the difference between watching this and an episode of The Hills?

Gossip Girl returns April 21st!

The Pixel Couch is dizzy-adorable. I have to imagine, however, that its “you need to get your eyes checked” effect is actually not so bad--it's just natural to squint and refocus when viewing something on a computer screen, right?


Designed by Royal College of Art graduate Cristian Zuzunaga, it's hard to find a blog that hasn't posted about it this week. If you buy it, do tell how it looks in person.



via Shape + Colour
and many other blogs.

separated at birth?

No, it's not really me. But close enough that I’ve been asked about it all weekend--even an ex emailed with congratulations.

Do you always pose like me, doppelganger?

Thanks to Josh for the tip, ha.

We got “evicted” this week. The landlord’s father is moving into the house and so we have until June 15 to find a new place. So happy that we funded her renovations and lived through the constant nagging—from thermostat wars to passive aggressive snow shoveling—only to be pushed to the curb when everyone was finally getting along.

While I don’t mind the idea of house hunting (I like to spy on others, who knew?) for the first time in my life I’m not at all enamored by the idea of change. I’ve nested in this apartment and I’m just not ready to pack it all up and move.

(Then again, something went through the Laundromat window this week while my sheets were in the rinse cycle, leaving behind a hole which resembled evidence from Law & Order. So the opportunity to find a place with en suite laundry is rather appealing.)

Answer to question #1 you may be thinking:
No, I’m not going to move in with the boyfriend. Call me Katherine Heigl, but I’m slightly old fashioned—while also being terribly bored at the idea of living in a “couples” house. And besides, we still manage to sleep in the same bed most nights. We can wait until we're married to share a bathroom and everysinglemomentever.

Answer to question #2 you may be thinking:
No mom, I’m not going to move back home. Sorry!

Instead, the next three months will be dedicated to finding a place that will let me best replicate the design I’ve been building in this apartment. I’m annoyed that the projects I wanted to complete over the next month have to be put on indefinite hold. (Peeping toms, you may continue to window-lurk, those curtains aren’t going up anytime soon.)

And at the same time, I am getting excited at the prospect of new furniture: The aforementioned renovations included the addition of a smaller door frame, rendering our couch and wingback chairs into permanent installations of the house.

Answer to question #3 you may be thinking:
Yes, the landlord is definitely getting our cheap $20-from-craigslist couch as a moving-out present. The wingback chairs, on the other hand, are much too nice and are going to have to make it out a window.

shoveling snow is not a workout.

A few weeks back it was fun to mock the thrilling "SNOW! WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!" headlines that accompanied the non-stop blizzards of southern Ontario. But now, 90-odd centimeters later, we've heard it all and no longer care. The snow is coming and it's boring.

IDS08 - klaus objects

I’m trying to think of a scenario that would allow me to have both these objects...


But I just keep recalling Joey’s apartment when he moves away from Chandler. And, shocking I know, but that’s so not the style I’m going for.

Still. Pig table or rabbit lamp?

Picture the pig in a front hallway, acting as butler-console table. You have dark, aged hardwood (original to the house) or tiny black and white octagon tiles. The pig isn’t all in your face the moment you come in the door—no, he’s rather unassuming, waiting across from the closet, ready to take your mail and hold the keys.

Rabbit lamp, while it is my first choice, is simply too mrah. You could put that bunny anywhere to light up a room.

(Both from the Klaus by Nienkämper booth at IDS.)

IDS08 - loyal loot

When your signature item is a series of precious candy-coloured bowls made from found pieces of log, of course the presentation has to be equally whimsical.


Loyal Loot’s IDS exhibit was positioned somewhere between a fairy tale and an easter egg hunt; it’s crisp and cozy autumn textures with a fresh spring feel.


AND FELT TOADSTOOL TABLES!

IDS08 - designLIVE

It’s not fair to call it a booth: the designLIVE rooms were one of the main attractions at the Interior Design show this past weekend, complete with a velvet roped queue. (And a 10pm curfew, as Sarah and I found out during the later hours of the opening night gala.)

