Washington Spaces blog

Now that we’ve been in our house for 10 years, I’m starting to get that itch. Some colors seem tired, other window treatments outdated – you get the idea. And in this era of HGTV and instant gratification, I want it all done right NOW.

That’s why a new book called Speed Decorating by Jill Vegas ($21.95, The Taunton Press) seems so timely, especially for anyone looking for gift ideas for design-minded family and friends.

Home stylist Jill Vegas, who specializes in quick home makeovers, features projects in this book that can all be done in one week or less.

Here are some of my favorite tips in a book that is jam-packed with them:

Details count, such as these decorative plates and French soup tureens on a trio of open shelves.

All photography by Michael Grimm

Add instant pizzazz to a plain-Jane sofa with a tapestry, such as this Suzani print, and colorful pillows. I especially love how the lines of the textile enhance the artwork in the stairwell.

What a warm way to greet the holiday – with an authentic Arts and Crafts setting that includes a vintage mantel, a surround using Motawi Tileworks, and William Morris fabric on the windows. “It couldn’t look Arts and Crafts. It had to be Arts and Crafts,” Designer Debbie Wiener says of the directive she was given.

The look is all the more delicious, considering what her clients gave her to start with:

Debbie’s beautiful Thanksgiving greeting on the mantel whetted my appetite for more fabulous Thanksgiving décor, because this is a holiday that can get pretty kitschy, pretty fast.

Let’s start with Eddie Ross, a stylist and flea-market guru, who just blogged about his own Thanksgiving table. The setting glows with casual elegance.

The details of his table show off his finds from past flea markets and antique shops.

Eddie also blogged about how to make an Indian corn centerpiece. Do I really have to tell you he used to work for Martha Stewart?

Two birds, one stone. At the intersection of two industries hit hard by the economic mess – fine art and real estate – lies a great innovation. Take an empty house on the market, fill it with art (and bubbly), open sesame, and wow everyone. 

Jill Lubar and Erin Mackay

Erin Mackay and Jill Lubar, co-owners of The Art Registry, show and sell work by local up-and-comers as well as artists of international renown. It’s an art consulting firm that also runs a gallery, The Gallery at Todd Christofaro, whose J. Ford Huffman show we recently blogged about.

TTR Sotheby’s International Realty’s milieu is fine properties. The two forces joined recently with Isabel Ernst of Ernst Development on her 6,000-square-foot, c. 1875 mansion in Dupont Circle that is currently for sale. The house has been respectfully renovated as a “purist” contemporary interior by Architect Salo Levinas of Shinberg.Levinas, making it a great backdrop for both modern and mid-century art. Their event/opening last Thursday brought in more than 500 people, according to Mackay.

Pardon my poor snapshots – the space is restful and elegant, and I loved the white-and-stainless Bulthaup kitchen.

“[The homes] give us these great blank canvases to work with,” Lubar says. “Instead of staging with furniture, we stage with art.”

A lot of Web sites and blogs love to feature their “latest finds” from eBay and Craigslist, but they usually seem kind of junky to me.

That’s why I was excited to find out about the new contemporary look and feel at Bond & Bowery, the DC-based art and furnishings shopping site that was founded in 2007 as an additional player in the online antiques market. We profiled them in a Web-extra article last year.

So, how’s this for a latest find?

Or this?

Bond & Bowery has found most of its success with modern design in particular, so while you can still find antiques on the site, the real stars are modern. “While this has been to a great extent dealer driven, modern dealers seem to be doing well and driving buyers to the site,” President Ben Spaisman wrote in an e-mail. “It has become apparent to us that the modern category is what’s selling right now and continues to trend upward.”

Because that’s what you always do when I’m in your showroom. I get all weak in the knees over your furniture – especially if we’re on a tour with the likes of Bill Sofield, whom Trish blogged about earlier this month.

You define “covet” in the dictionary – yes you do, you tease, and you know it.

That’s why I got the butterflies all over again when I saw pictures of two model units the Baker design team recently decorated at 22West downtown (which seems to be where all the cool designers show off their work – I blogged about Vastu and Contemporaria’s model units last year).

See what I mean:

Unit 2K/ Two Bedrooms

The living room includes designs from the Thomas Pheasant, Jacques Garcia, and Laura Kirar collections. Highlights are the Biomorphic Mirror and the carved lion’s head chair from the Stately Homes collection.

