Reinventing the hood

One of the most striking visual changes we’re seeing in next-generation kitchens is that ventilation hoods are turning into works of art. That’s not a crystal chandelier in the photo above – it’s a stove hood! Now, I wouldn’t want to be in charge of keeping that puppy clean… but you must admit the concept is very cool! More artistic hood ideas here.

Digital Recipe Access

More and more of us are storing our recipe ideas digitally, but certain things about this can be awkward. Placing a laptop on a kitchen countertop squanders valuable prep space, a touchscreen is not optimal with sticky fingers, and printing a recipe every time you need it is a little wasteful. Designers have responded to these challenges with a wide range of creative solutions – including an iPad stylus especially for chefs (shown right) and a mounting kit for affixing an iPad to a refrigerator or the front of a cabinet door. Don’t have an ipad? Check out this compact recipe tablet instead. Coming soon: LCD screens with full access to the cloud, seamlessly integrated into cabinets and countertops.

Integrated compost

Most urban kitchens were not originally designed to handle compost, and it shows. In cities that have introduced municipal composting, like San Francisco, it’s common to see little plastic bins placed awkwardly next to the sink (often attracting fruit flies), or underneath the sink (edging out the cleaning supplies). Luckily, there’s a better solution available now, and it’s simple and affordable to implement if you’re embarking on a remodel anyway: simply install the compost bin right into the surface of the countertop, as shown in the image to the left. This useful feature is well on its way to becoming standard issue for new kitchens and renovations in the Bay Area.

Multiple cabinet and countertop materials

We Americans do love our big open kitchens… Many two-career couples like to cook together, it can be lovely to socialize with guests across an island, and it’s comforting to keep an eye on your children in the next room while you’re engaged in kitchen tasks. The downside of these big, open spaces is that sometimes they can be visually overwhelming. This is especially true when a kitchen expansion has claimed extra square footage from the original dining room or living room, creating a space that looms out of scale with the house as a whole. Designers are tackling this problem to great effect by mixing and matching materials to ease the visual impact of a large kitchen while maintaining its desired functionality. Check out this ideabook for some inspiration images.

LED recessed cans

In California, energy-efficient fixtures are required by code in kitchens and bathroom. A well-intentioned law indeed, but reality is this: most people don’t like fluorescent lights. Thus, it has become a common practice for homeowners to install the required fixtures, wait for the inspector to leave, and then promptly switch out the dreaded fluorescents for the incandescent cans they desire. Happily, this wasteful practice is about to go by the wayside, because LED recessed cans are starting to edge out both fluorescents and incandescents with their nice quality of light, amazing efficiency, dimmability and ever-lower prices. I recommend these cans from Juno.

(Know someone who’s planning a kitchen remodel? Please use one of the share buttons below to pass along this post!)

Do you love the idea of buying local, but find it hard to forgo the convenience of shopping online? Me too. Which is why I’m super-excited about my latest discovery: shopping local on Etsy.Here’s a quick sampler of holiday gift ideas for you – all under $100, all designed and crafted with love right here in the Bay Area.

Handmade or vintage not quite the right direction for someone on your list? Another easy way to keep your money local (from the comfort of your home) is to purchase a gift certificate for a local restaurant, dance class, full-body massage, hot air balloon ride, or tickets to iFly. Many of these things can be purchased online or over the phone so you won’t have to brave the crowds. Wishing you a truly joyous and peaceful holiday season!

The living wall at left serves as a lush backdrop for an intimate outdoor dining area in Willow Glen. The installation is by Habitat Horticulture, the same company that built the impressive vertical garden at the California Academy of Sciences (below right).

The technology behind living walls was invented by French botanist Patrick Blanc, who has done many spectacular installations all over the world. Perhaps his most famous piece was at the Caixa Forum in Madrid.

A couple of years ago, Drew High School raised funds to bring the legendary Mr. Blanc to San Francisco to design an exterior wall for the school’s new assembly wing. The installation was completed this spring, though it will still take awhile for the plants to fill in completely. Blanc predicts that the wall will reach the full expression of his vision by fall of this year if you’d like to drive by and take a look then (corner of California and Broderick).

Interested in creating a living wall of your own? There are some wonderful “do-it-yourself” kits available now from Flora Grubb and Plants on Walls. Flora Grubb is the mastermind behind the elegant installation at the Bardessono Resort and Spa in Napa (left). Reminiscent of twinkling lights, the panels are quite unusual and have garnered a fair amount of national attention. Grubb has other photos on her website and tips for creating your own living wall here. For some specific plant suggestions, see this article by Laurie Keit for Coastviews Magazine.

