Ready to renovate? Take a moment and breathe first.

I got a series of panicky phone calls yesterday from an otherwise rational client who was having her back splash tile installed yesterday. Back splash tile is usually the last element that gets done in a kitchen renovation and this client was in the final week of her six week construction project and she must have reached the point where she couldn't handle it any more. The material being installed was a glass tile we'd spent weeks selecting back in June. In fact, it was the first thing she picked in that whole process and it remained a constant through the whole selections phase of her project. Back in June, she was in love with that tile.

I dropped what I was doing and ran up to her job site to see what could be done. I'd sold her the tile and I wasn't going to take a return so what there was to do was calm her down. Over the years, I've found that the best way to counteract panic is to get even more measured and calm than I am usually. Inside, there was a knot in my stomach but I was determined to come across like the Dalai Lama if it killed me.

It took about an hour to talk her down from the ledge and let the tile setter finish his job. Her chief complaint was that the tile looked somehow different going in than it did in the mocked up sample I'd made over the summer. It took a little digging, but eventually I figured out that her tile looked different because it hadn't been grouted yet. My mocked up board was fully grouted and what she fell in love with was the finished tile. It never occurred to her that ungrouted tile would look so different from the finished product and I had seriously underestimated her inability to see the finished project as it would be rather than what it looked like when it was going in.

I have the vision thing, all of us do who are involved in any kind of work that involves designing how something will look eventually. Most people don't have the vision thing and that's OK. I strongly suspect that the vision thing is an aptitude --it's something you're born with. I go overboard accommodating my clients' inability to visualize their finished projects but in this case, I now know that I hadn't gone far enough. But when I look back and remember that this tile panic was coming on the heels of a lighting panic, a granite panic, a cabinet color panic, a hardware finish panic and a flooring panic I realize that the only way I could have gone further overboard would have been to put her on an airplane and sent her away for two months. I've spent a lot of time being the Dalai Lama since construction started on this one six weeks ago. It happens sometimes.

So the lesson here is to do a better job of identifying the people who need extra reassurance before they actually need that reassurance. If you're considering a renovation, keep a couple of things in mind. Now that I'm thinking about it, here's a list. Print this out and tape it to your fridge.

1. Any renovation job will cost more and take longer than you think it will. Don't start spending money until you have accurate estimates of the costs of everything associated with your job and the time frames it will take for all of your components to arrive and be installed.
2. When you're getting prices and someone gives you a range rather than a set price (this happens a lot with labor costs and it's perfectly normal), use the high price in the range in your budget. That way, if the total comes in lower than the high price, you get a happy surprise instead of a miserable one.
3. When someone gives you a delivery window or range (this happens a lot with lighting in particular and again, it's perfectly normal) use the further away date. So when you hear "four to six weeks" don't get attached to four weeks. Assume it will be six. Again, set yourself up to be pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed.
4. When you're getting ready for construction to begin, make a "safe place" somewhere in your house. If it's a kitchen renovation you're about to embark on, set up a temporary kitchen somewhere. Move a microwave, dishes, food, a coffee maker, etc., somewhere near a utility sink or into a bathroom so you can have everything in one place when you go to make something to eat or start your day.
5. Leave your bedrooms clear and uncluttered, don't use them for storage when you empty out the rooms being renovated. Keep your bedroom that way it is normally. After a couple of weeks of camping out in a bathroom and dealing with noise and dust, it's tremendously helpful to be able to go into your bedroom, close the door and retreat into normal.
6. Don't hover over the people who are working in your home. If you're working with a designer and a contractor you trust, let the people who work for them do their jobs.
7. Don't judge partially installed work unless you have the vision thing. In mid installation, nothing looks the way it will when it's done. Tile looks very different before it's grouted, kitchen cabinets look awful before they have counters on them, appliances are enormous when they aren't in position and dings and nicks in the walls get fixed at the end of a project.
8. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, that's normal too. Take a walk, get out of the house, breathe, call your designer. Don't panic. Ever. There's always a solution and just as there's always a solution, the only way you can find it is with a clear head.
9. You will spend a lot of money and be seriously inconvenienced but it will be worth it in the end. Anticipate in advance how you deal with messes and disruption and take steps ahead of time to prepare yourself, physically and emotionally.
10. Finally, your memory of your renovation will always be less traumatic than your experience of it. Count on it.

