Quick-thaw McGraw

I came across a posting on Apartment Therapy's kitchen blog the other day that reminded me of another one of granite's many positive attributes.

We know granite isn't everyone's cup of tea around here, but it does have a remarkable ability to defrost things. We'll leave a frozen chicken breast out (in a plastic bag, for all of you ready to wave your disinfecting wipes in protest) and it'll be soft and pliable in half the time it would take sitting in the sink or on another surface.

The writer, Elizabeth Pasarella, goes on to ask her readers for an explanation. If you've never read Apartment Therapy's website, they regularly do this kind of call and response with their readers. It's usually pretty informative and entertaining. Anyhow, A physicist who calls himself tulpoeid wrote this in response:

Physicist here ... although I've never given granite a thought before... Katti is absolutely right, if something feels cold to the touch (at room temperature of course) then it conducts heat rather well. And if it quickly transfers heat away from your hand, then it can also quickly transfer heat to the frozen food. This is why metal feels cool etc. The heat conductivity depends on the molecular structure so each material has its own, and although granite's is lower than metals' it's still higher than many other materials'. In this case the smooth surface also helps: notice how coarser materials feel warmer to the touch (e.g., cotton vs. silk). This is due to their molecules being a bit farther part, so their individual motion cannot be as easily transferred from one to the next. And molecule motion = heat.

Other respondents continued to echo this theme of granite's abilities as a heat conductor. Interesting. Interesting to me at any rate. I've always been one to thaw frozen food under running water, but it's really wasteful to do so and I've stopped. This seems like a good, efficient alternative.

This is whack

I had a conversation with a client yesterday and I was trying to explain to her that the images of glamorous kitchens she sees in catalogs and magazines aren't real places. For the most part, those images are sets in a studio or on a sound stage. As fully-designed sets, their reason for existence is to sell you something, not to act as a template for what your life should look like. I hear that same sort of thing a lot; "make my house look like the one in As Good As It Gets" or "I want this to look like a Pottery Barn catalog." It's a strange, internalized kind of consumerism. One where it's not enough to want the goods for sale, rather the goal seems to be the acquisition of the advertiser's whole imaginary universe. It shows up for me in requests from people who think they want to live in a magazine spread or in a model home. Newsflash: no one actually lives in a model home and that magazine spread is peddling a fantasy.

Real life is messy but it's also a lot of fun. My goal as I set out design a space for someone is to minimize the messy part of life and accentuate the fun parts. Clean up should be simple. Everything should have a place that's easy to get to. Rooms should be furnished and accessorized with things that reflect the lives of their owners. I want the art on the walls to be art you like and that you pick out. I want the photos on the book case to be your photos. I want the stuff that's lying around to tell a story about your life. It's your house, not Arthur Rutenberg's and not Pottery Barn's and not mine.

Anyhow, as I was ruminating about that I came across something on Consumerist that may be the root of why I approach residential design the way that I do.

Buried on their page two was a brief mention of something they were calling Wacky Packages. Well, I remember them as Wacky Packs and for better or for worse, my design sensibilities were deeply affected by them when I was nine or so.

Wacky Packages were a collectible sticker series that were put out by Topps (the baseball card people) in the '70s. They were graphic, sophomoric, brilliant spoofs of consumer products and my brothers and I couldn't get enough of them. The mention in Consumerist alluded to their value as collectibles now and there's actually a website dedicated to buying and selling them. What does that have to do with making a house reflect the people who live in it? Hold that thought.

This is a photo of my mother in the kitchen of my childhood home in about 1973. Looming behind her is a cabinet door covered with, you guessed it, Wacky Packs.

Here it is in close up.

My mother, bless her heart, allowed her six sons to cover a cabinet door in her kitchen with Wacky Packs. It's an extreme example, but there can be no doubt that the house I grew up in reflected the fact that nine people lived in it. Seven kids are hard to miss to begin with; but just in case you did, check out this cabinet door! Thank you Mom for putting up with us, thank you Tom for getting us started with Wacky Packs, thank you Steve for scanning all of these old family photos and thank you Consumerist for the walk down memory lane.

