Let's hire a contractor!

When you're ready to take on a renovation to your home, smart people hire a contractor. People who watch a lot of local news view the very idea of this with great fear and loathing, but it needn't be a nightmare if you use your head. Local news stations love a "bad contractor" story, probably because the people at the station are as petrified by the process as their viewers are. Just relax. As with just about everything else in life, do your homework and ask a lot of questions. Don't pretend to know what you're talking about if you don't. Be honest and straightforward and trust your gut. Get references and follow up with them.

Here are a couple of dos and don'ts. This is by no means a complete list, but it's a good place to start.

1. Do consider your contractor's personality. This person will be in your home each day, so it's vital that you feel comfortable talking to him or her. A contractor who listens to you is the contractor you want. Someone you can't talk to is someone who's not going to be able to provide you with the finished result you want.
2. Don't be an absentee homeowner. Don't expect everything to fall into place automatically. Your approval is the most important part of a job. Stay in communication daily by phone and do a walk through with your contractor regularly.
3. Don't let anyone start working until you have a signed contract. A good contract should cover the following: start and finish dates, total cost (include how changes will be handled), a payment schedule, names of all parties, contractor's license number, proof of insurance, description of project, and provisions for early termination. If necessary, consult a lawyer.
4. Don't micromanage the crew. Instead, schedule regular meetings to discuss and review the progress of your job.
5. Don't pick the lowest bid. If something seems too low, chances are that it is. No one works for free. You don't and neither should your contractor.
6. Do keep a list of who's been in your home. Record in a notebook the contact information for each person who's worked on your job.
7. Don't dance around what you have to spend, especially if money is tight. Everything should be in the contract. It is perfectly OK to say to a contractor, "I have $50,000 (or $30,000, or God help you $10,000) to renovate my kitchen, what will that get me if you do this job?"
8. Do demand proof of insurance and a valid license. Verify the status of both of these on the website of your local builder's association. Anyone working on your home must have liability and worker's comp insurance. Remember that you're liable if you hire an uninsured contractor and one of his crew is injured in your home.
9. Don't rely on your imagination. Demand to see color swatches and paint chips for finishes before you order materials.
10. Do nominate a decision maker. The easiest way to prevent "he said, she said" is to appoint one household member to deal directly with the contractor and to update everyone else.

If you're unsure, don't do anything. It is better to put off a renovation than to rush into a contract if you aren't comfortable and sure.

Children as acessories

Yesterday's New York Times ran a really amusing piece about what happens to exquisitely designed homes once a child or two enters the picture. "Parent shock: children are not decor" has had me laughing since I read it yesterday. I just love the Times sometimes. Who am I kidding? I love the Times all the time.

Click on this link to read the whole article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/garden/14kids.html

What caught my eye was the image here that shows a happy dad and son with a foam-edged Noguchi Table in the foreground. A Noguchi Table is a modern design classic and it's been in continuous production since Herman Miller (www.hermanmiller.com) introduced it in 1947. The Noguchi table was the brainchild of the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Noguchi) and is a loving ode to simplicity and utility. A 3/4" thick piece of glass seems to float over a tripod made from two pieces of interlocking wood. Absolutely stunning, but a recipe for disaster when there's a two-year-old in the room. Keep the kid out of the room is my advice, but then again that's coming from a 40-something with no kids. I suppose that children are important, but for Pete's sake that's an original!

Here's what one looks like without the child-proof foam edge. A real Noguchi will set you back around $1400 and you can see them at Design Within Reach (www.dwr.com) and Room and Board (www.roomandboard.com), among others. Any Noguchi you'll see at either of those places is a real, Herman-Miller produced original. Although I have to admit, Modernica (www.modernica.net) in LA makes a pretty convincing knock off for around half the price of a real one. Of course, the knock off won't be signed and will lose its value over time.

