A visit with American Standard

As I mentioned here last week, American Standard had me in New York last week for  a day of product education and a tour of their research facility in nearby Piscataway. While there, American Standard put my fellow travelers JB Bartkowiak, Laurie Burke, Andie Day, Saxon Henry and Rich Holshuh in The Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District.

Photo via JB Bartkowiak

The Standard is the current center of the universe for all things hip and cool in Manhattan and it was fascinating to have a front row seat for all of it. Ordinarily, I'm an east side of Midtown guy and it was wild to see the worlds of fashion, art, music and money collide in the lobby of The Standard. It was fascinating surely, but I've never felt so old and irrelevant in my life. Hah! But man oh man, the view...

So my Wednesday last week was spent with the marketing and design folks at American Standard. I went into the whole experience with an open mind but I wasn't expecting to be wowed. I should have know better, there were industrial designers involved after all.

I love hearing the stories behind products and I love meeting the people who design the objects most of us take for granted. The amount of thought that goes into something as mundane as a toilet is inspiring frankly, and anybody who can figure out a way to re-engineer toilets and showers and faucets to use water more efficiently is OK in my book.

Any time I go on one of these sessions I'm always on the look out for that one break away innovation, that one thing that pushes an entire industry forward. I found a couple of them at American Standard but none of them comes close to what they're doing in their Outreach lavatory faucet.

At first glance, the Outreach looks like any other centerset lavatory faucet on the market. But if you look at it closely, notice the line at the bottom of the spout. This faucet does something utterly different.

It has a pull out, similar to what you'd expect from a kitchen faucet.

When I shave every morning I have a ritual where I splash water around my bathroom sink to get the shaving cream scum and beard crumblies down the drain. My ritual doesn't work very well and I probably use three times the amount of water I need to in order to clean my sink. A pull out sprayer would make sure of my (and every man's) morning dilemma. Great thinking American Standard.

And if an afternoon of innovation in Piscataway weren't enough, our whole crew went to dinner at Cookshop in Chelsea that night. Sitting a hair's breadth away was none other than Ron Howard. God I love New York. Thanks American Standard for getting me back there.

Photo via JB Bartkowiak

The number of reading glasses at that table speaks volumes about the median age of the typical design blogger. I love having peers!

Caspani lets everybody pretend to be a gangster

Oh Lord. I gave a talk in New York last week about blogging and Twitter and I was making the point that being controversial isn't always a bad thing. Someone asked how to do that without offending a potential client or vendor and I responded that she should look for Italian furniture developed for the Russian market.

I hate to play to national stereotypes, but some of them fit. Almost to make my point for me, Italian manufacturer Caspani just released a collection of chairs they're calling the Regal Armchair Throne.

Again, oh Lord.

Do any of these things actually sell? Who would have such a thing in his or her home?

Again, I hate to play to national stereotypes but I'm going to pretend I'm German and just go with it. DirectTV's Gregor should have one of these.

Buy this book!

The book is Kelly's Kitchen Sync and it was penned by my great friend Kelly Morisseau.

I've known Kelly for a couple of years and among all of the peers I've befriended in the last few years, Kelly's always stood out for her good-natured expertise. Kelly's one of a handful of pros I turn to when I need design advice and through this book, now anybody with a question will find an answer in Kelly's Kitchen Sync.

Kelly starts at square one and talks a reader through every decision that needs to be made over the course of renovating a kitchen. This is Kelly's introduction:

Ready to remodel your kitchen? Great! It sounds so easy -- buy a few cabinets, some appliances and perhaps even replace a worn counter. Then you discover the dishwasher handle blocks a drawer, the refrigerator door hits the cabinets and the dishwasher won't fit under the new counter.

Some of you may think you'll never run into this --after all, your kitchen is pretty simple without a lot of changes, right?

Here's the reality: designing the kitchen of today is like stacking dominoes. Every choice, every product and every finish you add to your kitchen impacts the design, simple or not. One piece can send the rest tumbling if not thought out --and there are a lot of pieces!

I'm not trying to scare you, but rather provide you with a bit of hope --with the help of this book, you'll sail past all this. You'll learn how to spot those errors --and many others-- long before you ever get to the installation stage.

Kelly then spends the next 18 chapters and 210 pages reviewing every detail an eager renovator will run into. She discusses the importance of each step of the process and to someone new to the renovation market could easily see this resource she's penned as the most thorough visit with a master designer they're likely to get.

