Small is Beautiful.

But only if it’s efficient first.  That is the Law in kitchen design.

Generally, downsizing is a good thing – it drives less consumption in many ways:

• cleaning
• furnishing
• heating/cooling
• impulse buying without thinking about storage (we don’t need more STUFF)

Kitchen gets smarter

Unfortunately, a smaller kitchen means rethinking a few things.  Like, how many duplicate cookie sheets, pots, & utensils are actually necessary?  If you’re an avid cook – understandable (also unlikely that you’d have a small kitchen).

Less storage means getting smarter about cooking tools you actually use often.  There are some great options for multiple tools combined into a single tool to save storage space.  And water when it comes time to clean.

1 adjustable teaspoon = 5-spoons-on-a-ring

1 measuring cup = 7 conventional measuring cups

Collapsible measuring cups from Progressive

Collapsible salad spinner from Progressive. Want!

Look no further.

Veronika Miller has created a terrific tool for us modern designers.  It’s called Modenus, & it rocks.  It’s a way to cruise for materials & products, cobble them together in a single place per project if you like, and it’s got a separate face for the consumer and for pros alike.

It’s even got networking features, so pros can collaborate with each other and with consumers.

The Official Press Release:

MODENUS – press release 10/14/10

Immediate release

Online design resource launches – and it’s free!

Modenus.com – a comprehensive product catalog and project management platform for the interior design industry launched this month. The catalog portion of the site is generally open to consumers and design professionals, but verified pros have the added benefit of getting access to a collaborative project manager, pro forums and trade only information posted by manufacturers.

The resource is the brainchild of Veronika Miller, who worked as a successful Interior Designer before turning her attention to digital media. She says designers need better tools to help them work profitably and efficiently  – especially now.

Speaking about the launch, Veronika Miller says:

“No one needs to tell interior designers that times are tougher. We are launching Modenus to help them make the most of challenging business conditions by offering them free tools to work more profitably, a platform from which to network with peers and meet potential clients and a curated catalog of products from the US, Europe and beyond, putting new and exciting resources at their finger tips.”

“But it’s not just about Designers. Manufacturers are entirely free to engage with consumers and designers and can set up distribution channels that best serve their business model. Manufacturers can list showrooms, retailers, E-commerce outlets and even design studios that carry their products to provide the consumer with the most sensible avenue to specify or buy.”

“But our efforts won’t stop at products. We want Modenus to be a bridge that connects designers and consumers across continents. So many design professionals are now prepared to consult virtually or to travel for a great job, why not shake the geographic restraints and use a platform like ours to find a designer, a client or a product anywhere in the world. Business isn’t what it once was but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new opportunities.”

Miller believes that the site can be used by everyone in the interior design industry

Consumers will find amazing products, connect with designers and be inspired by daily design blogs.

Design professionals will explore new global resources, network with peers, feature their work and manage projects on the site’s unique project management application.

Manufacturers will engage with consumers and professionals in discussion forums, showcase their product collections in the curated catalog and communicate with their followers via a direct news feed to registered users who have selected to receive more information.

Have a look for yourself at www.modenus.com or join the team on www.twitter.com/modenus !

What’s good?

Ok, so our first decade of the 21st century began and ended with suck.  Aside from 9/11 and the economic sludge of late, there was personal suck: I was laid off.  Twice.  I lost both my Mom and my Dad.  Was it a total loss? No.

• I met the love of my life, & we married each other on our terms. Finally. 10 years later we remain happy as clams.
• I entered the wonderful world of blogging. Lucky you!
• I discovered how enriching it is to live with yellow labs, & that all cats are not created equal. (Some are actually very cool.)
• I started swimming laps 3x a week. Great release, great exercise. Wish I’d started sooner, but glad I have it now.
• I learned how to drink coffee.
• Star Wars came out.  Oh, wait.  That was 3 decades ago.  It’s still awesome, though.
• I met some fantastic designers in the residential kitchen industry thanks mainly to twitter.

Next!

Repairing our planet.  It’s the biggest & most challenging mission humanity has on its plate.  It’s also THE ultimate design puzzle to solve.  We will have to find our own roles in that puzzle.  If we do it with passion, we’ll solve multiple problems at the same time. Fortunately, there are role models.

Wangari Maathai is inspiring to me. & she has a new book out! She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, among other things.

Only way is up

Solving a puzzle sounds much more fun than drowning in gloom and despair.  We may as well do some good while we’re here.  Don’t you think?