The photo montage to the left, by Cris Benton, is a color study of the salt marshes in Fremont. I personally think this piece is gorgeous – I could look at it for hours! Not only because the colors are so vibrant, but also because the composition is so playful and unexpected. This artwork was commissioned by the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge Click here to see it up close.

The image to the right is by Redwood City-based photographer John Harrison. Another great color study – isn’t it amazing that these perfectly complementary color palettes just occur effortlessly in nature?? I think this photo would be a wonderful addition to a meditation room or a zen-like bathroom. Haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open for just the right location. John is brilliant at capturing modern art images of natural settings; and his traditional landscape photos are also amazing. His pictures of Yosemite are some of the best I’ve ever seen.

That delicious buttercup color to the left is actually a close-up of a California poppy with a beetle resting on it. This image is a good reminder to me that sometimes we experience beauty by stepping forward rather than back.  John Wall  has taken some unbelievable close-ups of birds, butterflies and insects; it was difficult to choose only one! His blog is definitely worth a look.

The image to the right is not technically a photograph, but rather a high-resolution scan of plant material collected by John Muir over a hundred years ago. Renowned photographer Stephen Joseph worked with this image carefully in Photoshop to capture the original beauty of the leaves. The image is part of a series called John Muir Botanical Series project – a fascinating mix of art, history and technology. Stephen Joseph is also the author of a gorgeous coffee table book called Muir Woods Forest Meditations, a truly striking collection of landscape photographs from Muir Woods. Some of them almost look like paintings.

Last but definitely not least, the image to the left may look like a blown-glass sculpture but it’s actually a real photograph of a wave by Terry Way. I love this series (actually, I have this particular photograph in my kitchen). Terry is an incredibly versatile photographer, covering all manner of subjects from architecture to nature to weddings. I highly recommend him, he is amazing.

A final note: While I have chosen not to focus on the usual coastline, forest and mountain scenes in this post, all of the photographers mentioned here have calendar-worthy photos in that genre. Click through to their sites to see thousands of beautiful images!

To the left is a Japanese-influenced painting of Muir Beach by Tom Killion. I love his modern take on traditional wood block prints, and his wonderful eye for color. (How beautiful is that color transition over the water?!?)

To the right is an image of California butterflies, part of a series by Peg Steunenberg. I have a soft spot in my heart for these images because I have a butterfly garden in my own backyard… and watching the butterflies flutter around in real life always makes me very happy! I also appreciate Steunenberg’s careful attention to precision and accuracy, because I’m a bit of a geek about this stuff. Maybe it comes from being the daughter on an environmental scientist. (On the inside of my closet door, I have a technical guide to the food plants of caterpillars…)

To the left is a painting of iconic Mount Tam, by my friend Ellen Joseph. This well-loved mountain has been painted so many times that by now, let’s face it – it’s difficult to do it without being trite. Ellen has refreshed the magic of this familiar scene for me by emphasizing the beautiful golden light in the foreground, allowing the mountain itself to function as a quiet backdrop.

To the right is an image of our region’s mystical fog, by Gage Opdenbrouw. I have spent many afternoons on the Coastside looking at a similar scene, and to me this painting really captures its meditative and vaguely melancholy feeling. Overall, I must say that Gage is a master at creating paintings that are easy to live with and look at daily. My client Cindy Farner recently selected one of his aspen images for her master bedroom and it was so lovely that we designed the entire room around the painting.

To the left is an image of afternoon light over the hills of Sonoma, by Warren Bellows. Warren truly has the soul of a healer and paints from a very expanded frame of mind. It’s a quality that really comes through in his artwork, especially when viewed in person. Warren and I used a giclée print of the image shown here in the conference room at CPMC’s Institute for Health and Healing, where it has been very well-received.

If you are looking for additional art ideas, here are some links to local resources. Have fun art shopping!

Art Zone 461

Hang Art

SF Fine Art Fair

Art Span

Headlands Center

Her solution was simple: Containers.

Really? Why hadn’t I thought of that… Come to find out it was stunning how much more organized everything became with only one container per cabinet!  After that, I became a little obsessed with “containerizing” every cabinet and closet in my house. It occurred to me that others might find this little tip very helpful as well, so I’ve asked Jeri to write a short guest post on the topic, and here she is… thanks, Jeri!

I first learned about the value of using containers to organize cabinets and closets when I was dealing with my own collection of spare soap and shampoo bottles. I had them in a cabinet in my garage, in a nice neat row, but it was sure hard to find and pull out the specific bottle I wanted. Then I placed them all in a bin that I could pull out — and this little part of my life got much easier.