Living the high life on the High Line

On Saturday afternoon, I had the pleasure to walk the new High Line on the west side of Manhattan. I was with my great friend Tom, a man who knows the history of Manhattan with a thoroughness that's as impressive as it is engaging. It was a treat to see the new park and it was an even greater treat to hear the story of the area told with affable manner of a man who's in love with where he lives. Anyhow, it was a pretty dreary day and in looking over my photos, they didn't do it justice. But thanks to Flickr, somebody else's will do the job far better than mine can.

I first learned about the plans to turn the High Line Railway into a linear park in about 2004. I was in New York to see the new Museum of Modern Art building and there was a whole gallery on the first floor of the new MOMA dedicated to the architectural plans for the new park. They were enchanting and ambitious plans to turn an emblem of west side urban decay into an asset unique in the world.

The High Line railway was built in the 1933 and it's an elevated railway that runs from the freight yards on 34th Street and follows 10th Avenue to the wholesale grocers in the meatpacking district at Gansvoort Street. The last train ran down the High Line in the early '80s and it sat abandoned for 20 years.

During those 20 years, it was cordoned off and allowed to go fallow. In time, the rail bed sprouted grasses and wild flowers and eventually, small trees. One of the final acts of the Giuliani adminstration was to set in motion the eventual destruction of the High Line, much to the horror of a group of preservationists called the Friends of the High Line. With the end of the Giuliani years came the new, High-Line-friendly administration of Michael Bloomberg. The Friends of the High Line had been raising private money to preserve the High Line for years and with the blessing of the Bloomberg administration, the transformation of the High Line from decaying relic to shining asset began.

The park's been described as an urban meadow and it's a perfect description. It sits about 30 feet above the street and as soon as you walk up the ramp and step onto the High Line, the smell hits you. It's the sweet, grassy smell of being in the woods. It's a total disconnect, because you're surrounded by the warehouse and water tank views of the meatpacking district.

photo from Flickr

The park itself is a graceful, meandering path and it's easy to forget where you are. But every once in a while you turn a corner and to the northeast looms the Empire State Building and it throws everything back into context.

photo from Flickr

Prior to the construction of the new walkways, the Friends of the High Line hired biologists to catalog the plants that had grown over the tracks naturally. They collected seeds over the course of two years and cultivated them. The landscaping in the finished High Line is a naturalized, balanced mix of native grasses, wildflowers and small trees. It's pretty cool to think that most of the plants there now are the descendants of the pioneer weeds that took over the place to begin with.

photo from Flickr

The park meanders through neighborhoods and through actual buildings at a couple of points. It's a surprisingly quiet respite in a city not known for providing very many of them. If you find yourself in the Greatest City on earth, head west on 14th Street and pick up the High Line.

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr

photo from Flickr 

Read the background on this art installation here.

My last day in New York and The September issue

For the third night in a row, I'm sitting down to write a post and it's late and I'm beat. But it makes me feel like I live here when I run myself into the ground and I can sleep when I get home tomorrow evening.

I had another great, great day. I spent the first part of it talking to Yakov and Angela Hanansen, two great mosaic artists with a studio and mosaic school in Chelsea. Yakov's latest work was unveiled last week and I was indeed fortunate to be able to see the work and have him describe it to me.

His installation is in a new 7th Avenue entrance to Penn Station and it consists of marble mosaic detail shots of the original Penn Station embedded in a wall of the current Penn Station. He described his work there as an expression of the fragmented nature of memory. Since people remember things in small fragments, it made sense to use small fragments of marble to illustrate New Yorkers' collective memory of the much-loved and now long-gone original Penn Station. Brilliant and to hear the artist describe his work to me in those terms while we sat in his studio was a real thrill.

Look for more about the Hanansens after I get back to my usual routine next week.

After that, my great and smart friend Tom and I took a walk through his neighborhood and looked at architecture. Tom's been a New Yorker for nearly 30 years and I swear he knows every square inch of this city by heart. Walking around with him is an archeological expedition and I can't get enough of that stuff. Today we walked the new High Line Park, which is spectacular, and then he pointed out the old department stores along Sixth Avenue.

I have walked down Sixth Avenue more times than I can count, but I've never really noticed the buildings that line it. I like to think of myself as the guy who notices everything, but clearly, my attention to detail can be flawed.

This is the original O'Neil department store. Sixth Avenue had an elevated railways running down the middle of it 100 years ago and lining Sixth from about 17th to 23 Streets was what was knows as The Ladies' Mile. The Ladies' Mile was where the dry goods, department stores and dress shops were centered in the Manhattan of the last century.

Here's the O'Neil department store today. Like everything else in Chelsea, the O'Neil building has been carved up into wildly expensive condominiums. It still has its iron facade and cuppolas, and there's something to be said for that.