*#letsblogoff is a group blogging effort every 2 weeks that answers a question posed by Paul Anater, the maniac that started the blogoff epidemic. To see other insightful & entertaining responses to this edition’s question, Is There Reason to be Optimistic?, click the letsblogoff button at the beginning of this post, & enjoy.*

More like: Realistic Expectations

If you’re about to embark on a remodeling project in the home you’re living in, knowing realistically how the process is most likely to go will:

• minimize (if not entirely eliminate)  ulcers, headaches, and meltdowns
• help sustain your sense of humor
• enter the family history log as an adventure rather than a catastrophe
• enable you to continue to enjoy alcohol as a recreational beverage, as opposed to an addiction
• prompt greater appreciation for home as your private sanctum

Bumps & warts

We do our best to reduce the number of potential surprises before the first deconstruction hammer hits the site.  That being said, no designer can foresee all possible conditions of a space that may affect the speed or sequence of a project’s execution.

Here are a few things we have encountered on every installation we have done to date:

• Floors that are not level – doesn’t matter how old or new the existing structure is. Unless we’re working in an R&D lab where gravity & stability are extremely important, no floor is 100% level. Ever.
• Walls that are not fully square or plumb – same as above
• Departure from cabinet size and/or placement mid-installation is expensive and will delay and frustrate all fronts of an installation – pushing it around on paper is MUCH cheaper and easier than in 3D

And here are some things we have only encountered once or twice on an installation:

• Unnecessary damage to our cabinet installation by other trades – once, a ceiling contractor walked on all of our cabinet bases that had no countertops yet.  His body weight compromised the non structural components on 4 cabinets, which we had to reinforce to restore their integrity. Translation: $$$
• Water damage.  We pulled some old base cabinets out for a remodel, which revealed floor rot from an old leak.  It was about a 3′ by1′ stretch of subfloor & sill plate we had to refurbish prior to the new cabinet installation.
• Incomplete trade prep work.  We arrived for a new cabinet installation one morning to find that the plumbing supply & waste lines were not shortened & capped.  The valves & p-trap were still happily poking out of the wall, instead of straight, capped lines which we neatly feed through holes we drill in the backs of new sink cabinets.  In this case, there was no time to get a plumber out to properly cap the stubs, so we ended up installing the sink base cabinet with no back.  Not a big deal since it had cabinets on either side of it stabilizing it, but when they open the cabinet they get to see the ugly wall under the sink.

The Ordinary Process

There’s a great post today over at Daily5Remodel about the normal conditions under which a remodeling process happens most often.  It has a nice pre-construction letter by Meadowview Construction in Georgetown Mass. that really prepares the homeowner’s expectations in line with a garden variety remodel experience.

Preparation & realistic expectation are key to flexibility when things do get a little sideways (and they always do, it’s just a matter of the degree of sideways-ness.)

Induction cooktops, microwaves, ice makers, autoclaves

Ok, so maybe not autoclaves.  No doubt, all of the above improve how we get things done in a kitchen. They make surface heating more efficient, save time, and free us of multiple steps.

But how far should it really go?

There’s a pill for that

When I was in my 20′s I couldn’t have cared less about cooking, recipes, eating in, or worst of all, figuring out what to have for dinner.

Actually, I spent the least amount of time in the kitchen then. Unless it was to get another beer out of the fridge, or heat up last night’s pizza.

I wished for a food replicator on more than one occasion: simple, quick, done!

It’s the ride, too

Now, when I have the time, I enjoy concocting new things to eat. It makes the kitchen smell great. It has made me try new foods & drinks.  Who hasn’t loved walking into the house Thanksgiving Day & smelling dinner for hours before you actually eat?

I’ve long believed in the cathartic benefits of making things.  Meals and drinks are no exception. In fact, the fewer ingredients, the more fun it is to come up with something palatable.

We were low on food during our beach trip, & didn’t want to order or go out.  So I crushed some pistachios & sprinkled them over a layer of cream cheese on a cracker.  I officially named that little experiment Business on a Cracker, by the way. We still make it – even when we’re not short of ingredients!

As I type this, a frozen chicken & cheese burrito is in the microwave. When I don’t have time – or don’t feel like it – I’ll take a shortcut as quickly as the next guy.

I have a brain, thanks.

