Search result for: the-last-thing-you-aquired-
| # | Post Title | Result Info | Date | User | Forum |
| another attempt | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| another attempt First of all I think that we have to be careful not to mix legislation and the results of legislation. The protection given by the legislation is not the same thing as the financial gain derived from it. Just to be clear allow me to compare three children books, booth put together by a writer and an illustrator. All three works are protected under one law: the copyright law. In the first case the book is a moderate commercial success, both the writer and the illustrator receive the royalties they agreed upon with the editor. They are a percentage of the book's sale's price or at least based on a percentage (sometimes it is better to agree on a fixed amount per book because it is easier to administrate than in a world where distribution and retail mark-ups are rather diversified). The second book becomes a "H.Potter"-like success. Booth the writer and the illustrator still receive the royalties that the parties agreed upon.But the actual dollar figure is of course much much higher. It is difficult to combine the willingness to give a reasonable revenue from a moderate success with that of a global success. This has been a reason for both the editors and writers/illustrators to agree on different percentages for different quantities. Relative high percentages for the first thousands and decreasing percentages for the high volumes. This is what is most common in designers royalties to. Strangely enough, it's one of the reasons why the most successful contracts (from a financial point of view) are the ones that are written by un-experienced writers that "unexpectedly" become very successful. The editors, not expecting the success often forget to offer the more sophisticated contracts including lower royalties for the higher sales volumes. The writer of the third one wants to be guaranteed a certain success and takes a license on a popular illustration...say a Walt Disney character. In this last case, (which is an unusual construction in real life. The combination is not, but most of the time the editor will make the license agreement) the writer pays the illustrator the royalties agreed upon in the license contract. All of them act according to pre-established contracts and within the framework of the copyright law. Yet the revenue derived from the writing of a children story are very, very different. I could repeat exactly the same examples, with similar results for three different products.(although the product will probably not be turned into a movie) The only difference is the period of time, and the level of protection. For the writer and illustrator, their rights will be protected until fifty years after his death. For the designer it is limited to 20 years after making the product public. On top of that, the writer's rights are much easier to protect than the designer's. | |||||
| Not one but three... | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Not one but three... 1. Bugatti Veyron. Ferdinand Piesch is the only visionary car executive who has consistently pushed out the envelope on what any particular car or brand could be--be it humble or exotic. The Veyron sports car is his masterpiece, because it is magnificient, and because it exposes all the other super cars of by today as posers. It is absolutely necessary in our current baroque age of pointless, superficial product variation that design follow two contradictory paths in order to escape and commence a new enlightenment. The first path is that recommended by koen. One group of talented, dedicated designers must move toward sustainability in design. Another group of talented, dedicated, perhaps fanatical designers must move in another direction: they must target faux excellence spun by marketers and leap ahead of it in order to remind people of just how good things can be designed and made. If these two paths are hewn through the current forest of crap that is the detritus of the global economy, the common landscape of our time will facilitate their convergence into one path again--into something that liberates humanity again, rather than humiliates it--into something that celebrates humanity rather than intimidates it. Maybe I'm being too Hegelian here, but its about time the progressive, enlightened thinkers and designers took the dialectical tool away from the regressives and put it once again to uses serving humanity rather than to uses aimed at dumbing it down and enslaving it. 2. A Charles Rennie Macintosh blue and white striped bed room. It is like the entire bedroom is a perfectly coordinated and integrated set of the most magnificiently comfortable pajamas one has ever lounged in. I love the concept, the colors, the lines, the massing, the furniture, everything. But I will have to divorce my wife to have it done, because she hates it. 3. A Model 21 Winchester side by side; .28 gauge; modified and improved cylinder. I've given up hunting as an adult, because it is irrationally destructive, but as a boy I confess that I exhalted in the camaraderie of the hunt and was in awe of some of the great shotguns of the world that one of my father's friends owned and shared with me. The Model 21 was the plainest of all the exotic low production shotguns I ever saw and fired and yet it was the closest to perfection in its design. There was not one unecessary thing about it and all of what was there hung together in a harmony of line and form that any exceptional designer could appreciate. Why do I want a shotgun when I don't hunt? For the same reason I lust for a car with great gobs of performance I'll never use; because it is a magnificient artifact. To borrow from the French, if I recall correctly, beauty is still as useful as something useful, is it not? | |||||
