Fall Maple in Dolph Park

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Originally uploaded by gily122000.

Fall is here and we are looking forward to this tree putting on its annual show.

Frank Gehry and Brad Pitt, Team Mates!

The residents of The small English seaside town of Brighton and Hove

agreed “in principle” to a plan for "starchitect" Frank Gehry to build a £290 million landmark that should do for Brighton and Hove what the Guggenheim did for Bilbao, Spain, which is transform it from "off the grid" to tourist hot-spot.

Gehry's inspiration for the project came from this image of Edwardian ladies.

The big news is that Brad Pitt is a friend of Gehry and will have a hand in the design and development!

Frank Gehry is the architect for software billionaire Paul G. Allen's Experience Music Project

Frank Gehry Brad Pitt architecture

Bev & Mike

Bloggin Around

I have added some new links to the Blogroll and I invite you to check these blogs out:

An Exploration of Portland Food and Drink - THROWING MYSELF ON THE GRENADE OF BAD FOOD TO SAVE YOU

Beaumont-Hollywood - Just north of the corner of NE42nd and Fremont is Beaumont Village's newest coffee cafe, Ristretto Roasters. From CoffeegGeek is a definition of Ristretto

The standard I teach is a 1 oz shot of espresso, not including crema. Unless otherwise requested I believe that this should be the default volume served in all espresso based drinks. I have served this to people asking for a ristretto shot and have only had positive feedback in return. To serve a true ristretto shot (.75 oz of liquid in 25 seconds) an adjustment to the grinder is required and is not realistic or recommended (NOTE: The preparation of a ristretto shot is highly debated with no definitive answers. The above is one of only many “right” ways to prepare a ristretto shot). A lazy man’s ristretto shot is as simple as pulling the cup out from under the pour when only .75 oz of liquid has run through.

Brooklyn - A lot of questions about Condo Conversions

...what happens to funky Hawthorne when the funky people can't find a place to rent and move elsewhere?

Buckman - Community gardening and some little pink wiggly things

Clinton - Hau Hagedorn celebrates one year blogging.

Some juicy bit of rumor that I've latched onto recently is inquiries by developers into the current occupied space on Seven Corners where the Domino's and Seven Days Market reside.

ExtremeMSG - Culinary Blog and Portland Food Guide

I Will Survive - Sandee, a courageous woman blogging her way through breast cancer.

Is It Art? - So how do you really feel about Brushstrokes, the new art piece at the Portland Art Museum?

Jen's Page - Jen has some thoughts about Julie Powell

who decides to cook through every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year. And, this being the 21st century and all, she writes a blog about her experiences.

Kenilworth-Abernethy - Driving 39th!

Northwest Portland - praise for Ken's Pizza

So Ken's Pizza rocks. The crust is extra crispy and the sauce is very flavorful with garlic, basil and fennel seeds. Ken is a gracious host and I'll certainly be back for more.

Old Town - complaints about lack of Community Policing

Community policing means working with the neighborhoods - a partnership - in the true sense where each is expected to contribute and there is a welcoming of resident participation by the police. A resident ride along is not community policing - it is marketing.

Pearl Blog - What's new in the Pearl

Piedmont - Piedmont Neighborhood Association Meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 28

Portland Real Estate Blog - Two articles, What Will Kartina do to Portland's Real Estate Market and Who Buys New Construction Condos?

QPDX - the gay news blog

Sellwood - while you are organizing to keep Walmart out, stop in at the new to the 'hood, Lili Patisserie Cafe which serves espressos and pastries.

Stumptown Confidential - documenting disturbing motels.

I got mildly depressed just looking at these. I can practically smell the cigarette smoke embedded into the carpet and curtains and the bleach in the bathroom hiding the faint smell of old urine.

Time Goes By - What it's really like to get older

Bev & Mike

Macy's Changes Names

From PDXHistory.com

If you said “meet me under the clock”, all Portlanders knew that meant the clock in the middle of the main floor at Meier & Frank. For nearly 150 years, Style and Tradition have been synonymous with the name Meier & Frank in Portland, which was founded in 1857 by Aaron Meier.

Now the name will be gone. The name will now be changed to Macy's!
(see also Jack Bog's Blog)

FURNITUREToday announces Federated to drop Marshall Field's name

Federated Department Stores said it will drop the Marshall Field's name from all 62 of the stores by next fall and replace it with Macy's.

Federated, which picked up Marshall Field’s as part of its acquisition of May Department Stores (which owned Meier & Frank) this year, also said it will eliminate 1,700 jobs at May headquarters in St. Louis and another 4,500 as it phases out May divisional operations in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Arlington, Va.

It's sad to see brands disappear. Meier & Frank not only was the place to meet friends, but at Christmas, almost all packages were wrapped in Murphy & Finegan paper, as we affectionately called Meier & Frank.

