Posted by Bluelines

A few people we think you will like.

You may or may not know Bluelines has some pretty creative and helpful friends in the blogosphere.

The Bride's Guide has charming and original ideas for brides-to-be.

While Dinner Tonight can save you from buying that frozen pizza with fresh and simple (we swear) dinner ideas every day. Yes, every day.

Finally, Did you think that Martha Stewart making Cherry Mojitos with the Google guys would happen on an average Wednesday? You can read about that and many more adventures on The Martha Blog.

Wow, what a week! An historic election just started things off.

But now the economy is throwing me for a loop and there are some big things for me to think about at the moment. So I am sorry about the lack of posts the last couple of days. I hope to be back with some exciting things next week!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, NO MATTER WHAT'S SHAKIN'!

P.S. Many of you appreciated this photo as much as I did. You can catch more from robin jones1 Flickr photo stream here.

If you've got time to spare and want to hear me babble (on and on) about how I got started with my business(es) and what I've been doing over the past 9 years, I recently did a podcast with Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood of CraftSanity. I have to say that I actually enjoyed doing this podcast because it felt more like a conversation with friend than a press interview.

I also did a podcast several months ago with Chronicle Books. I was kinda nervous when I did that interview. Okay, why couldn't I remember what I covered in my book?! Seriously. There were some definite deer-in-the-headlights, crickets-a-chirping moments during that interview. Thank goodness it wasn't live. Thank goodness is wasn't filmed. And thank goodness for the magic of editing so that I seem like a competent book author. Um, really, I am!

I'm still getting used to doing these broadcast interviews and I tend to get all self-critical when I listen to myself speak, so I haven't actually listened to either podcast yet. But trust me, you should--you'll either walk away with some quasi-interesting information about me or maybe even some laughs at my expense. Either way, it's good times.

It’s funny how things get started sometimes. We had always planned on remodeling our new home, but the start of the remodel was somewhat unplanned. We had just had our first cold day in October, so I decided I would turn on the furnace to make sure it worked properly. While it blew hot air just fine, upon closer inspection I found that the heat ducts were full of nasty old dust and grime. The logical thing to do at this point would be to pay for someone to come clean out your heat ducts… For some reason we found it a good excuse to install radiant heat. Step one was to pull up the carpet, which lead to a series of discoveries that inspired us to rip out all the flooring and the wall between our bedroom and living room. Needless to say it was a big mess. We were able to find a used high end boiler used for about 1/4th the price of a new one, and installed all the radiant tubing in the floors ourselves. It took over two months until we had it back together again and finally had heat in our home about two weeks before Christmas. There were a couple of nights that it got down to 50 degree’s inside. We were happy to have heat, and in the end it cost us around $5,000 and a lot of hard work. The good news was that the system was way oversized so there would hardly be any expense when we got around to doing our addition.

We installed about 400 square feet of temporary flooring over the radiant. We used 4′ x 4′ squares of 3/4″ plywood that I got from a local lumberyards scrap pile. There was a variety of woods from oak to birch and the finished cost was around $0.50 a square foot. If we had sealed it properly we would have been tempted to just leave it down, as it looked pretty good. Especially for the price.

Lessons learned:

1. Installing the tubing for radiant heat is easy. Installing the boiler and all the controls, leave it to the pro’s.

2. Buying used can save a huge amount of money. In the case of our boiler we saved about $2,000. Almost half of the whole cost.

3. This one is a recurring theme: Using common materials in a creative manner (like our floors) can save a ton of money, and create a unique look.

For all the details on the radiant check this old post.

In Regency Redux: High Style Interiors: Napoleonic, Classical Moderne, and Hollywood Regency, author Emily Eerdmans mentions an anecdote in which couturier to the stars Adrian commissioned Tony Duquette to design his Beverly Hills dress salon. And the directive that Adrian gave Duquette was really quite simple- "Amaze me". How fabulous is that? I'm sure that for many of you designers, these two little words uttered by a client might be like manna from heaven. It's a directive that gives the designer license to pull out all of the stops and unleash the full force of one's creativity. But I suppose it's also a command that is fraught with uncertainty and that just might provoke stage freight.

