Wood stoves in my past and in my future

This is my parents' engagement photo. Here's a little background. They met at a dance in Pennsylvania right before my Dad got drafted into the Army. Europe was ten years removed from the cultural and physical devastation of the Second World War and my Dad was slated to become part of the US Forces that occupied Germany as it rebuilt itself. Fast forward a couple of months and in 1955 my parents married and settled in Wertheim am Main in the German state of  Baden-Württemberg. My parents were young and didn't have a whole lot more than each other. They lived off-base in a second floor apartment and it was in that apartment that they embarked on their new lives.

This is the day my mother arrived in Germany.

They were happy times overall from what I can surmise. The German family who owned the building more or less adopted them so when my oldest brother came along he had grandparents in the US but downstairs he had an Oma and an Opa.

I love hearing their stories of making their own way as strangers in a strange land and it's those stories about that apartment in Wertheim am Main that pushed me out into the world to explore it on my own.

Out of all the stories my parents tell of their early years, the one that never fails to amaze me is that their apartment had a wood stove that was both a kitchen appliance and a source of heat. "Whipping something up" in the kitchen was never really an option and cooking required a bit of planning and quite a bit of skill. Despite the fact that both of my parents like to downplay the pain and suffering of their early years, it had to have been a challenge. By the time my brother Ray entered the picture a year later, keeping a baby fed and in clean diapers with only a wood stove to work with speaks volumes about my parents' ability to make it in a tough situation. But again, to hear them tell it, it wasn't such a tough time. They were young, they were crazy about each other and they had a baby to take care of.

I grew up hearing about that apartment in Wertheim and my parents' adventures with that wood stove. I have a running fantasy of owning a mountain retreat somewhere and living off the grid while I'm there. My running fantasy has me mastering the art of cooking on a wood stove in much the way my mother learned how to do it  55 years ago.

via Flickr

Wood-burning cookstoves are still being made and the best ones available are made by the Elmira Stoveworks in Elmira Ontario.

These wood-burning cookstoves Victorian exteriors belie the advances built into them. They're highly efficient and clean-burning. They're also far less temperamental than the wood stove my parents had to tame in that second floor apartment in Wertheim.

My folks have a lot of photos from their early days in Baden-Württemberg but so far as I can tell, there aren't any photos of their stove. I doubt it was as nice as these Fireview models from Elmira, but having one in my someday mountain retreat will bring the whole wood stove thing full circle so far as I'm concerned. Wood stoves past and wood stoves future, it's kind of comforting to know they're still out there.

Win a set of Whiskey Stones from the Granite Gurus

Whiskey Stones? Yes, Whiskey Stones.

Whiskey Stones are the brainchild of Andrew Hellman, the founder of Teroforma and a great fan of single malt scotch. Whiskey Stones are made from Vermont soapstone and they take the place of ice cubes in a cold drink. Soapstone is inert and can't react with what ever drink you're chilling it with and soapstone's softer than glass so it can't scratch. More than anything though, it can chill without diluting. Brilliant.

Anyhow, the cool kids at Granite Gurus are giving away a set in a give away to take place this Sunday. Pop on over to their website and enter.

Granite Gurus is a terrific resource for no-nonsense information on natural stone and it's written by Steph Southwick, a regular commenter on this blog and a fellow geology geek.

Seriously, Steph is the only other person I've run across who takes the geology and chemistry of natural stone as seriously as I do. She's someone I can talk Schist and Sinter with and for that reason alone everyone should follow her blog.

So don't forget to head over to Granite Gurus between now and Sunday to enter to win a set of Teroforma's Whiskey Stones.

Revisiting Natalie Blake and the art of sgraffito

In May of 2009 I wrote a couple of posts about Natalie Blake's eye-popping decorative tiles. A division of Natalie Blake Studios called Unalun is making Blake's signature sgraffito tiles for Ann Sacks and a wide range of fully custom designs under their own name.

I'm drawn to this work as much today as I was a year ago. It's an amazing hybrid of the a appearance of a wood cut but in a sculptural form. It's amazing to see a hard surface that can be so soft and sinuous at the same time.

Natalie Blake's Unalun tiles get their appearance from draping wet clay over a shape and then etching it using a technique called sgraffito. That's Italian for "scratched." Here's a video that shows Blake's sgraffito technique in action.




Please visit the rest of the Unalun collection on their website and be sure to check them out on Ann Sacks' site too.

Natalie Blake uses sgraffito on her fine art as well, her interesting and compelling fine art. Spend the afternoon combing through her entire site. It's amazing stuff, all of it.

Anybody want to call out some current bad trends?

The online magazine ShelterPop ran a really, really great article on bad trends yesterday. The piece was painstakingly researched by Jane Dagmi and she interviewed a host of people who really know what they're talking about. One of those people was me.

As usual, I ran my mouth and no doubt offended even more people than I do ordinarily. I derided cheap, shiny granite; pot fillers; professional home kitchens for people who don't cook and on and on. I better get some traffic out of it because I may never land another retail client. Hah!

Anyhow, the conversations I had with Jane about her article got me thinking about the sort of thing I do for people. I tell myself that the designs I come up with will still look good in 50 years but I wonder.

So what do you guys think are current bad trends? How long will faux zebra rugs look good? What about platform beds? Or how about the Carrera marble I love so much? Every scrap of floor tile sold in my market these days is a porcelain tile that imitates travertine. How long do you guy think that will look good?

I kid myself and tell myself that bad trends are things that other designers design, but I know I've endorsed my share of bad ideas. So again, anybody want to call out some current bad trends?

Who is Nate Berkus?

The Moggit Girls, Joy and Janet have some thing going with Nate Berkus and today is some kind of a Nate Day extravaganza. The only problem is that I have no idea who the hell Nate Berkus is.

Apparently, he's some kind of an Oprah protégé. Please note that I used the correct masculine form there. His connection to Oprah would explain why I don't know who he is. Oprah makes my stomach turn. There. I said it.

Anyhow, he's some kind of a design wunderkind and by mentioning him the Moggit Girls will end up on his show and I'll get a satchel full of gold. They promised. He still needs a shave and a haircut. I'd link to his website but it's down for maintenance.

Do I get my gold now?