Round walnut dining table by Bill Sofield, surrounded by upholstered dining chairs by Thomas Pheasant

I love our local Dollar Store as the gift go-to for all the birthday parties my kids get invited to. But when it comes to buying for adults, well, we need something a little more sophisticated.

So why not go to the $99 store?

My friend, Los Angeles home stylist Tara Riceberg (who has many DC clients) is the queen of gift giving (see my post about previous gift endeavors here and here), and she just came up with this brilliant idea for her economy-challenged customers in Beverly Hills. Lucky for us on the east coast that she ships the gifts anywhere, and they come beautifully wrapped.

The $99 Store offers a myriad selection of attractive – and always witty – gifts. 

The Dream Bank ($29.99), for instance, lets you insert a picture of what you’re saving for.

These totem cups ($67.99) look great in an open cupboard, and they double as adorable ice cream dishes.

For the man in your life – a dragon remover ($54.99). It’s functional, but it also makes for “sexy desk art,” Tara says.

How cute is this? Lockets ($77.99) for your door knob or cupboard.

And for a lady’s vanity – this gorgeous Bell fragrance bottle ($46.99). Beautiful and sculptural.

Besides the prices on these gifts, I love Tara’s taste in choosing unique items for men and women alike. She’s like your own personal shopper. And she’s so sweet, that I’m sure you can call her if you don’t see something you like on her site, and she can get you the perfect gift. Happy shopping.

I’ve heard people discuss design communities as insular, catty bunches. Some are, it’s true – but most designers I’ve met, especially in this community, show sincere interest in preserving and respecting beauty and the environment, in improving the quality of people’s lives.

Last night I had the pleasure of listening to journalist and author Warren Berger at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Berger’s new (and well-received) book, Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World began as an investigative project to dig around in the minds of designers to figure out how they came to certain ideas and how they tackle problems – and then bring that conversation to an audience of non-designers.

The book covers a lot of ground and goes deep. Some of Berger’s topics are familiar territory, such as the ideas of Designer Bruce Mau and the blooming industry of biomimicry. He spent time discussing how designers are always doing the darnedest things – they’re hoarders and huddlers, they draw while they talk, and the best ones watch people for clues and subtext rather than listen because “people can’t always tell you what they need.”

Berger collected doodles from the designers he interviewed, and said they express solutions best visually. 

And he got into specific examples where one “a-ha” design fixes something that generations have struggled with without solving or even questioning. Deborah Adler, for example, re-designed prescription bottles, which Target now uses, to be legible and color-coded for each family member:

…Van Phillips, who designed the Flex-Foot prosthetic that allowed him (and many others) to run competitively after losing a limb:

…and Gauri Nanda, whose Clocky alarm clock goes the extra mile – after one snooze, the clock begins rolling around the room looking for a place to hide, so the sleeper has to get up and chase it.

If you ask me, sheer brilliance.

Berger’s book is full of pointed anecdotes and visual examples of how things become easier through design breakthroughs. His larger point is that designers find elegant solutions through questioning what others accept as reality – that prescription bottles must be round and hard to read, or that an amputee will never run again, or that the only way to get up for class is through pure force of will.

A couple more insightful nuggets from Berger:

• It’s OK to fail, everyone does. But when you do, “fail forward” – that is, learn and adapt from each experiment, rather than just chucking the lot.
• Focus energy on recombining existing ideas – there may not be any totally original ideas under the sun, but there are always untried combinations for old ones.
• Look at the world around you as a working draft, and always carry a pen.

It’s Tuesday, and I’m in the mood for eye candy.

My current obsession (I have a lot of them, OK?) is stairways – the steps and the sweeps and the balusters and the moldings and the runners – they’re like the necklace that links the levels of your house.

I fell in love with the most amazing stairs I’ve ever seen while we were laying out our current issue. I saw an ad by Mountain Lumber, which contained an image of this room:

I mean, hello? Don’t these stairs make you catch your breath, like a movie star just walked into the room?

So that’s what got me on this kick. That – and the sweet memories of Amy Lau’s showstopping stairway at this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York:

And, OMG, can you imagine living in this home, and opening your front door to this every day? From an Architectural Digest compilation of its most dramatic stairways.

