If you can't live on the Las Vegas Strip, bring the Las Vegas Strip to you

Anne Samowitz is a regular, dedicated reader of this blog and the other day she mailed me an MLS listing for a property on the market in long Island, New York. The house is a nightmare of ostentation and bad taste and it can be yours for a very reasonable $17.5 million.

The listing agent calls it the antithisis of fine living in the listing. Hmmmm. Antithesis means opposite and let me get Dictionary.com's official definition before we go a step further.

an·tith·e·sis   [an-tith-uh-sis]
–noun, plural -ses  [-seez]

1. opposition; contrast: the antithesis of right and wrong.
2. the direct opposite (usually fol. by of  or to ): Her behavior was the very antithesis of cowardly.
3. Rhetoric

• the placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast of ideas, as in “Give me liberty or give me death.”
• the second sentence or part thus set in opposition, as “or give me death.”

So either the listing agent is being clever or she needs a vocabulary refresher. There's a life lesson here though kids, don't use words you don't understand.

OK, onward. Let's take a stroll through the wonders that await the rapper/ professional athlete/ lottery winner/ Celine Dion in this once in a lifetime listing. The Celine Dion crack was Anne's and it's perfect.

Don't you love the human scale of this room? It just invites you to curl up on the sofa and read a book.

This kitchen's listed as a Custom Peacock Kitchen and I'll bet Mr. Peacock would be surprised to receive credit for that room up there. Wasn't it clever of them to make the ceiling so unrelated to anything going on in the room under it. That seems to be a recurring theme in this house. Context? We don't need no stinkin' context!

Nothing says "You've made it" like his 'n hers Skee Ball.

Again, why just admire The Bellagio when you can live in it full time?

The photo above seems to be the "lobby" of the home theater.

This is the box office. Note the two movie posters. To the left we have 1996's Striptease starring Demi Moore. Striptease made Showgirls look like Gone with the Wind. If you don't remember it you're not missing much. To the right hangs a poster for 1997's Titanic. I will never understand the appeal of that awful movie. Never. But it seems were just in time for a screening of 1991's What About Bob? Based on the movie mentions, I'd say the current owner had a career that peaked at some point in the '90s. Jean-Claude Van Damme? No, then the posters would be for Cyborg and Kickboxer. Hmmm. I wonder wonder wonder.

Here's the inside of the theater. If this home doesn't come with a resident company of Phantom or Riverdance, it needs one.

It has boxes. Two of them. For visiting royalty.

I don't have $17.5 million laying around to spend on a house. If I did however, I think I could do better than to recreate the Las Vegas Strip. What do you guys think?

Beginning this August, IKEA will start phasing out incandescent light bulbs

On August 1, 2010 IKEA stores in North America will being phasing out the sale of incandescent light bulbs and by January 1st, 2011 IKEA will stop selling them all together. Here's the link to IKEA's press release.

IKEA's move makes it the first US retailer to end its sale of incandescents and it's doing so a year ahead of the federally mandated timeline to begin. As I understand it, the mandated timeline in the US is a phase out that starts in 2012 and ends the sale of incandescents all together in 2014 and please correct me if I'm wrong.

Frankly I applaud them just as I applaud the move away from incandescents in general. I made the switch several years ago and the difference in my electric bill was as obvious as it was instantaneous. Then again, I don't have any light fixtures that feature exposed, decorative bulbs.

Have you guys given any thought to this scheduled phase out? Do you plan to make the switch or do you plan to stockpile incandescents before they're gone for good? Is this news?

I'm very fond of the warm-tone CFLs I use and if enough people would find it useful, I'll start rerunning my earlier material about how to buy a warm CFL. On second thought, here's a breakdown of lumens, footcandles and degrees Kelvin.

In the meantime though, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is IKEA's phase out too soon or is the rest of the country's too late?

A question for the ages: do highly styled rooms help or hurt?

I look over many, many room photographs as part of my job. As a designer, I look at these photos with a different eye. Usually, I want to see how things fit together both structurally and aesthetically. I find cleverly styled rooms to be distracting. A big glass bowl of Froot Loops on a bed makes me roll my eyes and wonder what someone was thinking.

But that's me. What about you guys?

modern home design

Does seeing a line up of Campbell's Tomato Soup cans make you think of Andy Warhol and pine for some pop art? or do things like that come across as literal ideas?

kitchen design

Do abnormally well-organized pantries inspire you to get more organized or make you feel inferior? Does it come across that the subjects of these photos are fantasies?

modern home design

How about that big glass bowl of Froot Loops? Interesting because it's an interesting shape, color and texture? I'm I being too literal in not being able to see it out of its Froot Loopy context? How about that ladder? Think it's there all the time or was it popped up there just for this shoot?

traditional dining room design

Please don't invite me to dinner if this is the centerpiece. I'm kidding of course. Sort of.

eclectic dining room design

Do dead and spray painted starfish add interest or are they unappetizing?

eclectic living room design

Do stacked, old children's books, a DIY lampshade and a Russian nesting doll make a nightstand complete?

Do you find cleverly styled rooms to be helpful or distracting? I'm curious.

I am testing my blog by phone feature

If this works, I will be happy. Blogger lets me phone in blog posts and this is my first attempt to do so.

A backstage tour of St. Petersburg's Chihuly Collection

The Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg opens officially today and I was fortunate to attend a preview for the press yesterday. Chihuly himself was scheduled to lead the press tour but unfortunately, his health prevented him from being there. In his place, the tour was lead by Chihuly's friend and project architect Alberto Alfonso.

The Chihuly Collection in St. Petersburg is presented by The Morean Arts Center and it's the world's first permanent Chihuly installation, and Alfonso's brilliantly, thoughtfully designed space reflects the fact that this collection is here for keeps. The facility and the art interact perfectly and the impact of both is magnified exponentially.

Chihuly's best known for his work in glass, but he works on paper and neon as well. There are installations in all three of his media in the collection and the combination of the three in one space fleshes out he vision and talent of an artist who practically invented the studio glass movement.

Because I attended a press preview, the collection staff hadn't erected all of the barriers and velvet ropes that will protect Chihuly's work when the public are welcomed in today. I was granted a once in a lifetime opportunity to see this work close up, barrier-free. It bordered on the unsettling to walk around ten feet tall, suspended chandeliers with a value I'd be afraid to calculate. What a thrill!

The collection starts in the street with a Chihuly sculpture that pays homage to the iconic tower of The Vinoy Hotel in  the background.

In no real order, here are some of the works on display.

St. Petersburg's Chihuly Collection opens today and you can find out about operating hours, ticket prices and information about how to get here and where to stay on The Chihuly Collection's website.