Using containers to group similar items helps us easily put our hands on the items we want, and also makes better use of space. Lots of little packages can be put in a bin or basket, so they don’t go missing. Containers can be stacked, where many individual packages don’t stack well. And a container can make it much easier to reach items stored in a hard-to-reach spot, like a corner cabinet or a top shelf.

Have a closet filled with toiletry items? Try using separate containers for groups of products: toothpaste and floss, eye makeup, first aid supplies, etc.

Have an out-of-control pantry? While putting all your bottles and cans in containers isn’t necessary, containers can sure help with the smaller stuff — and with those items that don’t stand up nicely, like pasta bags.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting containers.

1. Try to keep containers only about 75% full. It’s much easier to pull something out and put something away if the container isn’t close to overflowing!

2. When space is an issue, square or rectangular containers make better use of that space than do round ones.

3. You don’t necessarily have to buy new containers — and you can be creative! Shoe boxes and such can work fine sometimes, and you can always cover them with wrapping paper or such to make them prettier, if you wish. I’ve used gift bags to organize someone’s collection of teabags; I have a little bowl that I bought in Thailand that contains the single bags I offer to guests.

4. If you do choose to buy containers, there are more and more green options: products made from recycled materials, for example. And thrift stores can provide a wealth of possibilities.

5. If it’s not easy to see what’s stored in a container, then take the time to label it so you always know what’s inside without pulling it out of the cabinet.

Thanks again, Jeri! For more organizing tips, check out Jeri’s fantastic blog here.

#1 Honor the neighborhood

#2 Conceal architectural flaws. If some aspect of the architecture is ugly or awkward, a strategic color design can minimize the defect. For example, this condominium complex in Sausalito (see right) had a guard rail that had been added in order to comply with new codes. The rail is not attractive to begin with, but painting it teal only calls attention to its ugliness. By replacing the teal with a light neutral tone that flows into the rest of the trim, we were able to make this feature much less prominent, as you can see in the “after” photo below.

#3 Relate to the landscaping. Ideally, home and garden should flow together gracefully, and color is an important key to achieving that sense of flow. If decorative stone or wood elements show up in the landscape design, consider relating to those colors, perhaps selecting one of the richer tones from flowers or leaves as an accent color in your palette.

#4 Highlight the front door, downplay the garage door. Painting the front door a cheerful or dramatic color brings the eye to the entryway, and creates a strong focal point for the home. If the garage door is large and prominently located at the front of the house, consider painting it the body color instead of the trim color. This will reduce the visual impact of the garage door, allowing the front door to dominate instead.

#5 Consider the weather. If your home receives a lot of strong direct sun, rain or ocean spray, very dark or very bright colors may not hold up well. These colors have a tendency to fade and become blotchy, whereas lighter neutrals tend to do better in extreme conditions.

#6 Enhance the moldings. If the exterior of your home is a bit uninteresting, or if moldings are poorly placed, consider revising the layout of moldings and decorative features before you paint. Well-placed moldings create a natural place to break the color for a more energetic exterior palette. Be sure to work within the architectural style of your home! If your home is from the Victorian era, you can find a great selection of period-appropriate moldings at SF Victoriana.

#7 Last but not least – put up a LARGE color sample! It’s amazing how different a color can look in a 3-foot-by-3-foot swatch on the wall instead of that tiny slip of paper from the paint company. It is an absolute must to see the paint color you are considering in natural light at different times of day before you paint the entire house.

Have fun and enjoy this beautiful weather!

Knowing that Nepal has been plagued with child labor problems, I placed a call to the San Francisco showroom representing this brand to inquire whether the rug came with a “no-child-labor” certification. The showroom manager assured me that yes, the rug was certified by an organization called the “Tibetan Rug Labor Certification Company” (TLC). She sent me a photo of the pretty label (left).

I had never heard of TLC before, so I Googled them to learn more about their certification standards and procedures.

No results found.

Hm.

I called the showroom back to ask for some additional information. They said they would have to check with Tamarian and get back to me. Hours later, I received a hastily typed Word document from Tamarian explaining that the pretty label on the rug meant, well, nothing of substance. The purpose of the label was to ensure my “piece of mind.” (Rather an ironic misspelling now that I’m typing up this blog post…)

The following day, I received a phone call directly from the founder and president of Tamarian, Steve Cibor. He apologized for the unprofessional document that had been sent to me, and said it was from someone who was new to the company. “Oh!” I said, “That’s no problem, and thank you so much for the personal phone call. I just wanted to know a little more about TLC. Would you mind sending me something?”

“Unfortunately,” he said warmly, “I really don’t have anything I can send to you.”

