Oggetti Luce busts my buttons

Someone asked me over the weekend for a lighting recommendation, she wanted an opinion about how to light an island. My knee-jerk reaction is to suspend mini-pendants from the ceiling over the island. I do it so often that I forget that there are other options. Well, even though there are other options, I'd rather not think about them.

Three years ago, I found myself a lighting trade show and it was there that I first stumbled into the offerings of Oggetti Luce. Oggetti sets the standard in Italian lighting design so far as I'm concerned and of all their collections, the Amore gets me the most worked up.

The first example of Oggetti Luce I saw at that trade show was their Onion pendant in green. Here it is.

Ahhh, even after all this time I can't be anything but captivated by it. The Amore collection comes in five colors and ten configurations. The entire collection is mouth blown Venetian glass and each piece is signed by the designer Eros Raffael. Signor Raffael is a master glass artist of great renown and each of these pieces is priced accordingly. I'd kill for a couple of them at home, but for now, I'll have to settle for the two we have in the showroom. Here's what the signature on an original pendant light looks like.

This Amore collection can be viewed as pretty modern, but when you consider that it's a classic material used in a modern way, these lights can go in any style room. We have them in an uber traditional room setting in our showroom and they look terrific. 

See? Like I said, they look terrific.

Of the five colors available in the Amore collection, I think the Amber and the Green look best. Here's a breakdown of the Amore's lighting styles.

The Onion Pendant

The Fiori Pendant

The Onion Sconce

The Fiori Sconce

The Fiori Torch

Thank you for filling the world with amore Signor Raffael.

Happy Inauguration Day America!

I have been waiting for this day for eight long years. Eight long years of malapropisms, hubris, contempt for everything I hold dear and more hubris. Good riddance and enjoy the dustbin of history. At long last, the grown ups are in charge again. 

How to fold a fitted sheet

I have occasional occasion to house and dog sit for an unnamed friend. This unnamed friend is someone I love like a brother and my life would be far less rich than it is without him in it. That said, he's not the most gifted housekeeper I've ever met and it's not an unusual thing for me to spit shine his house while he's out of town. I'm not the uptight, retentive person this is sounding like, really. But there are certain standards that until I met this unnamed friend, I assumed every one learned to maintain from childhood on.

As I said before, I'm not uptight and retentive, but there are limits to how much slovenliness I'll chalk up to a quirky personality even when I love the quirky personality like a brother. Well, the last time I was over there I opened his hall closet and saw before me a collection of wadded up sheets and pillow cases that make me shake my head even now. Someone claims no one ever told him how to fold a fitted sheet and so he just wads them into a ball and shoves them into a linen closet until he needs one. Appalling. Appalling! Am I the only one out there who had a grandmother around to impart these kinds of life skills? I mean, what kind of an adult can't fold a fitted sheet?

Without asking for a show of hands I know that there are far more unable-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet people out there than I want to know about. So in the spirit of public mindedness, I found a public service video that explains in simple, approachable terms, how to fold a fitted sheet. The video even stars a middle-aged man who's wearing a wedding ring, so that way no one's masculinity need be bruised in learning this vital life skill. So ladies and gentlemen, I now give you How To Fold a Fitted Sheet. Lights down please.

Sunday flights of fancy

As I was combing around the Internet yesterday, I came upon a blog called Fifi Flowers Design Decor. Fifi Flowers is the product of California-based artist and designer Fifi, and her site's filled with her paintings and photos of her work. It's a whimsical romp through the mind of a true free spirit.

Anyhow, one of Fifi's readers sent her some photos of a recent trip to the Amalfi Coast and Capri and it got me pining for a return to that part of the world. It's cold in Florida today. Trust me, when you move to a tropical climate, 60 degrees might as well be 20 below. Ugh! I can't stand cold snaps. Mercifully, they only happen a couple of times a year.

So today's a day that's perfect for daydreaming and fantasizing about warmer times. To help set the mood, here are a couple of shots from my trip to the Amalfi Coast in May of '08. All of these were taken by me in the charming-beyond-words town of Ravello. Some day, I'll post some shots of Positano, the town where I left my heart. But in the meantime, here's Ravello.

This is the view from a balcony in the Villa Ruffalo. That's the town of Maiori in the distance.

This is the restaurant balcony of the Villa Ruffalo.

Looking down at the terraced farms that cover this part of the world.

This is the front entrance to the Villa Cimbrone in Ravello.

The gardens of the Villa Cimbrone.

Me inspecting a statue of a young Apollo. Inspecting for artistic merit, of course.

A bust of one my heroes, Augustus Caesar.

One of myriad passages and entryways that cover this small hill town.

My friends and I stumbled upon a couple of young ballerinas from the High School in Ravello. It's a curious thing to think about people actually living and raising families in a place so enchanted as this.

Stay warm today gang. Send me some photos of trips to warmer places and I'll publish them in some kind of a warm up for the collective unconscious.

St. Pete slideshow

I love where I live and I'm fortunate to have an experience of Florida that's not the typical sprawl of suburbia most people see when they live in this part of the world. St. Petersburg is unique among Florida cities in that it's a city of neighborhoods and these neighborhoods came to be over the last 120 years and were already platted out and developed by the time the car came along. This makes for a walkable place, a city of front porches and wide sidewalks.

There's a real sense of community here in my neighborhood and I think it's due in a large part to the fact that our homes are set close to one another and such garages as there are, are located in the back where they belong. This makes it difficult to isolate and it forces us to interact with each other. Neighbors don't say strangers for very long when you see them every day.

Anyhow, I took a leisurely walk on Sunday afternoon and I took my camera, something I've been promising myself to do forever. This neighborhood is so filled with interesting nooks and crannies it's impossible to take anything BUT a leisurely walk. Anyhow, here's a slide show of my walk around the 'hood.