I've been thinking about this story for a few weeks now because I would love to tell certain people "Amaze me"- my shoe salesperson at Neiman Marcus, my general contractor, and my hair stylist, for example (and all three are pretty fantastic so I feel confident that they could do so.) But in terms of design, sometimes you see an interior and you can just tell that the designer felt compelled to give the client something ultra special and well, amazing. I wonder if this might have been the case in the following interiors (and a garden too).


The Paris apartment of Charles de Beistegui, c. 1933. Designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, the apartment featured this stunning cement staircase painted blue and white. Note too the crystal rail.


The entrance hall at Sa Torre Cega, Cala Ratjada, Mallorca, Spain. Carlos Ortiz-Cabrera of Maison Jansen was responsible for the Pop Art looking, trompe l'oeil painted floor in the foyer.



The Madrid bathroom of the Duchess of Alba, designed by Armand Rateau, c. 1925. The bath was carved from a single piece of white marble, and the walls were covered in gold lacquer with pastoral type scenes.


Landscape design can be used to amaze too, as seen here in the park of Mimi Pecci-Blunt's Paris home, c. 1926.

Images at top: The ultra chic, ultra glam studio of Adrian, designed by Tony Duquette

I recieved an email the other day bearing some of the best news I've heard in weeks.

One of my favorite culinary TV series, "Two Fat Ladies," is finally coming to DVD!

For anyone who doesn't remember this fantastic British show (which aired back when Giada's decollete was just a glimmer in some TV executive's eye), there's still reason to check it out.

Don't expect healthy twists or 30-minute meals here. Instead, prepare to ride off with Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright (by motorcycle and sidecar, naturalement) around Britain (and beyond) to prepare seriously hearty meals.

How about joining a hunting party in Scotland for a menu that includes roast grouse and venison with blackberries (episode 5)? Or perhaps you'd enjoy making lobster for a sisterhood of Benedictine nuns in Ireland (episode 14). Soused herrings, Welsh rarebit souffle, onion soup with Stilton, fruit tartlets...the list goes on.

These aren't all recipes that you'd likely rush out and make, but that's not really the point. The settings are verdant and the ladies are undeniably charming, entertaining, and passionate about food.

Even though the show itself is dated, it's novel and refreshing to see them, polar opposites of the squeaky-clean, book-deal-sniffing personae of today's food TV stars, preparing honest food without pretension.

Welsh Rarebit Souffle
Ingredients:
    2 large slices of good-quality white bread
    1/2 pound of high-quality, aged cheddar cheese
    3 egg yolks
    4 egg whites
    1 level teaspoon dry English mustard
    1 vigorous shake of Worcestershire sauce
    1 vigorous shake of Tabasco sauce
    Salt and Pepper

Grate the cheese and place in a bowl. Beat in the egg yolks, a level teaspoon of mustard, a good shake each of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce, and salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Toast the bread; whip the egg whites until they stand in stiff peaks. Add a spoonful or so of the beaten egg whites into tothe cheese mixture then gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the bowl. Put the toasts into an ovenproof dish and pour the mixture over them. Bake in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes until browned and risen. Serve at once with a salad or spinach on the side.

Recipe reprinted from the Two Fat Ladies DVD box set, Acorn Media, 2008.

Posted by Bluelines

With a heavy blog heart, we are saying goodbye today.

Bluelines is shutting down, but will remain here as an archive.

We want every reader to know that we have been thrilled to share with you all of the things we've loved,
things we've obsessed over,
and things that have inspired us in every way.

We hope you will stay in touch with us through our own blogs and sites.

Much love and best wishes to all.   

HAVE A GREAT TURKEY DAY! I MEAN IT!

A house with a heavy mid-century vibe to it, where spaces interact with each other instead of delimiting areas. I love the play of modern designer furniture combined with the ultra classics. The black Saarinen and white Panton chairs are a plus.

The minimal use of colors for the canvas makes the accent pieces pop even more.

http://www.damilanostudio.com

Boston Handmade Opens Nov. 28th!