Floor Plan

Floor Plan: Fashion Designers Focus Their Stylish Ideas On Rugs
FRAN GOLDEN
1 May 2007

You admired hip designer Nanette Lepore’s peacock-patterned dresses, but they were so three years ago. Now you can resurrect the pattern for your floor.

Lepore has joined a growing list of fashion designers — Calvin Klein and Liz Claiborne (with Nourison), Oscar de la Renta (with elson & co.), Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith, Diane von Furstenberg, Lulu Guinness (with The RUG Company) — all translating their passion for fashion design to floor coverings.

Lepore recently introduced a bold-patterned area rug with her peacock design for the Doris Leslie Blau carpet gallery in New York. The gallery also in early March unveiled two nautically inspired rugs designed by Tommy Hilfiger (one blue with white anchors, the other navy with a red chain-link pattern).

In a phone interview, Lepore said she was approached by the carpet folks and is happy she did the project, especially since she now has one of her rugs in her own living room.

“The way it transformed my living room with color and a bold pattern, it would be fun to do more of that,” the designer said. In fact, she’s considering designing another rug for her pool table area that the public may see in stores someday.

What do those in the world of interior design think about fashionistas stepping in?

“I believe good design is good design and a good designer is a good designer,” said Thom Filicia, best known as the design expert on the television series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

Filicia, who has also designed for celebrity clients including Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony through his New York firm, Thom Filicia Inc., said the important thing in interior design is understanding people’s lifestyles, something fashion designers do well.

“A good designer can transcend from the area they are focused on into other areas and do it very successfully,” Filicia said.

But would he recommend consumers start buying area rugs based on what’s in their wardrobes?

Filicia said he wouldn’t go that far. Still, he has a new show on the Style Network called “Dress My Nest” in which he will use fashion as a springboard to help folks figure out interiors.

“I do think there’s a relationship. Saying you want to match your house to your clothes is too literal, but clothes do indicate your point of view, your aesthetic,” he said.

“Young and hip or traditional or conservative, you can tell when you see someone,” Filicia added. “And you get color from people’s wardrobes.”

Filicia will also soon launch a series of seminars in U.S. cities as spokesperson for Karastan carpets. His big advice: Designing from the floor up is a good start.

“When they (his clients) don’t know where to begin, I tell them to start from the rug, in terms of colors and what sets the tone, whether classical or modern or whatever.”

And yes, he foresees having his own rug line (in addition to furniture and bedding), but not for a year or two.

Designer Lepore said what appealed to her about designing rugs was that rug patterns have a longer shelf life.

“People don’t change their homes as much as they change their closets,” she said.

As for the trend of fashion designers stepping into rug design, she said, it brings “a fresh eye” and new brands that will create more interest.

Julie Rosenblum, brand manager for Nourison, the manufacturer of the Calvin Klein and Liz Claiborne carpets, agreed.

“In this day and age, people associate certain looks and concepts with fashion designers,” Rosenblum said. “It’s reaffirming to the consumer that the product has a point of view and they understand that point of few.”

Rosenblum said she suspects more fashion designers will introduce area rugs, and that’s a good thing. “It brings rugs to the forefront. They (the consumer) may not know who the manufacturer is. What they know is there’s a line by that designer. It takes the business to a whole new level.”

Source

Phi Design Arrangements Prove Calming, Inviting

Partners Rearrange Furniture, Accessories In Clients’ Homes
By Mary Beth Breckenridge
April 6, 2007

For centuries, a mathematical concept called phi has fascinated artists, architects and mathematicians and more recently, readers of “The Da Vinci Code.”

It’s a ratio, an aesthetically pleasing proportion of one length to another. It’s the basis of much of the artwork of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo, the pattern of many parts of the human body and the reason Athens’ famous Parthenon has endured as an architectural icon.

The partners in a Stow, Ohio-based interior redesign company have caught the phi bug, too. In the last year, they’ve rebuilt their business around the concept and are redecorating clients’ homes based on what is sometimes called the golden ratio or golden section.

Their business, Phi Design, specializes in interior redesign, which means partners Elizabeth Feeney and John Hively rearrange the furniture and accessories their clients already own. The twist is that they’re marketing their use of math — specifically, phi — in figuring out exactly where those items should go.

Phi, they say, yields interiors that are more calming and inviting than any arrangement they could devise themselves.

“We like to say we take beauty from the eye of the beholder to every eye beholding,” said Hively, a retired certified public accountant who is the mathematician to Feeney’s designer.

