Let there be wood

Wood floors don't figure into my work very often, but that's a function of where I live more than anything. A traditionally-built, wood frame house in Florida has heart of pine floors. In what's called a Cracker House, wood floors were necessary because Cracker Houses never sit on the ground. Instead, the floor joists rest on pilings that raise the house a foot or so off the ground. That the floor joists span the distance between pilings means that this construction method calls for a flooring material with a lot of give.

Believe it or not, this house is not sitting on the ground.

Building homes on concrete slabs started to catch on in the 1950s. With the arrival of the slab, terrazzo, stone and ceramic tile floors became the default floors in this part of the world. So while folks in more northern climates were thinking of tile floors as exotic, people here were looking for something new. Enter the wood floor.

Wood floors figure into around 10 percent of my projects and when I get to specify a new one, it's a bit of a big deal. I've been trying to find the perfect floor for a project and I keep coming back to walnut. Walnut's my favorite hard wood and a walnut floor is a thing of such staggering beauty it makes me... it makes me... it makes me stagger.

The floors I'm specifying are to come from Carlisle Wide Plank Floors in Stoddard, New Hampshire. Their website is beautiful and all of their offerings are gorgeous, not just the walnut. Carlisle Wide Plank Floors were unknown to me until a week ago and what a find. If you want to look at some great inspiration photos of some beautiful floors, check out their site. Better yet, if you're in the market for a new floor, consider Carlisle.

Dust off your Capezios

Is nothing sacred?

A tale of two master suites

I am drawing out two master baths this weekend. I don't do too many of them and I enjoy the challenge when I get one. The first is an exercise in more and my client wants me to use this image as an inspiration photo.

I don't like it, but nobody pays me to like what I design. When it's finished, it will be lovely and tasteful and my clients will love it. Their friends will too and for a lot of people, a master bath like this is something they aspire to.

Not me man, my fantasy master bath is one similar to the second design I am doing for another client. In my heart of hearts I'm a minimalist and so is client number two. Even though I will pour myself into both projects, project number two will satisfy me more because it strikes so close to what I like.

I like minimalism because it doesn't provide any distractions or places to hide. In a minimalist setting, some one's alone with his thoughts and for me that's a peaceful and enjoyable thing. I get it that not every one's wired that way but after years of considering why I'm so drawn to the kinds of room settings that a lot of people think of as cold, I've come to the conclusion that it's because I like my own company.

Anyhow, master bath number two is going to be as clean and unencumbered as I can make it. For years now, I've loved the shower systems made by Chicago-based LaCava. In particular a pan system they call the Tatami.

The Tatami is a series of fluted, porcelain blocks that sit in a shallow pan. This allows for a smooth and seamless transition from the floor in the room to the shower. Because this transition has been so smoothed out, it allows a designer to re-think the whole idea of a shower enclosure. The lower left illustration in this diagram shows how the Tatami works in cross section.

The shower set up I'm working on has a single, clear glass splash guard that will be about four feet wide and run from the floor to the ceiling. That's it. Just a single sheet of glass at the end of the room with the Tatami system on the floor.

This is sort of my idea for this shower. Sort of. Only in my plan, I'm going to use a single sheet of glass and leave it open at both ends. With a single shower head in the ceiling I can do this. Talk about minimalism. When this shower's not in use it will all but disappear.

Master bath number two is a lot more challenging to design because I can't rely on any of my usual tricks to make flaws in the structure of the room disappear. It requires me to think about every finish and every fixture because the few objects in the room have to work together to add to the sense that the room's empty.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with the vanity yet and I'm sitting here wondering this morning. I'm wondering how to pare down the idea of a bathroom vanity until it's just that, the pure idea of a bathroom vanity. How do I suggest utility without sacrificing utility at the same time?

There are times when I love what I do for a living, and having the opportunity to think like this on a Sunday morning is definitely one of those times.

So what do we think? Am I out of my mind? Anybody have a competing master suite philosophy?

More Saturday fun: how cool is this?

Check this out, This recipe and idea is from the website Kaboose. The crazy kids at the Consumerist swear that it works. Anybody game for a stab at this?

Plastic Bag Ice Cream

What you'll need:

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup milk or half & half

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

6 tablespoons rock salt

1 pint-size plastic food storage bag (e.g., Ziploc)

1 gallon-size plastic food storage bag

Ice cubes

How to make it:

Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.

Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.

Place the small bag inside the large one, and seal it again carefully.

Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes.

Wipe off the top of the small bag, then open it carefully. Enjoy!

Tips:

A 1/2 cup milk will make about 1 scoop of ice cream, so double the recipe if you want more. But don't increase the proportions more that that -- a large amount might be too big for kids to pick-up because the ice itself is heavy.

Other users report that it's an easy way to make sorbets as well, just use fruit juice in lieu of the half and half.

Everything's in transition

I work with the most talented tradespeople in the universe. This is from a jobsite I visited last night. At issue was a 45 degree transition between a Brazilian cherry floor in a dining room and a tile floor in the kitchen. The floors planks are set in a straight line and the tile's on the diagonal. I could have just run a 45 degree cherry threshold between the two rooms. I could have. But this is in an open floor plan home and this transition is pretty exposed. I hate 45 degree angles in architecture with a passion so hot I'm afraid I'll be consumed by it some day. There was no way in hell any floor I had anything to do with was getting a diagonal threshold.

So I took a Sharpie and drew and S-curve on the floor before either the wood or the tile went in. "There," I said, "That's what I want this transition to look like."

The flooring guy looked at me like I was possessed. I wanted the threshold to be made out of wood, but how do you put curves in a flat piece of wood? "I got it," Mr. Flooring Guy assured me. He said it with such a haughty confidence that I went right along. I love it, he didn't question my idea and I didn't question his skill. I call that synergy.

Anyhow, he made this threshold out of a solid strip of cherry and it is a thing of such rare beauty that I had to photograph it and run it here.

How to transition between materials in a floor can pose a problem some times. To my way of thinking, if there's some aspect of a room you'd like to have go away (like a 45 degree transition between flooring materials) draw attention to it. Making it look like it's there on purpose sets a tone, a bravado, that no one will ever question.

This project is in final punch out and will be fully complete in another week or so. I will run some photos of the whole thing once it's finished.