A Shanghai Auntie Mame, courtesy of the New York Times

Thank you again Raina Cox for pointing out something wonderful. Again. I'm telling you, the woman has the eye of an eagle and great taste in wallpaper.

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

In December 2007, the New York Times profiled the 9,700 square foot Shanghai apartment of Pearl Lam. Pearl Lam is a Chinese art dealer who played a major role in the current popularity of Chinese contemporary art. She owns four galleries in China and has recently started to turn her attention to home furnishings produced by Chinese designers.

The Times described Ms. Lam thus:

Outspoken, enthusiastic and prone to shrieks of excitement, Ms. Lam is like a wound-up Chinese Auntie Mame. She stands just five feet five in high-heeled boots, but is a striking physical presence in her fuchsia-dyed chinchilla coat and her mauve-streaked hair, which resembles an unkempt chrysanthemum.

Her super-size persona, too, makes an indelible impression. Alexandra Munroe, the senior curator of Asian art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, calls her “a force of nature,” while Hervé Aaron, a leading Paris antiques dealer and a longtime friend of Ms. Lam’s, is more direct: “Pearl is sometimes insane,” he said.

She's also got some wild tastes. Wow. Get a load of this.

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

This dining table is 52 feet long.
Doug Kanter for The New York Times

The chairs are by Chinese designer Zhang Qingfang.

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

Eero Aarnjo's Ball Chair

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

A sofa by Mattia Bonetti
Doug Kanter for The New York Times

Sculpture by Zhan Wang

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

Porcelain hands plate holder by Peter Ting

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

Mark Brazier-Jones loveseats

Doug Kanter for The New York Times

So what do we think gang? Is it ever OK to go this crazy with a room's decor and then expect praise for it? Do people go this nuts because they want attention or because they like how it looks genuinely? Is this a twisted cry for help?

This comment made my day

Last April I wrote a reader question post, What is this and what do I do with it? In that piece. a hapless reader sent me this photo:

And he asked me to identify the style and make some suggestions about how to decorate a bedroom around it. I told him to get rid of it more or less.

Well, at 10:36am on 19 March, someone who goes by the name of other could be mom left the following comment after that old post.

At least that reader isn't stuck with the bed AND a house full of honey oak furniture, honey oak flooring, honey oak "paneling", honey oak picture frames, honey oak early american anything that isn't from his mother's which is all honey oak and honey oak mantle clock with eerily honey oak brass finished "decorative" trim involving a lot of craptastic netting and swirls...i hate my life.

Thank you other could be mom, please come back.

Reader question: Is glass tile a trend?

Help! I was watching HGTV today and they showed a kitchen that had been remodeled with a glass tile back splash. Designer Vern Yip said glass tile is a current trend and will be outdated in 4-5 years. This concerns me.

What do you think- are glass tile backsplashes too trendy? Will they be "out of style" in 5 years? What would you do?

Vern's right. Sort of. Glass tile is a current trend. So what? Glass tile's a current trend, travertine floors are a current trend, stainless steel appliances are a current trend, granite counters are a current trend, brushed nickel finishes are a current trend, and so is just about any finish you can pick for a project. Timelessness is a myth and trend avoidance is a fool's errand.

Human beings have been making glass since the Bronze Age. At first they made beads, then tile. Glass blowing started in Syria about 100 BCE and by 100 CE the Romans were making glass windows, vases and cups. Human beings have prized glass for thousands of years and have been covering walls with small pieces of it for just as long.

This is a photo I took in Herculaneum.

That's a glass tile mosaic from the year 50 or thereabouts.

Fast forward a couple thousand years and here's a photo I snapped in the 81st Street Station of the Eighth Avenue line in Manhattan.

That station opened in the 1930s and that glass tile is original.

There is nothing trendy about glass as a material, it's as old as civilization itself. In a thousand years, people will still be using glass tile. Tell that to Vern.

Now, just because something's a classic material doesn't mean that every time it's used it will last forever. There's a small window of time during which something looks good to trend followers and spotters. Then it falls from favor and if no one touches it for long enough it may become a classic. But even then it's not timeless.

St. Peter's Basilica in Rome isn't timeless, it's High Baroque. The White House isn't timeless, it late Georgian. The Forbidden City isn't timeless, it's Ming. See my point? Those iconic buildings are locked in time and they come to embody the eras in which they were built. Attempting High Baroque or late Georgian today is absurd because it's not 1500 or 1790.

So what the hell does this have to do with whether or not to install a glass tile back splash? Plenty. You are talking about an expense between $500 and $1,000 for most people. You can spend more than that certainly, but I don't think that's what you have in mind. That's not a judgment, just an observation. So knowing that, and knowing that you like glass tile back splashes, I say get a glass tile back splash. If it looks horrible in five years than get rid of it and replace it with whatever's on trend ten years from now.

Everything you buy for you home, and I mean everything, is subject to the whims of fashion. It is the very nature of living in a consumerist society. It is impossible to predict what will be in style five years from now and it's also impossible to predict what you'll like then.

All you can know is what you know right now. So buy the best things you can afford and enjoy them. Right now.

Glass tile photos from Lightstreams Glass Tile.

Pretend your last name is Eames

I love birds and I love Charles and Ray Eames. Apparently, they loved birds too. Here's a photo of their living room.

In the foreground is a primitive-ish sculpture of a crow-like bird. The Eameses used that bird sculpture as a prop in a lot of their photo shoots. All reports report that it was a treasured object. It was a carving they brought back from Appalachia during one of their many excursions around the world.

Vitra has made a reproduction of the Eames bird and now you can have one of your very own.

Even at $210 I think it's pretty darn cool.

Interlam's stone veneers are nothing short of revolutionary

I had a sales rep for Interlam in my office last week and he showed me this photograph.

I thought it was pretty cool. The image is kind of small here but it appears to be a wall made from stone slabs. I said something like "I cannot imagine how much something like that weighs." He laughed and said, "Try about 50 pounds."

That display is made from a stone laminate invented by Interlam.

Actual slabs of slate are rough cut into layers 1/16th of an inch thick and then they're bonded to a thin sheet of fiberglass.  The result is a lightweight, rigid stone slab about an eighth of an inch thick. It can be used indoors or out and looks for all the world like a slab of slate.

Remarkable! Check out Interlam's website.