Phi is a highly specific proportion, one our brains are wired to prefer, said Timothy Norfolk, a mathematics professor at the University of Akron, Ohio, with whom Feeney and Hively consulted. “There’s something biologically pleasing about these patterns,” he said.

Phi shows up frequently in nature as well as in art and architecture. It’s the ratio of the length of your forearm to your hand, for example. It’s the ratio of the ever-increasing widths of the segments of a spiral seashell. It’s the ratio of the width of the Parthenon to its height.

Think the proportions of Michelangelo’s “David” are pretty close to perfection? Thank phi.

It’s also a concept that interior designers study in their basic course work, said Pamela Evans, coordinator of the interior design program at Kent State University. A good interior designer — one who’s trained in design, not just a decorator — will incorporate phi into the proportions of a room, she said.

Hively and Feeney use the ratio to calculate the best placement for furniture, pictures and other objects in the rooms they redecorate. They’ll measure a distance — say, the length of a wall — and then determine what they call the “phi cut,” the dividing point where the two sections are in perfect proportion. That’s where they’ll position an armoire, a chair or some other item.

Feeney, a former designer at Akron’s Marvin Interiors, has been involved in interior redesign for three years. (She and Hively previously worked together in Phi Design’s predecessor business, Room Renaissance.) Before she came across the concept of phi, she was continually applying her redesign skills to the combined living and dining area in her own condo in Stow, she said.

Even with all that rearranging, though, she said she never could get the feeling of the space quite right.

It wasn’t until she and Hively applied phi that the room finally came together. “I haven’t moved this furniture for months,” she said.

The two started their redesign with a round pedestal table that had belonged to Feeney’s aunt, a piece that was important enough to her that she wanted to build the room around it. They measured the distance from one wall to the fireplace hearth, then placed the table at the phi cut between those two points. An armchair went at the phi cut between the round table and the wall. They measured the length of the room; one end of the sofa was positioned at the phi cut of that distance.

And on they went, using phi to position the most important pieces in the room. Then they relied on Feeney’s artistic sense to accessorize, although in some cases, they even used phi for that. A vignette they created on the fireplace mantel out of an old frame and some treasured heirlooms is perfectly proportioned according to phi.

The ratio is unforgiving, Feeney said, because there’s only one right dividing point for any given measurement. But in placing a piece, she and Hively often have a number of measurements to choose from, she noted.

If a chair doesn’t work at the phi cut of one wall, for example, they might try an adjoining wall. Or perhaps they’ll measure the space between two architectural features rather than the entire wall. Often they’ll search their clients’ homes for items from other rooms they can incorporate, but only if they’ll work in the proportions of phi.

Some items, such as pianos, can’t be moved to comply. In those cases, Hively and Feeney will put something next to the item in the proper phi position to make the whole composition correct.

One of the reasons phi works, Feeney said, is it results in arrangements with a pleasing kind of asymmetry.

When we look at something, our eye is drawn to what’s wrong, she said. So when we look at a symmetrical arrangement, we notice any mistakes that exist.

If what’s “wrong” with an arrangement is its asymmetry, however, that’s what we notice. Because the arrangement is supposed to be that way, our brains like what they see.

Feeney first heard of phi from a friend at her church. She didn’t think much about it, though, until the woman sent her the address of a Web site that delved into the concept.

What she learned intrigued her. “It was beyond me,” she said, “but I knew it had a place in design.”

She and Hively talked to Norfolk, the math professor, as well as to architects, designers and other mathematicians. They spent seven or eight months researching phi before creating Phi Design, a business they introduced at the recent Akron Home & Flower Show.

Feeney has become so adept at using phi that Hively said she can find a correct position for an item almost instinctively. He’ll measure, and invariably she’ll be within an inch or two of the right spot, he said.

Source

Homes Under Remote Control

Turning Switches, Knobs Becoming Thing Of The Past
By Joe Robinson
April 2, 2007

Erica Salisbury doesn’t like coming home to a shadowy cave at night, and now she doesn’t have to. By clicking a mouse from any computer, anywhere, or by triggering a remote sensor, she can illuminate her house like a stadium before reaching the front door.

“The whole house lights up,” says the mother-to-be, who with husband Ben has made the leap to a digitally integrated home. “That’s important for me because I don’t like being in the dark.”

