SAN FRANCISCO FALL ANTIQUES SHOW

DONGHIA EXPANDS IN THE US

In 2009, two more Donghia expansions and updates are slated for Los Angeles, the Pacific Design Center (PDC), and Dania Beach, Florida, the Design Center of the Americas (DCOTA).

WHO TURNED ON THE LIGHTS?

Hammerton Lighting and Fuse LIghting have all the watts covered

ROUGH LUXE ISN'T JUST ABOUT FURNITURE

Elegant Slumming
Influenced by the interior design rough luxe movement, fashion juxtaposes fur, feathers and fine fabrics with utilitarian leather, cashmere and wool. Once again is it fashion first, or furniture first? The two are heavily intertwined.

Dwell Magazine October '09 ROUGH AND READY CALIFORNIA

"Regular houses are full of barriers. Even windows are psychological barriers. Here, we slide open the walls and live in direct contact with nature. You can feel the weather in here..."
Check it out this months issue Dwell Mag

New from Pantone

My PANTONE for iPhone and iPod Touch

Who says you can’t take it with you? Not Pantone. Now with the myPANTONE for iPhone and iPod Touch app you have access to a variety of PANTONE® color libraries and the ability to build color palettes and share them with colleagues and clients. myPANTONE offers graphic, web, fashion and apparel designers a way to take PANTONE colors with you wherever you go. Can’t remember what a color looks like, now you can have Portable Color Memory™.

San Francisco Design Center Events

SFDC EVENTS

Designers’ Wednesday Seminar Series
March – November, 2009 … Join us for SFDC’s seventh annual Designers’ Wednesday lunch-and-seminar series for the design professional. Click here for more information.

McGuire Furniture...Fall Sale
Friday, August 21st - Monday, October 19, 2009
SFDC Showplace, 233

Champagne and hors d'oeuvres with special guest Jonathan Lewis, connoisseur of fine rugs from the world over. RSVP at 415-487-9200

Baker Knapp & Tubbs...SALE
Friday, August 28 - Monday, October 19, 2009
SFDC Showplace, 410
Click here

SFDC Design Above All Showcase
September 19 – November 1, 2009
Tuesdays and Thursdays 11 AM - 3 PM
Saturdays 11 AM - 5 PM
One Rincon Hill

Design Above All is SFDC’s dazzling and unique showhouse celebrating luxury high-rise living at One Rincon Hill. This landmark residential tower will showcase the finest of interior design styles, home furnishings and accessories from the San Francisco Design Center showrooms. Tickets are available at the door, at the One Rincon Hill Sales center or online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/70807. $20 general admission (includes valet parking). Ticket proceeds benefit PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support), At the Crossroads and Food Runners.

NEW Furniture Consignment store

VINTAGE MODERN

Is currently under construction at 1825 Eastshore Highway in Berkeley (right
off the University Ave Exit, at the foot of Hearst).
The planned opening date is Nov 15th. Look for additional announcements in the weeks
to come regarding the opening date and how YOU CAN CONSIGN YOUR FURNITURE AND
DECORATIVE
ITEMS TO BE SOLD.

William Switzer New Collection

A Sneak Peak!!

ARTHAUS, SF

October 1 – 31, 2009
OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday evening, October 2nd, from 6 – 9pm
View the exhibition online beginning October 1st
20% of all sales benefit Breast Cancer Action
Torrie Groening, Carol Massa, Paule Dubois Dupuis, Adam Kurtzman, Jan Blythe, Nancy Otto, Kenney Mencher, Joanne Landis, Mustafa Onder, Carole Austin, Felipe Galindo, Andrea Arroyo, Paul Gibson, Erik Butler and Pamela Merory Durnham

SAVE THE DATE FRIDAY 10/9 H2 OPEN STUDIO

STAY TUNED--- COMING NOVEMBER

THE MARIN STORE A ecommerce site in conjunction with Marin Magazine. H2home custom pieces will be available in November: www.themarinstore.com Check it out!

Hershon Hartley for Silk Dynasty

Silk Dynasty has chosen one of our installations of the Porcelain Collection to represent them for an international Ad campaign

Moderne Collection through William Switzer, SF

ANN SACKS takes a new direction

Designed to coordinate with Ann Sacks tile lines and plumbing fixtures

More on the Evolution of Rough Luxe

The Gilded Age is officially over, and though the economy will rebound it seems, in fact, to be rebounding as we write--it is doubtful that the culture of bling will be back anytime soon

The Greening of Grass GRASSCRETE

Grasscrete – A cast-in-place, monolithic, porous concrete pavement that is continuously reinforced to provide superior structural integrity. After the concrete is sufficiently hardened, the voids are filled with topsoil and grass, thus providing a free draining “pavement” with the structural capacity to handle most heavy vehicle loads.

Great for emergency access lanes, delivery access routes, overflow parking areas, and for intermittent drainage channels to help prevent erosion.

Hand painted wall paper with a Modern Twist

San Francisco faux painter Shirley Robinson's new line of sumptuous hand-painted wallpaper is a cross between 18th century one-of-a-kind wall finishes and Andy Warhol's 1960s silk-screen mass-produced art.
Available @ SF Michael Taylor Studios

Hershon Hartley is entered into the Caesarstone Contest

Keep watching to see if our unique applications using Caesarstone win us $$

New Kohler Products

The Indio Cast Iron Sink

ESPRIT, DANSEL, DAMASK

ARTISTIC TILE/CHATEAU COLLECTION

FLEUR

What's Shakin in SF ART

ARTHAUS Put this gallery on your list!

