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Designer Monthly Preview

The woman who helped usher the interior design industry into full flower in the United States was prolific in putting out ideas that will help freshen up today's interior design business. Look at our latest Designer Monthly, Interior Design: Look Forward by Looking Back to Dorothy Draper.

Did you ever have a problem designing small spaces?  Take a look at how top interior designers solved this common problem in our latest Designer Monthly, How to Design Small Spaces at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House.

 

 

 

 

Friday
Oct052007

Watch Sheffield’s Jennifer Ellen Frank On TLC!

This just in: the Sheffield School's own Feng Shui advisor, Jennifer Ellen Frank, will be appearing on TV this weekend, on TLC's  "Please Buy My House." She was called in as a consultant to make the home in question more salable, using her considerable Feng Shui savvy. 


And I'll tell you this much: the house sold. So she must know something. Probably, she knows a lot. 

You can catch it on Saturday at 8 and 11 pm on TLC. Maybe I'll be able to pick up a few pointers.

Monday
Oct012007

Everything Happens At Once

As the physicist John Archibald Wheeler said, “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once,” and yet, when it comes to décor and design, it seems everything does happen at once, and now that I’ve decided to go ahead and get started on fixing the electric mess in my apartment, Seddy’s sister has returned from the netherworld and contacted me. 

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Wednesday
Sep262007

Go Green in your Home

Everyone around has been pushing: conserve, conserve, conserve! Save the environment. Be green. And you probably have done your share - you recycle; you take public transportation; and you switched to compact fluorescents but now you’re stumped. What else can I do, you ask?

Well, Home Magazine has undertaken to answer just that in their Good & Green Show Home recently produced at Grand Central Station in New York City. The G&G Show Home displayed the latest in environmentally friendly building products and home appliances. So before you go out there and buy appliances or renovate your home – consider the following.

Besides buying those energy-efficient appliances with the Energy Star label on it – consider these types of appliances. The inductor cooktop by Kenmore uses electromagnetic energy – which allows faster heating while using less energy than the conventional gas or electric cooktop. Also look at single drawer dishwashers if you don’t wash too many dishes. Single drawer dishwashers use up less water and consume less electricity.

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Tuesday
Sep252007

Waiting For Godot…

Thanks to Alexia for that great take on LEDs. Anything that is not only green, but also allows one to feel like a diva in bed (or, really, anywhere) is okay by me.  

Me, I have not been feeling very diva-like, ever since getting that estimate from the electrician. In fact, I’ve been sitting here looking forlornly at the estimate, trying to screw up the courage to pick up the phone and call him, and tell him okay, come on over, break the bank. I’ll sell the cats, if I have to. Because I keep working backward, thinking, every time I come into the living room, that I really must get a new wall color, and that of course leads me back to the fact that first I have to take care of the dreadfully dull task of the electrical work. 

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Thursday
Sep202007

Light My Mood

I’ve always envisioned my life as if it were were a Broadway musical. People I greet will break out in song; I’d sing along in perfect harmony. A man worthy of Baryshnikov will take my hand and we’d dance through the streets. Lights will wink at me as if sharing a secret joke and transform into a rainbow of colors depending on my mood. Now it looks like if one of my dreams is coming true. About time!

L.E.D.s or light-emitting diodes are coming soon into your home and my home. They’ve been around for a while – found mostly in retail signs and the odd industrial toy. Sometimes I see them under the kitchen cabinet of a renovated gourmet kitchen. They still seem out of reach to me or just some flashy feature on a gadget.

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