TRAVEL + LEISURE

America's Best Hotels for Fall Colors Includes

Courtesy of Columbia Gorge Hotel

Columbia Gorge Hotel, Hood River, OR

The Columbia River Gorge was the country’s first declared National Scenic Area, and it’s easy to understand why when you gaze at the majestic confluence of mountains and river. Overlooking the gorge, the 39-room Columbia Gorge Hotel supplies the comforts of homemade granola, spa treatments, and stately touches like canopy beds and Art Deco tiling. Doubles from $239.
Room to Book: Ask for a River View Fireplace Room, with a gas fireplace and a panoramic view of the Columbia River Gorge.
Get Outdoors: This is a fantastic place to windsurf and kite board; be prepared to get wet with a rental from Big Winds. If you prefer wine to water, explore local vineyards during their harvest season.

 

Art On The Edge

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Circle the date! August 6th from 5pm to 8pm

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The Pearl Design Center between Raleigh and Savier and NW 14th and 15th, will host Art On The Edge, a collection of eight the best of Oregon's Lanscape artists. They will celebrate the beauty of Oregon's in its 150th year in each storefront.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design gallery
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Come Join Us!

I want to discuss a "group" we've started at LinkedIn called Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery for Designers. We wrote early on

We invite you to join our group: Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery for interior designers in Portland, Oregon and surrounding states. This group will offer feedback about furniture and accessories seen and needed, help with purchasing decisions and insight into offerings at High Point and Las Vegas Market Bev & Mike landfair

Let me add that the interior design group in this area is a community. It forms smaller communities called NWSID. ASID. IIDA. ISD and AIA. Members talk to each other in those groups, but the community doesn't have a centralized platform for sharing information and questions. We hope to be that platform.

We also want to encourage you to be online. Have a web presence, be it a business website or a blog or Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter. In Jeff Jarvis' new book "What Would Google Do?", he writes that people take you less seriously if you are not online and believe you aren't professional if you are not online. The easiest thing to do is Google your name. Can a family moving to Portland, needing a designer find you and your phone number and email you with questions? Can they see any photos of your work?

You can accomplish this today and it's free. See those two little words "Create Blog" in the upper right hand corner in the blue strip. It's that easy! Do you have any photos of your work on your computer? You can share them with us on your blog or through Flickr. It's all free!

Now's the time. Come join us!

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

21 Tips for Downsizing!

I want to call your attention to the latest issue of Oregon Home. They have a very interesting article titled 21 Tips for Downsizing. They interviewed "a designer, two real estate brokers, an estate sale organizer and a downsizer for tips to ease the move from living large to living small."

Our friend RayAnn Bogert owner of 12-year-old Bizy Girl Interiors in Lake Oswego,OR. was the designer interviewed. She offered this advice:

1. Fill your new pad with furniture that's properly scaled to it. - Like a Dachshund trying to push a Great Dane-sized doggie bed into its diminutive crate, you can end up with the same old cluttered-to-the-rafters feeling if you don't consider the scale of the furniture that will decorate your new digs.

Others interviewed for the article are Kent Mathews, a real estate broker at The Real Estate Firm, Karen Young Estate Sales and Appraisals in Beaverton, OR, Connie Osborne, Kim Childs, and a real estate broker with Keller Williams Realty in Lake Oswego, OR.

If you're thinking of downsizing check out the 21 suggestions. Our 22nd suggestion: come see us after the move. You might find your old furniture and accessories a little shabby in you sparkling new digs. Come see us. We'll help you brighten things up!

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Kimberlee Jaynes' New Blog

Here's a designer that "gets it". Kimberlee Jaynes took my advice an started a blog and she's continuing to brand her name and business as Kimberlee Jaynes Interior Designs Inc with her blog. The great thing about her blog: we get to know about her and decide if we like her and want to hire with her.

Check out that beautiful and totally different Christmas tree and the view of the river from their home.

I know there are many interior designers out there with blogs. Let me know who you are and we will feature your blog here as well.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Lorts Added

The move of Goldsmiths from a To the Trade establishment to just Contract has allowed Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery to add Lorts to our list of case goods manufacturers. Lorts was founded in 1966 by Andrew Lorts and is a family owned and operated furniture manufacturing company.

