D2S Editor Favorites

  Favorite Hot Real Estate Spot

Leave your USA real estate blues behind and pack up for Abu Dhabi. This Middle Eastern country is experiencing a building boom like no other nation on the planet. Every celebrity architect is having a bit of fun, coming up with outrageous commercial and residential designs. All of the buildings pictured here are apartment buildings; some have commercial mixed in for good measure. Each has onsite amenities, from cigar lounges and gyms to spa treatment rooms and nursery/daycare facilities. These buildings look straight out of Futurama, and some are on their own manmade islands, with convenient access to the rest of Abu Dhabi City. To look into the real estate scene, check out Abu Dhabi Property.

  Favorite Reader Submission

Walt Lockley, architectural writer, wrote an obituary for us to observe the passing of Warren McArthur III. Read about the McArthurs and then check out Walt's cool website that covers wonderful architecture, like the Biltmore Bungalows he photographed above.

  Favorite Fun Decor Items

Chiasso has a selection of home furnishing and decor items that are going to be a bit too trendy for traditionalists (they just decorated the set of MTV's Real World: Hollywood, if that gives you a clue). But we think bits and pieces here and there can add some fun and sass to any decor. We liked their Optic Salad Servers, shag-tastic Chenille Floor Poof and Pillow, and a nifty Wavy Entry Bench, perfect for foyer, front hall, or mudroom seating and storage. 

  Favorite Art Idea

New York fashion designer Donna Livingston has turned her creative eye to fine art, opening up a comprehensive online resource for designers and collectors called Box of Crayons. We loved the unique Polished Fresco artworks (above) from an artist named Paul whose colorful abstracts look 3D, but are really flat, polished, and smooth to the touch. They and specially-commissioned works are designed to be mounted flush on a wall that he first treats with his special White Fog finish to create an ethereal floating effect. Paul's skills were honed during 20 years of work as a tinted plaster wall treatment specialist; his clients include Charles Gwathmey, Jerry Seinfeld, Christie's, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, David Geffen, and Helmut Lang.

  Favorite Pillow Talk

Vivre sets the scene for head propping, bed and sofa accessorizing, and pillow fighting with these three lovelies from Ankasa. From top to bottom: Moroccan Sequins Pillow, Rectangular Keshte Pillow, and Square Keshte Pillow.

  Favorite Yard & Garden Menaces

We were fascinated by a photo essay that warns of plants that are terrible for gardens. Read The Dirty Dozen: 12 Plants to Avoid. Do you know why you don't want the female maidenhair or ginkgo tree pictured above growing in your yard? Its fruit is amazingly messy and slippery and smells like someone threw up all over your yard. Now you know.

D2S Editor Favorites

  Favorite Relief Effort

Design2Share has a New York City and a Pennsylvania office; we have the best of both worlds. On weekends, we work out of Pt. Pleasant, PA, in beautiful Bucks County. On Sunday, April 13, we had a terrible fire in our village, and it destroyed the studio, tools, and work of award-winning artist and blacksmith, Ray Mathis of Tutto Metal Design. Check the Matarese Roche website to see how a community of artists have come together to help Ray rebuild. It's truly heartwarming. Matarese is creating a series of paintings being auctioned on eBay each day called Rising from the Ashes; each has a low opening bid of $100 and all shipping charges are being waived, with all the proceeds going to benefit Ray. Check out Today's Oil Painting, Matarese's blogsite, and you can also link to the auction from her homepage. The photo below is Pansies, #10 in the Rising from the Ashes series.

Favorite Reader Submission

 

There is little need for decorating the Dans le Noir? restaurants in Paris and London; the main eating room, seating 60 people in several hour-and-a-half seatings a night, is in total darkness. Our D2S reader Pam Pappas Stanoch writes to us from Paris. Her email made our week.

Tonight I was invited to dinner with my client and the 19 people I worked with today. We went to a restaurant in Paris near the Pompidou Center called Dans la Noir? which means, “in the black.” The restaurant is totally black inside and the waiters are all blind! You arrive in a lit lobby and you are offered a drink of fruit juice and they ask you if you want alcohol or not; that is the last choice you make for your meal.

They give you your drink and line you up, seven in a row; you put your left hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you and your blind waiter leads you in total darkness to your table. You know I am totally claustrophobic, and just upon entering, two Spanish women come tearing by us screaming and clawing! The waiter was trying to get them out without them taking us out in the process. I was a bit freaked out to say the least.

We got to our seats and our waiter explained where the napkin and silverware were located. Of course I am a germ nut, so I held onto my silverware for dear life so that noone else would eat off of it by mistake. So here I am sitting in the pitch black, concentrating on my breathing and Hamid, my waiter comes by to check on us. I asked him what I should do if I started to freak out, and he said, “scream my name.” I now had a plan!

The first course arrived and I had no idea what it was -- well you know how adventurous I am with food. I smelled it, touched it, and decided to pass on that one. The beauty of it was, no one knew I didn’t eat anything. It was quite nice actually. The waiter came by with water and wine and we were told to stick our fingers in the glass while we poured so that we knew when we were at the top! The wine was white; I stuck with water.

Our senses were heightened in the blackness. We were unable to block out the sound of those around us because we could not make eye contact with the people we were speaking to. My eyes got extremely tired searching for light. The main course arrived and I figured out it was beef. I ate some of it, and left the rest. Dessert followed without any event; it was finally time to leave and they escorted us out the way we came in! It was, to say the least, an amazing experience.

From The Daily Telegraph, March 2006