The Salisburys of Porter Ranch, Calif., are not the only ones leaving the Dark Ages of knobs, dimmers and switches flipped by hand. Thanks to the burgeoning home-automation business, couch potatoes can turn up the heat, turn down the air conditioning, shut off an oven, check a security camera and scroll through their DVD or music library without moving a calf muscle.

New technology also allows them to personalize these functions from wherever they happen to be via the Web or cell phone, ushering in the era of the house you can take with you. Call it the iPad.

“It’s definitely grown,” Pat Hurley, tech analyst for Richmond, Va.-based consulting firm TeleChoice, said of the trend, citing the number of businesses entering the field.

“The digital home is absolutely happening,” said Will West, chief executive of Control4, the Salt Lake City-based manufacturer of the Salisburys’ system. “We can see it in the music we’re listening to, we can see it in our televisions and more devices coming online and into your home.”

How does it work? Installers connect your house’s electronic and digital devices to a command center, a hard drive that looks like a stereo receiver and can stream music, store movies and manipulate security cameras, among other functions. All can be activated by a remote control, wall keypad, off-site computer via the Web or cell phone.

“You don’t have to run around to turn on music in each room and all the lights,” said Jon Blanchard, who runs Vantage Studio, an audio-video and interior design company in Beverly Hills, Calif., which installs home-automation systems. “It’s one button, and you’re done.”

The dream of the smart home has teased the popular imagination for years: sci-fi novels, “The Jetsons,” the Clapper light switch of as-seen-on-TV fame (“Clap on! Clap off!”). But control-freak nirvana is finally attainable with new Wi-Fi technology that makes it affordable for someone other than a potentate or marquis.

Until recently the price tag for home-automation systems ranged from $30,000 to $50,000 and kept the industry stagnant, said Kurt Scherf, a market researcher at Dallas-based Parks Associates, which studies emerging technologies.

These days a slew of firms, such as Control4, are automating homes for $3,000 to $15,000. Best Buy Co. rolled out a $15,000 system called ConnectedLife.Home, which allows you to manage light switches, the thermostat and security cameras by remote control on a high-definition TV. Motorola Inc.’s Homesight and AT&T Inc.’s Remote Monitor allow you to view video, monitor door and window sensors or turn on lights from a Web-enabled phone.

No wonder the home-automation business is expected to double in sales to nearly $6 billion in the next four years, said Scherf.

For those drowning in a flood of unread user manuals for digital devices, the prospect of a total tech home invasion may prompt plans for padded walls. Many of us, after all, would rather have a root canal than program our TiVos or, for true Luddites, the VCR. The biggest challenge of the smart home may be the dumb way user interfaces have been designed.

“Ease of use is still the major issue for most of the technology we write about,” said industry analyst Hurley, co-author of “Smart Homes for Dummies.”

Usability was a prime concern at the Salisbury house. The couple had seen friends and family struggle with the complexity of expensive systems, so they wanted something affordable that they could use without a live-in Nobel laureate engineer.

In the living room of their new home, Erica and Ben demonstrate their system with a single Control4 remote. If you mess up, the red “4″ button takes you back to the main menu.

The opening screen looks decipherable enough. A few icons float on the couple’s 63-inch plasma TV screen listing lights, comfort, videos, TV and music.

“Everything’s right there,” said Ben, who runs a real estate company. “I go to music, hit that. Then all the albums come up, and I just pick one.”

The media features will be familiar to anyone with an iPod. Ben can choose individual songs or highlight an album and start playing it. He also can build playlists. He clicks on an album cover, and the Goo Goo Dolls are instantly rocking the house. He can add other rooms in which he wants the music to play or have the sound rumble from all speakers.

The movie interface is equally logical and a big selling point for Ben. Now he doesn’t have to mount a search party when he wants to find a film from his collection of 500 titles. The command center functions as a home-theater library, organized by genre — comedy, action — and by director.

“I watch stuff and listen to stuff more now because it’s up there, as opposed to having to go find it on my rack,” he said.

Asked to demonstrate how to dim the kitchen lights, however, Erica tries gamely but gets stumped on where to go.

“I have to be honest, I don’t use the light function that often,” she said, laughing.

It turns out she doesn’t need the plasma display anyway. She can control any light from her remote control or touch panels scattered around the house. Or from a computer.

Matt McKenna, owner of Semaphoric Smart Homes, which did the installation and programming for the home, turns down the kitchen lights and adjusts the temperature in the room from his laptop.

“They could be doing this from New York,” McKenna said. “It gives you full control of all functions you have in your house online.”