Lorts in 1990 began producing a stylized collection of furniture distributed through the finest higher-end furniture stores and designers across the country. Beginning with rustic, country styles, Lorts soon experimented with different finishes. Several other manufacturers answered to an increased demand for finish options, but their prices were astronomical.

Lorts responded to customers wishing for designer style and flexibility at reasonable prices. Soon word spread about the company producing hardwood furniture in several premium finishes at prices far below similarly styled product. Gradually, the product line developed and now includes dining furniture, stools and game sets, occasional pieces, bedroom furniture, armoires, and home office and wall units.

Lorts makes customization a reality...

Lorts prides itself on finding a niche in the market. Homeowners desire the ability to create furniture themselves by customizing finishes and sizes, and Lorts strives to make this a reality. From size changes on items currently in the Lorts line to new ideas sketched out on a napkin, Lorts allows customers to make each piece unique.

In a world where each furniture piece tends to look like every other, Lorts' customers can create furniture personalized to each individual need and style at a value unsurpassed within the industry.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Stout and Silk Loom Added

Many of you know that we sent out an email asking for your support. Goldsmiths changed its business model from selling just To the Trade and Contract to just Contract. That meant the fabric lines were going to go to other fabric houses in Portland. One line we wanted to keep in the area was Stroheim & Romann and thought Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery would be a good fit with our Duralee Fabrics line. We asked you to email Lesli Ann Cone recommending us to them. So many of you responded! We were very pleased and Stroheim & Romann was impressed. In the end, though, they made a decision to place the line with Jim Yockey owner of Linde Ltd.

We will be expanding our fabric offerings, however, and are very pleased to be adding Stout from Goldsmiths and Silk Loom from Linde Ltd. to our showroom

Stout Textiles and Trimmings "is a fourth generation company who carries both fabric and trim ranging from traditional to contemporary." Stout says on their website:

Sourced from around the world, we are confident our fabrics and trim will suit all your design ideas and needs. Our collections are conveniently separated into themes, colors, applications and/or style. With over 80 years of continued service to the interior design community, we pride ourselves on customer service and quality goods.

Visit their site and see What's New.

Our goal is for the design community to think of Landfair Furniture as a stop for furniture, accessories and fabrics.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

North Pearl Wonderland 11/29/08

Pearl Design Center
1627 NW 14th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
Enjoy Family festivities and holiday shopping at the North Pearl Wonderland Event! Activities include:
1. Winter Saturday Market: Fine artwork, jewelry, and gifts for sale.
2. Santa's Workshop: Take your photo with santa and do kid's crafts.
3. Cocoa Cottage: Hot chocloate sampler station and topping bar.
4. Gingerbread House: Cookie and gingerbread house decorating.
5. Rudolf's Gift Wrap Lodge: Wrapping for all your holiday gifts.
6. Candy Cane Cafe: Dine in the North Pearl Wonderland.

Bridget Otto Thursday

We haven't had a Bridget Otto Thursday for a while, so I was struck by some of our friends mentioned today in one of her articles. In The Oregonian's HGNW, Using EXTREMES Requires BALANCE, the premise is that "tough economic times will push home decor to extremes."

Amanda Klash of Montogomery Klash Interior Design says "...we may see many opposites, but there needs to be a plan."

Jaime Stephens, executive director of Color Marketing Group, says:

"We are drawn to old-culture decor -- a Tuscan farmhouse kitchen -- but we want state-of-the-art appliances in that kitchen."

Celeste LeDuke of Portland's Designing Women, says pairing a rough or reclaimed wood floor with sleek appliances will work, but "you don't want it to look like a tool shed."

Sue Augustyn, the owner of SAID/Sue Augustyn Interior Design has been pairing high gloss with faded western artifacts for years.

All (the) designers warned against just bringing some sort of extreme look into a room.

Maybe, all three saying the juxtaposition of different styles is okay, it's fun to be edgy, but find a balance and moderation.