The traditional fifth-anniversary gift is made of wood, and if last night’s party at Turnberry Tower Arlington was any indication of our first five years of publishing unforgettable homes in the DC region, let’s knock on some wood for continued success in the same vein.

At least 200 of the region’s best designers, architects, builders, and home-interior tradespeople gathered to help us celebrate – and to tour Turnberry’s fabulous $7.1 million Tower Suite, which is situated above the penthouses.

Imagine waking up to views of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Kennedy Center, or sipping wine in the living room as you gaze down at what look like strands of diamonds and rubies streaming back and forth over Key Bridge and the inky Potomac River below, while the lights of Georgetown twinkle in the background.

It’s kind of unimaginable, actually, and we want to extend huge thanks and gratitude to Turnberry Tower, which opened the space to us and catered the party with scrumptious hors d’oeuvres from Windows Catering and red velvet cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake.

Jim Cohen, vice president of sales for Turnberry Ltd., poses with his wife, Diana.

Washington Spaces Editor in Chief Trish Donnally stands with Senoir Vice President Ron Smith and Executive Vice President Ann Scully of Mayhood, the sales agents for Turnberry.

The walls of the unfinished space were lined with gigantic images of the magazine’s 31 covers to date, and everyone was asked to vote for their favorite.

Here’s the ballot box,

And here’s Daniel Steinkoler, owner of Superior Home Services, getting busted as he tried to stuff the box with his favorite pick. Sorry, Danny!

The winner, shot by photographer Morgan Howarth, was our striking Fall 2008 cover of Architect Lavinia Fici Pasquina’s house in Bethesda, MD.

This cover is among the few we’ve ever done of a home’s exterior, which caused a bit of a debate when we were choosing it, but now that the votes are in, we’re glad we did.

Honestly, there are some things in the home that just shouldn’t be decorated. In fact, they should be made discreet, subtle, hidden, even.

Yes, I’m talking about your toilet. Of course it’s one of your home’s most necessary, uh, accessories, but do we really have to draw attention to this less-than-beautiful everyday function?

I just got a press release the other day heralding the “WOW” toilet tank decorating kit, which is “flush with creativity for homes and businesses”!

That’s not all: “Homeowners can now easily interchange the look of their toilet at any time to match wallpaper or carpet, or celebrate a holiday, season, sports team allegiance and more.” Please, people, no more. I can’t go on.

But it’s like a train wreck – I can’t look away, either. I just had to type “decorative toilet” into Google, and there are pages and pages of products that help you decorate the toilet – seat, lid, tank, flush handle and all. But I’m not going to give you a link to any of them.

You will thank me for this, as I’ll provide just one frightening image from my discoveries:

Enough said.

Collector – and compiler of collected items – J. Ford Huffman takes in the visual menagerie that fills the walls in his West End home.

I have a lot of friends in journalism who aren’t in journalism anymore. Many have gone on to public relations or freelance writing. Several have jobs in the government. One is a comedian. Another bought and runs a tiny weekly newspaper.

And then there’s J. Ford Huffman, whom I first met when he was directing the layout, graphics, and photography for the front page of USA Today. He was one of dozens who have accepted buyout offers there in the past several years, which enabled him to turn a longtime hobby into a full-time job. He now spends his time creating tiny, artistic universes from found objects. They are all on view throughout this month and next in Huffman’s first solo show at The Art Registry in DC.

“American Idyll,” created using the lid of a rusty tin box and vintage trees.

“Inlaid Linoleum,” using vintage toy kitchen appliances, flatware, old printed signs, and a wood frame.

I had no sooner attended the exciting screening of “Visual Acoustics, The Modernism of Julius Shulman” on Friday night, when – pow! – I got the news yesterday that Metropolitan Home is closing. The juxtaposition of those two events makes me want to urge every one of you who appreciates modern architecture and great photography to head straight to Landmark Theatres in Washington, DC, to see this inspiring documentary.

The film’s star is Julius Shulman, the extraordinary photographer whose work is inextricably intertwined with the Modernist architectural movement of Southern California. But while Shulman is the lovable human hook, this film also tells the bigger story of modern architecture.