- – -

Cost of convenience

$6 billion

Estimated sales in the home-automation business in next four years, according to Kurt Scherf, market researcher at Dallas-based Parks Associates, which studies emerging technologies.

$3,000 – $15,000

Price range that home-automation company Control4 charges to outfit a home.

$15,000

Cost of Best Buy Co.’s system, called ConnectedLife.Home, which allows users to manage light switches, the thermostat and security cameras by remote control on a high-definition television.

Source

Interior Design Regulation

State should regulate who’s an interior designer; it’s a matter of safety
By SUSAN K. BALLARD, GINNY CALDWELL, ANNE G. DABBS and KATHERINE SETSER
Friday, 03/30/07

New Mexico has a problem. So does Tennessee. The law regulates the title of interior design without regulating the practice. The solution, however, is not to open the interior design field to all, as columnist George Will recently suggested. The remedy is to practice restriction.

On this, the courts are very clear: Where health and safety are concerned, the public deserves the right to distinguish between qualified and unqualified practitioners, just as it does in the medical, architectural, engineering and other professions. It is not an issue of “decorator” vs. “designer.” It is not “designer” vs. anyone. It is simply an issue of life safety.

New construction and renovation projects generally involve licensed architects, engineers and others, including interior designers. Drawings are reviewed by building departments, and projects are visited throughout construction for regulatory compliance. However, much change is made to interior space without code compliance review or the involvement of licensed design professionals.

Interior space content — finishes and furniture — is continually selected and installed outside of new construction or major renovation because of changes in ownership or tenancy, wear and tear, updating and reconfiguration of furniture. Often, these changes require no building permit and no oversight.

Yet interior finishes and furniture often determine the ability of occupants to get out safely in a fire or other emergency. The NFPA, creator of the Life Safety Code, considers interior content a critical element in lessening a life-threatening condition. In assembly occupancies, it is more important than on-site fire protection (sprinklers/alarms/fire extinguishers), more important than the exit path (number, location of exits/emergency signage and lighting).

Ignition of interior materials is responsible for more than 700 fires per month in public spaces, totaling 23 deaths, 330 injuries and $399 million in direct property damage annually. Still, much of this work can be specified by anyone who wishes to call himself or herself an interior designer, qualified or not.

All the while, the public assumes these spaces are safe.

Qualified interior designers are trained to understand interior material properties, including flammability and toxicity, and are skilled in selecting materials that meet or exceed code requirements.

It sounds absurd that Nevada requires a licensed professional to place any piece of furniture over 69 inches tall, but those pieces — or more likely, a sea of tall systems panel walls — can obstruct views of exit signage or otherwise impede the emergency exit path.

Tennessee state workers enjoy this level of protection. Interior space design for the state is overseen by qualified interior designers, and every state office space is reviewed by the fire marshal prior to construction. Would that every member of the public enjoyed the same protection in their place of work.

There are those who say that no one was ever killed by a bad color scheme.

But, when that color scheme is composed of inappropriate or substandard materials, the potential for injury and death is very real. Until the interior design profession is regulated, the public remains at risk.

Source

States Regulate Interior Designers

Western States Regulate “Interior Designers”, Where’s the Public Interest?
By Warner Todd Huston
March 23, 2007

The State legislature of Nevada wants to be sure your home’s Feng Shui is smooth. New Mexico’s officials want to be sure that your “space” is well arranged. They are all about home decor. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have the Home Improvement channel constantly playing in all state offices so that legislators can keep up on the latest tips. They must be experts, fanatically concerned with interior decorating, after all.

Why, you ask?

Well, because they have wasted the time of the legislature and the money of the State’s treasury to make sure that there is a legal, licensed difference between an “Interior Decorator” and just those lowly, unskilled “decorators”. Worse, there is now the iron boot heel of government standing behind the supposed “professional” status of an “Interior Designer” because if you hire someone who claims to be just a “designer” and he does work of an “Interior Designer”– whatever that is supposed to be — well, the black helicopters swoop down upon you, they unleash the hell hounds to run you to ground, and you’ll end up in the deepest pit the State of Nevada can find for up to a year, not to mention fining you $1,000.

That’s right, folks. The State of Nevada wasted its time defining what interior design “means” and has developed a license and fee schedule to control it all.

Things like these are why government at all stages has reached absurdist levels in the USA today. Our Founders waged a Revolution over a tax of a few cents on tea. We, on the other hand, are sitting still while government regulates how we can move our furniture around in our homes, or who we hire to paint a wall.

