Rowe Furniture Back In Action

From FURNITUREToday,

Last market, buyers were shying away from long-established Rowe, reluctant to place orders with a company that had filed for bankruptcy protection and was widely believed to be looking at liquidation.

This market, the 60-year-old midpriced upholstery producer, acquired by a high-powered investment company with close ties to the furniture industry, is back in action with new money behind it and a whole new attitude.

Stefanie Lucas, named last week as president of Rowe, said that new product is available,

including a collection in its Robin Bruce line from designers outside the industry, who were commissioned...to put a fresh face on Rowe’s offerings.

The designers, Silvano Banfi, Frank Zambrelli and Banfi Zambrelli, have designed for such fashion-forward companies as Judith Leiber, Calvin Klein and Coach. The group has never done furniture and approached the task like it was a big, empty canvas, Lucas said.

Lucas said it helps to be a woman as president of Rowe, because she is a target customer of Rowe's marketing.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery carries Rowe, with its lower price point, as a complement to Sherrill and Duralee.

Bev & Mike

Fundamental Southwest

From Home Accents Today,

Color and texture capture the essence of the Southwest, while contemporary designs keep things clean and simple for urban living.

* A desert-inspired, burnt earth palette carries the look without added adornment or fuss.

* Subtle animal inspirations and rustic touches replace overt references to the region’s culture.

* Natural wood grains and unpolished materials keep the look from becoming overly refined.

One company singled out is The Phillips Collection:

Reclaimed wood and vines take on the appearance of sun-bleached animal bone in Driftwood Decor sculptures from The Phillips Collection.

You can see more at The Phillips Collection website or at Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery on the corner of NW 15th and Savier.

Bev & Mike

BERMANFALK: New At Market

Phi, The Golden Ratio

Designers use Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment. Some designers are, also using "Phi", a mathematical concept, a ratio, an aesthetically pleasing proportion of one length to another.

Phi is the ratio that results when a line is divided in one particular way. That ratio is sometimes called the golden ratio, the divine proportion or the signature of God because the resulting proportions are so aesthetically pleasing and show up again and again in nature.

Picture a line divided into two segments.



If the line is divided at exactly the right point according to phi, then the ratio of the longer segment to the shorter one is exactly the same as the ratio of the whole line to the longer segment. In our illustration, the proportions of the red and blue segments are exactly the same as the proportions of the whole line and the red segment.

Inscribing a square in a golden rectangle leaves another golden rectangle. Setting up quarter circles in each of the squares create very nice spirals

The Akron Beacon Journal has an article about two designers using phi in their space planning.

Phi, they say, yields interiors that are more calming and inviting than any arrangement they could devise themselves.

Interior designers study phi in their basic course work.

A good interior designer -- one who's trained in design, not just a decorator -- will incorporate phi into the proportions of a room.

"One of the reasons phi works...is it results in arrangements with a pleasing kind of asymmetry."

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Phi Golden Ratio Interior Design Bev & Mike

The dangers of watching design TV

Karla Hollencamp of Cox News Service writes about the dangers of watching design TV. They make it look easy on the "make-over TV prgrams, so before you begin a project ask your self some questions:

Do I have the time?

Any serious remodeling project takes more than a couple of weekends.

Do I have the tools?

Do I have the talent?

Carpentry, electrical work and plumbing require special skills. Interior design isn’t just picking a paint colour. Custom upholstery doesn’t just happen. These professions are a combination of knowledge and experience.

Do I have the treasury?

Hollencamp writes

Your mistakes will not only cost you time, they will cost you money. If you are trying to save money, this is frustrating.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

ABCs of interior design for children

Kip Farmer writes an informative article at Courier Press entitled ABCs of interior design for children. She He writes

The challenge of creating a child's personal space is among the most freeing of all design experiences.

Approach your child's space as a designer with a very special client. Observe your child playing, ask her questions, and remember when you were a child yourself. A little childlike thinking will lead to a unique space. By all means, think outside the toy box when decorating this important area.

She He offers a number "ABCs" for decorating a child's room and here are a few of my favorites.

• Framing your child's artwork adds color and motion into the space, while building a little self-esteem and pride in his room.

• Quit buying sets of furniture for your child's room. Mix styles to develop a more individual space.

• Walls are (sooner or later) made to be scribbled on, so paint a few with chalkboard paint to make an appropriate area for this creative impulse.

Read Mr. Farmer's article for all 26 tips.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Rustic Bedding Designs

Home Accents today highlights Pendleton Woolen Mills.

Sparked by a nostalgic, back-to-nature sentiment, designers are inspired by native cultural styles and embracing indigenous materials. Rustic bedding designs, inspired by traditional Navajo weaving, highlight the vibrant palette and rich textures of the old Southwest.

In a lively collection from Pendleton Woolen Mills, coral and turquoise come together to create a fresh Southwestern look in the traditional Los Ojos style.

