I MUST have this chair!

Mein Gott in Himmel! Three cheers for the artistic use of found materials.

Builder and visionary Dan Phillips on a walkway made from
Osage Orange branches. Osage Orange is a wood species usually
thought of as useless scrub.

Yesterday's Home section of The New York Times featured a story about a different kind of home builder in Huntsville, Texas. Dan Phillips builds affordable housing from discarded and reused building materials and the results of his labors are as sensible as they are sustainable.

These are the bottoms of wine bottles made into
a stained glass panel in a Dutch door.

Since 1997, Phillips' construction company, The Phoenix Commotion, has built 14 homes in Huntsville. On the whole those 14 homes were built from the ground up and 80% of their materials were salvaged from construction sites, hauled out of trash heaps or simply found along the road.

These house numbers are made from the bones of cattle
from a nearby slaughterhouse.

Homes built by The Phoenix Commotion are quirky and oddly beautiful. There's a rhythm to the images here and patterns emerge from the seeming randomness of these found objects. The man's a real visionary and what he's building is the anti-tract home, the anti-poverty trap. What Phillips and Phoenix Commotion are doing too is shooting holes in the idea that "going green" means spending great wads of green.

This is a cork floor made from grouted in wine corks.

Too often, what's marketed in the US as "green" is synonymous with expensive and "going green" is an opportunity to strike a sanctimonious pose. What gets lost in the sticky gobs of marketing speak is the idea of sustainability. Sustainability's all about the wise use of resources, and so many of "green" products spawned by consumerism have nothing to do with using resources wisely and everything to do with the pose. The projects from The Phoenix Commotion profiled in The Times yesterday are a brilliant example of an anti- "green" green and represent the spirit embodied in the word sustainability. Read the article, it's a great story.

This ceiling is made from discarded frame samples from a frame shop.

This is a roof made from mis-matched roofing shingles and
arranged by color into stripes.

This is an exterior wall made from discarded lumber. Beautiful!

And of course, The Chair. It's made from chair parts and cattle bones.
The vertebrae finials remind me of doves.

All photos by Michael Stravato for The New York Times.

Affordable luxury from Bosch appliances

Just about everybody knows that Bosch makes dishwashers that border on the sublime, if a dishwasher can be called sublime. But what a lot of people don't know is that the same level of quality and engineering that goes into Bosch's dishwashers also extends to their ranges, microwave ovens and refrigerators. Bosch's better dishwashers are a luxury appliance, no apology there. But Bosch makes appliances across many price ranges, they're not automatically luxury-priced.

As if to drive home that point in these troubled times, the gang and Bosch sent me an e-mail yesterday with a reminder than an entry level suite of Bosch appliances can be had for less than four thousand dollars. That's not a gimmick or a sale either. A $4000 appliance package ordinarily gets you Whirlpool, GE Profile or Maytag. But for the same money you could be in a suite of slick and efficient Bosch appliances. Wow.

So here are the specific Bosch appliances that make up this under $4000 suite.

The 300 Series over-the-range microwave oven

The 300 Series freestanding range

The 300 Series Linea side-by-side refrigerator

The Ascenta dishwasher

As if that weren't enough, Bosch is running a rebate program right now. Purchase a freestanding range, an over-the-range microwave oven and dishwasher and you'll get $150 back. There's an additional rebate of up to $200 on Bosch's Linea side-by-side refrigerators too. Like I said earlier, wow. Poke around on Bosch's website, you'll be impressed too.

Check out LaCava's clearance sale

La Cava, the great Chicago-based company that brought us such notables as the Tatami Shower Base, the Waterblade faucet and the Suave bathtub surround (pictured above); is having a clearance sale. This is no 10 percent off sale that's not really a sale either. Most of the components in the clearance section of their website are more than half off. Wow, when these folks do something, they go all out.

I went through the hundreds of sale items on their site and found a couple of highlights.

This is the Aquagrande wash basin and wall-mounted cabinet. It normally sells for $1790 and it's available now for $900.

This is the Paestum vanity base and it does not include the integrated sink you see here, though it's certainly available. The cabinet's in an antiqued walnut and it normally sells for $1790. Right now though, it's available for $895.

This is the Venezia vanity and it comes as the set you see here. This vanity is so Italian I can barely stand it. Wow! Anyhow, the steel stand comes with a glass shelf and it includes the Carrera marble counter, an undermount sink, the drain and trap assembly and La Cava's three-piece Stilmar faucet. This ensemble regularly retails for $4900 and can be yours today for $1900.

A lot of La Cava's offerings are pretty modern, but not all of them. La Cava can handle traditional and old world styles with equal panache. Witness the Ventotene vanity above. The Ventotene vanity sells for $3080 ordinarily and is on sale now for $1540. This sale price is for the vanity cabinet only, though coordinated counters and sinks are readily available.