What are we… MICE or Europeans?

I get this story from George Will’s March 20th column, “Government regulation goes step too far in Nevada”. Will makes some great points with it, too.

Will pegs some of this to the “Interior Design” interests in the western states.

Being able to control the number of one’s competitors, and to dispense the pleasure of status, is nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you have a legislature willing to enact ”titling laws.” They regulate – meaning restrict – the use of job descriptions. Such laws often are precursors of occupational licensing, which usually means a mandatory credentialing process to control entry into a profession with a particular title.

Will understands rightly that this licensing thing is just a racket set up by certain trade groups who are trying to control their own industry, preventing competition. And some nanny-state politicians who love a “cause”, not to mention the benefits of a trade union or guild that is beholden to them, are happy to comply.

Will spends most of his column on the issue of the quashing of competition among decorating businesses but does briefly bring up another point.

Government licenses professions to protect the public and ensure quality. It licenses engineers and doctors because if their testable skills are deficient, bridges collapse and patients die. The skills of interior designers are neither similarly measurable nor comparably disastrous when deficient.

To me, that is the far more pertinent issue. Where is the Public’s compelling interest in how “professional” someone is in painting a wall, or moving an ottoman? Where is the pressing public good affected by regulations on “Interior Designers”?

Indemnity insurance is another thing, of course, and that is a compelling interest of the law. But why is it any business of the government if someone can color coordinate your carpet with your drapes? The fact that state governments even assume such power is indicative of the overweening, nanny state into which we have slid.

And every state has idiotic laws like these, not just the western states. In the dead of night, these politicians with pockets full of IOUs from one industry or another pass these kinds of boondoggle laws meant solely to scratch the backs of pals and serving no legitimate interests of the State. And, as each year passes on we are more enslaved to government than ever before through overarching regulation.

Thomas Jefferson said that the blood of tyrants and patriots should water the tree of liberty every so often. We have long since passed the time when our Founders would have found government intolerable.

Source

Karastan Teams Up with Thom Filicia

MARCH 22, 2007 — Karastan, part of Dalton, Ga.-based Mohawk Industries, is taking its “Decorating From the Floor Up” (DFFU) in-store consumer event and putting it on the road with help from interior designer and TV personality Thom Filicia. Karastan has signed on Filicia and is creating an added component for its DFFU program, which brings decorating experts to participating retailers to conduct interactive seminars focusing on flooring solutions. “We are enormously enthusiastic to team with Thom Filicia and add a whole new dimension to Decorating From The Floor Up,” said David Duncan, vice president of marketing for Karastan. “Thom’s boundless talent as an interior designer plus his magnetic personality make him irresistibly appealing to a broad range of consumers. Our plan is to amplify the concept of DFFU and continue to offer our retailers and their clientele a service that no other floorcovering manufacturer can match.” The initial plan calls for visits in 2007 to several major markets, such as Boston and Chicago. Rather than appearing in-store, however, Filicia will headline events staged in local venues where several hundred consumers can attend. A Karastan gallery will be incorporated, as will an incentive to drive consumers into an authorized brand retailer following the event. A significant advertising campaign, including a mix of newspaper, spot TV and radio, and even regional buys of national magazines, will support this venture. And, to give it even greater traction, there are plans to offer a personal “meet-and-greet” with Filicia to individuals who make a contribution of $100 or more to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The charity, which funds education and research for breast cancer, has a longstanding partnership with Mohawk Industries.

Source

Make Way For The iPad

Home automation is ushering in the era of the remote-controlled house. Some affordable options put the ‘Jetsons’ lifestyle within reach.
By Joe Robinson
March 15 2007

ERICA SALISBURY doesn’t like coming home to a shadowy cave at night, and now she doesn’t have to. By clicking a mouse from any computer, anywhere, or by triggering a remote sensor, she can illuminate her house like a stadium before reaching the front door.

“The whole house lights up,” says the very expectant Porter Ranch mother-to-be, who with husband Ben has made the leap to a digitally integrated home. “That’s important for me because I don’t like being in the dark.”

The Salisburys aren’t the only ones leaving the Dark Ages of knobs, dimmers and switches flipped by hand. Thanks to the burgeoning home automation business, couch potatoes can turn up the heat, turn down the AC, shut off an oven, check a security camera and scroll through their DVD or music library without moving a calf muscle. New technology even allows them to personalize these functions from wherever they happen to be via the Web or cellphone, ushering in the era of the house you can take with you. The iPad.