| Just so this makes sense my b... | 1 Relevance | 15 years ago | TinyArmada | General discussion | |
| Just so this makes sense my b... Just so this makes sense my boyfriend and I are both posting under the same name. So the photos are the booty from the most incredible estate sale of my life, ever. I don't expect another to even be in the same hemisphere. I don't want to divulge too many details to respect the former owner's privacy but it was one crazy scene. He didn't really bother to advertise the sale much I, thank heavens, just happened to notice a scraggly flier taped up on a pole downtown the day before. (which I took) it wasn't even listed as an estate sale merely a yard sale. However I knew the address and knew the estate would have amazing stuff. So the sale was supposed to start at 8 am - we arrive at 7:40 and are the only ones there. In fact we were the only ones there till well after 8:45 am. We arrive and let's just say the estate inheritor is quite eccentric. He grew up around all this stuff and didn't seem to be much impressed by it maybe because it had become pedestrian if you've seen it since you were born. Apparently the absolutely stunning house these treasurers were in was being sold, it closed in 3 days and he needed everything out by then. He had put off the sale till the last minute, it was mentioned because some family member had wanted the furniture but they never came and got it and now it had to go asap. There was no electricity in the house anymore and it was HOT even 8 am so I'm sweating my ass off and the sheer excitement of it made my temperature rise. I had assumed there were going to be marked, firm prices because well you just expect that and then because on the flier it said "prices will drop X% every 4 hours". But when I spot the first thing I want - he simply asks what I would give him. It became this bizarre game. I see an amazing piece and cheekily offer so insanely low price (I.e. $25 for a Saarien marble side table) and every time he hesitates and says, "well....I was hoping to get $30" OK!!!!! No matter what price I gave he always said he was hoping for exactly $5 more. No argument from me! It became some insane game or it made me feel insane because I wasn't sure if this could possibly all be real - except the humidity and sweat that was better than a pinch for convincing me it was not a dream. I'm sure the photos tell the story all r interested in. I will close by saying the entire list above was obtained for approx $750. Im still n shock it. I don't have room in my house for everything I bought. This furniture is worthy of a new home. sometimes I think my furniture in the lounge may be worth half the worth of my house - it's insane. I have traversed flea markets, estate sales, yard sales, auctions and junk stores for 15 years trying to amass a good collection of midcentury. I think this sale was the gods way of acknowledging all my hours of toil by granting me the type of estate sale I had always fantasized about and getting the pieces of furniture I feared I would never be able to afford. | |||||
| Back in my youth days of the... | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Back in my youth days of the... Back in my youth days of the late 60s and early 70s days, there were greasers (hoodlums with hair greased back), heads (long hairs into the Eagles and America sound), nerds (the socially inept that had yet to find a way for their intellects to blossom), geeks (smart, scared, resentful kids that later became tech geeks), jocks (athletes who reeked of confidence outside and doubt inside) and gear heads (those obsessed with operating and assembling machines that moved, because people were just too hopelessly unpredictable to relate to. I suspect that in his early youth, you could delete the geeks and the heads. Regardless, in my time, gear heads often became engineers, or mechanics, or filling station owners depending on IQ and family wealth). Greasers were often gear heads also. But there were a few from all categories that did the cross over thing with the gear heads. I was a jock who did. I wanted to be an intellectual, but the geeks and nerds refused me admittance, because of my jock legacy. The gear heads only cared if you liked cars. If you liked cars, especially engines, social legacy meant little. For this reason, I have always loved gear heads. They took me in, when sports weren't enough, and when the geeks and nerds practiced what seems now reverse discrimination. 