It’s time to take a little vacation. Lake Como is our destination. The Grand Hotel Tremezzo. It’s only an hour (in rush hour traffic) away from Milan. And half of that is spent traversing the lovely, narrow and twisting streets along the lake.

This is where Arthur and I stayed last week. As grand as this hotel (and spa!) is, our room was half the price of one in Milan during Salone week. It was worth the extra drive. I thought I’d take you on a little tour.

A view of the hotel lobby.

The cozy bar - excellent service, too.

The library. There’s a pool room, and several parlors as well.

The porch over looking the lake.

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Jennifer & I have some of these lovely seats in our near future. After all, there’s no air travel without sitting around waiting, is there? And they all seem to look like this:

Here’s what characterizes them. 1) A vague resemblance to the Eames Aluminum Management Chair.

And 2): Arms to keep you from brushing up against a stranger - which could be a good thing, I guess, but consequently you can never lie down if you’re sitting through one of those delayed-delayed-delayed-delayed-cancelled flights and want to relax and take a nap.

Airport seating is usually far away from an electrical outlet, too, so most people trying to recharge their laptops can be found along the walls sitting on the floor.

All of this is just to remind you all that we’re headed for Milan this afternoon.

Here we are in the Southern Hemisphere at the beautiful home (also known as a parcela) of Carmen Oria and her husband, Vicente Rodriguez. Their garden is just as beautiful as their antiques-filled home.

A grape arbor sits just outside the kitchen door. The grounds are filled with fruit trees including lemon, avocado, apricot, peach, and orange. All the trees bear fruit, which Carmen turns into preserves and fresh fruit juice. A gardener helps out.

The grape arbor is the perfect place for a game of ping pong.

The swing sits under eucalyptus trees. It’s the perfect setting for sipping Pisco Sours.

If you drink too many Pisco Sours, you can take a nap in the hammock.

As those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are looking forward to Spring, in Chile it’s closing in on Autumn. But when it’s Springtime in Santiago, the grounds of Carmen’s home are full of blooms. Her flowering plants include roses, azaleas, daffodils, wisteria, poppies, and hydrangeas. The greenery includes pampas grass, creeping vine, acanthus, moss, and yucca.

Welcome to the pool, set under the shade of a giant acacia tree. Let’s all pour ourselves a Pisco Sour (they’re so tasty the way Vicente makes them) and jump in the pool.

A big Thank You goes to Carmen for taking and sending these photos to me. She and I are college friends who have managed to visit each other over the past few years. I wanted to share her beautiful home with everyone because I’ve enjoyed it so much myself.

Don’t you love this house and the gardens? Enjoy your weekend. Cheers!

I’ve done something new today and am taking you on a tour of the beautiful home and garden of Carmen Oria and Vicente Rodriguez.

During the day, Carmen is in charge of International Relations for the Chilean Education Ministry´s English Opens Doors Program. Her husband owns CommzGate, his own hi-tech systems development biz, specializing in mobile technology. They live in a beautiful home just outside Santiago, Chile, which they built themselves in a classic, Chilean Country House style.

The doors, windows and other architectural elements are from shops known as materiales de demolición. In other words, shops which sell doors and windows from demolished homes.

Carmen and her husband love to collect antiques, too. Their collection is extensive. One of her favorite pieces is an icebox, which sits in the dining room. It was bought in the city of Iquique, up in northern Chile where the nitrate (saltpeter) mining industry was Chile´s main revenue generator back in the 1800s and early 1900s before artificial nitrate was invented. Northern Chile is dotted with abandoned nitrate camps, like ghost towns.

Another is the traveling bar used for train trips in the old days. They replaced the antique glasses with handmade and etched copies. “A lady who had inherited several antiques and needed cash fast sold it to us,” adds Carmen.

Carmen’s mother-in-law is artist, María Elvira Moreno. Much of the artwork comes from Moreno’s studio. She sculpts, too.

In part II, we’ll see Carmen’s beautiful garden, eat grapes off the vine, and take a dip in the pool.

Once again it’s snowing here in Detroit. We’ve got about a foot of snow on the ground already. And it’s freezing. I mean {bad word} freezing. Perhaps you can imagine my envious longing at finding this beautiful, sunny beach house in my mailbox this afternoon. Oh how I wish I were there.

This photo is from one of four rental properties from around the US being featured on Coastal Living’s site. Think of the tour as a kind of visual vacation from the snow.

photo credit: Jean Allsopp

Here is a real dilemma for a designer. I was contacted by Kristen, the manager of Thirty Nine Hotel, an art gallery/nightclub located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The nightclub is one of the first clubs to open in an area that had seen better days, but is now enjoying a renaissance.

Thirty Nine Hotel has the red doors

Kristen had a specific problem. Accessing the club requires climbing 32 steps. You enter the front door and start hiking. Was there some way I could visually shorten the hike, or simply improve the stair-climbing experience? Kristen told me they’d budgeted $8,000 to $10,000 for the stairs. What could I come up with?

Looking up and down the staircase

My first thought was, “Yikes!” There were so many issues, the first of which was the fact that those stairs no longer meet code. Any modern staircase requires a landing after a certain number of stairs (usually 13). This gives people a little rest as they climb. It also breaks their fall if they slip. They’ll stop plummeting after 13 steps instead of 32. Since the building wasn’t new, they were able to bypass those codes. But slippage would still be an issue.

The gallery/club looks nice once you’re upstairs

Second issue - I couldn’t do anything that would decrease the width of the stairs, basically for the same reason. People need to walk up and down those same stairs. Since they’re only 38 inches wide, I needed every inch of space. That ruled out any wall treatments that had any thickness to them.