“It’s definitely grown,” Pat Hurley, tech analyst for Richmond, Va.-based consulting firm TeleChoice, says of the trend, citing the number of businesses entering the field.

“The digital home is absolutely happening,” says Will West, chief executive of Control4, the Salt Lake City-based manufacturer of the Salisburys’ system. “We can see it in the music we’re listening to, we can see it in our televisions, and more devices coming online and into your home.”

How does it work? Installers connect your house’s electronic and digital devices to a command center, a hard drive that looks like a stereo receiver and can stream music, store movies and manipulate security cameras, among other functions. All can be activated by a remote control, wall keypad, off-site computer (via the Web) or cellphone.

“You don’t have to run around to turn on music in each room and all the lights,” says Jon Blanchard, who runs Vantage Studio, an audio-video and interior design company in Beverly Hills that installs home automation systems. “It’s one button, and you’re done.”

THE dream of the smart home has teased the popular imagination for years — sci-fi novels, “The Jetsons,” the Clapper light switch of as-seen-on-TV fame (“Clap on! Clap off!”). But control-freak nirvana is finally attainable with new Wi-Fi technology that makes it affordable for someone other than a potentate or marquis in good standing.

Until recently, the price tag for home automation systems ranged from $30,000 to $50,000 and kept the industry stagnant, says Kurt Scherf, a market researcher at Dallas-based Parks Associates, which studies emerging technologies.

These days, a slew of companies such as Control4 are automating homes for $3,000 to $15,000. Best Buy has rolled out a $15,000 system called ConnectedLife.Home, which allows you to manage light switches, the thermostat and security cameras by remote control on a high-definition TV. Motorola’s Homesight and AT&T’s Remote Monitor allow you to view video, monitor door and window sensors or turn on lights from a Web-enabled phone.

No wonder the home automation business is expected to double in sales to nearly $6 billion in the next four years, according to Scherf.

For those already drowning in a flood of unread user manuals for digital devices, the prospect of a total tech home invasion may prompt plans for padded walls. Many of us, after all, would rather have a root canal than program our TiVos (or for true luddites, the VCRs). The biggest challenge of the smart home may be the dumb way user interfaces have been designed.

“Ease of use is still the major issue for most of the technology we write about,” says industry analyst Hurley, coauthor of “Smart Homes for Dummies.”

Usability was a prime concern at the Salisbury house. The couple had seen friends and family struggle with the complexity of expensive systems, so they wanted something affordable that they could use without a live-in Nobel laureate engineer.

In the living room of their new home in the hills north of the San Fernando Valley, Erica and Ben demonstrate their system with a single Control4 remote. If you mess up, the red “4″ button takes you back to the main menu.

The opening screen looks decipherable enough — a few icons float on the couple’s 63-inch plasma TV screen — Lights, Comfort, Videos, TV, Music. “Everything’s right there,” says Ben, who runs a real estate company. “I go to music, hit that. Then all the albums come up and I just pick one.”

The media features will be familiar to anyone with an iPod. Ben can choose individual songs or highlight an album and start playing it. He can also build playlists. He clicks on an album cover, and the Goo Goo Dolls are instantly rocking the house. He can add other rooms in which he wants the music to play or have the sound rumble from all speakers.

The movie interface is equally logical and a big selling point for Ben. Now he doesn’t have to mount a search party every time he wants to find a film from his collection of 500 titles. The command center functions as a home theater library for his movies, organized by genre — comedy, action —and even by director.

“I watch stuff and listen to stuff more now because it’s up there, as opposed to having to go find it on my rack,” he says.

Asked to demonstrate how to dim the kitchen lights, however, Erica tries gamely but gets stumped on where to go.

“I have to be honest, I don’t use the light function that often,” she says, laughing.

It turns out she doesn’t need the plasma display anyway. She can control any light from her remote control or touch panels scattered around the house. Or from a computer. Matt McKenna, owner of Semaphoric Smart Homes, which did the installation and programming for the home, turns down the kitchen lights and adjusts the temperature in the room from his laptop.

“They could be doing this from New York,” McKenna says. “It gives you full control of all functions you have in your house online.”

McKenna worked with the couple to preprogram their lighting needs, including customized “scenes,” one of the more popular features that allows homeowners to create various lighting moods for, say, entertaining, watching movies or romance. Installation costs are kept down by new light fixtures that can be dimmed wirelessly, so there’s no need to tear out walls for rewiring.

