I still love New York

My Chrysler Building

I love Manhattan with a passion that straddles the zone somewhere between infatuation and lust. It's alternatively enraging and ecstasy-inducing. It's a feast of the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, the beautiful and the ugly. There's no where else on earth like it. New York summons the best from me, as strange as that sounds. When I'm running through those streets I feel compelled to think smarter, to work harder, to be more.

The Lexington Avenue entrance to the Chrysler Building

Well in two weeks I'll be in the throes of thinking smarter, working harder and being more. My great pals at Brizo have invited me back for another Fashion Week event. In precisely two weeks I'll be second guessing what I'm wearing to a top tier runway show. For the second time in six months I might add.

An elevator in the lobby of the Chrysler Building

Team Brizo has invited me and a whole host of my bloggery compatriots to attend a seminar, a similar seminar to the one I attended last fall. What's going to be really interesting about this one is that all of the attendees are designers with internet followings. Now I "know" but have never met most of the people who will be in New York for this Brizo happening. I cannot wait to get back to New York, that's for sure. But when you throw in the fact that I'm going to be able to hang out with most of my blogging and Twittering cohorts, it's almost too much to think about. I hope team Brizo's prepared to entertain one dynamic group of people. The energy! The synergy! The industry gossip! I cannot wait and I can't find words to describe how it feels to be part of such an august assembly. I look over the attendee list and I see the names of just about everybody whose work and whose words I respect and admire.

The lobby desk of the Chrysler Building

It's not unusual for a manufacturer to host a group of specifiers for a product education seminar. I have been to more than my share of them. For the most part, they're pretty sedate affairs. We get the chance to kick the tires of products we can't always see in person and the manufacturers get to interact with and get feedback from the people who specify their products. So far as I know though, no company has ever assembled a group of specifiers who are also social media influencers. More, Brizo picked all of us specifically because we're social media influencers. Clearly, this is a company that values transparency and wants to engage its customers directly. This is big. I like Brizo's products and I liked them even before any of this New York stuff started. But their embrace of new and social media makes me respect them as an organization. Thanks Brizo!

A stairwell in the Chrysler Building

Photography from New York Daily Photo by Brian Dubé

Ikea: WHY wait? Or, I get served a helping of crow

This is me in an Ikea kitchen in Italy. Disclosure time: this is my only first-hand experience with Ikea cabinetry. I reported in August '08 that the kitchen in the photograph had one redeeming quality, it's location overlooking the Bay of Naples.

A couple of nights ago, I posted an old post up on Twitter. I do that from time to time. It's a way to get some exposure for posts buried deep in my archives that I think warrant some more attention. Considering that no one read my blog back then, I want them to get some attention for the first time. Anyhow, the other night I posted a little gem from August of '08, IKEA can wait. It was a typically ham-fisted and inflammatory slam on all things Ikea, but Ikea kitchens particularly.

Well in the year-and-a-half since that post ran originally, a lot has changed. I know a lot more people from all sides of the kitchen and bath industry and a really cool person I've come to know int he last couple of months (through Twitter of course) is Becky Shankle. Becky is a designer from Raleigh, NC. She's also a blogger, a dedicated businesswoman and she knows how to use Twitter. Becky's business is designing kitchens using cabinetry from Ikea and her work's fantastic.

Needless to say, my ham-fisted rantings about Ikea cabinetry stepped on her toes. She wrote the following on her blog, Eco Modernism, yesterday. I'm reprinting it here with her blessing. So here's Becky:

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Ikea: WHY wait?
January 27th, 2010

Just the facts, ma'am.
Paul Anater's got a post about custom vs. Ikea cabinets over on his blog today. I have to admit that when I first started designing kitchens with Ikea components, I was highly skeptical. I did my own research on it, queried Ikea cabinet owning & using people, talking to the people at the store, checking it out myself.

Of the people who owned & used daily Ikea kitchen cabinets, they overwhelmingly said they would purchase them again, they have had them in place & in use with no breakdowns or visible wear & tear for as long as 22 years. The only negative report I got from the same group was that the countertops faded & scratched unevenly.

