Our Favorite Spring Fling Accessories

Janet Ramin - It's getting warmer and brighter out with each passing day. Spring is here (and, eerily, we never had much of a summer here in the Northeastern United States), and our thoughts turn to lighter, fresher decorating accents. Here are two of my favorites.

For your patio or sunroom, the green Forest chair from Janus et Cie provides a great place to sit back and enjoy your burgeoning garden. Made of electrostatic powder coated aluminum in 7 bright colors, Forest chairs are light and portable. 

While relaxing in your sunroom, your iced tea or lemonade can be served on these laminated plywood trays designed by Marimekko. The Kaiku - meaning “echo” in Finnish - tray is designed with birch trees amidst a spring scene. Can’t you just hear the whisper of the leaves echoing in the wind?

Want to see more? Click on my 5 Spring Accents to Sweep the Winter Blahs Away. 

 
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Broadway Backwards 7 Rocked the House

Irwin Weiner ASID - A brief departure from our usual interior design posts, so please indulge me as I rave about Broadway Backwards, a one-night fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and The Center. This night benefits gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender causes - and the "backwards" part is that men sing songs traditionally sung by women and vice versa. This year's 2012 event was this Monday, March 5, and featured stellar performances by stars like Betty Buckley, Mario Cantone, Len Cariou, Nancy Dussault, Charles Busch, LaChanze, Bryan Batt, Anthony Federov, Robin De Jesus, Andrew Rannells, Shawna Hamic, and the incomparable Bruce Vilanch (photo at right). It was the most thrilling evening on Broadway we've ever experienced, with such a galaxy of talent and moving, imaginative performances stemming from the creative direction and choreography of Robert Bartley. In coming years, we look forward to alerting everyone to the next Broadway Backwards event, well in advance, so you too can join in the packed house and excitement. The following video will give you a taste of the great performances we experienced! 

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8 Great Home Goods I Love from Global Views

Irwin Weiner ASID - The future of the interior design industry may very be in the hands of showroom companies like Global Views. Their style quotient is extremely high, they do not customize so "what you see is what you get" (sometimes design clients have difficulty making up their minds, but if an item isn't customizable, then they either love it and get it or move on), and the prices are extremely reasonable. That's a triple-threat killer combination that puts GV on the road to world domination in the industry. Here are some of the items my clients and I are loving. Click on any photo for more information about the item.

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World's Wildest Hotel Concepts Ever!

Irwin Weiner ASID - I call wild architecture "that Dubai phenomenon." It seems that this Middle Eastern philosophy of More Is More is catching on, and there are some amazing, futuristic concepts afoot for new hotels on land, in the ocean, in outer space, and - attention, Newt Gingrich - on the moon. Today's featured video will show you some of these wild hotel concepts, including The Waterworld in China (see above), an imaginative vision for a new hotel in a former quarry. 

But not all wild hotel concepts involve Dubai-style excessive architecture. Some hotels have concepts that are imaginative without being over the top, like Das Park Hotel in Austria (see photos above), where you can stay in a hotel room made from concrete pipes. In a similar recycling bent, how about staying at the Capsule Hotel in The Hague (below), where your floating hotel room is inside a bright orange survival pod?

Or how about the Hotel Everland, a single-room luxury hotel suite that is completely mobile - it's moved around from city to city, sometimes winding up on a beautiful lakefront, and other times winding on the roof of a building overlooking the Eiffel Tower in Paris or perched atop a contemporary art gallery in Leipzig?

So now that your concept of real hotels has been exploded, it won't be too much of a stretch to watch the following video and imagine staying in an undersea or outer space hotel, right?

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