Martha Stewart commits another offense

The Home Depot just launched a new line of cabinetry and it has Martha Stewart's name plastered all over it. I mean that literally.

One of my favorite people in all of Bloggerdom is the ever delightful Raina Cox from If the Lampshade Fits. Raina likes to poke me with a stick through late night, one-line e-mails that she knows will get a rise out of me. Her latest arrived on Sunday night. The subject line read "Thoughts?" and the body of the message consisted of "Martha Stewart kitchens from Home Depot" and then she included a link to an LA Times article announcing the product launch. Predictably, Raina's message set off a flurry of internet searches and a round of back and forth messages that consisted of my bile venting.

Listen, I don't begrudge Martha Stewart one thing. In fact, I admire everything she's managed to do over the last 30 years. Our tastes diverge shall we say but aside from the taste thing I'm in awe her ability to turn every aspect of the character she plays on TV into another branded product.

With that said, she may have crossed a line here with The Home Depot.

From the LA Times:

Using her own utilitarian kitchen as inspiration, Martha Stewart has released her first special order line of cabinetry, hardware and counter tops.

Sold exclusively at the Home Depot, the cabinetry features clean lines and comes in 11 door styles and a variety of wood finishes. It also offers thoughtful accessories that show Stewart is in charge: cookbook pop downs, roll out shelves and pegged dish organizers.

From the sound of that press release regurgitation, somebody'd would be led to believe that Martha herself was very intimately involved in this project. That would be wrong of course.

Again from the LA Times:

Inspired from authentic all-American homes with enduring charm, these designs are rooted in classic styles and crafted expressly for the modern home.

Just like the Thomasville cabinetry sold at the big orange box, this is a licensing deal. Home Depot pays Thomasville and Martha Stewart for the use of their names. And just as is the case with Thomasville Cabinetry, Martha's are made by MasterBrand Cabinets. Masterbrand Cabinets itself is a division of Fortune Brands. This doesn't make them a bad product. It does however explain that they are a relatively inexpensive, mass produced cabinet. The brand names like Martha Stewart and Thomasville are there to distract people from the fact that what they're buying is not actually a premium although they're priced as if they are.

If you find yourself at a home center for cabinetry, and this pertains to a lot of people, just know what you're in for and adjust your expectations accordingly. Oh and by the way, cabinets aren't sold by the foot so don't believe the linear foot costs home centers like to scatter around their kitchen departments. real prices are somewhere between three and four times the prices on the signs.

Oh and by the way, the images scattered around this post are from Home depot's Martha Stewart Cabinets. The first photo's door style is called Mount Desert. It looks like a cheesy, home center, oak cabinet and that exactly what it is.

So whattya think gang, would you let Martha into your kitchen under these circumstances?

Geek-to-chic events showcase K&B/interior designers' “Tech Moxie”

The following post is written by Mark Johnson, FAIA. Mark's a good friend and colleague and he's reporting from two events I didn't make it to this year. I'm happy to host his dispatches from a conference at Google's Boulder Campus and then from Fashion Week in New York. Unrelated events? I don't think so. You can follow Mark on Twitter; he tweets as @MarkJohnsonFAIA. So without further ado, here's part one of Mark's adventures from the road.


--Paul

I was delighted to attend major events in just two weeks where Kitchen & Bath (K&B) and Interior Designers dominated social media and embraced the newest design technology offered from Google. Why is this tipping point so important? Historically the K&B/Interior Design community has been content to follow rather than lead in adoption of online and tech tools. Architects have been the resident design geeks, but not for long…

Question: “Can a designer be Geek and Chic?” You say it’s an oxymoron and I’m a moxie moron for even suggesting? Stay with me for this two-part blog and I’ll try to prove it’s an important sea-change. Dive in, I promise you won’t become a pocket-protector misfit.

The Podium at 3D Basecamp - A mashup of High Tech & Camping with Shrek

Google 3D Basecamp where "It's Hip to be Square"

The events I attended couldn’t be more different and that’s what’s so exciting. I’ll call Google SketchUp 3D Basecamp in Boulder, “Geek Week.” I’ll dub the Luxury Bath Design Challenge at New York Fashion Week 2010, “Chic Week.”

Mark Johnson FAIA proposing "Unconference" Session on Social Media and Google 3D Warehouse. Aidan Chopra wondering... Does this topic have traction??

Let’s start in beautiful Boulder where Google’s indoor camping theme had their employees wearing wool caps in August…yeah, pretty geeky, but in a chic sort of way. We talked tech around virtual campfires; amazing what you can do with LED lights, a fan, fabric and kindling…not very romantic, but it was a geek fest after all. Don’t worry fashionistas, Part 2 will cover New York Fashion Week so hang in there, you need to read this.

Camp #4 - The On-Stage Wilderness with Google dudes and a roaring virtual campfire.

Trekies, I mean Techies, from around the world converged on Boulder with the unbridled enthusiasm of tweenage boys attending a Boy Scout World Jamboree. All the while, who’s quietly tweeting to the world about the release of Google SketchUp Version 8? Why it’s a cadre of K&B designers at 3D Basecamp, iPads and Macs in hand, and their Florida friend, Paul Anater @Paul_Anater, tweeting from afar.

Camp #5 - "Unconference" Session on Social Media +Google 3D Warehouse. No campfire, just lanterns...