Genoa: Say it's Not So

Genoa is closing after 38 years. Billed as the premier restaurant in Portland, known widely for its regional Italian cooking and meticulous service, it just became available on Passport, but now is closing on November 22nd.

(Owner Kerry) DeBuse says he spent tens of thousands of dollars upgrading the old-fashioned dining room in June. Business had been slow since early summer, he says, "but it all changed 180 degrees within a week of the recent (Wall Street) crash."When the problems went global, the bottom fell out.

I've dined there possibly twice or more and have never been disappointed. Due to the upper end pricing, you didn't go all the time, but it was the place for a special occasion.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects Is Honored

Each year, Contract Magazine's Healthcare Environments Awards Competition, is conducted in conjunction with The Center for Health Design and the HEALTHCARE DESIGN.08 Conference. The competition puts the healthcare market under the microscope to examine today's healing environments. The goal: To recognize design innovation that enhances the delivery of healthcare.

This year Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects was honored as the Health and Fitness Winner for its University of Oregon Athletic Medicine Center.

The University of Oregon's 15,000-sq.-ft. Athletic Medicine Center (AMC) is in a league of its own. Designed to reflect a holistic approach to athlete care, the sports therapy and training facility incorporates tools that heal (massage tables, hydro-therapy tubs, exam rooms, a pharmacy, an x-ray facility) alongside tools that help make athletes stronger (bikes and treadmills), better nourished (nutrition bar), and healthier and more motivated (optometry, dental, and acupuncture offices).

Student athletes are welcomed into the center via a seating area anchored by a reception desk and nutrition bar, that is further divided into smaller sections by a zig-zagging, internally illuminated white Corian bench that references an unraveling roll of tape. Throughout the space, four pictorial screens showcase the university's athletic history and a white oak wall features a horizontal stream of the names of the university's most important coaches physically branded into its surface. Other references to the university's history is the school's “O” logo springing from 3,000 aluminum rods in a glass wall separated the nutrition bar from custom-designed taping tables; bar stools with leather covers that were laser cut to reflect numerical statistics of various sports; and acrylic finds in the exam rooms that progress from yellow to green, the university's colors.

Go ZGF! Go Ducks!

Congrats! Ryan Walsh

Oregon Architect has a nice interview with Portland's Ryan Walsh.

Who's Ryan Walsh? He's the Grand Prize winner of Dwell Magazine's challenge to architects across the country with the question, How Green Are You?

Walsh renovated a 1925 Bungalow in SE Portland over eight years.

Walsh’s Recycled Aesthetic project stood out for its alternative design approach, affordable cost, and uncommon use of recycled materials. Rather than pre-determining the aesthetic, Walsh first figured out what repurposed materials he wanted to use, and let the process inform the appearance. “The reward of this design challenge was reaching the utilitarian goals” Walsh said, “while honoring the inherent beauty of the materials.”

You can reach Ryan Walsh of DRW Design Build in Portland, Oregon at info@drwdesignbuild.com - 503-577-2824

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

“Mention this blog when you visit our store, and we’ll have a token of appreciation for you.”

Norwalk Update

Click on picture for a larger view.

Mike has an update on the situation at Norwalk at Home Accents Today entitled Norwalk Is On Knife's Edge

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Norwalk Suspends Operations

Mike has written a piece on Norwalk suspending manufacturing operations over at Home Accents Today and how it may affect local franchisees.

In Oregon Norwalk is located in Lake Oswego, Eugene, Bend and Glen Eden Beach. The stores in Oregon are franchises and while Norwalk supplies the upholstery products, the stores carry vendors for bedroom and dining furniture, window treatments and rugs. If Norwalk ceased manufacturing upholstery, the franchisees would be looking for a vendor to replace Norwalk.