SF DESIGN ABOVE ALL

SFDC Design Above All Showcase
September 19 – November 1, 2009
Tuesdays and Thursdays 11 AM - 3 PM
Saturdays 11 AM - 5 PM
One Rincon Hill

Design Above All is SFDC’s dazzling and unique showhouse celebrating luxury high-rise living at One Rincon Hill. This landmark residential tower will showcase the finest of interior design styles, home furnishings and accessories from the San Francisco Design Center showrooms. Tickets are available at the door, at the One Rincon Hill Sales center or online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/70807. $20 general admission (includes valet parking). Ticket proceeds benefit PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support), At the Crossroads and Food Runners.

Loving the new RH look

FILAMENT CHANDELIER

Some Favorite Rough Luxe Items

RL Home Trunk

Baby Boomers Favor Convenience, Energy Efficiency in New Homes

Source: CUSTOM HOME Magazine
Publication date: September 17, 2009

By Stephani L. Miller

Americans aged 55 and older, members of the Baby Boom generation, would prefer suburban, single-story residences with amenities that provide a convenient living experience, such as high-speed Internet access (a favorite feature) for their later years, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

The "55+ Housing: Builders, Buyers, and Beyond" survey asked homeowners and renters about their current houses and the types of houses, communities, and features they prefer as they age; it also asked builders about the specific features their newly constructed homes offer, as well as how much buyers are willing to pay for them.

According to the survey findings, builders are fulfilling certain consumer interests and needs by, for example, locating homes near community resources such as shopping and medical services. At the same time, builders are increasingly incorporating universal design features (lever door handles, wider doorways and halls, and first-floor full bathrooms among them), which interests few prospective buyers or renters. Although many Boomers cite elements of universal design as desirable home features, they don't seem to consider universal design or accessibility a priority. Ironically, they are interested in nonslip floors, larger medicine cabinets, lower kitchen cabinets, and emergency call buttons, even though fewer builders are providing such features.

Other findings of note include the following:

While in theory, house consumers support energy efficiency and green building, they are unwilling to pay significantly more for green homes.

One-third of consumer respondents would prefer a close-in suburb, while nearly another one-third would prefer an outlying suburb. About 25 percent would choose a rural community, and 9 percent prefer urban centers.

Consumers aren't necessarily looking to downsize their homes as they age; most reported they would like their next home to be the same size as their current home.

Twenty-seven percent of consumers said they are unconcerned about home building's impact on the environment; 23 percent said they are concerned, but that environmental impact will not figure into their home purchases. Only 12 percent of consumers said they would be willing to pay more for an environmentally friendly home.

Ninety-four percent of builders said their buyers want more energy-efficient homes, 55 percent said their buyers are interested in Energy Star-built homes, and 25 percent said their customers want homes with more recycled materials and less materials overall.

Design Drama

Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.

— Joe Sparano

Gotta love all that Hospitality Design in Las Vegas

Fabulous mosaic floors!

The lights are sitting in the "nests" within the tree

Las Vegas Market Week! It's happening now

Rough Luxe

The world of interiors gets a new manifesto

The Rough Luxe movement’s embrace of imperfection is exemplified in the kitchen Bill Sofield designed for a Hudson Valley house, with its Aga oven and reclaimed chestnut floors.
As movements go, it may be too early for this one to have a name, much less a manifesto. But if every new era is at least to some extent a reaction to what came before, then the one now taking shape shows signs of being antiminimalism and antiperfection—a repudiation of the old notions of luxury and the mindless accumulation of more stuff. Rough luxe is, at first glance, a study in Contradictions, an attempt to reconcile the antique or the just plain old with the contemporary, the accumulated with the newly acquired, the decrepit with the pristine. It’s artful dissonance. For those who have come to think of luxury as smooth, shiny, polished, refined and expensive, rough luxe will undoubtedly come off as unfinished, unplanned and somewhat chaotic. But that’s judging by the standards of a Gilded Age that’s officially over, and though the economy will rebound—seems, in fact, to be rebounding as we write—it is doubtful that the culture of bling will be back anytime soon.

The lobby of the Rough Luxe hotel in London with its photo of artists Gilbert and George by Jonathan Root.
Already, in its place, something else has taken hold. You see it in the fascination with found objects and conditions, the race to use unexpected materials in unpredictable ways, and the hunger for vintage and the poetically juxtaposed clothes sent down the runways for fall. Last spring, at Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the design industry’s leading fair, the rough luxe notion was celebrated in pieces such as Piet Hein Eek’s chairs and cabinets made from a patchwork of salvaged—and then highly polished—wood. At Design Miami/Basel this year, all four recipients of the Designer of the Future awards, Nacho Carbonell, Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny, Peter Marigold and the duo Raw-Edges, used irregularities to draw attention to the maker’s hand. In fashion too, the extraordinary was played off the utilitarian: Miuccia Prada’s plush velvet dresses paired with workaday thigh-high waders; Giambattista Valli’s high-drama, floor-length skirt entirely covered in peacock feathers with a staid nubby black turtleneck.

Photographer François Halard’s guest bedroom
To read the rest of the article from Th Wall Street Journal, click here.