tied around their trunks. A yellow ribbon tied around an oak tree has become the de facto statement of hope for the men and women who are in the armed services. Those ribbons are a stand in for "supporting the troops." I understand the sentiment behind those ribbons, but wouldn't it be better if the United States kept young men and women out of harm's way to begin with? Had the US not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place, there'd be no need to tie yellow ribbons around trees. If the energy expended in those ribbons were directed toward electing politicians who didn't buy into the idea that the US is the world's police force, we'd be a better country. If you want to "support the troops," work to bring them home.

via

Anyhow, every time I pass that stand of beribboned oak trees, it's 1973 all over again and this song bores its way into my brain:

The only thing I can do at that point is crank up my Twitter buddy Joseph Calleja's E luceven le stelle from Puccini's Tosca. He's also my favorite contemporary tenor and a good guy. Even if you don't get opera, the man has a voice that won't quit.

I cannot get enough of his singing. So far as I can tell, Calleja's the only cure for a Tony Orlando and Dawn earworm. I've seen him perform twice by the way, each time in New York. On my bucket list is seeing Calleja in Tosca at La Scala in Milan. One of these days...
What songs bore into your head? What prompts that boring and how do you get rid of them?
Check out how other bloggers address this topic by clicking on the links in the following table.

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What's that color?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:03:00 +0000

I get at least three e-mails every week from readers of this blog and other things I've written around the internet. This is immensely gratifying and most of these e-mails are questions about a photo or a request for advice about flooring, appliances, counter materials or cabinet brands.

via

I'm glad to answer these questions and I love that strangers look to me as a source of solid information. However one question I'll never answer definitively is "What's that color?"

This happens most often in response to the things I've written for Houzz.com. It's a legitimate question and every time someone asks it I launch into what's by now a rote speech.

The short answer is that it doesn't matter because you're not seeing the actual color. What human eyes see as color is reflected light and how a color reads in a photo is completely dependent on how a subject is lit at the time the photo was taken. So the act of photographing something distorts its color, sometimes pretty radically. So that's one degree of distortion.

Add to it that you're seeing that photo on an uncalibrated computer monitor and that's at least two more degrees of distortion.

After all those distortions, the nuance of the original color is lost for good.

Photos on the internet are good for general families of color. You can look at a photo of a room and know that you want a yellow kitchen or a taupe living room. But the actual colors used in the photo won't look in your home the way they do in the photo you're admiring.

Here's a detail of a kitchen I designed. The wall color is Sherwin-Williams 7037 and I picked that color because it played well with the off-white cabinetry paint color and it was as similar hue to the brown veins running through the Calacatta marble on the counters and back splash.

If I were to go to Sherwin-Williams' website and look at the swatch, here's what I'd get.

Even though they're same color, they look nothing like each other. What's more, the color as it appeared on the walls was off from the swatch in my Sherwin-Williams chip library.

The difference between a paint swatch and actual paint is typical, and a good designer knows how to accommodate it. The difference, by the way, is due to the fact that a paint swatch is a printed approximation of a paint color as it will appear with an eggshell sheen. Paint swatches are never the actual paint. Different sheens make even the same paint colors look completely different.

So the answer to "What's that color?" isn't an answer. Rather it's an explanation, and a long-winded one at that. It's impossible to specify precise colors with photos and even more impossible to do so with an image on the internet. The only way to gauge true color is to paint a wall, let it cure for a day and then decide whether it works or not.

I know that's not the advice most people are looking for; but it's the cold, hard truth. Use photography, be it on the internet, in a magazine or in the marketing collateral from a paint brand as a general guideline to help you identify a direction. But until a paint color hits the wall, you'll never know how it will actually look.

So go ahead, ask me anything. Just don't ask me what color something is.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a planetary alignment!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:24:00 +0000

via

If you've been paying attention to the western sky just after dusk in recent weeks, you've been treated to a really great show as the moon, Venus and Jupiter have been engaged in a nightly waltz with one another. Over the course of the next few weeks, Jupiter and Venus will continue to align so keep an eye out for it. If you have an unobstructed view of the western horizon next week, you'll get a glimpse of Mercury too.

This video from NASA explains what's going on in the not-uncommon alignment and what to expect in the weeks ahead.

Those objects are a nearly unfathomable distance from the Earth and it's really neat to just look up at them and ponder. A lot of people like to read all sorts of meaning into objects in the nighttime sky and their movements but really, they don't mean anything. Venus isn't the embodiment of love, Mercury isn't spirit and Jupiter doesn't represent leadership any more than my shoes do.

What they are however, are wondrous other worlds that share our solar system with us. Seeing them is a thrill just because they're there. Excuse me while I geek out on some astronomy.

I can't help but wonder what it's really like on those other worlds when I see them. Here's Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

photo from NASA

It's what's known as one of the gas giants in that it has a tiny rocky core surrounded by hydrogen and helium and a handful of other elements. Its size is mostly gas and that's kind of hard to imagine. Jupiter is massive and this spliced together photo shows it in relation to the size of the Earth. Jupiter has at least 64 moons and the largest of them, Ganymede, is larger than Mercury.

photo from NASA

Simply amazing.

Here's Venus.

Image processing by R. Nunes

Venus is the second planet from the sun and is 20 percent smaller than the Earth. Its size has earned it the reputation as the Earth's sister planet. The similarities end there though. Its surface is permanently obscured by dense clouds of sulfuric acid floating in an atmosphere composed primarily of carbon dioxide. Penetrating radar has shown Venus to have a bone-dry, rocky surface punctuated by some very serious volcanoes.

Finally, here's Mercury.

photo from NASA

Mercury is the planet closest to the sun in our solar system. It's also the smallest of the planets orbiting our sun. It has a molten iron core and a surface composed of silicates primarily. Its surface is pockmarked with craters and appears to lead a pretty tough existence. Its proximity to the sun gives it some amazing temperature variations. During the day, the surface temperature can reach 840 degrees F (450 degrees C) and at night the temperature drops to -275 degrees F (-170 degrees C). Talk about freeze thaw cycle.

These three planets have been observed by human beings since the dawn of our species and until the last few hundred years, no one knew what they were. Living in an age when understanding the planets is a Google search away is an amazing thing. Knowing that Jupiter's made of gas primarily and that Venus exists under a veil of sulfuric acid clouds and that Mercury experiences such wild temperature fluctuations every day fires my imagination more than any myth ever could.

So over the next few weeks, look west just after the sun sets and be treated to one of the greatest shows in the solar system.

The Ceramics of Italy tile competition deadline's been extended

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Casa Dolce Casa

If you're a North American Designer or Architect and you have a project you've done in the last five years you're particularly proud of, you're in luck. The deadline for the Ceramics of Italy tile competition's been extended until February 27, 2012.

Serenissima

Sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission and Confindustria Ceramica (the Association of Italian Ceramics), the 2012 Tile Competition is open to all North American architects and designers who have used Italian ceramic tiles in their institutional, residential or commercial/hospitality projects completed between January 2007 and January 2012. The competition is completely digital and FREE to enter! Winners in each category will receive a $4,000 cash prize and a five-day trip to Italy to attend Cersaie in the fall.

For competition guidelines, an archive of past winners and the online submission form visit www.tilecompetition.com. Good luck!

Even if you're not going to enter, click on the link to see the past winners. There are some really spectacular projects that have won in recent years.

Meet my new favorite possession, a walnut cutting board

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Just yesterday, I received this beauty from J. Aaron.

Look at this grain!

I have a weakness to end all weaknesses for Walnut. It is, without a doubt, my favorite wood species and J. Aaron does amazing things with it.

Here's a counter sample they sent me too. It's also Walnut and features their London edge. It's a softened ogee and it looks spectacular.

J. Aaron doesn't stop with Walnut though. They work in Maple, Bubinga, Sapele, Cherry, Brazilian Cherry, Iroko, Teak, Zebra Wood and Wenge too.

What's more, they work in concrete for both counters and trough sinks.

They have an artisan's eye for the products they manufacture, they'll sell directly and they do custom work from their Scottsdale, Georgia location. If my new cutting board is any indication of their dedication to what they do, and I believe it is, give J. Aaron a consideration the next time you're looking for counters. Look over J. Aaron's website, you'll be impressed.

The anatomy of a scam

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:45:00 +0000

I just received this e-mail:

Note the return address and then note the instruction for me to "activate my PayPal account" through the helpful, secure link provided. This e-mail even warns me about ne'er do wells who want to steal my information.

Interesting because that's precisely what they want to do, despite how official this e-mail looks. This is an attempt to empty my checking account, the virtual equivalent of someone holding a gun to my back while I'm at an ATM.

Once you have an activated account with PayPal, your bank, a credit card or anything else, you will never get an e-mail like this. Always check the return address and NEVER click on a link that's asking you to log into one of your accounts anywhere.

What these people are attempting is highly, highly illegal but the internet is a pretty vast place and the long arm of the law can only extend so far.

Online life gave me a career I could have never imagined ten years ago and internet access is a true marvel. However, a healthy dose of skepticism has never been a more important asset. Question every unsolicited e-mail you receive and be careful out there.

What smell takes you back? A Blog Off post

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Anater) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive when bloggers of all stripes weigh in on the same topic. This week, the topic is "What smells take you back?" Here's my take:

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It's said that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. I don't know how true that is but it strikes me as something that's entirely plausible.

There are smells of all kinds that take me back to different places and times. The first that comes to mind is this one, Old Spice.

The scent of original Old Spice after shave will always remind me of my Dad. I can't imagine ever using it myself but that smell reminds me of him as much as the words "Macht schnell" do.

Chanel Number 5 reminds me of my mother and Shalimar reminds me of my grandmother Stewart. The smell of polished wood reminds me of my Grandmother Anater's prized piano. Johnson's baby shampoo will always remind me of my nieces and nephews.

The scent of light machine oil will always remind me of my brother Ray's coronet. The smell of baking bread reminds me of my sister Adele, even when the baking bread's in my own oven. Wintergreen reminds me of the Skoal my brothers Matt, Tom, Dave and Steve dipped incessantly.

The smell of cow manure transports me back to my childhood home in Pennsylvania without fail, the scent of a pine tree right after a cool rain reminds me of my Ontario childhood summers and the smell of the ocean reminds me of afternoons at the Jersey shore.

Old Bay seasoning reminds me of crab boils with neighbors when I was a kid and the smell of celery and onion sauteing means my mother and grandmother are about to make stuffing on Thanksgiving morning.

Deisel exhaust reminds me of taking public transportation everywhere when I was in college and the smell of wet stone reminds me of Italy.

Jasmine and Jacaranda remind me of Florida, my current home, and roses smell like my brother Tom's yard. Wood smoke smells like my brother Dave's apartment in Pittsburgh and stale beer smells like the bar I worked in a lifetime ago. Golden retriever smells like my brother Matt's homes over the years and that's a good thing. Steve's houses have always just smelled clean.

My sense of smell and my scent memories remain with me permanently and there's not a day that goes by without my remembering a place or a time based on a whiff of something.

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As the day goes on, more and more bloggers will contribute posts and I encourage you to read aech of them.

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