🙂 But back to the roots of Roger and my and my son's different responses to Speed Racer. Roger was old enough to have been a nerd at a time when cool guys drove hot rods, or Chevy Impalas with 327, or the rare 409 V8s with moon hub caps. This was a time when the car was a symbol of the opportunity the world held. The world was so rich with opportunity and prosperity that one could reasonably expect to make a decent living even as rebel. Ah, those must have been the days. Today, even highly skilled professionals struggle to make ends meet. I shiver to think what today's rebels are suffering. But the point, despite the digressions, is that even to a nerd like Roger, cars were good and hopeful things capable of expressing the full range of human emotion. By the time I came along, a car was no longer that symbol of possibility, be it the possibility of escape from conformity, or escape to the good life, or escape to the joys of college, or escape to back seat sex, or what escape have you. Escape implies something worth escaping to. By my time a car was just an existential vessel where motion could insulate you from a world no one really believed could be fixed anymore, or that one could really escape. | |||||
| I was also intrigued ... | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| I was also intrigued ... ..by this quote of the 2009 Kaj Frank Design Award recipient. I disregard the two first sentences simply because it describes some kind of inexistent contradiction-like saying "cars are no longer made of steel they also come in blue...". Design is and has always been an important factor in competing for the user's preference and it has done so by creating and developing new models (both in the sense of "shapes" as in the sense of "archetypes". I fail to see the contradiction or what has changed. My understanding of the next statement is that he finds it difficult to see real significant innovation in those areas that are not driven by technological innovation. In other words the "old" concepts stand for the established products we have known for a long time, furniture, lighting, house wares, etc. and according to him, not much is happening there. Mr. Kähönen ignores deliberately, I guess, the strong movement of the last 20 years toward artistic expression wrapped in a "design" object. Of course we have seen the re-interpretation of objects in art for quite some time, from Van Gogh's yellow chair, and Magritte's "ceci n'est pas une pipe" to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain", but none of them pretended to be design, on the contrary, it was art and Duchamp's urinal became art because, and I quote: it was put in a museum by an artist. What is happening today is not the same thing and designers like Hannu Kähönen, and me, might be uncomfortable with that kind of confusion, but it certainly exists. I would be hesitant in deliberately ignoring it. I suspect that the major problem is not the lack of innovation itself but the underlying lack of skills and knowledge that forces young designers to turn to formalist design, not by free choice, but simply because the problems related to the environment, mass production, country of origin, and numerous other factors are seen as too large to overcome and too complex to solve. So it makes it quite attractive to wrap an old chair in rope, burn it for a while and gold-plate the left overs. To some extend that perception of complexity is an accurate one, sometimes it is an artificial one. For instance, much of the knowledge that used to be shared in universities and among colleagues has become "merchandise" wrapped in an easy to use computer program, un-affordable for young designers, un-interesting for well established ones that still have a hard time convincing their clients that life time cycle analysis of the product components is worth investing in. I often wonder why we have changed the rules of the game, why has knowledge that used to be shared now moved to the retail shelfs? | |||||
| Hello from Florida | 1 Relevance | 5 years ago | FloridaMike | Repair | |
| Mike in Florida here. Been a fan of teak furniture for quite a few years now, and have accumulated various pieces, some good, some so-so, and some just plain, well, not so good. Used furniture has essentially no resale value, and I have also found that most people don't know what they have or if they do, they don't care, they just want it gone. I have gotten some astonishing deals by following Craigslist, and even a few items at thrift shops! All teak of course, the only other furniture I buy is steel shelving for my hangar/workshop/man cave. A lot of it is Scan Design, they sell some really expensive good stuff and also a secondary line of "budget" furniture. I've been able to get examples of both. Occasionally, I see IKEA items, but usually pass on them. The designs are good but the quality is sometimes lacking. IKEA has only been available here for a few years so most of what becomes available used is fairly new and has a long way to go before it becomes "classic". Often, minor repairs are needed. Usually this is nicks and scratches, loose hardware, or failed glue joints. None of these are a problem. One thing I do see on some items is crumbling (usually from water damage) shelves and panels. The panels are made with a core of OSB (oriented strand board, wood chips glued and pressed together) with a veneer of teak. (Obviously, this doesn't apply to solid teak construction). Dowels and twist-lock sockets pull out because the OSB is falling apart. I have found a way to fix them, properly and permanently. This part you already know about - clamp everything together after assembling the pieces carefully and use Gorilla Glue - but Gorilla Glue foams up and glues the clamps to the item you