As if to prove my point

This e-mail just arrived:

For starters, what color grout to use on your back splash is not a huge dilemma. Deciding to take a loved one off of life support is. Let's try to work on getting some perspective.

For seconders, your dilemma would be solved best by the designer you're working with or the sales person you're working with where you bought that tile.Posting photos on Houzz and asking me for advice on grout colors I can't see is how you end up in real trouble.

If you're working with a designer or a reputable salesperson, he or she will ask your installer to do two mock ups. Each will use your back splash tile. One will have your tile with Pewter Waterfall gout and the other will have Silver grout. Once you see how those two different grout colors affect the color of your tile in your own home your decision will make itself. Do not buy tile from someone who won't do a mock up for you.

You're welcome.

Houzz.com you're killing me

I haven't written for Houzz.com for a year and a half, yet every day I wade through no fewer than five e-mails from Houzz members. To a one, those emails are asking questions that can be answered by clicking on the "more info" link next to a photo I posted, or they're asking unanswerable questions such as "what color is that?" or "what's the name of that granite?"

Again, judging precise color based on an internet photo is impossible, especially if it's in a product photo. Product photos tend to be heavily Photoshopped and actual colors get lost in the mix. Never mind that you're viewing everything on an uncalibrated monitor.


What prompted this post was an e-mail I received a half an hour ago. Here's the question and the photo:

Clicking on the "more info" link would have told this person that what's in that photo is a cork floor from US Floors in Atlanta. Those floors aren't sold retail and are only available from a showroom at around $8 a square foot. I get it that most people don't buy things like new floors every day and that the general population doesn't have the product knowledge that people like I do. But still, think and be respectful. Houzz's links are clearly identifiable and they're there for a reason.

Aside from that, the colors and patterns you see on the internet aren't real and the only way to select a color for anything is by looking at a sample in real life.

This vignette is from a showroom where I once worked. The cabinetry colors are Oyster Vintage over Maple and Harvest Bronze on Knotty Alder from Medallion Cabintry. The wall color is Sherwin-Williams 7037. The back splash is two colors of mother of pearl. The hardware on the cabinets is from Schaub and the finish is oil-rubbed bronze. The faucet is from Rohl and the counter is Tusk from Avonite. I know this because I designed this display.

However, this vignette was shot by a professional photographer who flooded the whole showroom with artificial light. In your home, colors such as Oyster Vintage, Harvest Bronze and Sherwin-Williams 7037 will look nothing like they do in this photo. Asking for their names is irrelevant  Ask instead for a white-ish paint color, a rich brown color and a strong neutral for the walls, because trust me, the colors shown here look very little like this in real life.

Similarly, natural stone patterns don't have formal names. What's Labrador in your market is Uba Tuba in someone else's. Not only that, those patterns change, often radically, over time. A stone labeled Crema Bordeaux today looks nothing like the same stone from the same quarry in Brazil five years ago.

I get a lot of e-mail from people who describe a room and then tell me about their dilemmas about how to furnish or paint said room. While I appreciate that strangers see me as an authority, I won't answer a question like that out of principle. My training as a designer taught me early that I need to see and be in a room before I can figure out what to do with it.

A designer sees things from a dispassionate, removed perspective and it's a designer's job to a) plan a space, and b) save you money in doing so. If you have a difficult room or if you've hit the wall, hire a designer.

Good design advice is never free in the same way that legal, medical, real estate or tax planning advice is never free. Designers make a living from their expert opinion, the same as any other professional. It's as true in real life as it's true online.

Houzz.com has done amazing things in providing the public with a library of inspirational photos. They've done a great job of designer outreach too. But there's a disconnect in there somewhere. The people who write for that site aren't there to offer free advice. They're there to increase their presence on the internet and they do it for very little money. Please respect that. What you see on the internet isn't real and there's no substitute for a design professional. Hire an independent designer.

Blogtour's coming!

Sung to the tune of "Something's Coming" from West Side Story:


Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!

Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Bogtour's coming, Blogtour's good,
If I can wait!
Blogtour's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,
Open the latch!
Blogtour's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!

Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.

Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!

Come on, Blogtour, come on in, don't be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And Blogtour's shortly coming!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe next week . . .

Apologies to Stephen Sondheim for massacring his lyrics, but I'm on my way to Germany and The Netherlands next week as part of the latest iteration of the international sensation, Blogtour.