First up: Brian Gluckstein’s smoky-elegant living room, complete with faux library.

The colours! I’m so into purples and greys right now—during a getting-dressed frenzy the other night I noticed that the pile forming on my bed was almost entirely dove grey and mauve. My walls? Painted the perfectly-named shade “chinchilla white”. But how to make it all look like a room you'd expect to see Blair Waldorf lounging in?



Oh, hello chair. Do you know how perfect you would be for my bedroom?



The one thing lacking in the designLIVING rooms was a guide all the objects and elements. I suppose that's the point, though. You get really into something like this red table, call Gluckstein up to ask about it, and next thing you know the whole house is redecorated.



On a whole, Lynda Reeves’ City Loft room design did not impress. Much too cluttered, with colours, prints, and art from different eras. (Zebra! Hot Pink! Oriental Art! Rattan!) I think she was going for the eclectic feel that Woodson and Rummerfield do so well—but something was just off. The room was a distracting mess.

Separately, though, there were some great pieces.

Kartell’s Louis Ghost Chair is a perfect match for this unassuming vanity. But that awkward candelabra sitting on the floor has to go...


Conran's orange enamel enamors Sarah.



And last, Sarah Richardson’s rooms, which, to no surprise were flawless. The cozy retreat had all her signature touches: perfectly paired textiles, custom upholstered items, and a modern-whimsical aesthetic. It was just like walking through an episode of Design Inc.


Yes, that’s right. Birds. The sofa is upholstered in bird silhouettes. This makes me never want anything in a solid ever again. Say what you might about woodland-chic being over—this is a perfect twist to the look. And the bone table! Certainly an acceptable antler-related item to covet.



Come to think of it, I wonder what happens to these pieces now that the show is over...

NOTED:
The two OldschoolTABLEs on display in Toronto (by modernist design group Thout—as in without, a name so perfect I wish I’d thought of it first) are now no longer. They’ve suddenly departed from the windows of the Ministry of the Interior and Thout’s Dundas West headquarters.

So while I used to imagine how I would decorate a dining room to complement the bright red spindled table, now I’ll just have to hope that one day it won’t seem out of the ordinary for a glossy, $3000 piece of furniture-art to appear under my Christmas tree.

Approximate amount of time it takes for the Globe and Mail to scoop a New York Times trend piece? 5 days.

It used to be that the Globe simply republished NYT Style pieces a week later in their own Life Style section. (As though they really think style/trend/fashion followers are loyal to only one source, or don’t mind week-old information—please!) But more recently, local freelancers have been rewriting NYT stories with Toronto or Canada-based anecdotes.

And I must admit, while the lack of innovation usually annoying, in the case of articles about push presents, I like the local sourcing.

"I expected one, and if Adam hadn't got me one, I might have been upset," Ms. Halpern, 35, said. "A push present says, 'I appreciate what you've given me, that your body was used as a vessel for this child.'

"Let's just say that a dinner out would not suffice as a push present for most people." -G&M

Because one can never have too many quotes from entitled women discussing the many reasons why they deserve a big ticket present for giving birth*. It’s nice to know Toronto is just as capable as New York City in terms of being both detached and competitive about pregnancy all at the same time.


* It’s fair to assume that most of the high-maintenance moms quoted did not actually “give birth”, though I suppose “picked up the phone to schedule a c-section present” just doesn’t have the same ring.

Things I’ve Bought That I Love

When I get together with my old roommates from university, a favourite thing to do is discuss the horrible state that our student house was in. It’s shocking, really, to go back and think about all the things that consumed every inch of available space in our six-bedroom townhouse. From piles of appliances, papers, clothing, and furniture that no one ever used, to the numerous surfaces we covered in the accouterments for said useless objects, it really was incredible that a) we thought without a doubt that the house was perfect b) our friends saw nothing wrong with our ‘decorating skills’ and c) we survived there for two whole years, never losing an item to the tide of garbage or a housemate to some incurable disease.

