When people live in glass houses, where do they buy furniture?

The great Alice Liao from K+BB Collective found this yesterday and I couldn't pass it by.

Carlo Santambrogio and Ennio Arosio are visionary architects and designers base in Milan. Their vision is remarkably transparent.

Together they run an architecture and design firm called Santambrogio|Milano. Alice's article yesterday dealt with their architectural concepts and they are thought provoking to say the least. What I can't get past is their furniture and fittings. Santambrogio|Milano is committed to exploring a fully transparent world.

A true glass cook top

A deconstructed and redefined kitchen sink.

A stair.

Double vanities.

A sofa.

A bath tub

A lamp and a chair.

Of course it's impractical, but I think there's something to be gained from what they're proposing. Where do you go when there's nowhere to hide? Is it possible to furnish a room and set a tone with the room's surroundings? I believe firmly that things like genuine warmth comes from the lives of the people who inhabit a room, and an all-glass room really puts that belief of mine to the test.

Could you like in a glass house? Live with a glass room? Cook in a glass kitchen? Sleep on a glass bed? Does ordinary furniture enhance or does it hide? Hmmmm.

Check out Alice's post to see what they do with architecture.

An Adirondack chair for the 21st century

This is the Emmet Collection by Loll Designs for Room and Board.

Loll Designs is the brainchild of brothers Dave and Greg Benson and they refer to their offerings as outdoor furniture for the modern lollygagger. They get points for using that word and they get even more points for making all of their outdoor furniture from 100% recycled high density polyethylene. In addition to using recycled consumer and industrial plastics, the products they produce are also 100% recyclable.

The Duluth, MN-based Loll Designs is committed to obtaining its raw materials in the US and Canada and manufacturing everything domestically. From their website:

By purchasing raw materials from the USA and Canada for manufacturing our products in the USA we reduce shipping distances both to our facility and out to our customers. Many products made in China actually start their life in the USA as raw material shipped to China to be manufactured, and then shipped back to the USA as finished goods for distribution. Being made in the USA means a lot to us since we live and work here and so do our employees. You can be sure that our employees earn a better than living wage, receive health care benefits, Holiday and Vacation pay, are eligible for retirement plans, and actually like their job. By purchasing products from Loll and other companies who also manufacture in the USA you help to perpetuate the local economies of the USA and North America directly. Thank you!

These are definitely my kind of people. It doesn't hurt that their Adirondack chairs look fantastic.

The Emmett Collection by Loll Designs is available from Room and Board and the prices range from $179 to $649.

Room and Board presents outdoor upholstered furniture.

This is Room and Board's new Brisbane collection. The Brisbane is upholstered furniture that's intended to be used outdoors.

Everything about the Brisbane's been designed with weather in mind. The frame is made from marine-grade laminated birch, the cushions are wrapped in a hydrophobic barrier and the fabrics are water resistant. The tailored slipcovers are made from either Sunbrella® or Outdura® fabric.

The slipcovers can be machine washed or just hosed off. Amazing. The stuff looks good too. I'll never look at a humble lawn chair the same way.

Weather-resistant though they are,  the furniture in the Brisbane collection should be covered or brought inside during winter or long periods of rain.

In a recent Ideas & Advice column on their website, they discussed this admittedly unscientific though still fascinating test of the Brisbane. Watch and wonder:





Check out the Brisbane and the rest of the cool stuff on Room and Board.

The melancholy housefly: Italian furniture, Italian humor

Another recent find on Twitter is CLABfordesign. CLAB is the brainchild of Umberto Dattola, an accountant turned carpenter in Bescia, Lombardia. CLAB stands for creative lab and it's Umberto's description of the inspiration behind this piece of furniture that sold me on his entire enterprise.

On a hot and humid day, a fly flew into my car. At first I did not notice it, but after it started annoying me, I tried to kill it in every possible way. Since I could not kill the fly, and it was not safe to keep driving without concentrating, I decided to stop and let it out. I parked the car near the shore of a lake.

It was a wonderful day: the sun was warm and the previous night’s rain had cleared the sky. As I opened the door, I felt the light and the clean air come into my car. I got out to enjoy the place and the day.
  
The fly seemed to be feeling as happy as me. It flew quickly over the beach, dived towards the water, then suddenly veered to avoid it. It then started swerving among the tree branches and drawing circles in the air. I watched it in amazement.

After about twenty minutes, the fly began to slow down and, soon afterwards, it stopped to watch the lake, just as if it had been struck by melancholy. I wondered what could make a fly melancholic. Could it be some kind of sickness for places, friends, or family? Does a fly actually have a family? Finally, it flew towards my car again.

When I opened the car door, it got back in, so I decided to take it back to the place it came from. On the way home, the fly kept quiet and never disturbed me again.

I'm sold on this bench by virtue of that narrative alone. Check out the rest of CLABfordesign's offerings on their website and follow Umberto on Twitter!

