I just played the online Color Sense Game by Voice of Color from Porter Paints (part of PPG Paints). It’s a kind of test – your answers to a range of questions like “pick 5 words that inspire you” (out of a given list), or “where would you feel most at home?”(you select one image out of a wide range), or “what animal would you be?” (again from a range of pictures) –  result in your own personal paint palette. It seemed fairly accurate in my case; that is, I liked the color range that my answers produced.

Apparently I’m “Al Fresco” – or is that the brother of Bill Fresco. Apparently it means that I like green tones. You’ll note that there is a little tab on the upper right corner that says “Your Secondary Harmony Family” (this will be news to my wife — and me too, come to think of it!).

My secondary family turns out to be the Whites…It all sounds a little corny, but I think it can help you figure out what colors are meaningful to you. Painter beware, however because if you play again and change one or two answers you may get a very different set of colors…After I switched from tiger to eagle

my secondary harmony family became Desert Spice. I think I like Al Fresco and the Whites better. I guess I’m just a cat after all.

Color is at once very simple and subjective (you instinctively like certain hues) and highly sophisticated and complex (the psychological study of color perception, for example). In the history of architecture there are many color palettes, from the vibrant reds and yellow ochres of Pompeiian frescoes (image below courtesy Natural Pigments)

to the white and intense chromium yellow that Thomas Jefferson used

in the dining room at Monticello. According to retrofit guru Bob Vila, this particularly vivid palette is a relatively recent discovery, thanks to scientific analysis of the original pigments (photo courtesy his website). At the turn of the 20th century architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and the Bay Area’s Bernard Maybeck became identified with an Arts & Crafts palette (from the movement of the same name) and evolved their own set of hues and tones

often with autumnal hues like red, burnt orange, and even gold to complement the use of natural materials like redwood and brick. In fact Wright’s favorite color was what he called Cherokee red (photo of Wright’s Zimmerman house, by David J. Bohl, courtesy Currier Museum of Art, from About.com).

European modernists like Le Corbusier developed their own palettes as well;

his was based on primary colors, but, as shown above,  included a variety of subtle variations. These colors (and the image) are from the website Aaltocolor.com. The elegant palette published in 128 Colors: A Sample Book for Architects, Conservators, and Designers, by Katrin Trautwein (Birkhauser,

Basel, 2010) includes 68 Corbusian hues along with 60 others. Trautwein founded an artisinal paint manufacturer in Uster, Switzerland in 1997. She explains how Le Corbusier’s colors were designed to “remain stable in space to support architecture’s three dimensional effects.” As a painter as well as an architect (remember his Purist efforts,

like this still life of 1922, courtesy Ferris) he knew what he was talking about. He probably was not thinking about tigers and eagles.

Every home should have a place to relax on your own or with family or friends. For some this retreat is claimed by one gender and is often called a “man cave,” and is stocked with potables, munchables, and viewables. A current television ad for IKEA includes a minimalist modern example and the Sydney IKEA store even has one on the premises, which is cleverly described in The Week as “Manland: Day Care for Husbands.” Here’s an image of it, courtesy of Core77: amenities include magazines, free hot dogs, a pinball machine, and a Fussball table in a bright minimalist design environment. A more typical non-IKEA example might be a room where sport decor dominates, like this one.

I like the helmet wall but wonder about the barber  chair — for clipping penalties, perhaps? (image courtesy The Loss Column, Baltimore Sports). Some of the designs at Houseplans.com have rec rooms that could easily “evolve” with the addition of a wet bar,

like the sculptural modern one built into Plan 56-610, shown above.

Try googling “man cave” and you’ll find an entire industry devoted to this subject, with retreats that include everything from vintage jukeboxes and the odd firing range (“Don’t mind those muffled explosions — that’s just Borromir downstairs in the armory.”) to complete woodworking shops – as illustrated by writer Jennifer Matlack’s article on a handsome eco-savvy garage (shown below, courtesy Sunset Magazine.)

The entertainment here, aside from the vintage Mercedes roadster, is the workshop.

Designed by Harrison Architects, an imaginative Seattle firm, the garage includes a drought-tolerant sod roof planted with sedums and grasses, recycled newspaper insulation, and translucent polycarbonate wall panels — so it’s a retreat with a conscience.

Ergo, the man cave is not just about a basement, a keg of beer, and a behemoth flat screen anymore! Personally, I’d go for a more multi-purpose room – and I’d like to stay married — but I am intrigued by the range of invention displayed by these spaces.

Perhaps the ultimate man cave is on the island of Brac on the Dalmatian Coast. I visited it last week (in my constant search for bloggable items, of course). A relic from World War II, it’s a disused submarine pen or hideout.

Accessible only by boat, of course, it’s pretty basic — and only room for one sub.