And in keeping with the spirit of La Cava can handle traditional styles, this is the Old England Vanity in antique walnut with brass accents. This is a solid walnut vanity and it usually sells for $4994. This exceptionally well-made vanity is currently on sale for $1248 and that doesn't include the integrated counter and sink shown. Still, that is quite the bargain.

If you're in the market for some interesting components for a bathroom makeover, be sure to spend some time with La Cava.

SketchUp updates

Lord knows I love me some Google SketchUp. Every time I turn around it seems, Google's finding a way to make it better. Somehow, they keep making it more intuitive as they make it more powerful. I found out last Friday that SketchUp is gearing up to roll out a new release and I cannot wait to see the next iteration of this software.




SketchUp comes in two versions, SketchUp Free and SketchUp Pro. SketchUp Free packs all of the modeling and visualization features of SketchUp Pro. It's intended for use by regular folks, but it's powerful enough that a lot of professionals use it. The difference between the two versions is that the tools for presentation, analysis and documentation that come with SketchUp Pro are missing from SketchUp Free. SketchUp Free has no restrictions on file size, rendering or performance. Why anyone would use any other rendering software is beyond me.



So the new release of SketchUp, both Pro and Free will be along shortly. If you're already a SketchUp 7 Pro user, the new release will be free. If you have an earlier version of SketchUp Pro, the new release will cost $95. If you're a SketchUp Free user, the new release is yours for the same price you paid for the current version. And now through 30 September 2009, if you want to buy the current version of SketchUp 7 Pro and get the new release for free, Google's offering $100 off the $495 purchase price. All you have to do is enter the promotion code S7MPTR in Google's Online Store.




Part of why I love so much about SketchUp is the ever expanding and ever more useful 3D Warehouse. There are thousands and thousands of models in the Warehouse and they're all free for the taking. The images I have scattered around this posting are some particular favorites form the Warehouse. Many of them are what Google calls Dynamic Components. This means that they are interactive. Appliance doors open, drawers close and sofas can be upholstered in any fabric you can imagine. What I say is a great new development is that there are as many user created models as there are manufacturer created models.




When I want to show someone how an Eames Lounge looks in their living room or if I want to play around with some table lamps from Crate and Barrel, they are there on the Warehouse and ready for me to insert directly into my model. I can actually show someone a true representation of a renovated home. I can use the actual KitchenAid dishwasher or the GE Monogram pro range they've already fallen in love with. I don't have to pretend a blank box is a French door refrigerator or that the brownish color on the floor is Ariete Black Travertine. It's all right there. It's like magic, I swear. For what it's worth, this designer finds himself specifying in real life the products he finds on the 3D Warehouse. Marketing departments take note!




So come join the in crowd, download a copy of SketchUp Free and learn how to use it. Once you master the basics, they will be no stopping you.

Reader question: What color appliances go with a copper sink?

Help! I read your blog all the time but I never wrote to you before. I like that you tell people what's on your mind. I can take it. My partner and I are building a new home and we would LOVE to have a copper sink. What I can't figure out is what color of appliances I should get to coordinate. The cabinets will have a darker maple finish. Please advise.

Well good, I'm glad you been on this site before and I'll do what I can. The easy answer to your question is that you should get the color appliances you like. There's no rule that says metal finishes have to match. In fact I say they look better when they don't.

Everybody you talk to will have a different take on this, but you wrote to me and here's what I say. Working a copper sink into a kitchen design involves more than appliance colors. Don't get me wrong; a well-made copper sink is a lovely, lovely thing. It's just that they're not very subtle --they are a scene stealer so it's best to let it be the focal point of your kitchen.

It sounds like you haven't selected the actual sink yet, so look for an apron front sink like the ones I'm picturing along with this post. Get a natural-looking patina on the sink you buy. There are all sorts of wild patinas you can get on a copper sink, but go basic and classic. Get stainless appliances, stainless steel is a classical finish in a kitchen and it's also a neutral. In going with stainless appliances, you now have two metal finishes in this kitchen, so keep going. Find a third and use it for your fixtures. Most manufacturers' oil-rubbed bronze finishes have a lot of copper color in them, so an oil-rubbed bronze faucet will work perfectly.

When you go to look at knobs and handles you'll now have three metal finishes to choose from, but hardware that comes close to the oil-rubbed bronze finish of the faucet will be the easiest to find. That doesn't mean that you can't use the color of the steel or the color of the copper when it comes time to picking hardware. What's important is that what you're doing make some kind of sense, it should tell a coherent story.

Long story short? Let your copper sink have center stage and get stainless appliances.