Endless thanks to Modenus for making all of these arrangements and none of this would be possible without our Sponsors: Blanco, DuVerre, Mr. Steam, Axor by Hansgrohe, Miele and the NKBA.

This will make my second Blogtour and I am honored; thank you again to the gang at Modenus.

Blogtour Cologne kicks off at the IMM, known in German as the internationale möbelmesse.

IMM is one of the world's largest design trade shows and it's held every two years. Two years ago I attended IMM with over 100,000 other attendees and this year's show promises to be even bigger than it was in 2011. Blogtour sponsor Blanco had me there last time and it will be great to reconnect with friends at Blanco again.

I'll be joining the amazing Veronika Miller and Tim Bogan from Modenus, Michelle Alfano the Mod Design Guru, Lisa Smith the Decor Girl, Brandon Smith from D'Scoop Media, Courtney Price, Darren Morgan from the Kitchen Design Think Tank, Alexandra Williams from Fun and Fit, the hardest working man on the internet, Todd Vendituoli from Building Blox, Kathy Sandler from Live the Fine Life, Sarah Sarna from Life the Life you Dream About, Tina Ramchandani from Life in Sketch, Carmen Christiansen from Time 2 Design, Katie Treggiden from Confessions of a Design Geek and Stacey Sheppard from The Design Sheppard.

I know most of these people already and when you throw in a bunch of my fellow old guard members from the Blanco Design Council who'll also be attending the show and this promises to be quite the event. Imagine that: Susan, Jamie, Andie, Cheryl, Nick, Kelly and Leslie, we're the old guard.

After a few days at IMM in Cologne, we're boarding a train bound for Amsterdam to meet up with more bloggers and to see more cool stuff. Next week's going to be amazing and I'll be posting updates both here and on my other site, Back Where I Started.

Winding down and gearing up

Today's the last day of 2012, obviously. In a lot of ways, 2012 was one of the best years of my life and I hate to see it go. As I look forward to 2013 it's easy to get overwhelmed.

My sibs, my Mom and me after my brother Steve's baptism in 1969.

My life's about to shift pretty seismically in the next month. I have a new job to go with my new location and until I get up there for real I'm dividing my time between Florida and Pennsylvania. My mind's in PA but my body's in FL right now and it's an odd thing.

Of course I'll miss the parrots and the palm trees. 75-degree January afternoons aren't anything I'll be experiencing after I move and I'll miss them too. However, the career move I'm making isn't something I could have pulled off in Florida, no matter how hard I tried. And Lord how I tried.

Besides, being in PA has me within striking distance of New York and that's never a bad thing.

My contract with Coverings put me on the map and made me show up on radar screens all over the place and I can never thank Coverings enough for the boost they gave me. Similarly, the people behind brands such as Brizo, Blanco, Google, GE Monogram, Bosch, Thermador, Gaggenau, Kraftmaid, Medallion, American Standard, Formica, Henrybuilt, Ceramics of Italy, Tile of Spain, Chevrolet and many more, saw something in me and it was through my dogged networking that I ended up in the position I'm in now. Dogged networking or not, I didn't do this alone. I was helped along and encouraged when about the last thing I wanted to do was to keep plugging away.

All of that paid off in 2012 in a way so big I can barely wrap my head around it. Thank yous are due across the board.

In addition to the brands I worked with, my interactions with my friends on Twitter have proved themselves to be invaluable. No matter how discouraged I got, a half hour spent on Twitter got me motivated again. Though I have a lot of contacts, the number of people I consider to be friends and confidants is relatively small. Bob Borson, Susan Serra, Kelly Morrisseau, Todd Vendituoli, Charlie Kondek, Chuck Wheelock, Johnny Grey, Tim Bogan, Saxon Henry, Veronika Miller, Nick Lovelady, Eric Schimelpfenig, Peter Saal, Gerard McClean, Sherry Qualls, Nora DePalma, Leanne Wood-Newman, Tom Miller, my brother Steve, JD Megargel, Kevin Smith. Brandon Bergman, Tim Howe, Damian Amantia and anybody else I missed played a huge role in all of this too. Thank you.

The new year kicks off with a week in my office in PA and then a week in Europe. How can the year that'll follow be anything but great with a beginning like that?