I also needed to do something with the steps themselves, as the concrete stairs were chipped and cracked.

The lighting was insufficient.

Finally, the owner liked red. Well, at least that wouldn’t be a problem for me. Red is my fave.

Here’s what I came up with.

First, I addressed the stairs themselves. I recommended having them repaired and resurfaced with a textured and stained concrete. That would give enough texture to create a non-slip surface. Staining the concrete a bold color would give the stairs more visual interest. Which color would depend on the color scheme they decided on. I came up with two options.

Stained concrete has infinite design possibilities

To visually shorten the distance up to the club, I suggested painting a graphic, reverse arrow. So, as you look up the stairs, the widening graphic would make the top seem closer. They also needed a new railing, which would be lit with LEDs. Accenting the railing adds interest and increases the safety factor.

A reverse “arrow” with backlit railing

The colorways are red and blue. The walls are painted white (to blend with the club) with either a red or blue “arrow.” Why? Read on.

Blue colorway

Because of all the constraints, I decided to focus most of the fun on the ceiling using one of my favorite secret weapons - lighting. (Thank GOD for whoever invented LEDs. They’re a little expensive, but are so versatile, emit little heat, and best of all, last 8 years.)

Okay, so what am I lighting? I came up with 2 versions of the same, basic idea, which called for suspending panels of an eco-friendly product called 3-Form and back-lighting it with the LEDs. 3-Form comes in 4′ x 8′ panels in varying thicknesses and about a zillion styles. These can be combined with colors to create just about anything.

Panels of Cirque + Pure Red backlit with yellow LEDs

The first option was to hang straight panels that follow the square edges of the ceiling. I specified a red 3-Form embedded with a metal cutout. Back-lighting the red with a yellow LED creates a brilliant, eye-popping effect. Very bold. During the day, with more daylight, the effect is beautiful but more in keeping with an art gallery.

Dyptic 3-Form in Lunar colorway

The second option was to bend panels of Dyptic 3-Form. This product changes color as it’s bent. Backlighting with white LEDs would be less eye-popping, but really fun and hip and cool. Maybe a little more island-like. I wasn’t able to fly to Hawaii to look at the space, which is why I came up with two ideas.

So how does it look? The world may never know. The owner decided to postpone the $70,000 renovations. Ah well, this happens all too often in my world. But it was a fun project to work on. And maybe one day the owner will come to her senses and bring my vision to life.

I was surprised and happy to see Le Club Chasse et Péche restaurant featured in Dwell Magazine’s feature this month on Montreal. I was sitting at the far right table on my birthday! It was freezing outside, but as you can see, cozy and warm inside. The food was wonderful as well.

Photos by Matthew Monteith

Milan has long been the world capital of design. Each year it hosts the Salone di Mobile, the product/furniture design show-to-end-all-shows. Now, Milan has its own museum devoted to the subject. The Triennale Design Museum opened December 6 on the premises of the Triennale di Milano event complex in Milan’s Parco Sempione. The Triennale di Milano is a cultural institute which focuses on architecture, urban planning, decorative art, design, arts and crafts, industrial production, fashion, and audiovisual communication. So, the new museum is a perfect fit.

The new museum is housed in a renovated space and a newly constructed addition. Italian architect, Michele De Lucchi, was in charge of the project.

All good things must come to an end. It’s been a great family vacation here at our little Chum Bucket. This is our last day and then we drive home. So back to regular posting on Thursday.

Do you know anyone who has a slogan for their beach house? This is a rental, so I just couldn’t resist coming up with one. “Life’s Better in the Bucket” All our renters get a free T-Shirt. I should post more “before and after” pix when I return. So, bye for now!

In honor of the French version of the Fourth of July, I thought I’d feature three iconic French Designs. They all, at least to me, immediately say France. The first isn’t a design, per se. It’s a baguette. But it says France doesn’t it?

Can you think of an iconic English, Swedish, Italian, or German design? (For American, I’d pick a car with fins and a Emeco chair.)

The next time I go to Berlin The Propeller Island Lodge is the place I’ll stay. The hard part will be deciding which room to stay in. Let’s see, shall it be the…

Padded Cell Room? “From top to bottom and all around the bed, everything is upholstered with green leather. A kingly or queenly room where one can hear his own heart beat when the spirit grows weary. Small but exquisite, and undeniably noble on top of that!” Hmm, you have to share the shower, so maybe it will be…

Orange Room and Symbol Room (they share a kitchen) I wouldn’t want to wake up with a hangover in either room. They’d have to move me to the padded room. Let’s find something pretty….

Sorry, I got lost in the mine room. Moving on…

How did I get in here? Everything is upside down! Oh forget it! I’m going back to my cozy padded cell and have a nap.

Not everyone goes to heaven. Sorry, but it’s a fact we all just have to get used to. But remember that the people who actually go to hell don’t care about such things. Which means that if you do, you’re not going. Which begs the question, “What does hell look like, since I’ll never have the chance to check it out?”

Well, I think whoever designed the Marriott Hotel’s San Francisco Hotel and Resort must have had a special vacation between lives and came back feeling inspired. Take a photo tour and you’ll notice they don’t show the endless hallways. It took three of these never-ending tubes to get to my room. Now, most of us think of red when we think of hell. But of course if you stare at green long enough that’s what you’ll see. The devil is smarter than you think. I guess the designer thought that the change of pattern on the carpet would excite my eyes. Wrong. No. I’m feeling nauseous, as I stumble down the hall fumbling desperately for my tranqs to stave off the migraine this hallways induces. That shade of green on top of the fluorescent lighting is enough to induce a migraine and an epileptic seizure.

So now you know.