are fixing, and Gorilla Glue is TOUGH, trying to remove the clamps destroys whatever you clamped together! It just won't let go . . . and it fizzes out the ends and makes a mess which is also difficult to clean up. As it turns out, there is a boat factory nearby, and I know the owner. They use a blue silicone plastic "mold release" skin on the boat molds. Comes in a big roll, probably two meters wide and kilometers long. They use it ONE TIME for each boat, then discard it. Nothing, and I mean nothing sticks to it. Not epoxy, not polyurethane, not fiberglass, nothing - and Gorilla Glue doesn't either! So now, when I am fixing a panel, I put a sheet of this silicone plastic on the teak veneer and then the clamp blocks go over that. (Clamp block, silicone sheet, panel being fixed, second silicone sheet, second clamp block, tighten it down and let it dry.) Nothing sticks, the veneer is undamaged, and anything that has squeezed out the end (which is unfinished anyway) is cleaned off with a single edge razor. The repair is stronger than the original panel. I look forward to participating in this forum! Best Regards, Mike | |||||
| I collect Blenko... | 1 Relevance | 13 years ago | MirnaMinkoff | General discussion | |
| I collect Blenko... Hi: I collect Blenko, some of it is fantastic design, some total crap. I would not buy anything produced by Blenko after 1974. Their best designers were Anderson, Husted, Myers and Nickerson - they worked at Blenko in the order named (1 head designer at a time) from 1952 until 1974. My favorites are work by Husted & Myers, with Nickerson a close third. As always buy what you like first and foremost. But investment wise it is best to focus on architectural scale/ size pieces and large decanters in good colors. I' don't believe "rare" colors are that big of a deal but it's certain that people much prefer colors like Jade and Mulberry as opposed to "wheat" (aka light brown). The entire archive of Blenko catalogs are online and they are your best resource (I think that's the link someone posted above). All Blenko designs have design numbers and in the pivotal years the first two numbers date the designs, I.e. #6231 was designed in 1962. Tons of sellers online call pieces Blenko when they are not. If you are interested in a piece just check the catalogs to verify the piece is blenko, if it's not in the catalog then it's not blenko. (Lots of other glass co. In the same region imitated Blenko, (Viking, Bischoff, Rainbow, Morgantown glass, etc...)not to mention Italian glassmakers in the Empoli region copied Blenko designs frequently) Any reputable seller should be able to tell you the design number of any blenko piece they are selling. (But always check, I've seen eBay sellers just make up or use a design number that has nothing to do with the piece they were selling.) . Also, Blenko made some beautiful lamps. The company is still in business and last year Revival Lighting contracted with Blenko to reproduce some of their iconic lamp designs from the 1950s - and are selling them for $600 to $700 a pop. You can get a vintage blenko lamp for that much or far less and the old blenko is so much better - the expertise of the glassblowers 50 years ago is unsurpassed today. Because of the reissues being done I would steer towards the vintage Blenko lamps that are not being reissued - and there are plenty because their size and expertise required to produce ruled them out for reissue. (Also the reissues are only available in a handful of colors, mostly pastels, and not the bold vibrant ones Blenko was known for in the 1950s & 60s) I would absolutely avoid any thing they have produced, or reissued, in the past 30 years. I also hate the "anniversary" or birthday pieces the pump out annually. If I have time tomorrow I might post some photos of some of my favorite pieces in my collection. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have but figured I've rambled on enough for one post. | |||||
| Another trash treasure - kitchen table + chairs. Assessment? | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | Entropy-0 | General discussion | |
| This really never happens to me but... it seems ever since I got into design a few months ago, I've been finding design pieces on the curb that people are getting rid of. So I found an entire kitchen set today, table plus 4 chairs. It's just the sort of thing I would have bought on the second hand market for my kitchen, so I'm wondering if I should replace it with the Ikea Fusion set I now have, because its not in perfect shape and it would take a lot to get it there. Can anyone tell me anything about this piece? e.g. Am I right to assume this is Danish design from the 50's, and the wood is teak? The chairs are super comfortable (the angle of the back is not too tight, the seating is not too hard or soft). Cooler still, the table has a two-part folded leaf tucked underneath with a mechanism that holds and readies it for when needed. