The Interior Living Room

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Things can get interesting here at Interior Living Room. Here’s how:

Someone recently called my office and said the following to me, verbatim: “Bro, I just came from my boy’s crib and he gave up yo digits. You know, {name withheld}’s place. Man, that {cencored} marble walkway was sick!! His home theater was the dope too, fo real!! You gotta come an drop it like that fo me yo. Hook up my kitchen dog, I want that same marble {cencored} for my kitchen. Ma digs have been under the radar too {mother of all cencored} long!”

I quickly ran for my decoder ring, and here’s what I took from the tone of this call:

“Hello and good day sir. I’ve just left from tea at the {name withheld} residence wherein I noticed your exemplary work with marble textures. I would so like it if you could join me at the club for cocktails, so that we might discuss arrangements for you to customize my kichen in a similar spirit.”

1. Except for the decoder ring bit, I’m not joking about the call.
2. How did this call get past my answering service? (note to self; fire my answering service)
3. I wasn’t sure what to think, when one of my projects was classified as “sick”. (apparently that’s a good thing these days)
4. I was almost sure I should inform the DEA that a drug dealer was asking me to plant something illegal in his home theater.

Needless to say I turned away this customer, mostly because I was fully booked *coughs*, but also because I’m generally not much for people that call other people “Dogs” as a term of endearment.

At any rate, since this is an article on marble, I’ll get back to it. Just thought I’d share.

If you are considering marble counter tops for your kitchen, perhaps like DJ JazzyFreshCool J (quoted above), then you should really grab some education on caring for marble.

• The most common group of marble – the white marble group – can stain and wear and tear easily unless treated properly and fabricated in a certain fashion. Even water has been known to stain white marble when it is not processed correctly.
• As a general rule, the darker the marble, the less likely it is to stain, however darker does not necessarily mean harder.
• Quality marble is protected with a sealer, in the same way your car’s paint is protected by wax. Just the same as car wax, you will need to renew the sealer on your marble periodically to ensure it has maximum protection from stains.
• Having said that, there is a new process that isn’t so well known yet called “impregnation” (stop with the dirty thoughts already). Basically this process applies a product that penetrates into the stone, repelling stains by becoming part of the marble.This is a permanent process, as opposed to having to re-apply a product periodically.

The best advice I can give if you are in a rental, a condo, or if you have a high level of activity in your kitchen (like lots of children), consider a serpentine class marble, or a granite finish instead of genuine marble. Both of these alternatives are visually similar to marble finish and they require far less maintenence than an authentic marble product. Also, both serpantine marble and granite are much harder than marble, so they are able to withstand the wear and tear in a kitchen known for lots of activity and traffic.

If, however, you are just dead-set on getting a marble counter top there are a few food items your marble will want you to avoid. Citrus can harm your finish, specifically lemons and lime. Anything acidic can be harmful to the marble, so it’s best to pour your juices at your dining table, not on the counter. It’s also best to ground your kids for a minimum of 4 years if you ever catch them pouring citrus juice on your marble counter top.

The bottom line on marble is that you have 2 major things to note before deciding on the purchase and installation:

1. Ask if the product should be impregnated to keep it from easily staining.
2. Pour acidic juices and squeeze your limes in the laundry room or in your neighbors kitchen, and set up a motion detecting alarm to warn you when your kids go in the kitchen unauthorized. (Just kidding about that last part, really I am)

So there’s the basics on marble counter tops. Of course with any major purchase like this I would expect you to write in with further questions, or ask a local marble expert to set you straight. At Interior Living Room we often let you know the pro’s as well as the cons of various popular choices – not to throw you from your preference – only to show you the best ways of enjoying your choices and the easiest methods you can use to enjoy your decorating ideas for a long time.

I’m off now to fire my answering service and change my phone numbers. Please do comment and subscribe, as I said before, things can get interesting around here.

Technorati Tags: ktichen ideas, maintenance, marble counters, surface finishes

…well, not really. After all, in Star Trek the food magically appears via some sort of weird replicator-like thingy. At least I think that’s how it was done, I stopped watching the show a while back when Captain Kirk left. Alas, here comes this post’s tie in. The futuristic theme of this article is due to something we often notice here at The Interior Living Room. A great deal of otherwise top notch decorators and designers hold on to tradition at their detriment, not keeping up on the latest tech news and designs. Many have the tendancy to shun away from all things futuristic. My guess i those decorators don’t watch Star Trek either.

As designers we are all guilty of holding on to “old school” I suppose. Working by the axiom “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is always a good insurance policy, but sometimes it’s just plain boring. Let’s face it though, designers in this day and age should not be falling on their collective butts when it comes to noticing and implementing the latest technology. Being creatively forward looking – many times – involves taking a few risks and in a good number of such cases those risks can pay off with incredible decorating ideas and designs.

Here’s a brilliant idea I’ve just heard about from a company you’ve likely heard of – Electrolux. Electrolux is always on the edge of innovation, thanks to their Desgin Lab R n D department. This is news to me. Their plan to gather innovative ideas is a sort of “Celebrity Apprentice” meets “American Idol” method of finding the latest design wonderment, and it works rather well for them.

In a nutshell, they ask for submissions from designers world wide, all of whom are then judged by an international panel of renowned designers. Thankfully Simon Cowell isn’t an interior desgner, but my guess is there has to be at least 1 obnoxious British bloke on the Electrolux judging panel. The competitive nature of Electrolux’ design labs is underscored however. Their method works more like a giant “casting call” for new designs and creations. If you check out the Electrolux website you will quickly see that they are on to something.

There was one item that caught my eye, and that item was the muse for my writing this article. But before I get into specifics, it’s question time:

• How would you like a stove top that can read RFID chips? (If you don’t know what an RFID chip is, think “bar code replacement” and you’ll know everything you need to know). These chips have the potential to provide all sorts of information and communicate that information to appliances and devices. We’re talking info such as cooking times, correct cooking temperatures, and even delicious recipe suggestions.

So let’s say you just bought a Norwegian Salmon steak. Theoretically you could scan it with the RFID reader and before you even turn on the stove you would know the best temperature to cook it, how long to cook it, and have 50 or so delicious possibilities before you. I’m sorry, but I gotta say it… how cool is that? (I’m quite certain RFID chips can even provide the latest NHL stats, should you be so inclined to know).

Enter Mathias Pinkert’s Vesta cooktop, a 2008 finalist for best design at Electrolux Design Labs. You can read more about it here at yankodesign… and again I gotta say it… how cool is that!!?

Yep, that’s right, this stove top design does everything on the wishlist above, along with folding away vertically when it’s not in use. However it looks so nice that I don’t think I would ever fold it away. It really is a perfect design for those with limited space and I just think it’s the cat’s meow.

The Interior Living Room loves technology, as you will come to find out, so we are feverishly waiting to get a Vesta cooktop and install it in the galley of our very own spaceship.

Technorati Tags: innovative design, kitchen design, kitchen ideas, space saving advice