Wrapping the edges of that table in foam, while jarring, is probably something Isamu Noguchi himself would have approved of. The whole point of the modernists was to bring beauty to the masses through furnishings they could afford and live with. If you ask me, it's a lesson that could be re-learned by more than a few of the neo-modernists out there.

It's trade show season --woo-hoo!

Every year, the tile and stone industries join forces to put on a trade show that makes my mouth water. "Coverings" is taking place in Orlando this year from April 29th through May 2nd. I cannot wait to get there. The photos littering my entry today are highlights from last year's show.

The kitchen to the left is a beautiful room on a whole lotta levels. It's open, airy and relies on the wall mosaics and floor tile patterns to add interest. This makes for a simply furnished room that's in no way Spartan or empty. Were it not for the tile work, this room would look positively bare.

There is so much to the world of tile and it's unfortunate that most peoples' ideas of what's out there comes from the tile aisle at the home center. True, most of what I'm showing here and most of what I'll see at Coverings this year is the extremely high end of the market. However, interesting needn't mean outrageously expensive automatically. Even if a lot of what I see at the show is aspirational, it's always good to see the high end of the market. An awareness of the high end helps you buy better knock offs. The styles that end up in a home center started out years before at the high end and trickled down. Sort of the same way that fashion or cars or any other consumer product does.

When I was registering this afternoon, I looked through the list of exhibitors and to call it extensive is the understatement of the century. Among the hundreds of tile manufacturers and stone importers are a fair number of Chinese businesses. I would say that the percentage of obviously Chinese concerns is approaching 10 per cent of the exhibitors. I suppose it's a reflection of the world economy and China's place in it. That China is a growing world power doesn't concern me necessarily, but I do find their presence at these trade events to be interesting.

Their emerging economies and sensibilities haven't quite figured out how to attract the eye of western designers, I think I can say that pretty safely. When you compare the booths of the Chinese manufacturers to those of the Italians, the Spainish or any other international firm who's been around for a while it's pretty jarring. The Chinese exhibitors tend to display their wares in booths that look like a grouping of folding tables. Period. The Italian booths in particular tend to look as if the muses themselves decided to go into the tile business.

More curiously still, the Italians have been making mosaics since the dawn of western civ. True, the Chinese are no strangers to ceramics, but it was the Italians who made tile into an art form. Italian mosaic tile in particular sets the standard. In my office are some samples of Sicis glass tile from Venice (http://www.sicis.com/). The families of northern Italy have been making glass tile since the Venetians figured out how to make colored glass a thousand years ago. The formulas that went into the glass sample on my desk have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years and the result is an iridescent blue-violet that looks good enough to eat. Needless to say, the per square foot cost is pretty high.

However, in a box on the floor of my office is a new shipment of mosaic tiles in iridescent colors. There is a blue-violet in there that's a dead ringer for the pedigreed Italian stuff. Side by side, I would have to be told which one is which. But the big difference is that the new samples I have are made in China and they cost less than a third of the good stuff. Hmmm.

Lies and more lies from HGTV

Against my better judgement, I watched a new HGTV show this morning called "Color Splash." I recorded it at some point over the weekend, something in the description caught my eye. It seems the host was going to renovate a kitchen for somebody and I'm always curious to see what one of those shows does with a kitchen. Sometimes, I think I seek out irritation to prove to myself that I'm alive.

"Color Splash" didn't disappoint. David, the host, got off on the wrong foot by incorrectly identifying the wood species of the floor and the existing cabinetry. Beware anybody who claims to be a designer and can't identify a wood species by sight. Throw them out of the house immediately. Somebody who can't tell the difference between oak and birch is somebody who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Strike two came pretty quickly after that when the homeowner made the uninformed observation that modernism was cold and this was met with effusive agreement from the show host.

