Reader question: whither goest farm sinks?

Help! I love the look of the farm sinks, but I don't like the look of granite. The salesperson at Home Depot said to have a farm sink, you have to have granite. Is this true, or what other counter top can be used? Thanks.

To quote a young Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest, "That's a lie." I don't think it's a lie on the part of the sales person who told you that, I think he or she was just parroting back the Home Depot party line. Whatever the source of that bit of misinformation, it's patently untrue and it's pretty illustrative of the reasons not to shop in a home center for anything other than light bulbs and duct tape.

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The Home Depots of the world realized a long time ago that it's too expensive to train their employees adequately or to pay them enough to keep them around for long periods of time. The result of that incredibly short-sighted approach is the exact kind of advice you got about sinks. But hey, what's a little inaccurate information when there are a couple of bucks to be saved. Right?

Stay out of home centers for complicated purchases such as the one you described. There are independent plumbing showrooms everywhere who are anxious to win your business. The people who work there are paid a living wage and are rewarded for knowing what they're talking about. Find one near you and buy your sink there.

Before I get too far into this, the sinks you're referring to are called apron-front sinks by the industry. Referring to a those kinds of sinks as an apron-fronts as opposed to a farm sinks sends the message that you did your homework.

Apron-front sinks don't require that you use any specific kind of counter material, but they do require a specialized sink base cabinet. Retrofitting them into an existing kitchen is nearly impossible, even if you're getting new counters. This is not a weekend DIY project by any means.

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If you want to add an apron-front sink and not tear out your existing kitchen, go talk to an independent kitchen designer. He or she can help you figure out a way to pull it off tastefully and properly. You'll have to buy a new sink base cabinet at a minimum, so talk to a professional about how you can add a new cabinet without it looking like a band aid.

Once you settle on a sink and how to integrate it into your kitchen, go talk to a counter fabricator. Most counter fabricators deal with natural stone, solid surface and quartz composites. Many of them can handle other materials like concrete and wood too, just ask. Explain that you're going to use an apron-front sink and they will explain, clearly and factually, the sorts of things you need to keep in mind as you pursue this project.

You will spend the same money there that you would from a home center. But again, your money will go to a company that pays its employees a living wage, trains them and rewards them for knowing what they're talking about. A salesperson at an independent counter fabricator can answer all of your questions about how to handle an apron-front sink.

Between the plumbing showroom, the kitchen designer and the counter fabricator you'll be all set. You'll have information that's based on facts, you'll get personal attention and you'll spend the same (if not less) money than you would at a home center. Furthermore, you'll be pumping money into your local economy instead of exporting it to Atlanta or Mooresville, NC.

Home centers have their place, but that place is not selling and installing specialty products, as the misinformation you were given illustrates perfectly.

Optical illusion Saturday

I haven't written about optical illusions in ages but a website, Mighty Optical Illusions, popped onto my radar this week and I can't get enough of this guy's site. He has thousands of illusions; visual, audio and video. Check out that site but I have to warn you, it won't be a quick visit.

Click on any of the illusions that follow and they will open in a larger size.

Mighty Optical Illusions is great at not only presenting these illusions, but explaining why and how they work. Here's a great example. Stare at this image for around a half a minute without blinking and it will disappear.

It disappears due to a phenomenon called the Troxler Effect. The Troxler Effect describes visual fatigue. Stimulus that isn't moving eventually disappears from human perception. The Troxler Effect isn't reserved for visual stimulus either. If you take a small piece of paper and set in on your forearm, you'll stop feeling it after the same half a minute, provided neither the paper nor your arm is moving. Pretty slick.

This animated .gif is beyond cool. Let it load and start its animation. Notice the speed of the dots. Then, take your hand, hold it up to your monitor and cover the center of the image. Notice how the dots speed up?

That's an amazing effect and it illustrates very clearly that human brains are utterly dependent on context and previous experiences to make sense of the world.

