American design in Melbourne

Reader Elisabeth from Melbourne responded to my question about how American design shows up abroad this morning with a link to an Australian company called American Homes. From what I can gather, American Homes sells house plans in the "American" style to Australian homeowners.

When I think of Melbourne, I think of historic structures like this one from Wikimedia:

When I think of new construction in Melbourne, I think of this home from FindNew.com.au.

Maybe I'm naive and have a stilted view of Australian housing, but what American Homes is selling is a slice of the Atlanta suburbs. Check these out:

Ugh. Those things look bad enough in an American suburb but they must seem really out of place in suburban Melbourne. Australians and anybody else, is that accurate? Elisabeth and her fellow Australians, do people really buy homes like this? Do these "American" style homes have a popularity anywhere else in the world? Let's hear from all over!

All in Good Food, a new chef's blog from GE Monogram

GE Monogram has two full-time chefs and the rule over the kitchen at GE Monogram's Experience Center in Louisville, KY. Chefs Joe Castro and Brian Logsdon have been working together for more than ten years, first at a Lousiville fine dining restaurant and now at the Monogram Experience center. They're as entertaining as they are accomplished chefs and I'm thrilled to see that GE Monogram's given them their own spot on the internet.

The blog launched a few weeks ago and they've been adding content steadily. The site looks fantastic, it's easy to navigate and it's brimming with great ideas and recipes. There's even a story by me.

So pop on over and give Joe and Brain a warm welcome to the blogosphere. They have a pizza dough recipe that rivals mine in its simplicity and if it's anything like the na'an recipe I got from them last summer, it will put mine to shame. All in Good Food can be found here.

Italian bath design, is it what people think it is?

This is a Roman toilet. As in Ancient Roman.

And this is what just about every bathroom I've ever been in in Italy looks like.

Italian culture has been perfecting the art of indoor plumbing for thousands of years and they have it down to both an art and a science. From what I've seen, bath design in Italy is a matter of efficiency, hygiene and speed. I find a lot to admire in how they go about designing bathrooms.

But when I'm in the US and I go looking for Italian bath components, I find anything but the efficiency I so admire in Italy.

Check out this combo from Hidra:

Here's another one, a little more sedate and also from Hidra:

Or how about this one from Simas:

Here's a sink-bidet-toilet combination from Axa-Moss:

Here's another sink-toilet-bidet combo, this time from Ceramica Cielo:

Somewhere I can hear the voice of a young Haley Mills, "Father, I must have a pony..."

So if this is how Italian Sanitary ware shows up for the rest of the world, why doesn't it look like that in Italy? I've asked this question about Italian kitchen design before and I'm asking it again because I didn't get a satisfying enough answer.

Is Italian design just for export? Or do they keep it to themselves and leave the pedestrian stuff for American visitors (never a tourist here!). Do all countries do that?

To all my non-US people, how does American design show up where you are?

What is the state of Italian bath design anyhow? Is it somewhere in the wall-mounted wonders from Hidra or is my vacation picture more like it?

Is living smaller the new living large?

A group of us are tackling this topic this morning in what's becoming a phenomenon of its own, the Twitter-generated blog off. At the end of the post, I'll link to everybody else who's writing on this subject today. In the meantime, here goes my two cents on living smaller.

We're living smaller -- financially, ecologically, consuming less... We're able to spend less time working to support the things in our life and more time just living.

Or so said Ann Holley in The New York Times in a Trendspotting article last January. Holley and her husband live in a 127 square foot living space. They are graduate students.

That such a quote would end up in a Trendspotting article is of a piece with another Census study that's been making the rounds all year. 2009's Characteristics of New Housing published by the US Census bureau found that the average new home in the US averaged 2438 square feet in 2009. That's down 100 square feet from the peak finding in 2007.

A little perspective. The difference between a 2538 square foot home and a 2438 sqare foot home is imperceptible. And in using that example, I'm falling into the same statistical trap that every trendspotter in the land made when they read it. Because this number is an average, it doesn't take into account anything other than a structure's status as new housing. The condominiums now languishing on the market might very well be the driver of that square foot drop. They might be, I don't know for sure. I don't think it matters here though.

The conventional wisdom is that Americans are indeed living smaller but I don't believe it. The majority of the people in the US live in suburbia. Suburbia that looks like this.

Despite all the claims to the contrary, this is what the American Dream looks like in 2010.

A new, disposable home in inhuman scale set in a car-dependent neighborhood, which is also at a scale that something less than human. It's also a version of the American Dream that's as unsustainable today as it was when it was conceived.

The American living room looks like this. No wonder Americans are so cranky. They could really use a remodel by a talented team like SHS Roofing to make that living room into a happier space.

Shopping and town square socializing looks like this.

The places where such things as socializing and shopping used to take place now look like this.

So long as American downtowns continue to be abandoned and neglected, so long as the overwhelming majority of Americans need a car to go about their day-to-day lives, so long as Wal-Mart continues to be the the US's largest private employer and grocery retailer, I won't believe that Americans are living smaller.

Sorry to be such a party pooper. The rest of the gang'll be writing about the joys of smaller scale living but I feel like a voice in the wilderness with this stuff. So to answer the group question this morning, Is living smaller the new living large? I say the answer is no.

To read more ideas on this theme, check out:

Veronica Miller at Modenus, A Small Life is Good, but Slow Down to enjoy it! 


Richard Holdschuh at Concrete Detail, Small is Beautiful but Relativity Rules


Nick Lovelady at Cupboards Kitchen and Bath, Is Small Really Realistic?


Rufus the dog at Dog Walk Blog, How Much Does it Cost You To Exist for One Hour? Size Matters


Becky Shankle from Eco Modernism, Is Living Smaller the New Living Large?


Saxon Henry's Chair Chick, Living Small (and Getting Shagged!)


Sean Lintow's The Homeowner's Resource Center, Building Smaller, Is it the Next Big Thing?


Cindy Fruen-Wuellner as Urban Verse and her Posterous, Living Large and Small: Trading Hummers for Pumas Ain't the Whole Story 

How realistic is this $1527 kitchen remodel?

The yahoos at Apartment Therapy were crowing last week about a $1527 kitchen remodel that had been featured on the This Old House website.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

I have to say that's quite a transformation. And talk about a bargain.

But not so fast. On the last page of the seven page story on This Old House's site, there's a cost breakdown and it reads like this:

Tore out the old cabinets, salvaging the bases. $0

Called in a favor for help upgrading electrical outlets. $0

Replaced the ceiling fan and added task lighting. $300

Patched the walls and ceiling with new drywall. $207

Built six pine cabinet boxes; added medium-density fiberboard doors and drawers to all the cabinets. $200

Resurfaced the laminate counter. $150

Used donated tiles for a new backsplash. $0

Upgraded to new brushed nickel hardware. $170

Built custom window arches and added crown molding. $100

Added a range hood. $140

Replaced the faucet. $110

Brightened the space with 2 gallons of primer and 4 gallons of paint. $150

Total: $1,527

They didn't pay for an electrician to rewire for new lights and a range hood. There's no mention of whether or not the hood vents to the outside or just recirculates. There's also no value assigned to the labor they put in. Granted, they still did everything on a shoestring, but this was not a weekend project and the home owners clearly had some building skills. Obviously too they didn't replace the appliances or the floor.

So despite the fact that they did do a terrific job, is the $1527 price tag being bandied about even close to an accurate accounting? Is this story and isolated incident or can people realistically expect to recreate what they'd done here for the under $2,000 being thrown around?

Is this $1527 renovation fact or fantasy? What do you think?