New Color Obsession

I've noticed a pattern in my life lately. When I was in my twenties I scooped up everything I saw in shell pink. In my thirties it was robin's egg blue. My forties? It looks like it will be the Decade of Orange.


I bought these shoes recently at the Shoe Pavillion for $25 and they are the most comfortable things I've ever put on my feet. Three days after purchasing them, I was wearing them in line at Luby's (c'mon, you know you have to have the Luanne Platter now and again) and noticed the woman in line just behind me was also wearing them. Maybe they will be the next Crocs. Which would make me sad. When it comes to Crocs, I'm a hater. Sorry.

I love the sleekness and lacquered finish of this desk from West Elm, which I recently snapped up for a client's office. It's wonderful to find a spare-looking desk like this that still has a bit of storage (two sizable flat drawers). The icing on the cake is that it's soooooooo shiny.

I'm impatiently awaiting the arrival of these brilliantly-designed pet bowls I ordered today (in orange, of course) after seeing their more expensive stainless versions at a client's house recently. We have a dog and a cat--an orange cat--and I hate picking up their water bowl. You have to slide it over to the neighboring wall in order to grip the bottom edge and pick it up, which makes me cringe inwardly each and every time I have to do it. The bowl's edge gets really slimy and there's all sorts of detritus in that corner from them eating like...well, animals...so I will be accosting the UPS drivers in my area until this major quality of life improvement arrives on my doorstep.

Waiting...waiting...waiting.

The Emperor's New Tree Slice

OMG, this definitely falls into some sort of alternate reality. They are selling this WOOD SLICE at West Elm for...

...wait for it...

...wait for it...

$29.

No, that wasn't a typo or a misprint (at least not here, you could make a case for it possibly being an error on their site). They are really selling a wood slice for nearly thirty bucks. ONE wood slice!

Now I can appreciate that the main office is in Brooklyn (I believe), and they did specify that it's an acacia wood slice--the implication being that this is a super rare tree slice and should be coveted accordingly-- but let me pass on a little secret to you West Elm people:

Trees and slices of same are readily available all over the country.

If you, the reader, are looking at this tree slice and saying to yourself, "man, I have really got to get me one of those $29 tree slices," then I will make you a deal. I will sell you a tree slice for $20 and we will both make out like bandits.

But let's keep it on the down-low. I still rent.

Ode to the Robot

We three Callans have a fascination with all things Robot...

I couldn't resist getting these John Golden prints for Jeb last Christmas (framed and addressed from both Phoebe and I) because he does this cute robot attack with Phoebe that really cracks me up.

Also inspired by Jeb's nightly robot attacks, a friend gave Phoebe these adorable PJs:

This isn't really robot-themed, but I tend to do this Jetsons mind-meld of robots and spacemen. I give you...my trash can:

Believe it or not, Jeb gave me this for Christmas the first year we met. And I was THRILLED. I'd been lusting after Spaceboy forever (dubbed so by Westco, the manufacturer) but would never have splurged on a mui expensive trash can. I adore it. It makes me smile every time I throw something away.

To continue going off on a tangent, we saw the trailer for the new Speed Racer movie coming out May 9th and I was blown away by the color effects!

Even if I didn't grow up addicted to the Mach 5 and all that, I would still be chomping at the bit to see this movie--it looks amazing.

Honda Fit + Ikea = Luv

I continue to be amazed by my new Honda Fit. Today I brought home the following from Ikea:

1. A 58"x58"x15" cube-style bookcase, which will inspire organization in my workspace so my husband will stop comparing us to the cobbler's kids who have no shoes.


2. A 45"x30" desktop (attaches to bookcase), where the design magic will happen when I (a) find a sucker...er, I mean lucky recipient...to take my decrepit old desk for free, or (b) the Salvation Army comes to haul the trash...I mean valuable vintage property...away


3. A 15"x 20"x27" filing cabinet-slash-future-resting-place of the behemoth laser printer, which, come to think of it, only prints one color and yet is five times the size of the 6-printer-cartridge color printer


4. Two 25"x65"x7" shoe storage cabinets, for a client


5. Two rugs


6. Six curtain panels


7. Four curtain rods & various/sundry curtain rod parts


8. One $1.99 trash can purchased to replace our old and yucky-looking bathroom wastebasket but is sadly too large to fit in the space around the toilet


9. Ten storage bins (see number 1)


10. Two lights


11. Six chocolate brown magazine storage containers, which I'll have to go all the way back to Round Rock to return because I forgot they were in my cart when I discovered the bookcase/desk was available in black/brown finish and was too busy doing mental cartwheels over finding the furniture in a dark finish to think about how boring and sucky solid brown containers in a dark wood bookcase would look.


12. Media storage box. In solid brown. Yeah, that has to go back too.

It should be noted that I went to Ikea for items 4-7 above...otherwise I would've eliminated the following items from my car, prior to my trek to Ikea:

1. Two incredibly annoying Leap Frog child development toys given to us recently by a dear friend--who said, "Phoebe might enjoy these 'A-B-C' games," when what she really meant was, "get this the hell out of my house."
   