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it. There are two chairs (see pic) where the vinyl is in need of fixing. But its a quality vinyl with a look and feel I like (including the brown trim), and whatever an upholsterer replaces it with, I'm afraid it won't be the same, and will degrade the original character. Is it possible to repair the vinyl seating instead of replacing it? (I know the one where its ripped at the edge won't be easy). There is also damage to the laminated top, with a few chips and nicks on the sides, and a bit of nicking to the edge of the top (otherwise the surface of the table is fine). Can it be re-laminated with the same quality of laminate, and what should I expect the cost of this to be? (I don't care here if it isn't the same color, as I don't find this color particularly beautiful. The Fusion has a much nicer finish, in this regard. But the backs of the chairs also have a laminate of a slightly darker version of the table's pattern to match the table, so the new laminate can't be too different it seems). There are a couple of legs that are detaching from each other (see pic). There are 2 metal pieces that join them, but no way to screw them back, so I presume the legs are glued together and supported by non threaded metal rods. Can I repair this myself? Finally, it was raining today, and the table and chairs got soaked. I dried them upon bringing them in, but there appears to be some damage from the water, where the surface is rougher and lighter in color from the water. I'm sure this can be fixed myself, but the proper steps would be...? (I don't know if there are special considerations for teak, assuming it is, as I've never worked with this wood before). Thanks in advance for sharing any info or opinions. Seat #1 damage: Seat #2 damage: Leg damage: Chair - side view: | |||||
| Instructions to kissing other men in Buenos Aires | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | Gustavo | General discussion | |
| Instructions to kissing other men in Buenos Aires And here is A Heterosexual Man,s Guide to Kissing Other Men: From another link: ,,,,,, You,re socially liberal. You,re well-traveled. You,re culturally sensitive and possibly multi-lingual. And you,re a straight man in Buenos Aires. If it,s your first time in the city, you may be slightly taken aback by the sight of these famously macho men kissing other men in greeting. As a progressive, open minded, non-homophobic individual, you think, oh this is simple, I can do this, it,s just like kissing a woman in greeting. But it,s not. The mechanics are different, the physical dimensions are all wrong, and there,s that whole scratchy beard thing. So how do you kiss other men as smoothly and casually as a native porteño? 1. Verbally greet your manfriend with a nod of the head and a standard greeting, "Como andas?" or "Que tal?" 2. Approach your manfriend and incline your head clearly, unequivocally, towards their left cheek, signaling this cheek to be your intended target. 3. Simultaneous with your lean-in approach, raise and place your right hand on your manfriend,s left shoulder and pat it in a congenial buddy ,ol pal manner. 4. Move in for the kiss. Now, whats more important than actually placing your lips to his cheek is the symbolic gesture of kissing. Place your cheek to his cheek and make a very loud smooching sound that says, "I am kissing you, dude, and it doesn,t make me the least bit uncomfortable with my sexuality, even though it,s really weird feeling your scratchy-ass beard all up on my face!" 5. Follow up with the phrase, "Todo bien?" Say it two or three times just to be safe. Chances are, they will ask the same question, to which the proper response is, "Todo bien." Therefore, the total verbal exchange should go something like: 6. Congratulations! You,ve managed to kiss another man without endangering your masculinity. You are now a dude-kissing machine. Look for other dudes in the group and repeat from step one. Important notes: Do not mix greetings. For example, some local men will assume that as a foreigner, you will not be expecting a kiss from another man and will therefore offer you a hand. Do not shake hands and then go in for a kiss. It,s like a double greeting. It,s redundant. It,s awkward. It makes you seem either overzealous or insecure. Don?t do it. Kissing other American men. It,s okay to kiss other American men whom you,ve met in Buenos Aires, but I think if I were to see these guys in America, I would probably offer them a hug but it would be strange because I,d never hugged them before. Mid-level intimacy just gets lost in translation. ,,, Researching I also learned that,s common in France and Belgium. Please tell me. What does have to do kissing and design?, Kissing objects? Football / soccer,s players Kiss the "cup" once win it! Is becoming "kissing objects" the last trend?. I,ll let you know! p.s.:here is the link, don,t miss the comments: http://equipaje.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/a-heterosexual-mans-guide-to-ki... | |||||
| Why bother posting on this forum? | 1 Relevance | 13 years ago | tick | General discussion | |