So now, you can’t even imagine how impressed I am with my current obsessive state of cleaning. For those two student lifestyle-dominated years (and the other two previous years spent in equally-unorganized housing) I liked to keep things clean, sure, but it was always on a for-purpose basis: I want to cook a meal—I guess I will clean off the counters; a boy is coming over—it’s time to put away the laundry. Day-to-day cleaning, tidying, or organizing was never done, or even considered. Putting the garbage out once a week was struggle enough.

Fast forward to today. Have you ever watched how your parents move through a house? It’s like an exercise in schizophrenic logic: start dusting the TV but notice that a plant needs to be watered but when filling up the watering can it only makes sense to clean off a few dishes that are sitting by the sink, and oh, looks like the recycling is full so might as well take that out and on the way back inside it becomes obvious that the doormat needs cleaning…

Yes, this is the person I have suddenly become.

But maybe all I needed was the right inspiration to stay clean. The personal/emotional/financial investment into my current apartment is a good start. But how about something a little sexier (aside, of course, from the boy who I do like to clean and cook for) like, a Dirt Devil Kone vacuum.

The Kone is something I am hesitant to refer to as an appliance. Karim Rashid is genius for the sleek, soft look of the Kone—made even more perfect by its white lacquered finish and friendly blue-white glow. That’s right. Plug the Kone in to charge and it radiates ambient light. I think it’s saying: “Hi, I’m just sitting here, enjoying your company. Let me know if you need anything.”

Occasionally it sucks up dust happily, but, truthfully most of the time I just like to have it plugged in, awake and glowing from the corner of my bedroom.

After being forced out of my new apartment for two weeks because my landlord thought she was doing us a favour by replacing all the electrical (she apparently lives in a world where wires aren’t hidden behind 50-year-old sheets of dusty, dirty plaster and thought the job would take maybe half a day to complete—hah!) we have finally moved back in.

During the construction it was clear to us that the electricians were total douches—all too often we’d find them sitting around and doing nothing. Many holes were cut ether too small or too large. Plugs were “finished” with dead wires sticking out. Half our new outlets are not flush to the wall. Our landlord lost a month’s rent from us and paid over $12,000 to the dingbat electricians for this service.

And now, after getting painters and cleaners to fix up the apartment, we’ve discovered that the new, safer electrical system is also very, very “sensitive”. Meaning: plug in more than three appliances and you’ll have to reset the breaker. I reset the breaker approximately ten times a day—and I’m only home between 7pm-9am! The landlord says the electricians told her “that’s just the way it is” and she doesn’t know what else to do.

Things I have learned: never become a landlord. Never hire just anyone to work on your house. Never try to renovate a space without actually knowing the basics of what needs to be done—and how it’s done. Though, I must say, thanks to observing the bad fortune of my landlord, I’m going to be way ahead of the game when I do have my own place.

Oh, and I have decided that when I do get my own house it will be this house. (Or, well, something very similar.) My most recent “when I grow up” idea has been to go back to school for interior design—a thought which is only reinforced by the absolute crush I have developed on this Farnsworth House-inspired abode, custom built by architect/designer Will Meyer. Strange to feel so enamored by a large, inanimate object, but it is flirting back—my bedroom has much of the same furniture as their master.

NOTED:
NineGramBrain, the not-so-secret parody blog of Rebecca Eckler’s NinePoundDictator, has announced that they’re shutting down because Icks has “slipped into such an irredeemable state of irrelevancy and uselessness that we can no longer decipher her pointless and illiterate musings and from this point forward”.

While I can understand wanting to ignore something in order to make it less relevant, NGB is shutting down at the peak of its (though not Icks) popularity. The comments section is full of both snarky random notes and obvious tips from insiders—creating a non-stop obsessive-yet-interesting discourse on all things mommy blogger and vapid journalism.

So I have to wonder if Eckler won. She did issue a “threaten” in the spring claiming to know who was behind the site, with promise to legally destroy their lives both personally and professionally. Hmm.