Bev & Mike

What's New in Casual Design?

Interesting article in Casual Living: Designers shaping casual industry By Cinde W. Ingram and Courtney Mueller.

As consumers' needs change for space, storage and styles change, designers lead the casual industry's evolution.

Marshall Mullins - Mosaic tabletops fit Mullins' design needs. He designs mosaic tables with wrought iron bases, a kind of old world Tuscany look.

We have had several tables with this look in our store. One made by Hammary:
Hermosa Square Cocktail Table W40.75 D40.75 H19

Carl Muller - Muller finds rewards solving design puzzles. His Wellinton chair won a
Design Excellence Award.

John Caldwell - "I've had such a lucky design life"

"The casual industry used to be for rich people," he said. "The expectation level now is so different that the average person expects to have a backyard and outdoor furniture in it

Frederic C. Doughty - Doughty designs to meet sophisticated tastes

Doughty finds his architectural training plays into his furniture designs because furniture does not set alone in nature.

Scott Coogan - Coogan follows his creative passions. Traveling mostly to Costa Rica, tropical ingredients
provided inspirations for 2006's furniture designs.

Shaun Sweeney - "I'm always up for a challenge"

He designed Woodard's new stepping stone tabletop from a path he saw while watching "Lord of the Rings." A chair was inspired from a wrought iron fence he saw while taking a walk in Cincinnati over Thanksgiving

Philip Behrens - "I'm an inside-out designer, not a stylist.

"I like all my designs to be natural, true to themselves," he said. "I don't like ornamentation for ornamentation's sake. I operate more on a level on what kind of identity are we trying to make. I'm an inside-out designer, not a stylist. I enjoy the hunt for the experience of the idea we are trying to do. That is above and beyond everything else — that is very thrilling and totally unpredictable."

Richard Frinier - Frinier brings home styles of far-off destinations"

For the last 25 years I have only worked with materials that are weather resistant," Frinier said. "While this creates a challenge in and of itself, I enjoy altering the materials with unique textures and colorations to enhance my designs.

One of his clients is Sunbrella by Glen Raven. We carry Sherrill fabrics which have licensed Sunbrella. What is so great about Sunbrella? It is a "performance fabric".

Inside your living room or in the kitchen, Sunbrella fabrics make you question all the old rules. Like twirling pasta on the love seat. And if a meatball happens to roll off your plate and across the furniture, just wipe it off. Because Sunbrella fabrics are worry free. So go ahead and sip red wine on the cream-colored sofa or let the kids eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the family room. And when your pets jump on the couch after playing in the rain, just sit back and relax. All the qualities that make Sunbrella stand up to the elements outdoors make it impervious to life indoors.

This a very good article and it is like high fashion. What you see on the runway soon shows up in the showroom. In some cases at Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery, it already has!

Bev & Mike

Silver Plume to Shutter Operations!

We are sorry to see them go!

Cheryl Jackson, founder and president of Silver Plume, said the Portland, Ore.-based importer and marketer of fine home furnishings will close on or before Oct. 1.

I met Jackson at market and her store has a great reputation.

"Over the 20 years we have in been in business, immense satisfaction has come from providing uniquely creative and well-made products for our customers," she said. "I greatly appreciate the years of service we have had from our vendors, suppliers, sales reps, and most of all our employees."

Bev & Mike

Katrina Slows Deliveries

We don't know what effect Katrina will have on the economy. However, FURNITURE Today has an interesting article that says

Fuel shortages in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are affecting furniture suppliers’ ability to deliver product.

With gas and oil production in the Gulf of Mexico at a standstill and pipelines from the Mississippi Delta region to the Eastern Seaboard idled, truckers sometimes are finding dry diesel pumps.

Deliveries could be slowed by a couple of weeks for furniture coming from the east coast.

Bev & Mike

Donate to the American Red Cross Through KINK FM 102

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery has made a monetary contribution through KINK FM 102 to the American Red Cross to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. We urge you to do the same. Here's the Kink announcement:

Here's how it works: Click here to donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. When you do, you'll get back an e-mail confirmation of your donation. Then, forward the confirmation e-mail to relief@kink.fm (or fax it to 503-517-6100), along with your name and phone number by midnight Thursday night.

All day Thursday, KINK FM 102 will play new songs from The Rolling Stones each hour from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. We will enter listeners who donate to the Hurricane Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross into a drawing for Rolling Stones prize packages, each including a pair of tickets to the Rolling Stones concert November 1 at the Rose Garden Arena as well as a copy of their upcoming release A Bigger Bang, which will be released next Tuesday.

Donate to the American Red Cross through KINK FM 102. You may win two tickets to see the Rolling Stones. You can also sell the tickets and donate the proceeds. Get creative! Have an auction to raise money for hurricane relief. Let's make sure we take care of our own.

Bev & Mike