Always nice to see an Oregon company get noticed!

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Bridget A Otto: Function Sans Formality

Bridget A Otto writes that the Teri Barichello, owner of a Lair Hill Condo, hires Amanda Klash, owner and principal designer of Montgomery Klash Interior Design and Emma McMacken a designer at the firm to help with the functions of a dual living and dining room

while also making the room comfortable for both entertaining and solitary relaxation. It's also likely that Barichello won't stay in the condo and that furnishings will have a future life in a larger space.

Klash and McMacken worked with shape and texture:

Differing heights and textures keep the room interesting and the eye moving from one thing to another.

The squarish furnishings are offset by round tables and round lampshades. In the square dining area, for example, Klash placed a round dining table on a square rug. Small round occasional tables are tucked among the larger seating pieces.

"The eye has to find things," McMacken says, and this can be a challenge in a small space.

What I picked up from the article was the idea that we get used to seeing a space a certain way and get closed off to alternative ways. A designer can help see things in a new way. Teri Barichello said,

"I have lived for YEARS with nearly no furniture. I was so accustomed to an empty space that the night I got home after the furniture came, I almost had a breakdown. It was overwhelming. The pieces I had been most excited about were the pieces that, once delivered, I had the most doubt about."

Klash was leaving on vacation the next day and asked Barichello to please live with the change for more than one night. When she returned, Klash promised, she'd fix anything Barichello still didn't like.

"She was absolutely right," Barichello says now. "I just needed to get used to seeing 'things' in what used to be one very empty space.

The design firm is located in its retail shop, MKID, at 1111 S.W. Alder St.; 503-224-7797 www.montgomeryklash.com.

Mark Stewart Home Design

Congrats to Mark Stewart Home Design of Portland!

Mark Stewart Home Design of Portland partnered with the national ABC television program "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to design a home free of charge for the family of an Army veteran in Lawton, Okla. The show will air Sunday, April 15, at 8 p.m. on KATU (2).

Company president Mark Stewart met with the home recipients, Gene and Peggy Westbrook, before designing their Prairie-style house with four bedrooms and 4.5 baths in about 4,000 square feet.

The family has special accessibility needs. Gene Westbrook lost the use of his legs after being wounded in 2004 during a mortar attack in Iraq. The Westbrooks' 9-year-old son, injured in a 2006 auto accident, is partially paralyzed.

Ron Nance, a builder for the Oklahoma project, expressed his admiration for Stewart's design.

"The home is beautiful, and phenomenally functional for the Westbrooks' needs," said Nance. "We were told over and over by the cast and crew this was their favorite home."

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Sleeping Alone

For years society has struggled with a name for two same sex adults committed to each other. Is it "marriage" or "civil union" or something else. Now the NY Times has highlighted another conundrum. What do you call the room where couples go to "cuddle" who are married but do not sleep together?

In a story To Have, Hold and Cherish, Until Bedtime,

Not since the Victorian age of starched sheets and starchy manners, builders and architects say, have there been so many orders for separate bedrooms. Or separate sleeping nooks. Or his-and-her wings.

[...]

In a survey in February by the National Association of Home Builders, builders and architects predicted that more than 60 percent of custom houses would have dual master bedrooms by 2015, according to Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice president of research at the builders association. Some builders say more than a quarter of their new projects already do.

Most couples are not giving up sex, but can't sleep together because of snoring or different schedules or babies crying or just can't sleep in the same room.

Not everyone wants to talk about it. Many architects and designers say their clients believe there is still a stigma to sleeping separately. Some developers say it is a delicate issue and call the other bedroom a “flex suite” for when the in-laws visit or the children come home from college. Charles Brandt, an interior designer in St. Louis, said, “The builder knows, the architect knows, the cabinet maker knows, but it’s not something they like to advertise because right away people will think something is wrong” with the marriage.

Maybe instead of master suite they are "owners’ suites" or "couples’ realms". Sure, you might sleep better at night, alone, but I like my husband's warm body next to me on those cold nights and I like to be able to say something to him in the middle of the night when I know he's awake. If he's away from home, I can't sleep with my back to the door.

Besides, I didn't marry until I was 41. I've had enough of sleeping alone, thank you!

In a related story BBC writes that Bed sharing with your mate 'drains men's brains'. What an unfortunate choice of words.



Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

It's interior designers, not decorators

From The Triangle Online of Drexel University

In this era of Home and Garden Television, in addition to the current trend in home improvement, people have adopted what they think to be interior design based on the common misconceptions shown on TV. In actuality, these shows, though entertaining, are demeaning to the design profession and undermine the amount of knowledge and know-how that is actually involved in interior design. It is a profession that requires knowledge, skill and experience in all aspects of an interior space, including technical components, aesthetics, safety, function and ergonomics. Unfortunately, these shows communicate interior design as merely selecting fabrics and furniture - what is called decorating.