But there’s space for essential supplies. According to our guide this where the local male population comes to chill out: I saw plenty of chairs and ice chests on the ledge…

No need to watch old war movies here…because you’re in one! You could say, as a brother just reminded me, that the “Hunt for Red October” is over.

Small ideas with large impact always grab my attention. For example, I just saw an early twentieth century farmhouse kitchen and I was transfixed — not so much by the kitchen as a whole but by the shiny wooden drainboard — which resembled part of the galley on a vintage yacht.

What could be simpler, or warmer in its honey tone and richly grained texture than this shiny slab and backsplash, with undermount sink and porcelain-handled taps. This kitchen, which was beautifully restored by Backen Gillam Kroeger Architects for the MacMurray Ranch vineyard, is a throwback but also perfectly contemporary in its use of a natural material as a thing of beauty in itself, without affectation. Such a drainboard is hard to do today — the various woods available are costly and maintenance around water is always problematic — but it is seductive nevertheless and reminds me of the counters made of sugar pine and other woods that early modern architects like Gardner Dailey and William Wurster used in kitchens, well before the explosion of new materials like Caesarstone or Zodiac. These latter materials are attractive in their own right but a little wood goes a long way toward warming up a space. The way to achieve a similar effect today without risking water damage might be to use wood on a kitchen island, as architect Jonathan Feldman does in this example.

Or simply purchase a wood-topped rolling cart like the John Boos Rosato Kitchen Cart (below)

or the Belmont White Kitchen Island (below) — both through Remodelista, one of my

favorite home resource websites, where co-founder/curator Julie Carlson has an exceptional design eye. Another way to use wood as a warm-up accent is shown in the house built from our Plan 508-1 by architect Nicholas Lee,

where the extended hearth — for display as well as sitting — is a length of recycled fir. Such a device not only warms up an all-white room but adds individuality.

Of course, paint is really the easiest way to personalize a space quickly. A new apartment complex called The Presidio Landmark in San Francisco – an elegant adaptive reuse of an old hospital by the architectural firm Perkins & Will – includes a model unit that shows a clever way to add character to a room without a lot of effort and expense: painted wainscoting, as shown below.

The green swath reaches to head height and draws the eye up, at once creating an intimate corner within the larger space. It adds personality without the expense of extra woodwork. Look around you — and keep that digital camera or I-phone handy — you never know when an idea for your new home will strike — or drain, as the case may be.

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!

The yearly Dwell On Design expo in Los Angeles took place last week: it’s an important venue for innovation in home design and always has surprises in store. We asked architect Sarah Sobel to scout it and give us a report. Here are her top new product picks.

Nature Nurtured. These eye-catching pendant lights inspired by brain coral are the “brainstorms” of David Trubridge. They’re available through Ford & Ching in a variety of colors — like a modern version of the classic lightbulb-as-idea metaphor (this is Dan talking).

Trubridge calls them“kitset lightshades” and they’re made of painted bamboo and plywood with nylon clips. Something for the dining room or the lanai, as shown here in a photograph by David himself.

Fencing that Fans the Imagination. Harwell Fencing and Gates shows how a fence can be more than just a barrier. 

It can be a backdrop that draws the eye and creates a dramatic frame for outdoor living space and plants. Precise horizontal spacing makes all the difference — these fences are built like furniture and carefully sealed against the elements.

Simpler Sinks. Undermount sinks are easier to clean because there is is no rim where dirt can build up along the seam. Duravit’s vanity basin is a simple clean design that works well.

Flexibility and the Disappearing Drain. A traditional center drain — for a shower, say — requires that the floor be pitched in four directions, which limits tile size or slab material. Enter the Infinity Drain making it possible to pitch the surface in just one direction so there’s no  limit on tile size or slab.

The drain comes in a variety of lengths to suit different shower sizes.

One version can even be camouflaged with the shower floor material for a sleek seamless look. Can you see it along the edge of the shower above the sprayer?

Everyday Objects Transformed. Molo Designs is an exceptionally creative industrial design firm specializing in re-imagining furniture and lighting. Sarah says: “The studio of 18 from Vancouver makes beautiful, ingenious, flexible furniture /walls from paper, Tyvek, felt, and LED’s.” I could not agree more! I am especially taken with their “Softwall and Softblock” space partitions, which turn the screen into a form of animation.

The partition is made of pleated kraft paper — like a giant accordion/paper slinky — and expands in serpentine arrangements. According to Molo, it’s a modular system that connects flexible honeycomb elements of various heights, colours, and material to one another simply and seamlessly with concealed magnets to create continuous lengths of wall.

When compressed for storage it takes up little space. The material can also be stacked vertically “like stretchy lego blocks.” The “Softwall” suits a loft or great room  — say, to create intimacy within a larger space for Plan 64-183, below.

Molo’s Hobo Lanterns use an LED light in a felt bag.

It’s both a tote and a lantern — or is that a lote or a tanturn? Thanks, Sarah for lighting our way to all these innovative home products.