Thanks too to all of you who read my scribblings and rants, everything I'm up to now can trace its origins back to a December five years ago when I decided to investigate this blogging thing. There was a ditch there and I fell into it. As I always say when I'm speaking, if I could do this anybody can.

In 2013 this blog will remain live and it will be the repository of all the things I stumble upon regarding the design world. My musings about travel, life and anything else will go onto my new blog, Back Where I Started. That new blog is also the place where I purge my Florida demons so be warned.

So happy new year everybody, make 2013 count in a very big way.

Let me vent a little about Houzz

I used to write for Houzz. I'll be forever grateful for the exposure and dealing with the editorial side of that site was nothing but a pleasure. Would that all online forums were as well-run as Houzz. That's due almost exclusively to the hard work of editor Sheila Schmitz by the way.

There are few editors I've worked with who've made real assignments, appraised delivered work and provided much needed direction as well as she did. All hail Sheila Schmitz!

Houzz.com started out just a couple of years ago and has since grown into one of the go to places on the internet for designers and Architects to show their work. At the same time, it's become a place for homeowners and potential customers to interact.

This is great.

However, it's been nearly two years since I stopped writing for Houzz. Yet every day I get at least one e-mail from a Houzz reader who's asking a question about something he or she saw in one of my Houzz posts.

When I have time I answer those e-mails but as often as not I ignore them because they're moronic questions.

As I repeated constantly on my blog and on Houzz, there are no standard names for granite slabs. What's Uba Tuba in Florida is called Labrador in New York.  Natural stone is a natural product and even stones that come from the same quarry change radically over time. You cannot order a natural stone counter out of a catalog and you have to pick the slabs your counters will be made from in person.  Deal with it.

If you  want a stone that's gray-ish brown with little movement or if you want a schizophrenic blue, just describe what you're looking for to your salesperson. He or she will set you up with the stone you're looking for.

Contrary to what you may believe, sales people in kitchen and bath showrooms don't exist to extort money from you. It may sound counter intuitive, but these people will actually save you money. The budget you have set for yourself shouldn't be a secret. Walk up to someone in a showroom and say something along the lines of "I have $25,000 to re-do my kitchen, go!" That's a much better use of your time and their time than leaving them to guess how much money you have to spend.

The idea of getting three bids is crap too. Find someone you trust and who can work with your budget. If he or she has a good reputation you're done. Except for writing checks of course. Be sure that anybody you hire is licensed in the state where you live.

If you're concerned about staining, don't get counters made from natural stone. Granite will stain and marble much more so. In my mind those stains are like the wrinkles around my eyes. Stained counters and my wrinkled face show the world that we've lived a full life. One of my favorite stories about marble involves a wonderful, former client named Margaret. Margaret had triplets who were ten when we re-did her kitchen. I designed a bar at the end of her counter so her kids could do their homework as she put dinner together,

I went to see her a year after we re-did her kitchen I saw that her bar was covered with crayon and smudge marks. When I mentioned it she said "For the rest of our lives, my kids will always be ten when I see the marks they left in my kitchen."

That's why people get natural stone counters. If you're not prepared for your kids' crayons or your own dough kneading to leave a mark, than don't get a natural stone counter.

Beware the yahoos who claim that they can put a granite counter in your kitchen for $20/ sq.ft. That's an impossibility and it guarantees you a miserable experience.

When a cabinet's billed as "cherry-stained" it's not cherry. The people who make wood stains use the colors and tones of natural wood as model when they formulate their stains. Oak called "walnut" isn't walnut and heaven protect anybody who puts a stain on actual walnut. Maple is naturally blond, cherry runs between blond and brown, hickory has nearly black streaks on a blond background, birch is an iridescent gold and oak is oak.

Finally, colors on your computer screen aren't real. Between the distortion of your non-calibrated monitor and the non-calibrated camera of the source, nothing looks the same as the photo you see on the web. Don't ask what the wall color of a photo you see on Houzz or Pinterest is. Whatever color it is for real won't look anything like what you see on a website.

The smart thing to ask for (preferably from a designer) is a color that approximates what you see in an internet photo.

I enjoyed my experiences at Houzz.com and working with Sheila was a treat, but many of the questions I field could be answered by a) thinking and b) clicking on the "more information" tag on every one of Houzz's photos.

Think people, think!