Furniture goes to Hollywood

As you have seen before, famous people's names end up selling the most unexpected products. The Boston Globe has an entertaining article about this trend (?) in the furniture business.

"'The home industry is starting to look a lot like Hollywood,' said Kathy Ireland, the former model. She's now CEO of Kathy Ireland Worldwide, her own brand of furniture, rugs, carpeting, and other home furnishings."

One reason for the famed to lend their names to furniture is said to be that this business hasn't been exploited yet in the same way that fashion clothing has. That means it's easier to grab a bigger piece of the cake. The Famous Serial Killers Electric Chair Collection, anyone? No?

This collection is soooooo football

General tips on interior design

Welsh web site icWales offers some general tips on interior design. Basically it boils down to the following:

• Make a plan
• Stick to your plan
• Focus on the most important pieces
• Go for quality
• Keep it simple

Too general? Well read the article yourself. God, do I have to do everything around here? While you're at it, I recommend browsing through the other articles in their home style section. They are a easy read, free from the usual artsiness found in self-absorbed design sites.

All blonde. Except for the woman

Time machine

An entry in Metafilter a while ago about Arne Jacobsen gave an interesting example of when architecture and design is controlled down to the fork on the table. As a homage to Jacobsen the room 606 at the Radisson Hotel in Copenhagen is kept exactly as it was designed in 1960. When I took the virtual tour it is striking to me how dependent we still are on design from this period in time. I wonder, are we going to rehash old design every other decade from now on? Have we reached the perfect design already and the rest is variations on the same theme?

No fluff, just stuff

Interior design in history

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put together an ambitious timeline of art history. It even has segments of interior design such as for example Interior Design in England 1600-1800 A. D. The timeline is a great way to get an overview of all art and influences. Che-che-check-it check it out!

Exquisite! Armchair (bergère en cabriolet) from 1788 by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené

The Dale Earnhardt NASCAR® sofa

The perfect boom boom room sofa is here! Just add a full inch TV set and you're practically inside the car in a roaring NASCAR® lap. Well, it's only polyester, but hey, that's a good thing when you're swinging those beers like crazy with your buddies while watching the race or playing this year's best car game Burnout3.

Honor Dale sitting down


Afraid your kids will love it too much? Throw them a NASCAR® Victory Seat bean bag!

The question is: how do I get up again?

It all comes together

It's obvious that there's a push to converge all media into a center in our homes. Sharp recently announced it's version of that concept. I bet this product takes care of 90% of the Audio/Visual/Computer needs in most homes. From the press release:

"The main A/V unit features a slim, compact deck-like design to provide a new 3-in-1 styling that puts an LCD TV, hard drive/DVD recorder and PC into a single slim package that will complement any room decor."

I must admit it looks good enough. It will be interesting to see what compromises they had to make.

Now we're talking. That monitor could actually double as a TV set.


For you people that like it big, Sharp recently also dropped another living room bomb. From the press release:

"Sharp Corporation has successfully developed a 65V-inch AQUOS LCD color TV, the industry?s first and world?s largest. The TV?s full-spec, high-definition, 6.22-million-dot panel is manufactured at the Kameyama Plant, an integrated LCD TV production facility for complete manufacturing from panel fabrication to final TV assembly."

The consumer product based on this TV is said to be out in 2005. The future suddenly looks a lot...bigger.

Whoa! Make sure your wall is strong enough before you hang this baby up.

Ornament and crime

Ulf Meyer elaborates on the conflicting trends of glamour and mainstream, amongst other things in his interesting article Glamour by design in SFGate.com about the ongoing exhibition GLAMOUR: FASHION, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

A lovely Lovegrove lamp from the exhibition

Duh! It's a virtual house

Anyone who works in an office should be aware of Dilbert, the funniest comic strip there is about the bizarre office world. It's like reading a slightly twisted version of the office were I work. I bet everyone that makes a living behind a desk feels the same as - *sigh* - stupidity seems to be universal.

The maker of Dilbert, Scott Adams, decided to create a virtual home for his character. True to the universal office spirit, "Why make it easy when you can do it the hard way", he made a design based on the ideas of thousands of fans [from the press relase]:

"Adams, in an attempt to create an 'open source' project, called upon his many fans to design an ultimate house. After receiving over 3,000 responses, ranging from the innovative to the absurd, Adams took the most forward thinking, out-of-the box, thoroughly useful house solutions to the engineers and architects of Heartwood Studios. In addition, he enlisted the consultation of PG&E, the primary west-coast gas and electrical company, to receive top energy-efficiency tips."

Though being more of a humorous project it has some interesting real life solutions that make it worth taking the virtual tour.

If I was imaginary I wouldn't hesitate to move in to this imaginary house