Losing Norwalk upholstery would hurt, just like losing Nichols & Stone did for us at Landfair Furniture. One is never happy at losing a vendor.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Attic Gallery Hosts Judith Cunningham

Mike has been attracted to Judith Cunningham's paintings ever since her saw her painting of this place, Dead Horse Point . He was traveling in Utah a number of years ago when he met some people in Moab, Utah who invited him on a picnic at the point. I don't know if he has been the same since. He wrote this poem about the experience:


Dead Horse Point, Utah

At Dead Horse Point, great canyons stretch before me.
The setting sun backlights the scudding clouds.
A gentle breeze, wafts Junipers and whispers
of the desert to the south. The shawl of evening cloaks
the sandstone boulders.
Under the stars of Orion a red fox yips in the dying light.
I traveled much of a lifetime to this place to see a sunset.

Judith Cunningham captured the light and his feelings for that place. Now she captures the loneliness and majesty of the high plains in Wasco County


Canyon Shadows

She will be at the Attic Gallery tonight, 206 SW First Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97204 beginning at 6:00 showing her latest creations and they will be on display tomorrow without her. She makes her home in Hood River.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Curb Side Furniture

Have you ever driven around the city and seen furniture sitting on the parking or next to the street with a sign that says, "FREE". My husband does all the time from his big yellow bus. So many times it rains, then the furniture is of no use to anybody.

We recently donated a sleeper sofa to Oregon Community Warehouse. It was still in good shape, but we wanted a change in the den and with our remodel of the lower level, just didn't see the need for the sofa in the den.

We were interested to learn that the Community Warehouse has a need for lots of furniture and it's a shame to see it sit outside in the rain when there are so many in need.

I called Sharon and found out they don't need more sofas. They need beds and dresser drawers, and tables and chairs. They may drive by with one of their trucks and pick up your used items if you call. They may even take your sofa if you have additional furniture items items.

Won't you pick up the phone and call Sharon at 503-235-8786 or the other volunteers about your gently used items before putting it on the curb.

Their web site says

Clients include women escaping domestic violence, individuals and families who have been homeless, elderly persons on limited incomes, people with mental and physical disabilities, refugee families from all over the world, youth and adults recovering from substance abuse, and the working poor.

Community Warehouse
2267 N. Interstate Ave.
Portland, OR 97227

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Portland Coffee Tables

The Oregonian's HGNW has an article today written by Nanine Alexander entitled A Table For Your Coffee, And More. The article has pictures of eight coffee tables that offer "...a place to set items you want within easy reach, a drink, a magazine, the remote control." Alexander doesn't mention my main reason for a coffee table, a place to rest my feet in front of the TV.

The article pictures all the coffee tables that are in the Portland area! Remember that old Johnny Carson routine. Johnny's sidekick, Ed McMahon, would repeat that remark: "All the coffee tables that are in the Portland area!" Johnny would say, "Wrong horses' breath!" So here are a few more that you can find on our showroom floor:

Global Views 8.80818 Surfboard Cocktail Table 60"L x 28"W x 19.5"H Retail Price $1,050.00

Sherrill CTH 310-822 Small Oval Cocktail Table Wooden Occasional Tables W28 x D20 x H21 Retail Price $920.00

Hammary Opus Collection Round Cocktail Table W38 D38 H19 Retail Price $599.00

Moondance 2 x 2 Cocktail Table 2 cushions with Bellagio Crosta leather 44 1/2"W x 44 1/2"D x 15 1/2"H
MSRP: $1,199.00

Hudson Street Warm Cocoa Oval Cocktail Table One stationary shelf 46"W x 28"D x 19"H
MSRP: $929.00

Alexander lists a few things to consider when you buy a coffee or cocktail table. My main hint: If you are going to prop your feet on the table, make sure it doesn't have a raised lip. Otherwise, it will be very uncomfortable on the backs of your feet.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery has all these tables on the floor currently. Come in and sit a spell.

Bev & Mike

Bridget Otto Thursday

What a nice way to begin the day. Open The Oregonian and see a picture of Beverly Landfair gracing the pages of HGNW.

Photos by Marv Bondarowicz THE OREGONIAN
Moving to the Pearl Design Center allowed Bev Landfair to more than double the space for her store, Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery.

It's an article by Bridget A. Otto on the Pearl Design Center.

In early 2007, the question was asked, "Why doesn't Portland have a Design Center like San Francisco and Seattle?"