Recently there were several blogposts about Ikea’s vision for the kitchen of the future.  Researchers polled 1,895 people aged 18 to 65-plus years old in the United Kingdom, including Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland about their opinions of kitchens of the future. Their conclusion? It will be

• sustainable,
• energy efficient,
• ergonomic,
• responsive to health & moods, and
• reduce user involvement in food prep & cleaning.

We’ve been working hard on those first three, especially in the last 5 years.  And I can totally see the benefits of nutrition guidance and cleaning assistance.

But I don’t think that user involvement should be reduced in food prep, & I definitely don’t want something thinking for me based on my biorhythms & lingering road rage.

We are what we balance

Food is one of the strongest & most important connections we have to the Earth.  We watch our garden each year, eagerly looking for that first tomato, waiting for the lettuce to get big enough to pluck a few leaves, cheering on the ladybugs, and cursing the rabbits. We nourish it. Then it nourishes us.

Every spring I watch the calendar for the availability of strawberries & blueberries. In the fall, it’s apples and squash. In winter, the farmer’s market is a treat for eggs and locally raised meats.

All of that comes to the same place: the kitchen. Then, we clean it & store it & plan how to eat it & when.

In times where we feel we have so little control over life, we should always have the ability to choose what/how/when we eat. We shouldn’t relinquish this earth connection to machines – unless we choose to for that situation.

Once Upon a Tweet

I once tweeted that unless we all live naked in the woods, grow our own food & never go anywhere, nothing we do is 100% green.

Boy did that one stir it up, as some interpreted it to mean that we shouldn’t bother doing *anything* greenly. My point was not that we shouldn’t try to be green, but that being 100% green 100% of the time is not possible.

In other words, green-ness is a continuum. Like a sliding scale on which some things are minimally impactful, & others – not as much. It’s always a compromise, and everything we do touches this planet and all its systems.

Is it green enough?

In Lori Dennis’ new book, Interior Green Design, she describes her design practice using that same approach. One litmus test she uses in her design process is asking the question, “Is it green enough?”

To help answer that question, 2 checklists are used:

Client checklist (partial):

• taking a look at their health & whether chronic ailments are attributable to their indoor environment
• whether reusing furniture and materials is an option and/or desire
• whether natural light can be leveraged to minimize artificial light needed
• site considerations like water collection & supply, & indigenous plants

Product checklist (partial):

• locally produced
• minimally impactful to the environment (is it from renewable sources?)
• quality that will last a lifetime
• whether the manufacturer accepts responsibility of the product at the end of its life

Comprehensive, practical, easy on the eyes

Lori’s book is a must-have for any earth conscious designer of residential spaces. It touches everything pertinent to environmentally sensitive design practice. From types of glues to what kind of plants clean the air best to which kind of foam in seat cushions are non-toxic.

In the photo at right, the bed was made from reclaimed railway ties. Photo is by Ken Hayden.

It’s packed with links & resources for further reading, & has some entertaining anecdotes & quips, to boot! And, she shares a secret that in every project she does, she includes something from IKEA!

She even has a chapter for ongoing care, not only the space itself but the furnishings within it. How awesome is it that she explains

1. How to get quality furniture that doesn’t poison the earth or us, &
2. Then enlightens us on how to maintain them – also responsibly?!

It matters, folks.  I let my gray hair come back after years of coloring it. I couldn’t live with what I was washing down the drain just for my own vanity.

Available November 16 2010

Thanks, Lori, for reaching out to me & giving me a sneak peek, and opportunity to write a review for you.  I’ll definitely be reaching for this one off the shelf before grabbing the LEED guide.  Yours is WAY more fun to peruse & reference!

Lori Dennis is a LEED AP designer & a graduate of UCLA’s interior design program. She also sits on the National Sustainable Council of ASID. You can follow her on twitter here: @greendesigngal

My wife looked at me and said, “I think it is a little too Victorian.” She was talking about a print I was holding up for her in our dining room. She is on a mission presently to re-do all of the curtains in our house.

And . . . truth — I don’t know if she has *ever* actually said anything like that to me.  You see, she is way into Victorian stuff, and that bit above was really only needed for the spinning my blog posting here. Our dining room is in fact fairly Victorian.

But again it happened, just last week — as we were playing with kitchen backsplash layouts, she turned to me – and we both said almost simultaneously (*jinx*), “*That* is way too rustic . . . (the ‘for this room’ implied).” And how did we both come to say something like that?

I wonder too how frequently situations like this have occurred – perhaps my mother, or better yet my grandmother, and at some point in the past — turned to my grandfather and said, “I love our new metal cabinets (and yellow); they are so modern!”

And would those have been the words she would have used?  I mean — what exactly did that adjective communicate . . . then.

Now imagine a conversation over flooring in some showroom . . . somewhere, and not in the too distant future maybe, a wife responding to a husband’s enthusiasm. He was staring at a laminate or some other builder’s grade base hardwood – gunstock maybe.  She says – “Well, I was really looking for something a little more – well … ecomod.” And what would that then mean?

OK – I think you know where I am going here.  I have been talking about context, idiom and of course communication.  We use words to convene on a “shared understanding” — as in this case often on “context” and/or as a simple means of comparison. For my wife and I above, I mean — the question really was “Does it fit (here)?”

And I ask — are things inherently Victorian or Modern, Deco or maybe even as I suggest ecomod – words conveying a sense of well “sense” and representing qualities.  Some of this language is passed (and a discussion I guess for another time) down from the academics – the capitalization of words such as Victorian, Modern, Deco and so on - a giveaway.

Now  – maybe I am out of line here — I really have no background and I’m just chucking this stuff out.  But to me it seems that when we in the populus use these words we are speaking of context.  Context communicated in terms of element x to – a. the house (aka the architectural unit), b. the home (the décor and finishes), c. a room, or d. even another mere detail.

At least these were the considerations we made, historically….the only things we had to consider.  Now think about it – ecomod (read: Ecological modern (small m)) – maybe something that just always fits and more grassroots.  Modern and especially in the sense that our minds *now* are focused on a more sustainable way of building.  Becky – this blog’s host (as you probably know) crisply defines it here.

And a new layer in my contextual hierarchy — house, home, room, detail, and now . . .  planet, right? What I mean — Are (architectural) elements . . . be it lighting or stain or tile or counters – produced, designed for and installed with that “new” consideration in mind –  our ecosystem — you know, the earth and everything that is on it.

And it really has a ring to it. No? And one day soon perhaps, my wife turns to me and says . . . of our recycled glass backsplash – “I love it! It is so ecomod!” Neither too Victorian nor too rustic — rather just right.

******

Thanks to Becky for asking me to post. It was a fun little exercise. jb

Photo Credit: glass.terrazo by OrphanJones via Flickr photostream — http://www.flickr.com/photos/orphanjones/

*editor’s note: Thanks to the ever thoughtful JB of Building Moxie for posting with us! You can find him posting articles at http://www.buildingmoxie.com/ regularly.*

I like the larger ratio of aggregate to field in this chunky countertop from Enviroglas. Photo by Alan Klehr.

Editor’s note: this post is one of a series in which several bloggers weigh in on a given topic every couple of weeks. For more blog entries, click the button at right for a complete list of participating writers.

10 years this month.

I started my first blog in October of 2000. I’d been following the kids who wrote Blogger, & was reading their blogs & thought it looked fun, so I jumped in.

Back then, most blogs were basically personal diaries, & mine was no exception. They had anecdotes on everything from

• weekend hiking trips,
• the latest grilled fish dinner success,
• crafty projects,
• dog/cat/fish updates

At the time I was also trying to figure out how to apply blogging in a business setting.  It was such an immediate way to get information to many eyeballs without clogging up their inboxes. It was also a way to have multiple authors in a single format.

Inspiration Log

While it took  along time for the corporate blog to really take off (posting project updates without divulging industry secrets), other public applications seemed both more interesting and more useful. Mine became a mixture of design finds that inspired me:

to quirky sciencey projects:

Today, I blog about kitchen design (my business), and things related to kitchens, including responsible food sources, composting, recycling, & urban life.

Are blogs important? Influential?

To the authors? Always. To the readers? Sometimes. To the subscribers? More often than not (we all have ‘off’ days).

Do bloggers deserve to be credited? Yes, when credit is due. Nobody cares what someone had for dinner or about the hairball the cat yakked up this morning.

It’s really more about whether blog content is helpful, news breaking, or just plain entertaining. The unfortunate reality about web publishing is that it’s free (to anyone with an internet connection). Which means anyone can publish anything (largely noise), and anyone can read it (consumption) & apply as they see fit.

The cool thing about blogs is that the playing field is leveled for information sharing. Pretty amazing that I’m still doing it 10 years later. & I’m not even among the oldest bloggers: I know of at least 2 who started in the late ’80′s!

That being said, I shall close with a cat picture!

Reclaimed cork & laminated birch divan by Trevor Oneil