The remote-controlled home also provides a formidable batch of new options for security and safety, so you can even monitor what’s up with your pets. You can set lights to turn on and off randomly to simulate someone at home while you’re out for the night or on vacation.

Sensors as well as cameras can be attached to doors and windows to monitor entry. Some systems can fire off an e-mail with every coming and going.

West may be on to a handy application for parents. “I get an e-mail when my 18-year-old daughter gets home at night,” he says. “If my wife weren’t at home, I’d want to get an e-mail by 4 o’clock if my kids weren’t home from school.”

As workweeks and commutes grow longer, the potential of home automation could become more important. Busy people could track the whereabouts of kids, pets or elderly parents. The iPad may also turn out to have serious environmental appeal.

“I think what’s going to drive it is energy management and the greening of homes,” Hurley says. “It can help people cut power bills.” Some cities are already starting to require that homeowners have systems for monitoring rainfall or temperature to prevent excessive lawn watering.

STILL, the most compelling lure may be that favorite of all energy-saving tools: any device that keeps humans from having to budge an inch more than need be. It’s Newton’s law of inertia: A body at rest stays at rest. This is particularly true for bodies at rest with a remote atop a sofa or bed.

“It just makes it easier,” Ben Salisbury says. “I don’t have to go over and grab five remotes. If you’re lying in bed and reading, all you have to do is grab the remote and turn the lights off. Just to be able to reach over to the nightstand and grab this as opposed to having to get up and turn the heater off or the lights, is great.”

Adds Erica: “It sounds like I’m being lazy, but do we ever want to get out of bed once we’re comfortable?”

Absolute remote control controls absolutely.

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Leaving it all to the experts: smart move

IT’S probably no surprise that the smart home requires more than a hard drive plugged into the wall. Manufacturers of home automation products sell the gear largely through independent dealers, often audio-video specialists working in the home theater arena who have the expertise to install and customize the programming.

“We ask the customer, when you get home, what do you want to have happen?” says Jon Blanchard of Vantage Studio in Beverly Hills. “Some people want the lights to turn on, some people want to also start some music and maybe the TV in the kitchen. The possibilities are endless.”

Costs depend on how many rooms of the house you connect and what automation systems you use. Semaphoric Smart Homes’ base system from Control4 runs $3,000, says Semaphoric owner Matt McKenna, whose business card reads “Systems Engineer” and not “CEO” to underscore the essential tech credentials. That price automates one room, all media and lights.

Expanding control throughout the house, as the Salisburys did, brings the total for a Control4 system to around $15,000, which is the same as the cost of Best Buy’s ConnectedLife.Home, including installation. That’s well below the $35,000 to $50,000 price tags for systems of top-end companies Crestron and AMX, whose proprietary technology keeps costs higher. Crestron, however, is marketing a lower-priced, more user-friendly system called Adagio for around $14,000 that has won good reviews on a few tech websites.

Seattle software company Lagotek has entered the game with a wireless product that it says can lower energy costs by a third with its climate controls. Price: $8,500 for a 4,000-square-foot home.

In your search for total control, Troy Bolotnick of Bolovision Digital Systems in Westwood advises going with a system that can be upgraded easily, has a long life, is easy to use and is reliable. “You want something that’s been around for a while,” he says.

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Dangers of Design TV: Keep It Real

By Karla Hollencamp Contributing Writer

Remodeling contractors report about one quarter of the jobs they are asked to estimate are do-it-yourself projects gone bad. They make it look so easy on TV, a whole room done in a day or two with just a little money. The next time you’re tempted to start a makeover inspired by something you’ve seen on a “reality” show, ask yourself these questions:

Do I have the time?

Any serious remodeling project takes more than a couple of weekends. You might get off to a great start, and, before you can finish, a distraction comes up. Can you do without your kitchen sink indefinitely? How about your toilet? What about an outer wall made of plastic? If the answer is no, seek professional help.

Do I have the tools?

Each of the design TV shows features a carpenter or two with elaborate workshops set up in the driveway. Do you have all the right tools for job? Mitre saw, jig saw, circular saw, wet saw for tile and on and on.

Do I have the talent?

Carpentry, electrical work and plumbing require special skills. Interior design isn’t just picking a paint color. Custom upholstery doesn’t just happen. These professions are a combination of knowledge and experience. The design shows have a fleet of crafts people working, instructing and supervising on the “homeowner” projects. Can you wear all those hats? Can you get others to help you?

