Still stuck in the 60s? That may not be a bad thing

Here are a couple of bathrooms from 1960 and 1961.

You know, they're not half bad. There are some elements to them that we still do now. One of them has a separate water closet and I see more than one wall-mounted toilet. There's 1/2" mosaic tile, furniture-inspired vanities, funky wall paper that's not too funky and a floor tile in the last image that looks suspiciously like terrazzo tile. What's cool now isn't terribly off from what was cool in 1961.

See what I mean? If you have a bathroom that dates from the early '60s you might as well keep it. At this stage of the game things have come full-circle and the early '60s are fashionable again. I call it the Mad Men effect. If you can imagine Betty Draper spraying Aqua Net in the mirror, you're good for another five years at least.

People didn't really go off the deep end until the latter part of the '60s anyhow.

Again, see what I mean? Hot Dr. Pepper? I can't imagine drinking that stuff cold. If the ads are to be believed, hot Dr. Pepper was all the rage in 1969. I was four at the time so don't blame me. So if everyone was sitting around drinking hot Dr. Pepper in 1969, what on earth did a bathroom look like? Are you sure you want to know?

Ugh. See what happens when you drink hot Dr. Pepper?

I want a blanket absolution for every aesthetic choice made from 1968 through about 1984. I have no idea what got into people but mercifully, it passed. Despite the attempts to revive them by people too young to remember those years first hand, they are gone for good.

But seriously, a lot of the innovations from the mid-century era are still with us. Remember that blue bathroom from the beginning of this post?

See that sink? Here's its modern incarnation from La Cava.

Remember the toilet from from the fifth image?

Here's its modern counterpart from Duravit.

See? A lot of that stuff is still around.

Looking to recreate that nightmare from 1969? You're out of luck. That's just as well, some chapters need to remain closed.

So what do you guys think? Did the designers of the time get something right in the early '60s? Or am I just blinded by my fascination with all things Mad Men? Would you recreate one of those vintage looks in your home today? What is it about those mid-century styles that makes them look so appealing today?

This post is part of the 2010 Bathroom Blogfest, an annual blogospheric event that's been running steadily for the past five years. The participants in this year's Bathroom Blogfest are:

Blogger	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.KitchenAndResidentialDesign.com
Shannon Bilby	Big Bob's Outlet	http://blog.bigbobsoutlet.com/
Shannon Bilby	Carpets N More Blog	http://blog.carpetsnmore.com/
Shannon Bilby	Dolphin Carpet Blog	http://blog.dolphincarpet.com/
Shannon Bilby	From The Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Shannon Bilby	My Big Bob's Blog	http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk Blog	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net/
Marianna Chapman	Results Revolution	http://www.resultsrevolution.com
Katie Clark	Practial Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com/
Leigh Durst	LivePath Experience Architect Weblog	http://livepath.blogspot.com/
Valerie Fritz	The AwarepointBlog	http://www.awarepointblog.com/
Iris Garrott	Checking In and Checking Out	http://circulating.wordpress.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com
Renee LeCroy	Your Fifth Wall	http://yourfifthwall.com/
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	TILE Magazine Editor Blog	http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
Maria Palma	People 2 People Service	http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
Reshma Bachwani Paritosh	The Qualitative Research Blog	http://www.onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://trendsblog.co.uk/
David Reich	My 2 Cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Sandy Renshaw	Around Des Moines	http://www.arounddesmoines.com/
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.purplewren.com/
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce Sanders	RIMtailing Blog	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Steve Tokar	Please Be Seated	http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
Carolyn Townes	Becoming a Woman of Purpose	http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Christine & Ted Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	The Carpetology Blog	http://carpetology.blogspot.com/
Linda Wright	LindaLoo Build Business With Better Bathrooms	http://lindaloo.com/

Autumnal re-runs: A trip to New Ravenna

This post ran originally on 8 January 2010 and it recounts a trip I took to New Ravenna Mosaics about a month prior. I ran a post this week about some new stuff New Ravenna's been working on and it reminded me again how impressed I was by my experiences as their guest last year.

via Flickr

Across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis, MD sits the Delmarva Peninsula, so named for the three states that divide it. There's the whole of Delaware on the eastern side. It's flanked by Maryland to the west and the bottom 70 or so miles of that spit of land make up Virginia's Eastern Shore.

via Flickr

US 13 runs down the spine of the Eastern Shore and to drive south on it is to leave behind the pace and the hassles inherent in living in the rest of the northeastern US. The miles pass wide expanses of fertile fields dotted with pine and oak flatwoods. Ocassional, orderly towns come into view and there's a Spartan efficiency to them.

