I’m always drawn to the orderly, spare, modern designs you see in glossy home magazines and books. But my house is not so spare and not everything is in its place. I’m kind of a pack rat as my wife — and office mates — will tell you. I go through periodic bouts of frenzied cleaning but the tide of newspapers, magazines, and books rises regularly. So I was pleased to come across the ingenious new book by Molly Jane Quinn and Jenna Talbott aptly titled It’s Lonely in The Modern World (Chronicle, 2011), which is an ironic primer on how to navigate the field of architectural minimalism.

These are the people who started the clever blog Unhappy Hipsters, which takes a wry look at ambitiously artful modern homes like this one and the way they’re

portrayed, where the individuals on the stoop seem quite unaware of what’s behind them (or perhaps it’s the elephant on the deck; image courtesy ifound). In these sorts of houses messy realities — like the need for windows and daylight, for example — never intrude, especially in architectural magazines. But spoofs are the sign of a publication’s success. (Remember the Tolkien parody Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon, and the one of Sunset magazine with a photo of a family picnicking in front of a nuclear reactor.) So I started looking around for ways to be both hip and realistic — i.e hide the clutter in sleek and elegant ways –  like this handsome storage bench from Herman Miller. It would help with all the bags

and blankets at the bottom of our bed. Or maybe we just need a new bed frame that incorporates storage drawers, like this version from Bluedot, which

streamlines a storage idea that was popular in the 1960s and 70s. Then what about a place for charging cameras, iphones and ipads? Bludot’s “Juice box” is

a clever solution in the way it hides the plugs and keeps the wires under control (image courtesy Mashable). This loft bedroom by Jordan Parnass Digital Architecture includes an

especially clever stair/bureau with pull-out storage drawers — though I would

probably need a railing, and I notice that the books seem to be piling up…

So in the end I confess I am impossibly conflicted because I am a huge fan of spareness and the uncluttered look and am always promoting it, while only rarely achieving it myself. Our Plan 491-2 by Braxton Werner and Paul Field

might be one answer to my dilemma — it’s uncluttered but not severe, there is storage, and pillows are scattered on the floor!

I recently saw pegboard used for the backsplash in a kitchen and it made me realize just how versatile this material is for storage and display. Architects and designers have been adapting it for years. Here are some examples.

This clever use of a single sheet of black-painted pegboard, by Margaret Oomen of Resurrection Fern, becomes the holder and the frame for a collection of wood spoons and spatulas — a perfect example of cuisine-art, pardon the pun (image courtesy re-nest.com). Painted white, a strip of pegboard works as a lively and useful backsplash, as shown below.

Note how the power strip seems to repeat the dot pattern for an encompassing composition. It’s from Margaret Simpson’s very useful blog My New Kitchen. It’s a reminder that the backsplash is where you can get very creative — I have seen large glass tiles that can be drawn on with special markers for a personalized touch that’s changeable (drawings can be wiped off), or blackboard paint (ditto), along with the infinite variety of tile, stone, and synthetic stones now available.

And don’t forget how Julia Child’s husband Paul outfitted her famous Cambridge, Massachusetts kitchen with an entire pegboard wall — both easily accessible and artful — for her collections of knives, pots, pans, whisks, etc.

(The image above is courtesy Thomas Jayne at Interior Design Magazine.) Many folks use pegboard in the garage or  workshop — often with outlines to show where specific tools are stored.The elegant example below is from Plansnow.com.

I have even seen pegboard made out of stainless steel (custom designed, however) for a very sleek solution behind a stainless steel range. But there’s also a stainless steel product that’s designed to be magnetic, shown below.

It’s by Blomus, comes in a variety of sizes, and is found on  Organize.com and Allmodern.com.

And here’s an innovative use for a narrow hallway, which do-it-yourselfers Derek and Lauren from Design Sponge call a “pegboard magazine rack/organize-a-majig.”

It’s the kind of multifunctional solution for small spaces that you might find on a boat. I guess you can organize your life with pegboard!

