What a trip!

I was lucky enough to end my week with a wonderful trip to the Jasper Group facility in Jasper, Indiana! They were most hospitable there, and the weather and scenery could not have been better! What a beautiful place to make beautiful furniture.

We went on a personal tour through the Community manufacturing facility, where we saw how they create their chairs, from the lumbar yard to the last coat of polyurethane. It was so interesting to see how everything works, especially how they bend the wood to make those elegant curved legs.

We also went on a tour through the JSI casegood manufacturing facility. Again, really interesting! They make a really good quality product, and that makes it easy to want to partner with them.

By far, my favorite thing I saw was Community's new product line, Finn.

They actually have a solid piece of aluminum between two pieces of wood! I know in this economy, some other furniture manufacturers might just paint a silver stripe, or just put a very thin piece of aluminum on top of the wood, but not at Community. This is the real deal. And the product is so good looking!

Perfect for someone with borderline OCD (like me)

I found this great product from Wolf Gordon called Wink (check out what Interior Design mag has to say about it here). It is a clear finish that you can put on top of any paintable surface to make it a dry erase surface! Wow! I'm thinking... all over the kitchen... office... etc. I love making lists, so I could make a list virtually anywhere!

Missing Europe

Last summer, I was most fortunate enough to attend a two and a half week trip to London and Paris with two instructors from the Art Department and a (large) handful of us art kiddos. It was... awesome, amazing, beautiful, eye-opening, exhausting, wonderful, unforgettable... you get the idea.

I've been missing that trip lately. We returned June 31st of last summer, so about this time last year I was still high (metaphorically) from the trip.

Since I can't afford a $1500-something plane ticket, I will post some JMW Turner images instead. We got to see an entire gallery of his work. It was phenomenal. Even his "sketches" were better than anything I've ever painted.

(this is my desktop background)

Modern Rome: Campo Vaccino, 1839. JMW Turner

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey, 1829. JMW Turner

Regulus, 1828. JMW Turner

My Dream Kitchen

Well, we are house shopping. I'm currently (and embarrassed to admit) living in my parents house... it's not a dream, that's for sure. So, as we are house shopping, my designer brain is running wild!!!

Today, we found a house that had a good head start on my dream kitchen. What is my dream kitchen you ask? See below.

How much do I love this kitchen? Let me count the ways. First off, I love the natural light! Wow, wouldn't that be a dream to cook and entertain in?! Second, I love the island. I want an island that is not more cabinets and countertops, but more of a furniture piece. I like how this one has open shelving. It just seems more familiar and comfortable to me, like being at the dining table. I also love the cabinetry. Classy and a little modern with a small hint of country. And I love the lighting... and...

PS - I think this kitchen is half the size of the houses we are looking at... what can I say? My parents taught me to dream BIG :)

Neotini 2011

Every year the St. Louis part of the IIDA Mid America Chapter hosts a Neotini event. They rent out a venue and vendors and manufacturers set up for a Neocon-esque day with their latest and greatest. Last Thursday was this years event, held at the beautiful Kemp Auto Museum in Chesterfield. There was such a great turnout (I think the cars drew people in) and all of the vendors had wonderful products to show. It really was a great event, especially since I won a $25 Visa gift card (thanks IIDA).

Some of my favorite products were:

LiquidMotion Floor Tiles from Hirshfield's

Halina Stripe window treatment fabric from Carnegie

SW_1 Lounge Seating from Coalesse

"Residence Hall Suites May Foster Greater Alcohol Use" from InformeDesign

I like to regularly visit the site InformeDesign and browse through articles that interest me. What I like about InformeDesign is they read the article for you, then sum it up so you can just get through the article down to the facts. It's like the Sparknotes version of lengthy research articles.

Today, the article that sparked my interest was "Residence Hall Suites May Foster Greater Alcohol Use". Being that I just graduated last summer from a university that has only suite-style dorms, and being that I was a Resident Advisor (RA) at said university for two years, this article hit home for me. As an RA, we had to deal with alcohol policy violations all the time. I remember I was the RA on Duty one Halloween night and we were up until 6am writing incident reports, mainly for alcohol violations.

The article was saying that it is too easy for students who have suite-style dorms to hide away and not be seen with alcohol. They have a bathroom, a sink, and a fridge. They could live in there for days if they wanted to.

I just thought it was an interesting article... click here if you want to check it out.

Let me fill you in...

Boy, it has been a loooong while since I have posted. Let me give you a whirlwind update of my professional life. I got a job selling furniture at a retail store. It was not what I was looking for, but it offered a paycheck (something I was temporally missing) and some skills about sales. While working that job, I went to an IIDA event and met some awesome people from the furniture and design industry. We exchanged business cards, etc. etc., and now I am working at Color Art Integrated Interiors as the Customer Experience Manager. I am doing some sales, some design, managing the resource library, and meeting and event planning. It is really fun, and very fast paced. I am learning so much, it is hard to believe that I actually went to school before this. Some advice to current Interior Design students: there is so much they don't teach you in school. Well, rather, they can't teach you in school. Like how to deal with snotty clients, or how to work within a budget. Those kinds of things are too hypothetical, it would just be hard to make a realistic lesson.

I am very grateful to have this position, and to work for this company. I have met so many people that have been my champions, and I know they will continue to help me grow.