It’s film festival season again in Toronto, which generally puts half of the population in super high alert mode for all things going-on, and the other half in a state of either “huh?” or “whatever”.

I only like the film fest for the parties, none of which I am ever personally invited to, but enough of which I manage to get guestlisted for. The movies? Mrah. I can’t even make myself go to the Paramount to see a week-old blockbuster let alone line up among crowds for a limited screening of something that my film-savvy friend Tanya can just summarize for me over cocktails the week after.

(Fun fact: when the boyfriend and I have movie dates, we rarely end up seeing the film. Instead we go for dinner, then enter the theatre lobby, ponder the movie we’ve earlier chosen to see, debate if we actually want to see it, and then leave. On more than one occasion we’ve had to return tickets purchased beforehand.)

I saw Paris Hilton last week at the DJ AM pre-festival party, but she was hiding behind the turntables all night long and, admittedly, the actions of numerous older d-bags at Ultra were much more amusing than the dancing heiress. Yawn.

And really, it seems to be local talent that delights more so than anyone international. The images of Brad and Angelina and Reese and Jake in Toronto seem just as, well, distant, as any other appearance they’ve made across the globe. It’s the same pre-programmed poses and phrases and really, I can’t tell the difference from pictures taken in Yorkville versus those from Venice.

But back here, ah, the fun unfolds. The film fest was the perfect topic to make Leah McLaren and Rebecca Eckler’s otherwise subtle cattyness suddenly enter the realm of obvious. (Until recently it was reserved to darling Leah subtlety lamenting about the lameness of ending up as an Albertan lawyer’s stay-at-home wife. Ouch.)

When Eckler professed her desire last week to be adopted by a celebrity entourage in the National Post (“With friends like these, who needs publicists?”) the article was quickly countered by McLaren’s weekend Globe Style column titled “Who needs enemies with friends like these?” which argued the patheticness of celebrity hangers-on. Well played as it was well-timed, indeed.

My friend Jenny is equally compelled by the local gossip scene, but probably because she film fest bumped into a CBC radio personality with whom she’s had a long-time crush. And he flirted back. Which might not seem like a big deal, but at least unlike a Hollywood somebody, there’s still the very real chance of a second encounter before next September.

I’m moving out in a few weeks, and no, not into something I bought, like I once professed I would only do. It’s an adorable rental in an equally adorable section of downtown, so yes, let’s all be happy for me.

I tell this to my aesthetician, who is one of the most opinionated people I know, and she scowls, ripping away verysensitive hair as she lists off the reasons why I should not be moving away from my parents.

“Do you know how much it costs to buy a house? Save up! If your parents are not that bad to live with, why are you leaving!”

I don’t want to let her logic sway me, but because she does the best waxing in Toronto there is some part of me that invites her judgment.

It’s not like the decision to move out was an easy one to make. Once I said goodbye to unlimited spending money and monthly vacations, and started prepping for a life sans insta-laundry and dinner, there was the whole issue of actually finding a place. My mega-pickiness was not helped by the fact that fall rentals are absolutely dreadful to find.

(Yes, it is possible to spend $1600 a month on a 3 bedroom apartment above an old Chinese restaurant where evidence of a small electrical fire and black mold infestation makes the landlord simply shrug his shoulders.)

But at the same time, this anti-move rhetoric was coming from a thirty-something woman who last month was surprised to hear that my parents ‘allowed’ the boyfriend and I to take a romantic holiday in Sonoma, California. She moved out of her parents’ house when she married her husband. They have 3 kids and live in the suburbs. She thinks I should be saving up to buy a similar abode. Nothanks.

Instead, well, instead I’m measuring and remeasuring Victorian-sized doorways and windows and getting happy headaches from carrying (er, assisting in the carrying of) large pieces of furniture. The energy I once reserved for keeping track of every single craigslist rental is now being channeled into finding key items in their for sale section.

Is it weird that I feel like I’m finally coming out of winter hibernation? I know I’ve been doing things all spring and summer, but it seems that something is finally starting to happen. My fingers are crossed that moving is going to set a lot in motion.