I recently attended a private benefit for U. C. Berkeley’s  Environmental Design Archives at an extraordinary Mid-Century Modern house. Designed by architect Ernest Born for himself and his wife Esther in 1951, the simple board and batten exterior (shown at left, photo by Morley Baer, courtesy EDA) literally draws a redwood curtain across the front of the house. See how the top rail reaches across the driveway to complete the geometric composition — like a curtain rack itself. The house is in a windy location near the ocean so the wall functions as a wind break as well as privacy fence. But what a surprise inside! You pass a galley kitchen under a balcony (that’s part upstairs hall, part study) and enter a sensational loft-like two story living room overlooking an expansive rear garden — this view is from the balcony. The monumental two-story square window wall functions as a gigantic lens for looking out and looking in and effectively doubles the size of the indoor world. The fireplace is treated as a geometric sculpture –  — the brick firebox resting on a cantilevered hearth and fronted with vertical wood strips below the cylindrical chimney. It’s clear that Born was influenced by Casa Luis Barragan in Mexico City of 1948 with its iconic square window, mentioned in earlier posts, but there’s also a strong resemblance to the loft-like living room of the Charles and Ray Eames house near Santa Monica of 1949, shown at left  — though in the Eames house the window wall is treated as a more complex grid, steel ceiling ribs extend outside to form a canopy, and a wall of books extends along one side (image courtesy Gabriel Ross Blog, which covers modern furniture, lighting, and home accessories). Experiencing the Born house – which also has a beautiful and deftly composed contemporary addition by Aidlin Darling Design — see the three-story addition on the left in the photo above (by Dwight Eshliman, courtesy the architects) — made me look for significant modern houses that you can tour by appointment. Spring is the best time to explore — here are my current top five (not including the Eames house and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, discussed in previous posts).

Los Angeles, California. The Schindler House (part of the MAK Center) by Rudolph Schindler of 1921 is really two living units and was built for Schindler and his wife, and his engineer colleague Clyde Chase and his wife. The tilt-slab  concrete-and-glass construction was both forward-thinking and historically minded, with outdoor fireplaces and roof decks. The entry fee includes a visit to the Fitzpatrick-Leland house of 1936 also designed by Schindler (however, only on the first Friday of every month — photo courtesy MAK Center).

Dearborn, Michigan. Futurist-engineer R. Buckminster Fuller’s famous round steel Dymaxion House of 1947 (though initially conceived in the late 1920s) is one of the exhibits at the Henry Ford Museum. The name was invented by a publicist who followed Bucky Fuller around and eventually combined parts of words that he seemed to use a lot as he was speaking about his inventions: “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “tension.” The shiny metal structure — a sort of cross between a spaceship and a souffle — was meant to be a prototype for efficient modern living, though only one was built. Two prefab bathroom units and a kitchen pod are at the center, ringed by living areas and the two bedrooms.

Norman, Oklahoma. An organic original. The Bavinger House of 1950 by the brilliant and eccentric Bruce Goff, who studied for a short time with Frank Lloyd Wright and developed new versions of the quonset hut during World War II, is one of the most unusual modern houses in the U. S. In concept it’s a spiraling stairway under what feels like a tall tent. A series of living and sleeping platforms are suspended on cables along the stair like giant candy dishes. The modernity is in the openness of the interior, the free-form structural conception, and the novel use of materials. Tours — usually led by family members — are by appointment with the Bavinger House Conservancy.

Plano, Illinois. The levitating, mirage-like, glass and white steel Farnsworth House, by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, takes modernity to an extreme. As Marc Myers wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal piece: it’s “part fishbowl, part tree house, and part transparent time capsule.” It was built for doctor Edith Farnsworth as a country retreat; only the bathrooms are enclosed. Now through July 31 you also get to tour the Lumenhaus Solar Decathlon winner, temporarily installed nearby on the same property.

New Canaan, Connecticut. Architect Philip Johnson’s justly famous Glass House of 1949 was heavily influenced by the Farnsworth house, but here, instead of floating over the landscape the structure is firmly grounded in it — in fact becoming an artful rearrangement of it. Again, only the bathroom (the cylinder) is enclosed. Johnson told the story of a visit by Frank Lloyd Wright: Philip met Frank at the front door. “Well, Philip” said Frank. “Am I inside or am I outside? Do I keep my hat on or do I take if off?” Johnson kept the building/landscape dichotomy front and center by prominently displaying an important 17th century landscape painting by Nicolas Poussin in the living room. Now part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the house is open for tours by appointment from May through November. The house is one small part of Johnson’s large estate, with many other buildings by him, including an underground art gallery and a lake pavilion, which can also be toured. (Photo courtesy The Glass House.)