Rachele Harless Gorsegner @misedesign, Eric Schimelpfenig @SketchThis, yours truly @MarkJohnsonFAIA, and @IntDesignerChat interloper, Alex Oliver @igloostudios were all there to witness the Version 8 launch, post over 50 tweets, and add a 34 pic photo album to Facebook by the next morning. I’ve included some pics with captions so you can see the brain damage we inflicted. Not to worry, most of it was virtual.

Camp #3 - Rachele Harless Gorsegner & David Pillsbury @davidpillsbury goofing off with the Google Team

Boulder is pretty laid back so our band of K&B SketchUp power users showed them how it’s done. In fact, on “Unconference Day,” Alex Oliver and I each led conference sessions highlighting Social Media, Google Apps, 3D Warehouse and our segments of the design industry; building products for architecture, interiors and K&B. Our quantitative analysis demonstrating how to generate ROI metrics with free Google Apps raised some eyebrows…Uh oh, this is getting geeky. In plain speak; 3D building and interior products are some of the most popular collections in Google’s entire 3D Warehouse.

SketchUp Road Warriors: Mike Tadros, Eric Schimelpfenig, David Pillsbury, Mark Johnson, Alex Oliver So to our many friends on the K&B and Interiors side of the business, you were well represented at "Geek Week". We even recruited a few through the wormhole to the K&B side of the Universe. Next post; on to New York for "Chic Week". No camping gear allowed…although a few celebs were spotted wearing “camo” near the runway! Eeww.

Hansgrohe adds to their collection of water-saving showers

Hansgrohe just added two new shower models to their stable of water-saving showers. Interestingly enough, Hansgrohe figured out a way to inject air into the water stream of a shower and when the air and water are mixed in a 3:1 ratio, the volume of the spray doesn't decrease but the amount of water used drops by anywhere from 20 to 36%.

The whole process is pretty slick and as you can see in this illustration of a Raindance AIR shower, Air gets pulled into the face of the shower.

Once the air's inside of the shower, the air gets mixed with water behind of face of the shower. The pressure from the water supply then shoots everything out of the face of the shower in a consistent stream. The method of air injection Hansgrohe uses actually increases the water droplet size as it's using less water. The result is a more drenching shower.

Hansgrohe how has two new additions to their collection of air injected showers. The first is the Chroma Green, a transitional style. Here it is in the handheld version:

And here it is as a wall-mount:

The second is the Raindance Air. Here's it is as a handheld:

And here it is as a wall-mount.

These new showers from Hansgrohe will allow you to use less water, save more money and still enjoy a good shower.

Dragging an old bathroom into the 21st Century

I've been working with a client on a very small bathroom. The bath in question is in a 1500 square foot ranch house in a valuable neighborhood and it suffered an unfortunate brush with a flipper around eight years ago. Any original character that was in bath when he started ended up in a dumpster. What's left is an out of character attempt at some kind of Shabby Chic as seen through the lens of somebody with $1000 and a long weekend.

Awful stuff.

Enter me. The client wants something modern and he wants me to maximize the storage while eliminating clutter. As you can see below, this bathroom measures a hair over nine feet by seven feet and maximizing storage is going to be a challenge.

Because this room's so small, I want to make it appear to be as large as possible. So instead of a shower stall, I'm calling for a single sheet of clear glass to define the shower area. All of the cabinetry will be raised a foot off the floor and every square inch of this room is going to be tiled in white marble.

If I remove the wall behind the shower you can see the sink elevation.

Here's the vanity and mirror from a little closer in.

All of this cabinetry's being made by a local cabinet maker and all of it will be natural walnut. That vanity cabinet is based on the idea of a Luce vanity sink from LaCava acting as both a sink and a counter.

In the interest of maximizing space, There's a pull out rack behind the right door of the vanity and the mirror slides to the left on hidden guides. Once the mirror's slid out of the way it reveals a counter sunk medicine cabinet in the wall.

On the other side of the bath, there's a tall cabinet. It too is sitting a foot off the ground.

The center compartment has a fold out dressing table, for lack of a better term, that slides in and out of the center compartment.

There's general storage in the compartments above and below the fold out table.

I'm still hunting for the right wall-mounted toilet and I welcome any and all suggestions.

The wall-mounted faucet will be the Virage from Brizo of course, as will the shower.

Although I have to admit I was lured by the siren's song of Hansgrohe, mostly for this photo.

Wow. Now I need to take a cold shower.

So by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, this bathroom will have been dragged into this century and by using decent finishes and fixtures, this client won't ever have to renovate this bath again.

A beautiful new faucet series from Gessi

From deep in the heart of Italy's Piedmont Region, comes the Goccia series from Gessi. Goccia means "droplet" in Italian and designer Prospero Rasulo found a new shape and in doing so, he found a way to bring faucets out of the kitchen and bathroom and into the rest of the house.

See what I mean? It reminds me of Achille Castiglioni's Arco lamp from 1962 but the similarities stop pretty quickly after that first flash of recognition.

I tell clients all the time to pick bar and prep sinks with intention but this exceeds even my definition of intention.

As dramatic as the large size of this faucet it, I can see integrating one of its smaller cousins into the end of a dining table or a buffet.

And of course, Goccia comes in sizes, shapes and configurations that work well in bathrooms as well. I'm really taken with this shape.

Goccia is a wide-ranging suite of fixtures, it extends far beyond what I'm showing here. And Goccia is but one of the hundreds of products offered by Gessi. Spend some time on their website and you'll see what I mean. There will be more to come from this company, believe me.

In the meantime though, what do you guys think of having a sink and faucet in the dining or living room? is it an idea whose time has come?