New stuff in time for warmer weather

Spring is rumored to be here and that can only mean warm weather is just around the corner. Most parts of North America crawled through a pretty miserable winter, but the end is in sight.

So in anticipation of warmer weather, I came across two new products that scream summer to me.

First up is a new tile series from Hastings Tile and Bath. What's tile have to do with summer? Well, take a look.

Hastings' PLI series looks like distressed wood even though it's made from porcelain. There are three colorways available; white, black and brown. There is a natural variation in each piece and it does look for all the world like wood decking. The big difference is that it's very nearly permanent and is wear-rated for heavy trraffic areas and can withstand even commercial uses. It's also made from 40% pre-consumer ceramic recycled content by weight.

The PLI series is available from Hastings' New York or Chicago showroom or through any of their authorized dealers in the US.

Second up is another beauty from Stone Forest.

That's carved from a single piece of marble and comes in either Silver Travertine or Travertino Romano. It's as much a piece of sculpture as it is a piece of furniture. It can be used indoors or out and if anybody want to make me really happy on my birthday in May, I think this would do it.

Check out the rest of Stone Forest's wonders on their website here.

Summer will be here eventually. Right?

I'm now hysterical. Officially.

I just received a draft of my new business card with the almost-finished logo intact. The URL, e-mail address and the rest are not the final copy but aesthetically it's just about there.

Endless praise go to Amy Allen from Allen Harris Design. She embodied everything I want to say about myself and about K&RD in an image. I am stunned speechless. If you ever need someone to handle your graphics, your marketing, your communications, etc. Allen Harris is a one-stop shop.

Now the final version will get tweaked a bit from here based on my last round of changes but this is wonderfully close. If you need a primer, that image hinges on something called the Golden Ratio. The Golden ratio is the intersection of art, math and science and it's represented by the lower case Greek letter phi (ϕ).

Specifically, what it means is that two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one.

Expressed in art, it looks like the Fibonacci Spiral.

Algebraically, it's expressed with this equation.

As a decimal, it's an irrational number. That's a number that can't be expressed as a fraction because it divides into itself endlessly.

The discovery of the Golden Ratio is attributed to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras. Adherence to the Golden Ratio defined classical architecture and art, it ruled the Renaissance and it captivates math and art people to this day.

The Golden Ratio is perfect proportion. It's what Greeks were chasing when they built the Parthenon.

It's what DaVinci is expressing in his Vitruvian Man.

It's the shape of a nautilus shell

a hurricane

a head of broccoli.

It's buried in every classically beautiful building, interior and yes kitchen there is. It's the proportion of my arms, my face and my DNA. And now it's in my logo. I don't think I've ever loved something as much as that business card layout.

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.