| Why bother posting on this forum? Okay, so why do we bother posting on this forum? Nilo, I'm not sure if it's a language problem (a problem you noted about yourself above), but nowhere did I suggest that price determines how good a designer is but it does reflect desirability in the market and is a great hook for a discussion about the designer. Status has never been a draw card for my purchase or love of design, and that's why I am often drawn to designers that sit outside of the mainstream. As for checking my facts, my comments are based on articles with the objective of getting readers to look at the URL links I attach or conduct further research themselves. Let's get one thing clear, this forum is not a design history journal, so a less formal style of writing is appropriate. I am a writer, and this is piece of writing, it's for reading and has a light magazine style which I believe is well suited to this forum. Let's not forget that the original post of ths thread was simply about drawing attention to a proposed documentary film about Eileen Gray and the filmmakers plans to raise money to contribute to tr restoration of Gray's iconic villa. Okay, so why post on this forum? I am beginning to wonder why myself. One need only count the relevant responses to this thread to see that most are unrelated comments and/or snide remarks. Like many, I too am growing tired of the bad attitudes and trolling on this site. Some users are intent on having a private party rather than fostering a community of individuals who are passionate about design. Please don't use my thread to have a little ego battle with other forum users, or post pictures of your shoes or unrelated property sales. Use Facebook and Twitter if you really just want to have a general discussion and share unrelated pics and selfies. Affterall, this is supposed to be a design forum. As for the moderators of this forum, it was a bad move to let the previously unrelated design thread troll on for so long before removing it. How you could just sit back and watch others feud and trash the forum was disappointing at best. It was even worse form to tell disgruntled contributors to play nicely after they complained about the forum being turned into a private party. You all know who I speak of, and you all know who you are when I talk of trolling, narcissistic behavior and general negativity. I suggest that if you are not capable of making a relevant or meaningful contribution to this forum, you take up knitting, meditation or audition for The Apprentice, but please spare other forum users your lack of respect for the people who value a thoughtful discussion about design. More than likely, a wave of negativity will follow my post and I will need to delete the thread too. That seems to be how the game works on DA. If possible, can we all loose the personal agendas and get back to talking about design? | |||||
| An informative response a good question... | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| An informative response a good question... Answer: I find it very pleasing visually. I find almost no appliances or industrial devices beautiful. Beauty usually requires compromises of function that appliances and industrial devices cannot tolerate. I find this HB Mixette elegantly designed in a light modern, pre high tech sort of way. The angles you dislike I like. The trapezoids you dislike, I like aestehtically and find functional in this mixer. A handy electric hand-held mixer that you dislike, because you'd rather hand mix, I like, because I do enough mixing by hand to relish when I can save the elbow grease on inconsequential things for important dishes. Tangentially, I've always disliked the disingenuousness marketing of "industrial grade" in home appliances and home power tools. I live in a home. I am not ashamed of that. I don't need a drill that will penetrate three quarter inch thick sheet steel. I don't need a mixer that will make the dough for 5000 loaves of bread and 10,000 pizzas and blend batters for 45,000 cakes. You get my drift here. I AM bored with the digital electronic high tech for the sake of digital electronic high tech look. I like the digital electronic high tech look in things that ARE digtal electronic and high tech. I don't see a mixer as remotely high tech, whether they make use of a few dumb chips, or not. As I said, everything doesn't need to look like a Grundig radio by Porsche, or an iPod for that matter, or a flattened transluscent gum drop. In what ever form language one chooses to work in, the form of the thing ought to be a feasible fit between it components space requirements and its users ergonomic requirements and be as beautiful within these constraints as possible. On this we likely agree completely. I find the HB Model 97 Mixette quite pleasing visually in a light modern sort of way. I think the angular trapezoidal form language used helps the function and helps the look of a mixer manifest rather than be supressed. I think the unfortunate speed control was probably the result of a man who didn't actually use mixers designing the mixer. He probably was a fairly good designer who focused on how it felt in his dry hand and thought of the mixer being used with dry hands and in linear, 1, 2, 3 sort of way the way he used his power tools of that time. Find the right speed, set it and forget it. He got the speed control wrong. But he got the package quite right. And the speed control could have easily been fixed without altering the package or its look or broader functionality substantively at all. | |||||
| My thoughts | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | Olive | General discussion | |