It's clear that for a lot of these towns, their best years are behind them. There's no real sense of loss that's readily apparent though. History runs very deep on the Eastern Shore, and that kind of history leaves a people with the steely resolve that even though the good times are in the past, they'll come back.

About two-thirds of the way down the peninsula sits the town of Exmore, VA; and in what was once an Arrow shirt factory, New Ravenna Mosaics and Stone creates some of the most beautiful work in glass and stone available anywhere.

New Ravenna Mosaics and Stone is the largest employer in Northhampton County. The 100 people who arrive at that old shirt factory every morning are artisans in every sense of the word and their workplace is an atelier much more than something that could be called a factory.

Sara Baldwin founded New Ravenna in 1991. She started as an artist with a passionate vision to bring beauty to the world through the medium of stone tesserae. That vision still burns as brightly as ever and her enthusiasm, her love, for the medium infuses everything about New Ravenna.

While it's true that New Ravenna utilizes an impressive assortment of water jets, tumblers and wet saws; at the end of the day they create their art the way mosaicists always have. Someone considers a piece of stone, cuts it into the shape she needs and then sets it in place. Repeat 10,000 times.

19 years ago, New Ravenna started out as a woman with a vision. 19 years later, New Ravenna is 100 people with a shared vision.

Look through their entire collection on their website and follow New Ravenna's latest developments through Sara Balwin's blog. Oh, and if you ever find yourself in Exmore, VA; stop in for a visit. If you can't make it to Exmore, you can find a bit of New Ravenna's Exmore at distributors far and wide.

Autumnal re-runs: Let me off in the Bronze Age

This post appeared originally on 30 October 2009 and I'm running it again because I like talking about the Bronze Age and the Elamite people who ushered it in.

Six thousand years ago, an unknown and enterprising tradesman of the Elamite city of Susa combined copper and tin in a crucible and ushered in a new age of human development. It was the dawn of the bronze age and the Elamites were the first people to leave the stone age behind. Bronze was the first metal alloy devised by anyone, in Elam or anywhere else, and the technology to make and use it spread outward from what's now Iran and it eventually circled the globe. Its two component metals, copper and tin, almost never occur near one another and making bronze required trade with other civilizations. So ancient people found it to be not only useful, it also made them talk to their neighbors.

Bronze had a relatively low melting point, it resisted corrosion, it could be made into as many shapes as could be imagined and it was made from materials that were in ready supply in the Middle East. Bronze remained the go-to material until the beginning of the iron age, some three thousand years later. Bronze never lost its usefulness and human beings have been making and appreciating bronze for six thousand years and counting.

I can't think of a metal that feels as good as bronze does. It has a nearly velvety feel to it and that comes from the surface corrosion that results from the copper in bronze reacting to oxygen in the air. Bronze has the unique ability to stop corroding as soon as its surface has a layer of copper oxide coating it. It lasts forever and actually looks better over time.

I'm fortunate to sell a line of cabinetry hardware from Schaub and Company in Grand Rapids, MI. Schaub sells some of the finest hardware I can think of and when Tom the Schaub rep comes calling it's like Christmas. Schaub and Company approaches what they do with the care and precision of jewelers and they do a lot with bronze. Tom's visit yesterday afternoon didn't disappoint.

This is a collection called Vinci, and it features some pretty modern shapes in an ancient metal. Well sign me up. I knew I was going to love it before he even unwrapped his sample kit.

These handles and knobs come in two finishes and the handles come in five sizes. Measured center to center, the handles come in four-inch, six-inch, 12-inch, and 18-inch cabinet handle and then a chunkier 18-inch appliance handle. The knobs come in two square sizes and the entire collection is available in two finishes, antique bronze and polished white bronze.

Polished white bronze is an almost mirror finish on a roughly cast modern shape. It's sensory overload and my new favorite handle.