Modernism is not cold. It is un-ornamented and depends on textures and colors for warmth when warmth is the goal. The host had a prime opportunity to dispell the corollary myth that clutter makes a home feel warm. But then again, this is a television show. A television show that depends on sponsors to stay on the air. The sponsors need the viewers to buy the sponsors' wares and clutter up their houses. It makes sense, sort of, that a show host would encourage people to load up on crap they don't need. So since the show host passed up an opportunity to say what needed to be said, I will. Clutter doesn't add anything but clutter. Basket collections, fussy curtains and artifacts from our nation's agricultural past add nothing but distraction and noise to a room. Clear out the clutter and conquer the world I say.

Anyhow, as I watched this half hour program I was reminded again that this was meant to be entertainment. Most people watch this stuff and realize that what they're watching isn't a guide to what to do or to expect when they embark on a renovation of their own. I hope so anyhow. Again, due to the magic of television, a six week renovation was condensed miraculously into a half an hour and there were no cost overruns or scheduling problems. There couldn't be any cost overruns, because there was never any mention of cost to begin with.

What gets me about the shows on this network in particular is the way that the PR departments of their big sponsors make it into the banter of the shows' hosts. And this is where that network really rubs me the wrong way.

In the program I watched this morning, the show host went to a Home Depot and referred to it as a one-stop shop for all of his renovation needs. He talked to a cabinet guy in the Home Depot and they discussed how great Kraftmaid Cabinetry was. Then when he was specifying the counter top material, he needed "something more resilient than granite" because the homeowners cook a lot so he selected a Silestone counter. That was three obvious plugs in the span of about two minutes and they were masquerading as expert opinions. That really burns me. The patent untruth of this stuff can't be allowed to go on unchallenged.

Kraftmaid is the largest manufacturer of pre-made cabinetry in the US. It is known in the industry as "Crap made." It is not great, custom cabinetry. What it is is mass-produced and resonably priced. It's great for rental units and vacation homes. Period.

Home Depot is not a one-stop shop. Home Depot sells cheap stuff and that cheap stuff is sold to you by people who aren't trained to know the difference between price and value. Home Depot is a great place to buy framing lumber and tools. Home Depot is about the last place I'd go if I wanted a good light fixture or kitchen faucet.

Finally, Silestone is not more resilient than granite. Silestone is a major sponsor of that network. Manufactured stone, generically known as quartz, is pretty interesting stuff. It's strong, stain resistant and heat resistant. However, it's essentially terrazzo. If you like the look of terrazzo, then by all means get a Silestone counter. If you don't like how it looks, don't let some TV show or untrained cashier at a home center talk you into it with a bunch of corporate newspeak.

In a perverse way, the manner in which HGTV weaves the opinions of its sponsors into its content is almost admirable. Almost admirable because it's so seamless and reasonable-sounding. But corporate BS it is never the less. Silestone's parent corporation, Consentino, paid a lot of money for David to say what he did on that TV show this morning. Consentino has every right in the world to buy advertising. HGTV has every right in the world to sell airtime however it sees fit. BUT, as an audience member, please be aware of what's going on.

It is not 1985 and you're not watching the original runs of "This Old House." The rise of the home center invented a new market --the do-it-yourselfer. From the start, that was a pretty finite group of people. It seems that doing-it-yourself as a cultural phenomenon has crested and is starting to shrink. This is putting a squeeze on the home centers and the companies who stock their shelves. They have to get smarter about how they reach people. Product placement and editorial input on networks like HGTV makes sense if that's the goal. But every time a show host reads a line scripted by a sponsor, they lose a little more credibility.

If you feel compelled to watch that stuff, watch it for entertainment value. Because that's all it's worth.

Flooring fun facts!

I spent the better part of this afternoon in a flooring showroom preselecting some options for a client. The focus of my excursion was a kitchen floor and I wanted to whittle down their options a bit to keep them from being overwhelmed when we go back together later on this week. The options can be staggering to the unitiated, so I like to get an idea of what I want them to see beforehand. We'd already discussed what they were looking for in pretty general terms, so I know the direction I want to head in.