Do I have the treasury?

Design shows are notorious for flinging about numbers like “under $500″ or “with just paint and $50.”

One of the prime motivators in doing it yourself is to save money. What they don’t tell you is that the labor of the carpenter, electrician, plumber, interior designer, painter, upholsterer and tile installer was not included in the cost.

What happens if you mess up?

Your mistakes will not only cost you time, they will cost you money. If you are trying to save money, this is frustrating.

There are many great ideas that you can manage at home with some simple tools and instructions from the helpful people at the big home stores. Just be realistic about remodeling jobs.

“You never know what you’re going to find behind the walls,” says Ray Bell, a certified remodeler working for Greater Dayton Building and Remodeling. “Even as professionals, we are often confronted with electrical, plumbing and structure issues when you open a wall. This is usually when the homeowner decides they need some help.”

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Bright Ideas Are Looking Up For Your Home’s Ceiling

Medallions, Crown Moulding Adds Instant Pizzazz
March 10, 2007

It’s hanging over your head every day — a bland, lackluster ceiling. The ceiling is often one of the most overlooked areas of a room when it comes to interior decorating. Yet if you look beyond the popcorn ceiling and water stains, you may find your ceiling can be an outlet for your most inspired creativity.

“The ceiling offers one of the few truly blank canvases in interior design because it’s never obscured by doorways, windows or furniture,” said Sherrie Towne, a ceiling décor expert with Focal Point Architectural Products.

“Some of the most stunning examples of the marriage of architecture and art can be found on the ceilings of historic buildings, from Grand Central in New York to the Sistine Chapel.”

Dressing up your ceiling doesn’t require that you hire a master painter or even a handyman. Thanks to some innovative new products, giving your ceiling pizzazz with architectural details like medallions and crown moulding, color and texture is well within the capabilities of most do-it-yourselfers.

From classic and high-impact to simple and low-tech, here are some common ways to dress up a ceiling:

Add a decorative medallion

The essence of architectural sophistication for the ceiling, medallions have adorned castles and palaces through the ages. In modern homes, they are particularly effective in a dining room above a chandelier.

In traditional times, you would have hired a professional to render a medallion in white plaster that matched the ceiling color. Today, you can find preconstructed, prefinished medallions that install onto the ceiling to enhance your existing light fixture.

Some products, like Focal Point’s Quick Clips medallion installation system, even eliminate the need to locate studs to hang the medallion and patch screw holes afterward.

Available with select Focal Point medallions, the system literally allows you to twist the medallion in place. The company also offers a range of faux finish options to match today’s popular light fixture styles. Whether your light fixture has a metal, wood or crackle finish, Focal Point offers medallions to match.

Crown moulding is king

A must in any upscale home, crown moulding can enhance the décor of any room in the house. Popularly used in dining rooms and living rooms, modern designers are finding creative uses for crown moulding in kitchens, bedrooms and even bathrooms.

Once, getting the corners just right would have taken hours. Now crown moulding can be installed in half the time by even novice do-it-yourselfers. Focal Point’s Quick Clips moulding installation system eliminates the need to miter corners, find wall studs and patch nail holes, allowing you to prefinish the moulding of your choice and install it in a snap.

Texture lends visual impact

There are a number of techniques for applying texture to a ceiling, from using spray-on, textured paint to faux finishing by hand. In some ways, texturing a ceiling can be easier than tackling a wall.

Although you’re working overhead, the blank canvas of a ceiling is more forgiving of first-time mistakes. Small errors that might have big impact at eye-level can fade into the distance when they are several feet above your head.

Color creates appeal

If you want a low-cost way to make a room look bright, fresh and clean, a new coat of white paint on the ceiling can work wonders. It’s a must if you’re thinking of selling your home. If you plan on staying put and crave some drama, consider adding a ceiling color that contrasts and complements your wall color.

To learn more about easy-to-install medallions and crown moulding, and for other ceiling decorating ideas, visit www.focalpointproducts.com

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Interactive Blueprint Web Site

If you’re having trouble picturing how that farmhouse sink will fit into your kitchen remodel, help is on the way.

A new Web site, still in the beta phase, allows you to clip product images from any Web site and drop them into an interactive blueprint. The free site, MyDesignIn.com, changes the pictures into blueprint images for your specs, but the pictures pop up when you roll the mouse over them.

Share your plans with an architect, contractor or your sister who has a good eye for interior design.

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