As if it weren't beautiful enough already, the entire Vinci collection is unlacquered and has what's called a living finish. I wrote a series on living finishes last winter in response to a reader request that I come up with a definitive answer. I came up with three definitive answers and you can read them here, here and here.

A living finish means that the surface will continue to change color with time and exposure to the elements. This takes time and it provides true character to a metal finish. Your life leaves a mark on a living finish and the idea of my leaving a mark on an inanimate, decorative object is something that appeals to me on a really basic level. It's for that same reason that I like marble counters so much. I'll take character over something that looks pristine any day and believe it or not, I kind of like my crow's feet too.

Anyhow, this new Vinci bronze collection from Schaub and Company has given me one more thing to love about their hardware. Poke around on their site, there's enough there to appeal to just about everybody.

Happy birthday again Gram

This was my Grandmother, Guellma Gevene Flowers-Smith-Stewart and today would have been her 105th birthday. Of the many people who played a significant role in my life, none loom larger than Gevene. The older I get the more I see her in me. And the older I get too, the more I see just how great a thing that is. Gram died 14 years ago but I swear she's still around sometimes.

She loved life and embraced it, warts and all, with a passion and an energy that makes me marvel even now. In the photo above, she's playing with Sarah, her first great-grand daughter. Oh how she loved that baby. I remember when that photo was taken, I was standing right there. It really doesn't feel like it was very long ago, but I suppose it was. The baby in that photo now has a husband, a baby and another one on the way. Here she is.

This is Pauline, my great niece and Gevene's great-great grand daughter.

Pauline's going to grow up hearing stories about a great lady who was born in 1905 and I love that kind of continuity. I'm convinced that the dead live on when the living tell their stories and so long as I have breath in my body, Guellma Gevene Flowers-Smith-Stewart's going to be around for a very long time.

Modenus is a new and exciting design resource

One of my great Twitter finds and friends of the last year is Veronika Miller. Veronika's an interior designer who's spent the last couple years developing an online design resource called Modenus. The site's been a beta for the last couple of months and Veronika's been kind enough to kick the tires and contribute a thing or two as she's brought her site to the ready for prime time state it's in now. Did I mention that it's free?

Here's an excerpt from the Modenus press release:

Modenus.com is a comprehensive product catalog and project management platform for the interior design industry launched this month. The catalog portion of the site is generally open to consumers and design professionals, but verified pros have the added benefit of getting access to a collaborative project manager, pro forums and trade only information posted by manufacturers.

The resource is the brainchild of Veronika Miller, who worked as a successful Interior Designer before turning her attention to digital media. She says designers need better tools to help them work profitably and efficiently  - especially now.

Speaking about the launch, Veronika Miller says:
“No one needs to tell interior designers that times are tougher. We are launching Modenus to help them make the most of challenging business conditions by offering them free tools to work more profitably, a platform from which to network with peers and meet potential clients and a curated catalog of products from the US, Europe and beyond, putting new and exciting resources at their finger tips.”

“But it's not just about Designers. Manufacturers are entirely free to engage with consumers and designers and can set up distribution channels that best serve their business model. Manufacturers can list showrooms, retailers, E-commerce outlets and even design studios that carry their products to provide the consumer with the most sensible avenue to specify or buy.”
“But our efforts won't stop at products. We want Modenus to be a bridge that connects designers and consumers across continents. So many design professionals are now prepared to consult virtually or to travel for a great job, why not shake the geographic restraints and use a platform like ours to find a designer, a client or a product anywhere in the world. Business isn't what it once was but that doesn't mean there aren't new opportunities.”

If you're a homeowner and you're contemplating a project, I encourage you to spend a little time with Veronika and Modenus. In a nutshell:

• Consumers will find amazing products, connect with designers and be inspired by daily design blogs. 
• Design professionals will explore new global resources, network with peers, feature their work and manage projects on the site's unique project management application. 
• Manufacturers will engage with consumers and professionals in discussion forums, showcase their product collections in the curated catalog and communicate with their followers via a direct news feed to registered users who have selected to receive more information.

If you're a fellow design professional, there's even more on that site for you.

Welcome to the web Modenus!