Debbie Madden, whose husband, Mark, is a principal in the development company Stark Group LLC, had spent an entire day crisscrossing the greater metropolitan area to look at fabrics and furnishings. After cruising nearly every county -- and enduring a car accident to boot -- she lamented Portland's lack of a design district where a person could see all these things at once -- hopefully without incident.

So, in classic Portland fashion, Stark Group bought a city block under the trusses of the Fremont Bridge and transformed buildings that once housed Quimby Welding into the Pearl Design Center.

Photos by Marv Bondarowicz THE OREGONIAN
Studios and storefronts now occupy the Pearl Design Center. The space used to be Quimby Welding.

Set between Northwest 14th and 15th avenues and Northwest Raleigh and Savier streets, the approximately 34,000-square-foot showroom and studio space opened last spring and is about 60 percent full, says Tami Wood of Stark Group.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery, a showroom of furniture, fabrics and accessories, is its largest tenant. A handful of other businesses -- Architectural Elegance, Quince Flowers & Events, Studio Olivine, Northwest Framing Commercial, Progress Construction, Intrinsic Design and WDC Properties (which manages Stark Group) -- are scattered about the complex.

Bev is excited about the opportunities to be part of a Portland Design Center and is enthusiastic about the coming housing planned for the Pearl.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Color Pulse 2009

Last night, hosted at the Lawrence Gallery, was Color Pulse 2009 attended by over 375 interior designers. Giving her fourth annual presentation, and the second annual in Portland, on the future of color, Color Director Doty Horn of Benjamin Moore wowed the audience with her pictures of things to come.
"Benjamin Moore's North American creative team continues to track emerging and cutting edge trends from around the world. For 2009, the overarching theme is Simplicity. Simplicity is intuitive and pure. It is Genius, It is essential in the world that we live in today and in the future. Color Pulse 2009 recognizes Simplicity in 4 distinct translations:

• Raw - you can see evidence of "Raw" in basic fibers, grays, sand colors, white tones, galvanized metals and warm gold metals. Raw reflects the green movement, where things are reused and recycled. It's authentic, honest, pared down.
• Urban Silence - It's slowing down, listening to nature, except nature is now the city and we will be bringing more of nature, trees and foliage, into our home and work environment. It's "slow food", unsight dining. Colors will tend to intense greens with a yellow base, mixed with cork, enlivened with copper and finishes will look wet or slick. Horn referred to this Urban Silence as an Amish ethic or Organic.
• Simplexity - one pattern that is repetitive, bringing order to chaos. Simplexity is where walls become fluid and fabrics become rigid. You see the colors mentioned above, but blackened; colors with complex undercurrents. Think origami and folding.
• Private Identity - our world is coming under influences from outside, think Spanish, Mexican, Latino, Dubai, think cultural fusion, YET, you want to maintain your identity. Maybe we see that in the tattooing or high end "one offs"

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery is proud to have once again helped sponsor Color Pulse. If you want more information, buy the book Benjamin Moore Color Pulse 2009:

Bev & MIke

"Age-restricted Communities"

I remember when King City was built back in 1966. King City was created as a planned adult community. The city's legal restrictions forbid minors from living within its city limits for more than a short time. Not only minors were forbidden. I was under the impression that anyone younger than 50 was not welcome.

The Association of Interior Designers (ASID) points out today that the new buzz phrases are "age-restricted communities" geared toward "active adults", not necessarily retirees built for boomers.

Builders are setting aside big sections of projects, if not whole developments, for older baby boomers.

Take a look at the demographics, said Vernon McClure, president of the Home Building Association of Richmond. The number of empty- nester baby boomers will double in the next 10 years, he said.

Active adults want low maintenance living, first floor condos and walkable neighborhoods.

"This is about a change in lifestyle," said Don-ald O. Allen, owner of D.O. Allen Homes, whose company has built six communities in the Richmond metropolitan area that are targeted toward boomers.

"They can have a first-floor master suite and they can get rid of the lawn mowers, rakes and shovels, and someone will clean their windows once a year."

My question: What is the definition of active-adult? Does this qualify?

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery