True to the company name, California-based Kirei USA recently announced a beautiful, new material for 2012 called Windfall. Windfall is an engineered wood panel made with a low-VOC adhesive and lumber from deconstructed buildings in the Pacific Northwest. Its suitable for wall paneling, casework, signage, and other similar applications.
Windfall is available in several colors unfinished, clear, anthracite, mocha, ivory, and leather.
Before her recent book signing at Anthropologie, I met with Grace Bonney, Design Sponge founder and author of the new book “Design Sponge at Home.” What a treat it was! As her thousands of fans have come to know, Bonney is both charming and wise. Here’s what I learned about the woman and her mini design empire.
• Bonney has a staff of about 20—mainly freelancers—working in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Paris, London, and other cities. They focus
Lately I’ve been fantasizing about redoing our bathroom. Whenever I’m in there, I imagine walls moving, the bathtub growing and the sink suddenly doubling itself. This might be because I’ve been clicking around at modernbathroom.com. The site offers a wide selection of bathroom fixtures, sinks, tubs and bathroom vanities. Best of all, you can browse around and find a style that fits you best. I wav
My apologies to readers who’ve wondered if I fell off the edge of the Earth. We’re launching another magazine and I’ve just been too busy to troll. But I’m back now, I hope, with some goodies from the webosphere for you to ponder.
The folks at JC Penney sent me some photos of what’s going on in their stores if you’re looking to refresh your home in little ways. Adding new touches as the seasons change is a great way to make your home feel a little different, particularly important, I think, as we move to cooler days and nights, ie the need for a little coziness gets higher — at least it does on my list! Which of thes
zHome is a contemporary, new, townhome development in Issaquah, Washington. The homes go on sale this month and have received national attention, such as in the video embedded below with the Wall Street Journal. Homes in this community will use zero net energy after considering all energy used and produced during a year and zHome may just be the first townhome project in the country to achieve such a feat.
In order to achieve zero net energy, the project team first sought ways to reduce total energy demand and ended up cutting annual energy use from about 14,000 kWh per year to about 5,000 kWh per year. Next, the remaining 5,000 kWh is offset with solar PV mounted on the roof.
zHomes feature virtually airtight construction, super-insulated walls (26 walls with EPS and a 3 jacket of EPS), double-paned windows, a ground-source heat pump, heat recovery ventilator, hydronic heating, high-efficiency lighting and appliances, and an energy feedback monitor.
Other than energy efficiency and on-site solar energy, zHomes have a rainwater catchment system that reclaims water for use in toilet flushing and clothes washing. Theres also high-efficiency toilets, clothes washers, dishwashers, showerheads, and bathroom faucet aerators.
zHome is developed by Matt Howland and Ichijo USA with the sponsorship of the City of Issaquah and the assistance of Built Green, King County, Port Blakely Communities, Puget Sound Energy, and the Washington State University Energy Program.
How do you see our fair city? Take a look at the work of local photographer Joe Lekas for an Alice-In-Wonderland view of Chicago landmarks. In order to get a surreal richness of light and color that’s not possible in single photographs, Lekas stitches multiple images together into one enhanced print. This picture, taken at the Chicago Rookery, was taken looking up from the bottom of the historic spiral staircase.
