$9 window cleaner? Give me a break!

The same magazine I mentioned yesterday, Domino (http://www.dominomag.com/), has a feature this month on environmentally-friendly cleaning products and it has me thinking.

Everyone seems to be jumping on the "green" bandwagon all of the sudden and it's about time. I think it's important to use resources wisely but a lot of times; the quest for new, "green" products is nothing more than a reconfigured quest for money, the old-fashioned green. Environmental degradation is caused by consumerism and I don't think that the answer to it lies in more consumerism. A nine dollar bottle of non-toxic window cleaner won't really do anything but lighten wallets and make a lot of the purchasers feel better about themselves. I saw an ad today for canvas grocery bags that retail for $26. So what if the cotton they're made from is organic? $26 for a grocery bag? Wouldn't that money be better-spent on the groceries the bag is intended to carry?

Somebody who thinks nothing of plunking down $26 for a grocery bag is the same kind of person who can be counted on to drive a Hummer or a Suburban, and that's a whole other problem. The problem at hand there though is the irritating polyethylene grocery bags that clog waterways and don't decompose. So the answer is to stop using them. So either say "paper" when the kid at the check out asks you if you want paper or plastic. Or better yet, say "neither" and hand him a stack of your bags from the last time you were there. But I guess there's no glamour in that. No opportunity for sanctimony or martyrdom.

The solution is not to buy more crap. Similarly, the solution is not to suffer needlessly. Wouldn't it make more sense to clean your windows with a one dollar bottle of white vinegar and yesterday's newspaper rather than a nine dollar bottle of something touted as green? Isn't it better environmentally and fiscally to take the eight dollar difference and pop it into a savings account? The basic cleaners your grandmother swore by (Fels-Naptha soap, white vinegar, baking soda, etc.) are still around and still as effective as they ever were. Especially the Fels-Naptha, I swear by it. What they lack in cachet they make up for in effectiveness and sensibility. They're also environmentally responsible.

Current environmental challenges are real and confronting them is not something that can be brushed off or wished away. As an individual, I can use less stuff and think about the impact of the stuff I do use once I'm done using it. That kind of behavioral change is subtle and quiet. Further, it's in my best interest economically to make changes like that. Its very subtlety and enlightened self-interest makes it run counter to consumerism gone wild and that, I think, is the key.

A new domino effect

Somebody handed me the new issue of a magazine called "Domino" (www.dominomag.com) today. I'd never heard of it, but I think it's one I'm going to start picking up. It's a Conde Nast publication that been around for a year from the look of things; and I was surprised at its depth and range, not to mention its practical advice and resources. I am always cautious of these sorts of things. Most of the magazines in this genre exist to house ads for mediocre products and their advice consists of whatever they've been paid to say.

Not so this one. It covers a pretty wide-ranging number of design sensibilities with an emphasis on making things look like today. What got me too was that every photo in the magazine is annotated with directions on where to find the stuff in the photo. What a concept. And I mean down to the paint colors on the wall.

They have a really extensive website as well, and there is content on the website that is independent from the print version of the magaine. How very new media of them. It's useful stuff too. There is even a calculator tool to estimate how much paint you'll need to paint a room, how much wallpaper to buy if you're looking at a paper job and most interestingly, how much fabric to buy before you tackle re-upholstering a piece of furniture. Too cool! Check it out:

http://www.dominomag.com/resources/calculators/paint

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.