Great rooms deserve great art

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately, and I keep gravitating to sites that deal with the more artistic side of design. I have always envied other peoples' artistic sensibilities; because despite my artistic aspirations, my pragmatism always seems to run my life. I suppose that's why I'm a designer instead of a sculptor. Anyhow, two blogs (Designboner out of Chicago and Whorange from LA) have proved to be real finds. Through them, I get a glimpse of what's cool and what's beautiful. And those elements are presented with a sense of humor and joy I find inspiring. Many thanks to the kids behind Designboner and Whorange. Through Whorange, I came to see the work of a Portland-based artist and designer named Matte Stephens, whose work you can see below.

I have a Paul Klee hanging in my office. Paul Klee is tied for my favorite artist of the 20th century with Mark Rothko. Matte Stephens appeals to me because in his work I can see a continuation of the life and work of Paul Klee but at the same time I can see reminders of the great animations of Hanna Barberra and later, John Kricfalusi. These works are gorgeous and cool on the surface, but they have an accessible deeper layer that I find irresistible.

Matte sells his work through a website I just learned about recently too. Etsy is a website dedicated to the sale of handmade items and art and it's a huge site. Through Etsy, anybody can buy great new art; and great new artists like Matte Stephens can sell to anybody. What a great idea and what a brilliant use of the Internet. Spend some time poking around on that website and buy something from Matte Stephens.

Not your kids' stickers

Wa-a-a-a-a-y back in March, I wrote an entry about wall stickers. The first ones that caught my eye then were monochromatic and nearly architectural. Well, the kids over at Apartment Therapy featured some wall drawings this morning from a French firm called Domestic that take the idea behind a monochromatic, architectural focal point in a whole new direction. Who knew that something so humble as a vinyl sticker could be so doggone cool?! Some of it functions as art, some of it's just funny for the sake of being funny and all of it's executed well. Bravo!

Smith and Noble's having a sale

I love what I do for a living, I really do. It's incredibly satisfying and gratifying to imagine something; be it a room, a couple of rooms or a whole house. I imagine something and then draw it. Then somebody pays me for what I imagined and drew. Then a couple of months later, I walk into a room, a couple of rooms or a whole house that once lived inside of my head but is now a real place where people live. I will never get over the thrill of that.

That said; there are some parts of the imagination and realization process that I love more than others and there are some that I really hate. Of the parts I dislike most, selecting window treatments has to take top honors in my list of most-loathed tasks. They bore me to tears. There. I said it. Invariably, I specify the most minimal things I can find and I'm never surprised to hear that what I specified originally didn't make it into the final plan. "Do what you want," I tell people; "just don't junk up all this clean space."

Then I hand them a catalog from Smith and Noble. Smith and Noble is a catalog and a website that sells custom shades, blinds and interior shutters for incredibly reasonable prices and they sell directly to homeowners, not just to the trade. Check them out. Really. And right now they're having a sale. A decent one too. I've bought wooden blinds from these people --custom ones-- that were only half as expensive as I thought they'd be. They were made to the size I needed exactly and they arrived a week-and-a-half after I ordered them. Who does that sort of thing? Well, these guys do. Take a spin through their website.

An outdoor shower

I was talking to my brother yesterday who'd spent the better part of the day outside doing yard work. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I was going back to The Bahamas in a couple of weeks to stay in a thatched roof shack on the beach. I've been to this same place about four times already and I was telling my brother that one of my favorite things about the place is that the showers are outside. He started dreaming of building himself an outdoor shower for yard work days and I started whining because I want an outdoor shower to use every day. Ahhh, to be naked in the sunshine is indeed a wonderful thing and the very idea of an outdoor shower exerts a very strong pull on me for some reason. I'm fortunate to live in a climate where something like an outdoor shower would be usable virtually year-round. Not so my temperate-climate-inclined brother. But the whole conversation reminded me of an article I'd read in the New York Times at some point in the last two weeks. According to my pals at the Times, outdoor showering is a thing whose time has come.

Setting up a shower outdoors isn't such a big deal and by setting it up without a traditional drain line can irrigate the area immediately surrounding your outdoor shower. Furthermore, an outdoor shower could be a handy excuse to start thinking about greywater reclamation.

So to plan an outdoor shower of your own, you'll need access to a water line, access to hot water for the faint of heart and some form of privacy screen for the modest. If the shower's not going to be plumbed with a drain line, it should be positioned over a dry well. A dry well is essentially a pit filled with gravel. For additional elevation and to keep you from standing in water while it drains into the ground, building a small teak deck to use as a shower platform is a great idea. Finally, plant some bamboo or other fast-growing, screen-type shrub around the perimeter of the shower and voila! An activity one relegated to the inside comes out into the clear light of day.

If you're planning to build or have built any type of outdoor plumbing, be sure to use copper pipes and for God's sake put cut off valves on the supply lines. PVC pipes aren't stable in direct sunlight and who wants to breathe aerosolized PVC anyway?

Let's save some money!

I have been on a real electricity conservation kick lately so I'm going to write some more about it today. In May, I finished swapping out the last of my light bulbs with CFLs, I increased the temperature setting on my fridge and I started turning off all of my power vampires when I leave the house in the morning. It worked. I just got my electric bill and I have halved my electrical use and more importantly to me, I have halved the amount of my bill. Hot dog! I really don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything --I still run my air conditioning and I don't sit in the dark. But it's incredible to me that making some small changes like the ones I've made has netted me some real results.



My beloved St. Pete Times ran the following this morning and I'm repeating it in toto here.

• Put off the flat-screen television purchase, or unplug the one you have when it is not in use. Many flat-screen televisions can use as much power as an energy-efficient refrigerator.


• Change to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The energy-saving light bulbs use about a third of the energy of incandescents.


• Set your thermostat between 78 and 80 degrees, or higher if you're comfortable. When you leave the house, turn it up by 5 to 7 degrees instead of turning it off.


• Use ceiling and portable fans to keep air moving. Ceiling fans can make a room feel 2 degrees cooler.


• Close drapes, blinds and shades in the hottest part of the day.


• Get a clothesline. It's hot out. Let the heat dry your clothes. A dryer uses lots of electricity, and adds heat to your house that your air conditioner has to work against. Florida law says homeowners associations can't ban clotheslines.


• Consider "zoned" air conditioning systems that allow you to cool only the rooms you are in, or a small window unit to cool only the rooms in use.


• Check with your utility about home energy audits that can see where you are wasting electricity. Some utilities also offer rebates on energy-saving devices like thermal wraps for water heaters or solar thermal hot water installation. Tampa Electric and Progress Energy offer audits and other programs.


• Turn your computer and monitor off. Screen saver modes save no power. Sleep modes continue to draw electricity. With most computers, powering it on and off does not wear it out. There is more wear and tear on electronics from the heat stress of constantly running.


• Unplug "vampires." These are cable boxes, televisions, phone chargers, iPod charging stations. All of them draw power even then they are not charging a device, and even when they are in sleep mode. These devices can add as much as 10 percent to your power bill. You can also put the devices on power strips, and turn the strip off when the appliances are not in use.