| My thoughts With a N/W exposure you are getting light that shifts toward the cooler range, more blue-ish than yellow-ish. This is no help in mitigating the grey-grey-grey. Since you are in a warmer climate with a lesser shift in day/night you are getting somewhat of a help in warming up the light, but still N/W is cooler light. The buildings, especially concrete ones, outside your window are going to further reinforce this by reflecting cooler tones. So, you need warm colors in the space. My guess is that the 'stupid yellow' was an attempth at this but it failed as it's not blended well, tonally. Since you use this room mainly at night, I'd say that you should select richer colors rather than pale ones. Caramel, cappucino, espresso, butter-cream, or maybe even orange-y tones, like brick/terracotta. Don't pick anything too dark for wall paint as it will give a very high contrast with the marble and will make a room with multiple angles and ceiling heights look awkward. No matter what, you want to select warm not hot tones. Full-on hot colors, like red, will do chromatic battle with all the marble, which is probably what the 'stupid yellow' is doing. Since you imagine a faint note of purple in the grey, I might consider painting the ceiling a pale pale lavender with slightly brownish tone to it. It will balance the coolness of the marble below. This would work well with a grey-beige or caramel color on the walls. If you can paint your grey mouldings, I'd go with something that is about 50% lighter than whatever you pick for your walls. Possibly just diluting the wall color with white. For furniture, I'd suggest rather than anthracite to go with espresso on the sofa and then bring in the brick-orange tone for accent. Stay away from blues and greens, except for in an art piece or a vase or something like that. You are also smart to expect lighting to be an issue. Too much yellow incandescent light is going to make the whole place look muddy and blah. Use some nice clean white halogens, especially as a ceiling mounted fixture that illuminates a wall. If the physical space permits, you might also try to use a mirror to catch the most western light (sunset) to bring in some warm light at the end of the day. Do one very important thing as you figure all this out...sample and test. Get tester pots of paint, put some on all the walls and look at them at different times of day. Try different lighting plans by moving lamps around the room. If you need to, paint a whole wall to see more of a particular color. Take your time so you don't end up repainting the whole room. After the paint is on, bring home fabric/leather samples and put them in the room. Then annoy your friends and invite them over for their opinions. Good luck. Let me know if I've helped you at all or if you have any more questions. | |||||
| Under contract for a mid-century home... | 1 Relevance | 6 years ago | Cloudburst2000 | General discussion | |
| I am currently under contract for a mid-century modern home just outside Lexington, KY. I have an inspection scheduled for tomorrow which will hopefully go okay. The house needs mucho renovation and is being sold 'as is'. The price reflects the need for renovation. I have outs in the contract in case the inspector finds massive problems or it doesn't appraise for what I offered. My biggest concern is the roof. I was unable to too see the roof when I toured the home as it is mostly a flat roof with one section that has a very slightly sloped roof. I have waited and waited to buy a home because I never liked any of the more mid-century ones I have seen and even then they very rarely come up for sale in this area. There just aren't many of them around the Lexington area. The very few mid-century homes I have seen available in the area have always been 'upgraded' meaning the mid-century elements were mostly removed and replaced with contemporary stuff. So they were high priced and I didn't really care for the 'updated' interiors. The home I am under contract for was built in 1950 and looks great on the outside...floor to ceiling windows in living/dining area, flat/low roof, nice carport, large yard. However, it is in drastic need of renovation on the inside. The house was apparently updated in the 1970s when an addition was added to the home. So except for the bathroom, the decor is from the 70s. They also went the 'cheap' route when renovating in the 70s and nothing held up really well. The bathroom is still original but tiles are cracked (a couple missing), etc so it will need to be renovated too. Most of the home is carpeting which is stained and just kinda icky. The kitchen and add on room have a cheap wood floor that has seen better days. Anyhoo, I was thinking of maybe doing concrete floors throughout the home. I don't like carpet and I'm not really a huge fan of hardwood either especially with pets. I know I could do tile, but I have never really liked the look of tile on the floor. I think I would much rather a smooth surface with minimal grout lines. Anyone have experience with concrete flooring or maybe a different suggestion for a type of flooring I might like that would do well with pets and fish tanks? The kitchen/living/dining all need updating. I want to open the space up a bit more as everything is very sectioned off now, but I don't like full open concept. The current kitchen has a ton of wasted space and the counters/floors are maroon of all colors LOL Was this a 70s thing??? Cabinets are falling apart a bit and appliances are ancient so total gut job there. Anyone have any good advice or places to look for design ideas for kitchen/living/dining that are somewhat open concept but still have some separation of areas? I eventually plan to turn the build on room into a master bed/bath. And redo the existing bathroom, but those will be more future projects. The floors and kitchen/living/dining will be priority. | |||||
| Great link... | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Great link... Mau makes clear that his main theme is massive change and Gehry makes equally clear that the way he, an architect, makes use of Mau, is for Mau to bring his architectural responses to situations into the light. They both agree that the situations they deal in are protean and fraught with risk and each in his own way is trying to manage that risk constructively. In short, Mau's job is to be the ultimate gate keeper--to have the ultimate grasp of the protean context into which Gehry is plugging his building. Gehry needs Mau to realize what problem Gehry the architect is solving and what risk his solution allays. He needs Mau to say, "I get it, but the change your building is a response to is even more massive contextually than you realize. Here is the essense of your response, Frank. Here is the distilled theme that is implicit in your solution. I get the essense because I am the master contextualist." And Gehry then gets to trust his creative impulses, but also gets to deeply and broadly bring his solution into focus. The great thing Mau appears to do is to express this essense not just in some kind of one liner that focuses everyones thinking, but he actually conceptualizes it visually/spatially before concocting the one liner. This makes Mau highly useful to a spatialist like Gehry. It is like one musician working with another. They may use English to talk about what they do, but each is actually "thinking" musically in the act of problem solving. Mau is a gate keeper of complex context capable of thinking spatially. For Gehry, Mau is in at least one respect a genius consumer of his spatial solution--a person capable of getting it AND of embracing all the context that Gehry's imagination has to pair away to get at its creative act. And because they trust each other and speak the same spatial language, the interplay between them can probably be a kind of game theoretic interaction. By this I mean that the play of one alters the opportunity set of moves available to the other and vice versa until they reach an equilibrium. To me, Mau's function makes perfect sense in an environment of emergent complexity with several layers of highly strategic interaction above the instituted requirements of fit in design, development and construction. Good real estate consultants and investment bankers fulfill Mau's function to a developer in a politico-financial realm of design, development and construction. Developers once played Mau's function with architects. But while developers can think spatially, their incomprehension of aesthetics often breeds conflict rather than solutions. Mau kind of bridges this gap. He gets the architects project fitting the context so tightly and transparently that developer and architect can get on with it. Or so it seems to me. | |||||
| nicotine and fine furniture | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | LCA | General discussion | |
| Hi, As I mentioned in another thread, I recently acquired a collection of france and son made chairs and tables. The downside of this acquisition (and it definitely gave me pause) was that this furniture came out of the home of a heavy smoker...and in her last years the arne vodder lounger was her favourite seat...I picture her arm down near the rest with endless trails of smoke billowing around the room as she did the heavy lifting between ashtray and lips (the cords of the lamps that came with the furniture were brown all the way up to the egress hole where a tiny peek of pure white tells the story better than words....) The upside is that the upholstery on all the chairs was loose cushions...I can take the covers off and start over but the grete jalk cushions have a sprung frame and the muslim covered cushion may still carry that odor in the end...the arne vodder lounge chair seems to have replacement cushions without the springs so that is moot. so, I have searched the forum for discussions of removal of the smell of smoke and the collection of nicotine and have found references to murphys soap, lemon oil/ sunshine and white vinegar etc. including the recent suggestions in the thread Grendel the Cat just put thru with the mulhauser style chair. All of the furniture I got in this collection is the very same colour. I cannot tell if someone put a finish on top of the wood ( polyurethane, etc...) or if it is just nicotine. I want to get rid of the odor but I am not sure I should start removing the patina on these pieces...I am afraid of making everything a sticky mess... Looking for advice since I know there is no magic or miracle..I am either in or out but want to do the least invasive thing to neutralize the smell as much as possible without changing the patina on an entire set of furniture... how does the least to most invasive method list look? is vinegar the first effort? or murphys...murphys will strip the wood eventually even if it makes it sticky while in process right? after using murphys do you then restore the surface with teak oil? any comment is appreciated and any other successful strategies in neutralizing smoke odor on wood would be much appreciated thanks for looking | |||||
If you need any help, please contact us at – info@designaddict.com