New stuff in time for warmer weather

Spring is rumored to be here and that can only mean warm weather is just around the corner. Most parts of North America crawled through a pretty miserable winter, but the end is in sight.

So in anticipation of warmer weather, I came across two new products that scream summer to me.

First up is a new tile series from Hastings Tile and Bath. What's tile have to do with summer? Well, take a look.

Hastings' PLI series looks like distressed wood even though it's made from porcelain. There are three colorways available; white, black and brown. There is a natural variation in each piece and it does look for all the world like wood decking. The big difference is that it's very nearly permanent and is wear-rated for heavy trraffic areas and can withstand even commercial uses. It's also made from 40% pre-consumer ceramic recycled content by weight.

The PLI series is available from Hastings' New York or Chicago showroom or through any of their authorized dealers in the US.

Second up is another beauty from Stone Forest.

That's carved from a single piece of marble and comes in either Silver Travertine or Travertino Romano. It's as much a piece of sculpture as it is a piece of furniture. It can be used indoors or out and if anybody want to make me really happy on my birthday in May, I think this would do it.

Check out the rest of Stone Forest's wonders on their website here.

Summer will be here eventually. Right?

This comment made my day

Last April I wrote a reader question post, What is this and what do I do with it? In that piece. a hapless reader sent me this photo:

And he asked me to identify the style and make some suggestions about how to decorate a bedroom around it. I told him to get rid of it more or less.

Well, at 10:36am on 19 March, someone who goes by the name of other could be mom left the following comment after that old post.

At least that reader isn't stuck with the bed AND a house full of honey oak furniture, honey oak flooring, honey oak "paneling", honey oak picture frames, honey oak early american anything that isn't from his mother's which is all honey oak and honey oak mantle clock with eerily honey oak brass finished "decorative" trim involving a lot of craptastic netting and swirls...i hate my life.

Thank you other could be mom, please come back.

Chair lust, Italian style

I saw these beauties on Trendir and I had to spread 'em around.

This is the Loop 3D Vinterio, designed by Claus Breinholt for Inifiniti.

These stackable chairs are available in six veneers; dark-stained oak, amazakoue, American walnut, black cherry and my favorites, sapeli/ sycamore and character tulip.

I don't know about you guys but I'm coming down with the shivering fits over these things.

Would you ever?

I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.

from Modani

Life's too short for boring lawn chairs

Well there's no chance of boredom here.

This is a series of outdoor polystyrene chairs called The Queen of Love. They were designed by Graziano Moro and Renato Pigatti for SAW. They are designed in Biella, made in Bergamo and so far as I can tell, unavailable outside of Europe.

Pardon the bad pun but who's ready to go for Baroque this summer?

Where's Liz Taylor when you need her?

The only thing missing is Liz Taylor and Richard Burton engaged in some heavy petting.

From Design Mobel.

New year, new stuff from Room and Board

The gang at Room and Board released a number of new items this week and I like to take a moment to fawn over four of them. Room and Board's furniture, carpets, lighting and accessories have a clean and modern aesthetic I like a great deal. There's a bit of Mid Century Modern in all of these pieces but they never cross the line into camp. Their stuff's exceptionally well made and sold at a price point that makes my head spin sometimes.

If you're in the market for new furniture, please don't buy junk. Buy good quality furniture and buy it once. Do your research and I can't think of a better place to start that research than at Room and Board.

This is the Louis Chair and Ottoman.

The Louis comes in five fabrics or can be customized with any of the hundreds of fabrics in Room and Board's collection. The Louis chair sells for $899 and the ottoman $399.

This is the Ventura table.

The Ventura is available in solid cherry, solid maple, and solid walnut. It comes in four lengths and its prices range from $1399 to $1899.

This is the Spill carpet.

The Spill is made from handmade wool felt and is available in the color and pattern shown. Other colors and patterns have other names. Imagine. Out of all of them though, I like the Spill the best. Nothing like a jolt of orange to start the day, right? Anyhow, the Spill comes in two sizes and ranges in price from $2160 to $3,600.

And finally, this is the Adams table.

In the Adams table, Room and Board managed to inject some Mid Century Modern sensibilities into a traditional Shaker form and I love the effect.

Again, if you're in the market for furniture, don't buy junk. Research like crazy and then buy the best you can afford and buy it once. If you have to buy something on impulse, but a pack of gum at the check out. Furniture purchases should be agonized over for months. Or in my case, years.

Little Bert Chair Giveaway at GrassrootsModern

Hello everyone! This is David Nolan and I have a giveaway to announce that is happening Christmas Day at one of my favorite blogs - GrassrootsModern. Personally, I have no use for a Little Bertoia Chair but it would make a great gift. You can enter the contest twice, once if you comment on the post and one more time if you retweet the contest. Definitely check out the rest of GrassrootsModern while you are there, it is filled with good taste and condensed writing. They do use the dreaded "we" in this post, with good reason I believe, but the second person plural may send Paul into another Apartment Therapy-esque rant which "we" wouldn't want. Generally, it is only I's for GrassrootsModern.