In fact, your fellow interior design students are striving to become much more than decorators, but professional interior designers. A professional designer has received adequate education, four years or more, which allows them to possess the expertise and aptitude to develop and carry through with acceptable solutions to problems in interiors. They must conform to federal, state and local laws, including building codes, and meet accessibility standards for the disabled and elderly.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

The Perils of Moving

Here's a laugh. Qwest handles our phone, fax, visa and computer lines at our Macadam location of Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery. We are moving to the Pearl so I called Qwest to switch service to the new location, figuring March 1st would be the day we switch over, but since I didn't know when exactly we would be in, I wanted service to be at both locations.

As the first got nearer, I moved the date off to March 8th. I met the Qwest Tech at the new location yesterday and lo and behold, the hookup comes into the building at the wrong location. I would have to speak to an engineer to determine if the big, ugly heavy line was run on the inside of the building or, my preference, the outside of the building. Away the Qwest Tech went saying the engineer would call.

Not to make things worse, but we have only temporary power because when PGE came out to hook up the power two or three weeks ago, they found the pole was rotten and a new one would have to be installed in 30 to 60 days. This morning, I arrived at the Macadam address, picked up the phone to make a call and the phone indicates it is out of service. I called my number from my cell phone and hear that I am disconnected. That is not the outcome I expected from Qwest!

To be fair, I called their 800 Number "to discuss your current service and find out what else we can do to help your business grow." After much forwarding, I talked to a Todd who said the service would be restored within the half hour. (You know how we all hate those telephone receptions that give you numbered choice after numbered choice. Even Qwest techies trying to reach another department have to listen to that stuff.) Then I spoke to the engineer about getting a terminal to the building, whatever that means.

So Mike is waiting by our phone at home to hear that Macadam is back up and operating.

Bev & Mike

Condos and Small Spaces

News about condos and small spaces caught my eye these last two days.



Pearl District Monthly shows 179 Condos in January/February are sold or pending sale or in late stage of selling.

Seattle Journal of Commerce has this article

While many people gravitate to a particular condominium development because of its exterior architecture or fabulous location, it is the interior design that should really be the focus.

In smaller units, interior designers focus on an open-plan concept.

The focus is on minimizing walls and enclosures to maximize the feeling of openness and spaciousness. This concept is also successful in two-bedroom homes, where one bedroom is treated as a flexible space with a movable partition or sliding panels that connect with the larger great room living space.

In larger residences, the bedroom and bath can be used to create

a feeling of retreat within the residence, a personal oasis for homeowners to keep out of sight from visitors.

Then Home Decorating Reviews has an article about Decorating Small Living Rooms and I thought some of the tips were very useful:

* Keep it bright
o Use natural light if it is available, and hanging lights or chandeliers or sun lights if not but keep the room as bright as possible

* Keep it open
o Whenever possible use the space efficiently leaving easy access in and out of the room in the direction of flow you wish to encourage

* Make a focal point
o If you have a focus such as a large picture, a fireplace or a window make that a focus to help expand the room into that ‘space’ and draw attention away from the limited size of the room

* Use light and airy colors
o Using dark woods and darker shades will make the room feel ‘closed in’ while neutrals and shades of white or café’ or even yellow whenever appropriate will lighten the room and make what would be stifling feel ‘cozy’ instead

* Avoid Clutter
o Most important in a small space is to avoid clutter or crowding in to many items or pieces

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery is moving to the Pearl Design Center at 1636 NW 15th. We have scheduled the movers for March 15th!

Bev & Mike

The Latest Look in Mirrors

Tracy Bulla writes Wall Decor: Riveting Reflections in todays Home Accents Today:

Get ready to be dazzled by the latest looks in mirrors. A neutral palette and dramatic frames render stunning styles, whether traditional or transitional.

One example Bulla uses of this new trend in mirrors is this Uttermost design:


Dainty rosettes accentuate the classical style of Uttermost's antiqued mirror, finished in distressed silver leaf with black undertones.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery is proud to carry the Uttermost brand of lamps and accessories.

Bev & Mike

SE Portland Art Walk

I hope this isn't too late, you do have five hours:

...the SE Area ARTWalk...March 3rd and 4th from 10-5. Start your walk at David Duck's house at 3550 SE Tibbetts and pick up your map for the other 80 artists. You can also plan your walk...preview the art online...or print a map at www.seportlandartwalk.com.

David Duck has some great new photographic water images that are well worth seeing in person.

Looks like a great day for a walk.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

A Resurgence of White

Recently, I was quoted by Bridget Otto in an article, Pink has punch -- or does it? at predicting the new color(s)

Taking her shot at predicting color, (Bev) Landfair votes for white.

"I'm seeing a resurgence of white -- especially in contemporary furnishings," she said.

Interior designer Kimberlee Jaynes just added some new photos of the Lee residence and guess what's featured, white!



What a lovely place to live and such a view.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery