Machine age good design

In doing research on a vintage/antique letter holder, I ran across, or maybe it would be better to say, had an understanding of the advantageous design of the piece.

This lovely letter holder could be a Bradley Hubbard and in trying to verify this, I discovered the reason for the round holes in the bottom of the holder. I thought they were for air circulation, or ease of cleaning. Letter holders are bad about collecting dust on the base, and the holes would help with prevention and cleaning, I thought.

Until I ran across this image of the bottom of a Bradley and Hubbard inkwell.

Ornate Bradley Hubbard gift inkwell from Ebay. Click here for more info about the inkwell.

This is the brilliance of machine age designers! They would have created a basic base, with holes that could be used as inkwell holders, or ignored, and you can change the top pieces to make it a letter holder. Additionally, the ornate Art Nouveau plates could be used for the back plate of the inkwell or as the face plates/sides of the letter holder. On both items the ornate plate is added in one set of holes, with the inkwell utilizing the front holes for hooks to hold the pen and the letter holder adding the other peice- they are reversable. You can see on the bottom of my letter holder that the center holes are different from the side holes; they have honing marks around them. I think, they drilled these holes, after casting, for the center piece of letter holder. They had to grind off the filings to smooth the piece and that is why they look different

Previous to the Industrial Revolution there was no need to consider the advantages of making one item, or part, to serve two purposes.  The real advantage of this types of design work is the ability of current artisans to study the transition from the uniquely produced item to the production item. As people are again desiring work be made by hand, locally, or at least by a person, these pieces can aid the artisan into the history of the transition to production work and teach them how to make their workshops more productive, profitable, and competitive in a global market. It is great to see an early design for good thoughtful design!

technology- failure to communicate



For a router, this is pretty cool looking!

Today I spent 5 hours reconfiguring laptops, wifi printers, and roku boxes back to my old wireless router from the fancy new one I installed last night. This time included tech help calls, a lot of grimacing, and finding out that Netgear uses a 10 second loop (I counted) of blues music for their hold music. If I am frustrated enough to call the help line, why would you want me to be additionally annoyed with your music loop. How does Netgear think I might respond to the rep when they final take my call? Pleasantly, I don't think so.

Reflecting on today's events, and phone calls, brings me to something I have always felt- new does not equal better.
My new router, which boasts dual bands with 2.4 and 5 units of speed, sounds cool. Until, I speak with my ISP and find out that they are no where near broadcasting at 5 units (I really don't know what the speed unit is... or care). So, the dual bands serve no real use.

Then there is the cool looking Lucite stand that is made onto the router, which makes it too big to fit in the old routers location... but it looks cool.

However, the main reason the unit is going back it that it cannot talk to all my devices... at least not with the instructions provided and if Netgear had provided my with decent "live chat" or phone support, I might have kept it's for the looks. However, it has a gross failure to communicate!

Keeping my old router is probably the greenest of my tech decisions, recently. Saving very plastic technology from landfills is responsible, be it though figuring out how to make it work, or from finding a technology recycler (find a local one in your area, here). And though I was not purchasing the hot new thing, simply because it was new, it is important to remember that there can be more than one way to solve a problem. And that is what good design is about, solving problems! So yea... to my two year old Cisco Valet in the pretty shade of blue. Long may you route wirelessly!

What interior designers do

The glamorous description of my job yesterday is that I was at the lake house fluffing and zhuzzing. The weather was so lovely, we left the french doors open to feel the breeze off the water. The beginning of the leaves changing was inspirational and was highlighted with the floral arrangements I made for a little tablescaping before taking some pre-photography shots of the space.

If only I had this steamer with a strap!

The reality was that though I did make flower arrangements, leave the doors open for a breeze, and did some fluffing. I also spent about 3-4 hours steaming 12 foot high linen drapes... yards and yards of drapes! I also hauled ladders, extension cords, furniture, pillows and breakables... hammered, drilled, adjusted shelves...
I thoroughly enjoy my job, but it is not as glamorous as interior design is thought to be. A requisite for the job of interior designer should include strong back along with an understanding of scale, color, anthropometric, fabrics, drapes, drafting, HVAC, wood, carpeting, etc. And as much as I hate to admit... math!  Beside understanding how to choose art for a client there is also doing the math to hang the art, calculating flooring, drapes, upholstery, and furniture placement.

My favorite color is plaid...

When I was in college I found these red plaid silk pants on the clearance rack at my favorite department store. They were dressy and punk at the same time, I loved the dichotomy, especially since I had maintained for a few years that my favorite color was plaid. Why plaid? The philosopher would answer why not, but the real reason is I did not like to be pigeon holed. I do not want to be a purple person who is considered artsy, a blue person who prefers mainstream/blending in, a red person who is fiery, a pink person who is saccharine sweet, etc. Not that any of these are tried and true, but they are often assumed. I am not one of those people, but I sometimes any and all of those people, so plaid suits who I am. And really, who all of us are.

As a designer, I run into the same problem question as the one from childhood, "what is your favorite color," except now it is "what is your favorite style," or "what is your style." How do I explain that my design style is plaid, without sounding like I design in Scottish Highland style or that I am am secret Jacobite. However, it is still true, I like many styles for many different reasons. I love looking at those clean contemporary spaces with floor to ceiling windows. Conversely, I love looking at a cacophony of patterns from designers that really understand scale. Additionally, I like finding those Wabi Sabi pieces that celebrate the imperfections of design. People most likely want a short answer, but is it a cop-out to say that I like an eclectic style? Should I tell them I like Directoire style, which I do, but as it only lasted from 1795 to 1799, and it is over shadowed by it's popular cousin Empire... few are into it, or even aware of it.


It's all about scale!

What it really comes down to is I like "good design," and what is that? It is different for everyone! However, as a designer my job is to find what your "good design" is and help you make it the best good design it can be by find the best pieces and finishes, consider scale and space planning, and make sure it is the healthiest and safest it can be. A designer's job is not to impose a style on you. So to answer the question, what is your style? My style, personally, is typically the most recent thing I have seen and loved. My style professionally, is what ever style is your... from High Victorian to Cave dwelling. You name it, I can enhance it. I've got mad cave painting skills!
Like to see more of my style? follow me on Pinterest!





leopard love

Source: onekingslane.com via Laurl on Pinterest

Leopard can be a difficult pattern to work with- too much is looks tacky, too little and it has no impact. This is a good example of a room that used leopard and pattern, without going over the top. Barclay Butera designed this space presented in Luxe Interiors and Design's Greystone Glamour and photography by Grey Crawford. The keys to this room is to keep the space neutral, add other patterns and place your leopard pieces as the support cast, not the lead role. The lead in this room is the large leather wing back chairs, which are modernized with the striped rug. The leopard chairs, flanking the windows, act as a pattern in the room, like the stripes and the damask.
This room also plays with scale. The landscape paintings are not only large, they fill the walls from floor to ceiling. They appear to visually dwarf the windows and in doing so, make this room about the room, not about the view.
Interested in seeing more leopard I love? Check it out here!