Huh? So the top guy at Tamarian doesn’t have so much as a one-page document explaining what their beautifully designed, socially responsible label actually means for consumers?

That seemed a little odd to me. Perhaps it seems a little odd to you.

I asked, “Would you be able to put me in touch with some of the other rug companies that are certified by TLC?”

“I really don’t know who else they work with.”

“Do they work with anyone else besides you?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“May I ask why you didn’t just contract with Goodweave [a legitimate certifying body]?”

“That would have been really expensive.”

Quick sidebar: Goodweave is a human rights organization that is funded in part by charitable donations. The certification cost for manufacturers is only 2.0% of a product’s manufacturing cost; please note – this very modest percentage is applied to a cost that does not include overseas shipping, marketing, advertising, showroom space, import duties, or any of the other expenses incurred by a vendor in order to sell a rug in the United States. If the retail cost of a rug is $2000, the certification fee charged to the rug manufacturer is approximately $10.

Call me crazy, but that seems like a fee that Tamarian could pass along fairly easily to socially responsible consumers. I know I would gladly pay such a fee, and I think virtually all of my clients would be open to paying such a fee in order to ensure that no child labor was involved in a rug they liked and wanted to purchase.

There’s one small catch, though. Goodweave certification is NOT so cheap if your factories require some remediation. That can get pretty expensive. But why would Tamarian care about that if they’re confident their factories are up to snuff?

Let me be very clear about something here: I am NOT accusing Tamarian of human rights violations. They might illegally employ children, they might not. I simply don’t know.

What I do know is this: When an industry leader like Tamarian selects a questionable certifying body to oversee their operations, it is disrespectful to socially responsible consumers, and undermines the efforts of legitimate third-party certifying bodies. Your average consumer simply does not have time to research the manufacturing processes of every company that makes something they want to buy. Consumers rely on third-party certification to help them make decisions aligned with their values. And for third-party certification to work, it needs to mean something.

So let me be the first person to clarify on Google what the “TLC” label means to me: It means Tamarian wants to capture some of my socially responsible dollars, but they do not want to open up their factories to a human rights organization I know and trust. And I am left wondering why that is.

I’ve already communicated to Steve Cibor that I will gladly remove this post from the web as soon as Tamarian either obtains a legitimate third-party certification, or removes the seemingly meaningless TLC label from their products.

April 11, 2011 – Steve Cibor just posted a rebuttal to this post online, in which he acknowledges that he was involved in setting up the TLC as a “third-party” organization and was also its first customer. If the TLC has any other customers, he doesn’t mention them. You can read his post here if you are interested.

#1: Promote Wellness

Intensely creative people have a tendency to get completely wrapped up in what they’re doing – sleeping erratic hours and guzzling caffeinated beverages. Innovative companies provide a buffer against burnout by surrounding employees with an environment that makes it easier to eat well, exercise regularly and stay connected to nature.

Perhaps the most famous example is the sprawling Googleplex, boasting outdoor volleyball nets, accessible gardens, and a variety of restaurants, including a bar serving wheatgrass shots.

Back in ’08, still-fledgling Facebook successfully recruited Google’s executive chef for their new cafeteria, and the blogosphere immediately exploded with theories about the symbolic significance of this event. Was Facebook upping the ante? One blogger wrote, “We’ve seen high-caliber Googlers jump ship to Facebook before, but an executive chef? Just mind-boggling. Facebook must be cooking up something.”  Yup, Facebook was. Less than two years later, they surpassed Google in daily visitors, garnering the honor of “most visited site on the web” in 2010.

Genentech, founder of the biotech industry, has also been a trailblazer in prioritizing wellness. They built an on-site gym before it was fashionable, and continue to promote their restaurant-quality cafeteria (right) as an employee perk. These are only a few of the things that help this innovation giant to consistently make the cut for Top 100 Best Places to Work.

Even museums are seeing the light. The California Academy of Sciences, one of the top research centers in the nation, recently renovated their offices to provide virtually all employees with natural light, fresh air, and lush views of Golden Gate Park.

#2: Encourage Play

If you’re interested in creativity, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about the key role of play. But do you know what sort of environment facilitates play? It’s very simple: toys and games. Pool tables, ping-pong tables, chess boards, video games – fun distractions like these can be found at most of the major hubs of innovation in Silicon Valley. Netflix gets a extra-special gold star for their playful conference rooms – each one with a different movie theme.