We'd discussed using either natural stone tile or a porcelain tile that looks like natural stone. They are looking for something rustic but not country-fied and I'd suggested a French Pattern, and that's something they want to explore further.

Ceramic Tile: Ceramic floor tile is fired and glazed feldspar and clay. This material gets its surface color and texture from its glaze. Remember that.

Porcelain Tile: Porcelain tile is a kind of ceramic tile. Porcelain is porcelain because it contains the mineral kaolin in addition to feldspar and clay. Kaolin-containing clays are more dense and get fired at higher temperatures, this makes for a stronger tile. Porcelain tiles tend to derive their colors from the clays they're made from rather than glazes on the surface on the finished tile.

Stone Tile: Stone floor tile is usually made from travertine, limestone or marble. Occasionally, some other stones get carved up into flooring --most notably slate-- but for the most part, the big three listed above are it. A lot of times those three names are used interchangeably and erroneously. All three are very different though they are curiously related.

Geology time! All three kinds of stone are made from calcium carbonate and each of them starts with limestone. Limestone is formed at the bottom of bodies of water. Small creatures make their skeletons and shells from calcium carbonate that's dissolved in water. Think of a clamshell only on a much smaller scale. As these wee beasties die, they drift to the bottom of the sea and accumulate. Over millions of years these deposits of calcium carbonate turn to limestone. As the continents slide around some of those deposits get pushed to the surface and then we can turn those gazillion year-old wee beastie skeletons into flooring. Thanks wee-beasties!

BUT when that limestone gets pushed down toward the center of the earth instead of being pushed up, it undergoes a metamorphosis. The high pressure and high temperatures below the surface of the earth make the limestone turn into marble. Then, miraculously enough, that marble gets forced back to the surface. This twice-baked limestone then gets turned into a building material that curls my toes. I love marble so much it hurts sometimes.

Finally, if limestone ends up near the surface and is exposed to running water, the water will dissolve the calcium carbonate that makes up the limestone. When the water reaches a point of saturation and can't absorb any more calcium carbonate, the dissolved minerals precipitate out of the water and form deposits of calcite. These calcite deposits are what we call travertine.

Of those three tile categories; ceramic, porcelain and stone; I will always lean toward natural stone if the choice is left to me. Nothing looks like it and nothing feels like it. Natural stone has a warmth and a texture that the other two strive for but never quite achieve. However, the warmth and texture of natural stone comes at a price. It is softer than ceramic, significantly less so than porcelain. Because the natural stones I'm talking about are made from calcium carbonate, a water-soluble mineral, they are more prone to staining and wearing irregularly. I'm of the mind that these characteristics are pros rather than cons though. I like things that show the effects of normal life. A good travertine floor will never fall apart and if it's installed properly, it will never need to be replaced. I mean the Coliseum in Rome is made from travertine and it's been there for 2,000 years. So what if a floor made from the same material shows wear patterns by the door?

Bonus section: the French Pattern I mentioned at the start of this thing is a traditional pattern used in setting stone floor tiles. Nothing looks quite like it, and tile setters must hate it. I know they charge like they hate it when they're setting one of these patterned floors. Granted, the math gets a little complicated, but it is so worth it. Here's what the pattern looks like in a black and white drawing. In a typical application, size A is 16"x24", size B is 16"x16", size C is 8"x16" and size D is 8"x8". The diagram to the left is a single repeat and there are two As, four Bs, two Cs and four Ds. Those twelve sizes repeat in the pattern shown the whole way across the floor. In a chisled-edge travertine like the example shown above, the effect is as timeless as it is beautiful.

If you're in the market for a new tile floor, even if you don't end up with chisled-edge travertine in a stunning French Pattern, promise me one thing. Promise here and now that you won't set it in a straight forward grid. Life is too short for boring floors and it takes so little effort to do something interesting.