Spring Cleaning

It’s interesting to note that few of these landmark modern houses have garages — apparently architects didn’t like dealing with the automobile (some still don’t). But spring is a good time to think about reorganizing. I saw these garage storage systems by Gladiator Garageworks in KBHome’s Greenhouse at the Home Builder Show and was envious. The units free up the floor space so there’s room for all kinds of tools and sports gear as well as cars. Brackets supporting the shelving click into horizontally grooved wall panels. Cabinets on casters add flexibility. Gladiator also has a new 66.5 inch bamboo-topped modular workbench with leveler legs for uneven floors.

So maybe this is how a modern architect would at least organize a garage, if not design one from scratch!

At the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS) in Las Vegas last week I had the feeling I was watching a market in transition. Overall, I saw an emphasis on new ways to deliver products and product information such as  via Ipad aps  but  fewer new introductions and exhibitors. Here’s what caught my eye.

This  “Image-in Motif” tub from Wetstyle.CA , a Canadian firm, is seductive.The calligraphy pattern is part of the design. I like the Zen-like simplicity of the oval shape (also available without the lettering), which would be a nice upgrade for my bathroom!

For something a little different in the bathroom, especially for the younger set, how about turning your tub into a fire truck. Perhaps something Salvador Dali might appreciate…It’s possible with American Standard’s FunBath Temporary Bath Conversion. The solid molded acrylic tub deck and front panel apron fit over your conventional tub. They can easily be removed when the truck no longer appeals. Ingenious!

Turning the closet pole into a lighting system is a clever idea — and puts the light right where you need it most — along the bottom of the pole shining on the top of the hangers. I can see this Sempria Illumirod from Task Lighting becoming especially useful for smaller, darker, narrower closets.

Solid surface countertops with quartz crystals saw expanding color and pattern choices. Dupont Zodiaq introduced  five new colors

inspired by spices, bringing their total palette up to 59 hues. Korean solid surface producer Hanwha added a little “life” to their introduction of new Hanstone quartz colors by using people dressed in skin tight body suits to  call attention to several new designs including Indian Pearl (left),  Grigio (center), and Sabbia (right). Cambria also unveiled new colors.The trend in all these colors seems to be toward a little more veining and figuration in the pattern, approximating various granites and marbles. These materials are  smooth, non-porous, and exceptionally hard.

Italian design is always worth seeing and the Colombini Group presented its new City line of Kitchen cabinetry — a sleek minimalist dove gray/beige (like an Armani suit), with doors faced in melamine for easy cleaning. I like the way the table extends at right angles from the island: an alternative to the typical breakfast bar. Finally there seemed to be more toilets at this show than any other product: every possible size and flush ratio was represented as the Japanese brand Inax showed.Toto introduced their Aquia high efficiency toilet,which is an all-in-one fixture. Kohler’s big splash was the Numi, the sculptural modern rectangular fixture that does everything imaginableincluding greet you when you walk into the bathroom (motion sensors make this possible). It also provides music. Another novel feature is its flushing sensor: if you remain aboard for longer than a set period,a stronger flush ensues. This reminds me of an inscription on a public bench in Denver: “If you wish to rest, rest not too long.” The Numi took years and many engineers from various disciplines to produce and is an impressive technological achievement.

In our house we have a tiny TV room/home office that was carved out of part of a bedroom. Call me a “slow adopter” but I think it might be time to take advantage of the flexibility that today’s flat screens allow: replacing our bulky television on its rolling cabinet with a flat screen mounted on the wall would dramatically expand the available floor space. The clever five-part wall cabinet  by my friend Nathan Hartman of Kerf Design, shown here, would be  a great way to go. The cabinet acts as a frame, turning the TV into a contemporary artpiece. And according to Nate it’s a drinks cabinet as well as storage for dvds — what a clever idea — mai tais with movies! The TV cabinet unites the dining area with the rest of the kitchen — where the Kerf system expresses new functionality and warm contemporary character.

Or consider Sarah Susanka’s Plan 454-6 (Not So Big Showhouse 2005), which shows a popular approach in the living room:  treating the flat screen like a painting over the mantelpiece. The wood of the mantel itself helps frame the TV. A flat screen can even be worked into the wall paneling, as the master bedroom in Plan 56-604 demonstrates. The flat screen can be set into the wall between the studs — so it’s flush with the wall surface — a pricey but elegant solution. Sometimes it’s even hidden behind a real painting whose frame is hinged.  It’s even possible to aim a little higher, as happens in our Plan 48-433. Here bedtime stories take on new meaning when you lie back and look up at the TV in the master bedroom  — it’s on the ceiling. Talk about Super Titles! For more flat screen placement ideas check out Houzz.com, a fascinating and comprehensive source for remodeling inspiration.