Here are a bunch of original issue Wacky Packs, many of which were on that cabinet door. They mock the Cold War, they mock hippies, they are decidedly irreverent and gloriously offensive. They are aimed squarely at nine-year-old boys, yet they include some heavy allusions to cigarettes and liquor. I cannot get over how many of these things I remember, yet I haven't given them a thought in at least 30 years.




Now I doubt that I'll be encouraging someone cover a kitchen cabinet door with stickers any time soon, but if somebody really wants to; what's it going to hurt?

New stuff from Medallion Cabinetry

Medallion Cabinetry, the cabinet makers to the stars, finally released the new catalog for 2008. It was worth the wait. I have been selling their brand for over two years now and I'm still amazed by their level of quality, reasonable price point, and great sense of style. I have sold more brands of cabinetry than I can count during the course of my career and out of all of them, Medallion stands out. Medallion makes me look good and they provide me with a good living, a home run in my book. Here are some of the new door styles we had released last week.



We have a couple more mullion patterns too, and I'm having a hard time finding photos of them. So in lieu of the stunning photography you normally see on this blog, here are some images from my Medallion spec book. They are called "Eclipse" and "Chi." That's pronounced KAI by the way, as in the Greek letter. I don't know which one I like more. The Eclipse is neat becasue it's an unusual pattern for a cabinet, but the Chi has such classic lines. Decisions, decisions.


I'm a kid on Christmas morning when we get our new stuff every year, and this year is a pretty bountiful take. This new catalog is the largest product expansion in Medallion's history and I love them all the more for it. There's a ton more, but you'll need to make an appointment to see it. So why not make an appointment?

Time for another break

I spent a bit of time on the phone this afternoon. I was making arrangements to rent a car in The Bahamas. Cat Island in the Bahamas to be exact. I'm making a triumphant return to the land that time forgot in about two weeks and I am so due for a break I can't stand it. Being on the phone with somebody over there today made my upcoming long weekend away seem a lot more real. That's mostly because trying to conduct anything resembling a business transaction on the Out Islands is an exercise in letting go of my American expectations. And for me, that's an important first step in getting out of my own way.

Dealing with this kind of stuff over there starts out like giving a cat a bath but eventually I give in and let it just happen. It's funny, a phone interaction like the one I had this afternoon with an American car rental company would have had me unleashing the wrath of Khan. But since it was with Mrs. Gilbert of Mr. Gilbert's Motor Inn and Car Rental, By the time I said goodbye I was calmer than I'd been in months. I'm still not quite sure I completed my car rental reservation but it will all work out. See? A calm that borders on Zen and that was just from a phone call.

Cat Island is about 40 miles long and a mile wide. Its population hovers around 1000 people. It sits in the Atlantic Ocean about 350 miles southeast of Key Largo. It is the definition of secluded and quiet. There are no phones, no internet access, no TV, etc. Just miles of empty beaches and blessed solitude. Me, a couple of friends, John Steinbeck and I plan to do some serious battery recharging.

This has nothing to do with kitchen design, interior design or sustainability and that's precisely the point. Everybody needs a getaway.

This is the side of the New Bight International Airport on Cat Island

This is the side of the cottage. I like this photo.

This is looking past a tree at the porch with the azure seas lapping in the background.

Ahhhh.

Oh Target my Target

Those of us who are in the know, know that for at least the last ten years, Target has been raising the bar on what a discount store is capable of. They've been teaming up with well-known designers for the last couple of years. Thomas O'Brien, Victoria Hagen and Michael Graves have all designed lines of furniture and housewares for them and their offerings been pretty uniformly good. Last year, Target teamed up with Dwell Studio and started selling a special collection of their linens. last year it was all linens from Dwell Studio, but this year they've taken the dive into furniture.

This is a leather ottoman by Thomas O'Brien for Target. The retail price is $129. That's not a typo. None of the prices you're about to read are typos.

This is an upholstered headboard from Dwell Studio for Target. It sells for the princely sum of $149. Don and Betsy Draper, eat your hearts out.
This is a $29 lamp by Thomas O'Brien for Target. Pottery Barn who? $250 table lamp where?

And this is not a $2,000 Barbara Barry nightstand. It is a $149.99 one from Dwell Studio for Target, my Target.So it looks like Target's getting better at this cheap chic thing the longer they stay at it. The high-end furniture and houseware people hate you, but I don't.