This one's called Dancing stars. When you get to this illusion, scroll your sceen up and down and the center star field seems to move. Not only that, the sides of the inner square seem to slant a bit, even though they're perfectly straight.

This is the illusion of the running faucets. Stare at this one for a moment or two and the taps will appear to be running.

If you look at this for long enough, it's actually, physically fatiguing. That's from your brain trying desperately to make sense out of this apparent movement.

I love illusions that appear to be animated even though they're not. Here's a really great one.

The illusion of movement is caused by something called saccadic movement. It's an evolutionary adaptation that allows eyes to focus. It's a bit of a paradox, but when an object isn't moving, it fades from view. Having eyes that move back and forth rapidly and involuntarily keeps stationary objects visible.

Speaking of illustrations that appear to be animated even though they're not, check out this one.

That's absolutely amazing.

Again, spend some time over at Mighty Optical Illusions, the guy pulls together some of the most mind-bending stuff I've ever seen.

The Jason Wu collection for Brizo

Brizo has been collaborating with fashion designer Jason Wu since 2006 and after a five year affiliation, Brizo and Jason just announced the launch of  their long-awaited, Jason Wu-designed powder room suite, The Jason Wu for Brizo Collection. Check out this video announcing the collection.




I can't think of anybody who's selling bath fixtures quite like that. Wow.

The central motif of the collection is something Jason calls his Baroque Flower and all of the individual components feature a matte black finish (a first for Brizo) with either chrome or brushed nickel accents.

Tissue holder

Liquid soap dispenser

Soap dish

Front-mount tank lever

Side-mount tank lever

Waste basket

Drawer pull

Most notable is the faucet at the center of the collection the Jason Wu for Brizo Odin. I've been fortunate over the years to see that faucet as a number of prototypes and it's a particular thrill to see it in production. Brizo has been utilizing touch controls for the last few years, but this faucet adds a proximity sensor in addition to its touch control. A proximity sensor turns a faucet on and off any time hands come within four inches of the faucet.

They've also added a subtle LED light to the base of the faucet. That LED is a temperature indicator with red being hot, blue being cold and varying shades of magenta to indicate the various degrees of warm between the two extremes.

Here's another video where Jason and Judd Lord, the head of industrial design at Brizo discuss the collection.




The collection goes on sale this spring, but you can pre-order the components now on Brizo's website.

My article about using Twitter for businesses from Floor Covering News

Floor Covering News just published its annual social media guide and this year, they picked me to write an article about how businesses can use Twitter to their advantage.

Here's a screen capture of my article and here's the link to the whole publication. My article is on page ten.

The last few weeks have been pretty great, the trade show Coverings just hired me to be a speaker (I'll be talking about Twitter of course) at the show in April and just last week Real Simple Marketing named me the world's third most socially influential blog when it comes to the flooring industry.

I must know what I'm talking about!

Production tile as art by Apavisa

As amazed as I was by the baths I saw at Cersaie this year, it is a tile show primarily. It's just ten times the size of any tile show I've ever seen.

For the last couple of years, tile innovations have centered on improvements in printing technologies and stone-like tile continues to look more and more like natural stone with each passing model year. Still growing is the segment dedicated to making plank-shaped tile that looks very much like wood.

I knew all of that before I ever boarded a plane for Bologna and I was hoping to see something new, and I mean new in the tile world. Well I found it, the key words coming out of Cersaie were texture and shape. Of all the manufacturers' shapes and textures I saw, the manufacturer who showed off their innovations best was Spain's Apavisa. So much so that they called their very large booth an art gallery. They weren't kidding.

Do to the fact that these tiles don't lay flat, they can only be used on walls. But imagine the possibilities presented with some of these shapes and twists on traditional wall tile.

Here are some highlights from their booth in Bologna. Bear with me, there are a ton of photos to share here.

Apavisa products are distributed worldwide and can be found just about anywhere Spanish tile is sold.

Can you see yourself using some of these textures in your own home? They're onto something here and keep an eye out for other manufacturers to start playing around with shapes.