Kelly talks about how much money you can expect to spend. She talks about how to interview a designer and a contractor. She talks about cabinetry of course, then goes on to dissect the vagaries of cooking appliances, ventilation and refrigeration. If you have a question and you'd like an answer from an unbiased source, your answer is probably within the covers of this book.

It's available now through Amazon and $20 spent today will save you a fortune down the road. Buy it!




As a personal aside, Kelly Morisseau is the first designer I ever started corresponding with. It's been a singular thrill to watch our little network of two grow into something that includes some of the biggest names in the industry. Eventually, we formed the Blogger 19 but that's grown into something more like the Blogger 75. The launch of Kelly's book is but one more achievement to celebrate from this amazing group of people I call friends and colleagues. Even though Kelly's now poised to become a world famous, best-selling author, she maintains the blog that started it all, Kelly's Kitchen Sync, and has a thriving Bay Area design practice.

Guilty TV pleasures: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "Guilty pleasures: what's your favorite show on TV?"

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It's funny. I spent most of yesterday composing a lengthy, lengthy defense of my intellect that amounted to a rationalization of why I watch the guilty pleasure TV I do. I'll spare you my inner torment and just come clean. I am no stranger to trashy TV. I don't admit it very often but the whole point of this Blog Off topic was to act as a confessional.

So with that said I'll confess that I watch most of the shows the Bravo Network produces. And out of all of those programs the one that stands out for me, the true rose among the thorns of reality TV is the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

There. I just admitted that to the world. This is supposed to make me feel better but instead I just feel exposed. The Real Housewives of New Jersey has no redeeming qualities other than that it entertains me. It entertains me because it makes me think I'm sane when I compare my life to the horrors that play out in North Jersey every week. I watch it for no reason other than the thrill of schadenfreude.

Here are three clips that sum up the shenanigans of The Real Housewives of New Jersey perfectly.

From Season One:






From Season Two:






From Season Three:






And there you have it. I've either admitted my humanity or made myself look bad. I can't figure out which. In my own defense, I really do read The New Yorker...

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

A Saturday New York story

As I get ready for another trip to New York, something that's become almost a routine, my mind drifts back to a time not too long ago. Actually, it feels like a lifetime, but on a calendar it was only seven years ago.

I was about to turn 39 and I'd been a fervent promoter of a novel by Gregory Maguire called Wicked since the late '90s. If you were anywhere in my sphere back then, you'd have heard me hollering about that novel. I still holler about it if you catch me in a nostalgic moment.

Wicked is an achievement in American fiction and it remains an amazing read. If you've never read it, forget your preconceptions and pick up a copy. You'll never look at history the same way.

Anyhow, seven years ago somebody turned my beloved novel into a Broadway musical that was then struggling to keep the doors open. I was beyond intrigued by the idea of it and I hadn't been in New York in nearly 15 years. So to commemorate my 39th, my great friend Kevin Smith and I flew to New York for a weekend. We'd see the show, hang out with his friend Janine and spend a whole day running around New York.

Despite the juggernaut Wicked became eventually, Kevin and I saw it with its original cast in a half empty Gershwin Theater. We sat feet away in the fifth row of the orchestra when Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel sang this:






I remember sitting in that theater during that number and getting choked up because that song was about me and Kevin. It was more than me and Kevin of course. It was about everyone I've ever known but it stopped with Kevin Smith.

Kevin Smith is a dear, dear friend. His is best and most solid friendship I've ever formed in my life. When we were in New York that weekend we were also neighbors in St. Pete. Back in St. Pete, Kevin taught me more than I think he'll ever know. Among many other things, he taught me how to live a life without shame and he taught me how to laugh. Kevin's willingness to share a cup of coffee and fresh cinnamon rolls taught me how to be a neighbor. His legendary rice and beans taught me how to be welcome guest.

Through our various highs and lows he's always been there to bring me back to earth when I'm flying too high and he's always been around to catch me when I crash and burn. I'd never be in the position I am today without his constant challenges and encouragement. More than anybody else, Kevin equipped me for the things I have in front of me now.

In the last seven years, New York's become what I like to call my home away from home away from home and Kevin's moved on to greener pastures in New Orleans. But every time I find myself on Madison Avenue I find myself thinking about Kevin Smith and that weekend way back when and I thank him for the role he's played in my life.

 Kevin, not to be a cliche, but because I know you, I have been changed for the better and for good.