Here's some points to compare when shopping around for cabinets:

• Hardware: Ikea uses high quality Blum hardware on all kitchen components. Full extension drawer slides & soft closure mechanisms are *standard* on all doors & drawers. (Are you being upcharged on those custom boxes for such bells and whistles?)
• Warranty: Ikea warrants all cabinetry for 25 years.
• Strength: Every Ikea base cabinet is rated to hold 1,100 pounds.
• Organization: matching drawer dividers & other inserts made for their drawer system make small kitchens run as smoothly as bigger ones.
• Price: The cabinets for an average sized kitchen from Ikea (about 14 boxes - walls and bases) runs about $5,000.

The old standby
As for the argument about particle board, which Ikea uses in all its cabinets, I did some research on that, too. See my post here.

Don't take my word for it.
Ikea is not for everyone. And not all things that come from Ikea are fantastic & high quality (some of their furniture comes to mind). They have, however, engineered their cabinet products very well, & stand behind them with a warranty.

If you have the money & want to spend it on extremely high end cabinets (whatever "high end" actually means), go for it. But don't knock Ikea if you haven't honestly looked at it. That extra $45k could come in handy as a downpayment for a nice cottage in Naples.

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Point made, steaming plate of crow served. Check out Becky's blog, Becky's admirable business model and follow her on Twitter.

Can we stop with the chalkboard paint?

This is an appropriate use of chalkboard paint.

The University of Florida Department of Physics

Here's another.

And another.

Fermilab

Ahh, the pursuit of knowledge is a wonderful, beautiful thing. What would quadratic equations or diagrammed sentences be without a chalkboard?

Chalkboards belong in classrooms or in kids' rooms. They're to collect thoughts, formulate theories, prove proofs, solve equations, doodle and to learn. They're messy and unsightly, the perfect metaphor for the act of learning.

The usual suspects over at You Know Where can't seem to restrain themselves when it comes to chalkboard paint though. Their latest affront is to refer to it as being somehow green.

Ugh. I guess it's further proof of the absolute bankruptcy of the term "green." Man, that is one ugly kitchen. Again though, green?

Chalkboard chalk is calcium sulfate, an industrial byproduct. It's the same chemical drywall's made from. I wonder what the reaction from these folks would be to this inconvenient little factoid. Hey Apartment Therapy! By encouraging your readers to paint their cabinet doors with chalkboard paint, you're opening the door to having them sprinkle their kitchen counters with calcium sulfate, AN INDUSTRIAL CHEMICAL. Calcium sulfate's benign of course but there's seems to be this idea that chalkboard chalk is some kind of a naturally-occurring mineral. It gets its name from one, but just like the lead in a pencil, things aren't always what they seem.

Aside from that, using chalkboard paint all over the place as seems looks terrible. Sometimes it seems like I'm alone in this opinion. Look at what wreckage chalkboard paint hath wrought if you can stomach it.

Craft Gossip

Country Living

You Know Where

The Style Files

You Know Where

You Know Where

So is it me? Am I missing something? Is it that creeping middle age thing or just my usual foul humors? Tell me things. Yea or nay?

The bold look of Kohler, from 60 years ago

Angela Miller is a communications specialist and corporate archivist for Kohler. Angela's the lucky soul who gets to keep track of Kohler's written history and that means she's up to her elbows every day in vintage Kohler ads. Talk about a fantasy job. Angela also write for Kohler's blog, Kohler Talk.

Kohler Talk has a number of contributors from both inside and outside of the company. Friend of Kitchen and Residential Design and blogging pioneer Susan Serra is one of the outside of the company bloggers. Brava Susan!

Anyhow, when ever I get wind of another Angela Miller post on Kohler Talk I click over there to see what wonders she's unearthed. I think she hit the mother lode this time. Here is a series of Kohler ads from the 1950s.

Now, I remove bathrooms just like the ones shown in these ads on a monthly basis at least. The part of Florida where I live reached fully built out stage by the time the '50s were through. Every other bathroom in Pinellas County Florida looks exactly like at least one of these ads.