New York's filled with gems like the O'Neil building and I'm fortunate to have a friend like Tom who takes such pleasure in pointing them out.

Then to put a cap on everything from the week, another friend and I went to see September Issue, a documentary about the making of the September issue of Vogue. It was a fitting movie to see at the end of my Fashion Week experience. The movie's fantastic and I think I understand the business and art of fashion a whole lot better than I did a week ago. Here's the trailer:






I doubt I'm going to start buying $5,000 suits any time soon, but I can see the fashion world's influence through the worlds of art and commerce in a way now that I couldn't see before. So let's say Jason Wu picks bright yellow to use as an accent on a dress and he settled on that yellow because it reminded him of something he saw or read. Anna Wintour approves of the dress with the yellow accent and puts it in Vogue. The editors of Elle Decor and Metropolitan Home see the yellow accent and start homing in on yellow accents in the rooms they profile. Manufacturers see a yellow throw pillow highlighted in a shelter magazine and start integrating yellow and other bright colors into their lines the following year. I get a furniture catalog and start seeing all of these bright colors coming out and when somebody asks me what's the hot new color, I say "Yellow, it's all over the new furniture catalogs." And all of that started with someone like Jason Wu taking a walk on a Sunday afternoon and seeing a yellow butterfly or raincoat or traffic light.

A week ago, I thought my answer to that question stopped with what the manufacturers were showing me. Now I can see the line it follows to get to me more clearly. The more I think about this the more I can see that what happens on the runways of New York and Paris directly effects me, what I do for a living and also what I like. It's interesting and I really haven't thought about it before.

And just think, I never would have seen any of that were it not for a forward-thinking faucet company that watches these runway shows like hawks for the very reason I just described. Thanks again Brizo!

New York day two; and what a day it's been

It is late. Again. And oh what a day. Again, many thanks to my gracious hosts from Brizo.

It was a day of firsts. I mean, not only did I go to a real runway show, I sat in the same room as Anna Wintour. Not that she noticed but still.

I was seated in the second row and the models weren't on an elevated walkway. I was right there and it was nothing like what I expected. It was loud and energetic and by the time I was five minutes into it I was really caught up in the whole scene. I still couldn't begin to describe what I saw, but the mere fact that I was there means something. In fact, Franki Durbin from Life in Venti Cup was getting quite the vicarious thrill from my being at that show today. She sent me this message on Twitter this afternoon after I sent her a couple of photos: frankidurbin @saintpetepaul OMG. Are you FRONT ROW at Jason Wu???????? You've got connections, my friend!

I don't have the heart to tell her that I met and spoke with Jason Wu at the after party.

If you're interested in reading about Jason's show this afternoon, Booth Moore from the LA Times posted this right after the show.

I met a ton of great people today. Fashion people, marketing people, PR people, advertising people, media people and beyond. It was fantastic. I'll be writing about yesterday and today for weeks and I owe it all to a really dynamic faucet company, Brizo. Thank you.

A Brizo Thursday

So I made it to New York this afternoon and after a two year absence, it's really good to be back here. I always forget just how much I like how this city feels. It has an effect on me and all I need to do is see the skyline from across the East River. That first time the city comes into view just does something to me. I feel instantly smarter and more successful. It's an odd thing.

I'm here as the guest of Brizo as I've been saying for the last couple of weeks. They've put me in a great hotel in Murray Hill, the 70 Park Avenue Hotel. The 70 Park Avenue is a smaller boutique hotel, and a lovely one at that. There are Frette sheets on the bed behind me and believe me, they are calling.

I'm here with a small group of designers and architects from around the US. We spent the afternoon getting to know one another a bit and then meeting with the Brizo product development and marketing teams. All of us who are participating have a vested interest in understanding one another and it's really cool to be a part of this group. We've been given the chance to see into the process of how Brizo gets an idea for a fixture and how that idea becomes a faucet. It's fascinating stuff and I could spend the next few days talking to the industrial designers in particular. They work in an environment of ideas and they love their work, that much is obvious. Listening as they traced back the allusions, homages and influences that went into the fixtures I already know was captivating. These people travel the world, looking for shapes and trends and inspiration and then they take all of those disparate images and distill them into a single shape. It's heady stuff, and pure design. Where all of this is heading next is jaw-dropping. Keep your eyes on this brand, trust me on that.

Following the process of going from an Erte illustration to the RSVP faucet above is a wild ride and after having been granted a glimpse into the process I can see the finished product in different light. This synergy of art and commerce, of elevating an everyday object to the status of an icon, is some pretty cool work and I'm thrilled to meet the people who do just that as their life's work.