What on earth is in my FICO Score anyway?

My car insurance premium just went down. It was a nominal decrease, but I'll take what I can get. I called my insurer just to make sure that it wasn't a mistake and the customer service rep chirped that my FICO had gone up and my rates dropped accordingly. I still fail to understand the connection between my credit rating and my car insurance rates, but I'm sure there's an actuary somewhere who can prove that the two things are related. And I'm equally sure that when presented with this evidence I'll dismiss it. Anyhow, the whole thing got me thinking about the FICO thing.

I know what my number is, but I still don't know what it means or how it's derived. Well, enter my pal Ben Popken and Consumerist again. He ran a story on Monday with this pie chart:

He found it on a website called MyFICO.com. Check it out.

This is from MyFICO.com:

Payment History

• Account payment information on specific types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, finance company accounts, mortgage, etc.)
  
• Presence of adverse public records (bankruptcy, judgements, suits, liens, wage attachments, etc.), collection items, and/or delinquency (past due items)
  
• Severity of delinquency (how long past due)
  
• Amount past due on delinquent accounts or collection items
  
• Time since (recency of) past due items (delinquency), adverse public records (if any), or collection items (if any)
  
• Number of past due items on file
  
• Number of accounts paid as agreed
  

Amounts Owed

• Amount owing on accounts
  
• Amount owing on specific types of accounts
  
• Lack of a specific type of balance, in some cases
  
• Number of accounts with balances
  
• Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)
  
• Proportion of installment loan amounts still owing (proportion of balance to original loan amount on certain types of installment loans)
  

Length of Credit History

• Time since accounts opened
  
• Time since accounts opened, by specific type of account
  
• Time since account activity
  

New Credit

• Number of recently opened accounts, and proportion of accounts that are recently opened, by type of account
  
• Number of recent credit inquiries
  
• Time since recent account opening(s), by type of account
  
• Time since credit inquiry(s)
  
• Re-establishment of positive credit history following past payment problems
  

Types of Credit Used

• Number of (presence, prevalence, and recent information on) various types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, mortgage, consumer finance accounts, etc.)
  

Top down blinds from Smith and Noble

I had a request form a reader over the weekend, and he asked me about where to find blinds that opened from the top down like these ones I'm showing here.

This is called a "top-down" mounting and it's usually done with honeycomb blinds, wood blinds and sometimes on Roman shades. I'm sure that it's done on other kinds of window treatments as well, but I'm skating out onto some pretty thin ice when it comes to offering advice on how to treat a window. The point of top-down mountings is to admit light while preserving privacy at the same time. I always think of modern spaces when I'm asked about this kind of window treatment, but there's no rule stating that you can't do something like this in any room. Go for it, and if you're going to go for it, spend some time with Smith and Noble.

Anyhow, the images I'm showing here are all from Smith and Noble, the mail-order window treatment pros. Their top-down mountings are sold as an upgrade to their custom blinds and shades. I can vouch for these people personally --I've been thrilled with every transaction I've ever done with them. Check it out.

On the importance of a contract

I spent a couple of hours on Friday evening presenting this design to a client. It looks pretty Spartan and it's supposed to. What you can't see in this black and white line art is the colors and textures of the finishes going into this baby. Bold contrasts! Vibrant colors! Simple, big shapes!

Here's the wall tile that's going to cover every square inch of exposed wall in here.

Here's a shot of it in a bathroom.

Both of these photos and the tile itself are from Mirage Glass Tile in Brooklyn.

My clients liked it for the most part and the scope of this job involves a lot more than the kitchen. The kitchen rendering here is part of a major renovation to be done to an older, waterfront, block ranch house out at the beach. As is usually the case with these older homes, we're adding onto it and removing many of the interior walls. This is a major job and it calls for a capable, specialized contractor to pull it off.

My clients came to me with a contractor already in mind and he's someone I don't know. I can draw pretty pictures and dream big dreams for people all day long, but none of it means anything if it can't be made real by a good contractor.

There's a regular column in the New York Times' Home and Garden section called The Fix. The Home and Garden section is in the Thursday Times every week and the guy who writes it is always spot on. That guy is Jay Romano and he dispenses clear and calm renovation advice week after week and his column is ample reason to pick up the Thursday paper. As luck would have it, he wrote about contracts and change orders last week and I printed out a copy for my new clients. In lieu of doing that for you, I'm going to post a link to his piece from last week. Add it to your bookmarks. You'll thank me later. Maybe.

A media meltdown to go with the financial one

Ach du frickin' liebe Zeit! There's a media meltdown underway kids and since it's Sunday and I need a design break, here goes:

One of my regular online readings is Consumerist. Consumerist mixes smart-alecky advice and anecdotes with real financial advice. Consumerist details the finer points (and a lot of blunt ones) of a consumer culture that's collapsing and I just learned that they are being spun off by their parent company and are on the block to the highest bidder. The very same collapsing consumer culture Consumerist covers has advertisers spending less money and sites like Consumerist are feeling the pinch from this contraction. I think that defines irony pretty well. Consumerist generates an enviable amount of web traffic, so I doubt they'll go away completely. I just hope that they end up with a new owner who lets Ben Popken do his thing with something close to editorial freedom.

Anyhow, Consumerist ran a piece last Friday that has had me laughing since. Hands down, this is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Petty and sophomoric? You bet! Here's the link to Consumerist. There's a link to the whole story in the Consumerist piece, so just follow it. They can use all the click throughs they can get! Here's an excerpt:

Mid-Century Modern from the source

Here's an excerpt from a Chevrolet-produced film from 1958. "American Look" is a great glance back at the images and ideas that were being pitched to American consumers 50 years ago. I think this stuff's amazing, sort of a real-life episode of Mad Men. Go ahead, spend less than five minutes watching this. It's wild to see how much of the stuff in this movie is still around. There's even an Eames Chair in an office toward the end.

 

If you're feeling particularly adventurous, here's the whole 28 minute film.

 

If you watch the whole thing, it's an homage to the designer of 1958. And that's designer defined to include industrial design, interior design, package design, fashion design, architecture and more. These images are just gorgeous and they look back at a time when the conventions of what things should look like seemed to be thrown to the wind. Amazing.