Most of them are still in surprisingly good shape and that says volumes about the fixtures and construction standards of the time. Most of the fixtures end up in architectural salvage and most of them do find new homes. But in the meantime, while these baths are still intact, they function as a reminder of of quality and longevity. Once I tear out one of these '50s baths, it gets replaced by a contemporary "spa" bath and sure they look great when we're done. But I wonder if they'll still be around in 60 years. Hmmmm. I doubt it.

But before I get too wistful here, check out this kitchen sink:

Man! I'd give my right arm for a sink like that!

What do you guys think? Too nostalgic or not nostalgic enough?

Particle board vs. plywood: final findings, advice and taking it to extremes

Last Monday I wrote a post about a little, unscientific experiment I conducted last week. I followed up on Thursday with my initial findings and here we are a week later with my final words on the subject. Maybe.

To reprise, I took two six-inch by six-inch samples made from a cabinet shelves. One was 3/4" particle board and the other was 3/4" fir plywood. They are entirely representative of the materials that go into contemporary, quality cabinetry in the US. I soaked these samples in bowls of water for 72 hours and fished them out to survey the damage.

The big surprise was how little damage there was to survey. Both were pretty much ruined but at the same time, neither had lost their essential shelf-ness. Frankly, I expected both of them to fall apart, but neither did. The particle board sample swelled and grew thicker by 1/16th of an inch. Though not exactly pretty, it would still work as a shelf.

The plywood's dimensions weren't affected at all and the veneer only bubbled and delaminated slightly. The finish got kind of funky but the underlying plywood didn't delaminate.

Final ruling? Don't have a flood where the water is allowed to stand for three days. I think either of those products will hold up to usual amounts of moisture encountered by cabinetry in a typical kitchen. Again, if there is standing water in your kitchen and it lasts for three days, you have much bigger problems than the condition of your cabinetry.

What I tested was an extreme. A more typical water exposure in real life is the slow drip from a plumbing leak. Left unaddressed, a plumbing leak will ruin either cabinetry construction. The plywood construction will probably last longer with that kind of exposure though.

With that said, I still think particle board cabinet boxes are a good option if you're looking to save a couple of bucks on a kitchen remodel. You just have to be smart about how to handle the sink base. Since the sink base is the cabinet most likely to experience a plumbing leak, there are two things you can do to lessen the impact of such a leak.

First, caulk the inside edges on the bottom of the sink base cabinet with clear silicone caulk. Water can only damage particle board by getting into the parts of it that aren't laminated, so seal all the open particle board. In most cabinets, that's in the areas where the cabinet floor meets the cabinet sides. Calk those joints and you'll preserve the life of your cabinetry.

The second helpful hint I have is to use a caterer's tray as a liner.

Slide a caterer's tray into your sink base and push it against the back of the cabinet. Be sure that the tray is directly under the P trap and water cut offs. Should they ever spring a leak, the drips will get caught by the caterer's tray and save your cabinet. Once the tray's been pushed into place, put back the all the stuff you normally keep under your sink.

So after all of that, I never get the destruction horror show I was hoping for when I dropped my samples in their water bowls a week ago.

One of my Twitter friends is Mike Hines and Mike's one of the founders of HomePath, makers of a conduit system called eXapath for wiring homes for cable, internet, sound and entertainment. Check out eXapath if you're looking for a great solution to wire your home. What makes it so great is that the eXapath system will allow you to change and upgrade your wiring in the future. It's pretty brilliant.

Mike, the good natured prankster, suggested that add some heat to my experiment. So I did.

Here's my samples in a bath of boiling water.

I boiled them for ten minutes and I got the destruction I was looking for.

The lesson here is don't install cabinetry next to a geyser or in the path of a pyroclastic flow. I was tempted to conduct tests on my samples involving throwing them from an airplane or under the wheels of a speeding train but I doubt "Don't throw cabinetry from high altitudes at high speeds" would have been a very meaningful finding.

So at the end of the day, my recommendation today is the same it was a week ago. Buy the best quality you can afford and particle board construction isn't automatically bad. I'm glad to know I haven't been giving people the wrong advice. Now I'm off to go perform some fire and acid tests on my samples.