#3: Embrace the Bizarre

Believe it or not, merely observing unexpected images may help the brain to relax into new ways of thinking and perceiving. That is the conclusion of this recent study on creativity. In one experiment, scientists showed people images such as a teapot with legs, or a key with a snake coming out of it, and then measured their brain activity. Looking at the pictures activated the same portion of the brain that lights up when people are engaged in creative problem-solving.

Perhaps this is why so many innovation leaders accessorize their office environments with objects that range from the eccentric to the silly to the just-plain-strange… The game room at Pixar features an enormous Alice-in-Wonderland style chair that practically begs visitors to climb up onto it. In a corridor at Twitter, there’s a bright blue plastic deer – for now anyway – it might be something else tomorrow. At Facebook, the letters “HACK” are scribbled in graffiti across one wall. Not your conventional office art.

#4: Foster Collaboration

“The myth of the lone genius achieving one eureka after another in a closed room is a cartoonish, outdated cliché.” That’s the conclusion of a 2009 Steelcase study about creativity in the workplace. Those treasured “eureka” moments, researchers concluded, most often emerge from effective brainstorming sessions.

So what types of interiors support effective brainstorming? IDEO, unsurprisingly, is brimming with ideas on this subject. Their own brainstorming rooms are stenciled with cozy reminders such as: “Encourage wild ideas,” “defer judgment” and “go for quantity.” They favor easel-sized Post-It notes for writing things down (better than a whiteboard because you can shuffle the ideas around). IDEO also stocks a wide variety of art supplies, such as blocks, foam core, tubing and ribbon. Brainstormers use these materials to build crude models of the concepts forming in their brains.

Another design tip from IDEO is to create a dedicated space for observing customers testing a product. Careful observation, they find, can be more useful than customer surveys. When you are actually watching a human using a product, you can see for yourself exactly when and how the product starts to get confusing for them.

#5: Create No-Interruption Zones

While collaboration is vital for innovative thinking, the opposite is also true: People need focused alone time in order to develop their ideas. Jason Fried, author of Rework, says “creative people – designers, programmers, writers, engineers, thinkers – really need long stretches of uninterrupted time to get anything done.” Which is why, he concludes, many creative people feel they have to leave work to DO their work: In a normal office environment, there are simply too many distractions. Designing customized “privacy pods” may be the next big thing in designing for innovation. Stay tuned!

So how does all this relate to the home? Most of these concepts transfer readily to a domestic setting. Keep healthy food in the house – food that’s already prepared, so you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to cook. (Salads from Whole Foods are a handy trick.) Dedicate a spare room to a treadmill or yoga mat if you don’t have hiking trails or a gym nearby. Make sure your home is not too serious – probably not a risk if you have children or pets! Let go of the need for everything to be decorated “just so,” and shake things up with some quirky or even tacky accessories. In my house we have a couple of life-size stuffed tigers that float from room to room. They wear jewelry. Our home is thoughtfully decorated, but there’s plenty of room for eccentricity (or I would go insane). Set up a project table in the garage, and borrow some of those brainstorming ideas from IDEO. Don’t worry if things get a little messy sometimes. Create family rules about privacy and interruption, so you’re able to stay in the flow when you feel inspired. If necessary, set up a stand-alone structure in the backyard so you can escape from the fray.

Most importantly, carve out some TIME to follow your passion wherever it leads! (Time might even more important than space…) Have fun creating!

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions…. Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. Yes, logic may get you from A to B, but Imagination will take you everywhere. Imagination encircles the world.”

~Einstein

Even though I was always doing things wrong, there was something undeniably comforting about being in Hamamatsu. People were incredibly gentle and helpful and sweet. I felt extremely safe everywhere I went, at any time of day or night, even in the big cities. It really seemed like someone was always there to take care of me, from random people on the street who wanted to make sure I wasn’t lost, to the busdriver who wanted make personally sure that I didn’t miss my stop. At my job, two women were actually assigned to the task of making sure the young American woman (me) wasn’t feeling lonely or excluded. Taking care of people is really a team effort in Japan – it’s difficult to grasp until you’ve really experienced it.

Japanese people taught me by example what I never really learned in my own country: how to listen. Listening is exalted so highly that Japanese people actually prefer to listen so well that nothing ever needs to be said.

My heart is breaking for Japan right now. It’s so painful to see all the images of suffering and destruction, and frankly I’m not sure it’s useful to focus on those. I believe one of the most powerful things we can do is to meditate together in a spirit of love and healing. Would you like to join me? If so, I invite you to log on to http://www.doasone.com at 12:00 noon (PST) any day this week. People are gathering from around the world to do conscious breathing exercises for peace and harmony, and many of us are focusing specifically on Japan right now. Tell me if you will be there, as I would love to know you are participating.

Love and light,

Shannon