By pure coincidence, Shulman connected with Architect Richard Neutra in 1936, and the rest is history. Shulman’s distinctive images of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer, and Rudolf Schindler make this film a feast of photography. But it’s Case Study House No. 22, by Architect Pierre Koenig, that was Shulman’s most iconic image.

Julius Shulman shot this image and captured a fantasy lifestyle in a glass box overlooking LA, or as designer Tom Ford said in the film, “This popular zeitgeist is caught perfectly in that picture.”

Scarcely a day goes by that I don’t take a photograph, but I rarely do it with any technique, or to trap beauty. The premise is usually much lighter, the purpose more attainable – taking scouting shots for the magazine, or sending a quick note to a friend. Images, by and large, are how we document and communicate these days – they are so much easier than typing it all out.

Photograph by Maxwell MacKenzie

At my level, it’s easy to forget how sublime photographs can be when they are considered, meaningful, when the photographer has a gift for the work. Starting tonight, FotoWeek DC, a one-year-old international photography festival on a meteoric rise, storms the city with thousands of powerful images.

Photograph by Denise Grunstein

There’s no central event – the festival is a collage of all things photography. You’ll find events for children, amateurs, art photographers, architectural photographers, and photojournalists. Panel discussions, juried shows, and a competition with a hefty cash prize play into the mix, too. (For a list of notable FotoWeek events, go here; iPhone users can even download the FotoWeek app here.)

Photograph of visitors to last year’s festival by Maxwell MacKenzie

Exhibits break photography down to its chemicals and mechanisms. Photograms on glass at Irvine Contemporary and photographs on ceramics at Cross MacKenzie Ceramic Arts are especially intriguing. Discussions of political images led by Pulitzer Prize winner Lucian Perkins, a former Washington Post photographer, and “for the trade” talks about making a living with pictures sound particularly promising.

Photographs from Iraq and South Africa by Lucian Perkins

Williams Sonoma Home provides a great guide map in the search for the perfect bedroom.

When we were in High Point last month, we were given the results of a survey taken by the American Home Furnishings Alliance, which among other things stated that one-third of younger Americans (the tech-savvy, just-graduated-from-college crowd) see their bedrooms as “practical spaces.” That’s fine – they don’t have that much money to splurge on luxurious bedding at the start of their careers.

But what surprised me the most is that the next two generations – the 35-44 and 45-54 age groups – “most commonly describe their bedrooms as ‘adequate environments,’ ” the survey said.

Really? Really? I’m sorry, but after a long day at work and an evening filled with minding young children, I need to snuggle away to an environment that’s a whole lot better than adequate.

Especially when we feasted our eyes on so many new sleeping beauties at the market, which beg you for a better bedroom. Don’t you all agree that it’s time for an upgrade?

Just imagine yourself sleeping like royalty in this bed by French Heritage, which is sold locally through Colony House.

I can’t get over this bed by Ankasa, which is upholstered in gray and blue herringbone tweed and embroidered with lovely crewelwork on top.

The coordinating ottoman and pillow are luscious – you can design a whole bedroom around these pieces.

Meeting Bill Sofield was one of the highlights of my recent trip to High Point, NC. This is a guy who earned three degrees from Princeton University – in art, architecture, and urban planning – in four years. He has also designed stores for Gucci, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, Boucheron, and Bottega Veneta. Plus, he decorated Ralph Lauren’s homes in Montauk and Bedford, NY. He’s currently working on the flagship store for Santa Eulalia in Barcelona.

Superstar Architectural and Interior Designer Bill Sofield in his Baker  showroom in High Point, NC, pauses for a moment during the recent fall market. 

What struck me most is that Sofield is such a stealth designer. Take the Bill Sofield collection he designs for Baker. It makes me dream. I look at the Crawford Vanity, for instance, and imagine prinking for glamorous black tie events. (It’s fun to fantasize.) I see refined, thoughtful, high quality design, rather than some designer’s immediately recognizable fingerprint on furniture.

“If I do a really good job, nobody will know I existed,” said Sofield, who has the greatest respect for his clients’ individuality and personalities.

The Crawford Vanity provides storage, and even dips down in the back so that cords will disappear.

“Most of my job is about problem solving,” Sofield said. For instance, people often put their sweaty cocktails down on tables and leave watermarks, so he designed a sophisticated glass bar cart.