   
2. 26 plastic 3D letters that fit into the Leap Frog child development toys, thereby setting off their incredibly annoying and repetitive "dinks," "doinks," and songs that will never leave your brain, no matter how much Gnarls Barkley you drown your sorrows in


3. One pair pink Disney Princess sunglasses


4. One pair aqua Ariel (The Little Mermaid, to those not in the know) sunglasses


5. One Cinderella magnetic activity kit, which is all-but-impossible to open while driving and requires 47 minutes to pry the 246 magnetic "snap apart" Cinderella dresses/gloves/shoes/flowers from their original magnetic pages--which, based on personal experience, I don't recommend doing while driving


6. 1 purple sippy sport cup, last seen in 2007--which pre-dates my Fit, thereby proving that somehow the purple sippy sport cup has mastered teleportation and time travel.


7. Ubiquitous gargantuan child safety seat, the likes of which keep my precious 3-year old dumplin' safe. And I'm certainly not complaining about that, but if it were 1969 and my mom was taking stuff home from Ikea in her Honda, she would've been able to at least add a sofa to this list of carry-on items, because according to the gov'ment at that time, I could safely sit in her lap while she drove, and pretend to steer all the way home.


8. 35-pound monster purse whose straps refuse to stay on my shoulder and causing the re-emergence of chronic lower back pain because it is filled with designer tools I can never leave home without: i.e., mega measuring tape, digital camera, notebook, fat wallet stuffed with 10 lbs.-worth of receipts, at least one client file, and various fabric samples, paint chips, and tile samples


9. One beaten and torn Baby Style sack (classy!) containing 4,372 individual paint chips in several mangled Zip-lock bags (even classier!), which don't look half as sophisticated and designer-y as whipping out a couple of cute fan decks during a paint consultation, but are much easier to leave with a client (the sacrifices I make for you people!)


10. 23 children's books, which are infinitely less annoying than Leap Frog child development toys


11. 2 tool kits--one for work-related odd jobs, and one for the car--which I desperately hope to gawd never to need/use, especially in the rain or in the sweltering heat of the summer


12. One super huge light and tripod, rented so I can photograph a 2BR/2BA apartment in the Amli on 2nd Bldg downtown that I just finished decorating and want to add to my online portfolio (cue the shameless plug to watch for these pictures in next month's Room Fu email blast!)


13. Giant painter's canvas purchased in a fleeting moment of confidence/desperation when I couldn't find appropriate art for a bedroom I'm trying to finish and thought I could somehow channel my inner David Bromstead. (I could not.)

Who knows how much else I could've bought from Ikea if I'd kept a neater car.

Is 41 too old to be a PB Teen?

Jennsylvania beat me to the punch recently. After reading her blog entry about how much she loved the PB Teen catalog, I was reminded of telling Jeb a month or so ago that I wanted everything in their most recent collection. The couch above is so totally me, and would undoubtedly take a beating from my 3-year old. I also love their study area org stuff (although they're way pricey for what you're getting) and have long wished I were young and svelte enough to get up out of their low lounge sectionals without a lot of groaning and work involved. I just love their boxy, chunky shape. And this rug is too cool, I don't care how old you are:


I've been trolling the website and catalog periodically to find offbeat objects, but that last mailing--well, I felt like I was five years old again and going through the Sears Big Wish catalog. "I want everything on this page, and everything on this page..."

What does that say about me, that as a 41-year old designer, my guilty pleasure is the PB Teen catalog? I wish I could say I read it for the articles...

Speaking of the Pottery Barn, thank gawd they finally got out of the dang barn with this last catalog. I don't know about you, but the one before this was a little too Farmhand for my taste and went straight into the recycling bin. Sort of a poor man's Sundance Catalog...except I didn't even want to get all pretend cowgirl about it. Didn't want a thing in the Fall/Winter issues. Not that I'm a huge PB devotee or anything (aside from my recent obsession w/the Teen stuff), but this recent catalog is full of COLOR. And FUN! One might think the folks in the buying dept. must've gotten whiplash from the 180-degree style turn. Pretty smart too, and not just because of the change in seasons. With all the doom and gloom in the media lately, you can't help but smile when you see all this saturated color.

IKEA Kitchens--Are They For You?

Many clients have been asking about the quality level of IKEA's kitchen cabinetry offerings and whether or not they're a good fit for their kitchen remodel.

If you meet the following criteria, I'd say IKEA cabinets are a PERFECT option for you:

Your house is 1600 sf or less and you don't know the name of the architect who designed it. (In other words, not one of those expensive/adorable boxy infill things.) Despite luxe features like self-closing doors and drawers that are standard in IKEA cabinets, their melamine interiors will never scream "luxury." So bear this in mind if you have a larger home...if you ever sell it, future buyers will have expectations of higher-end products and upgrades in a home that is around 2000 sf or more.

OR

You want something Euro-style but have an "In-Stock at Home Depot" budget. IKEA's Abstrakt door/drawer fronts, in laquered finishes, are super-cool-drool-worthy if you like a more contemporary look. They're very mod. I also love Nexus door/drawer fronts in brown-black...they're what I would expect from West Elm, if West Elm made kitchen cabinets.


AND

You are handy enough to assemble the cabinets yourself. Like all things IKEA, their cabinets are self-assembly, so if you have to pay for them to be put together, your labor costs start to erode the cost-beneficial ratio of going this route. Those Abstrakt cabinets I was just talking about? I would be perfectly willing to pay extra for a hot guy to assemble them. (My own hot guy wouldn't dream of taking on this kind of hassle.) They're very distinctive, and even if I hire someone else to put them together for me, they will still be less expensive than buying KraftMaid's Venicia collection.

AND

You don't have any illusions of loving your cabinets 20 years from now. IKEA cabinets feature a melamine interior...you do the math.


I'll chat more about IKEA another day...I have more to say about their countertops and other stuff!