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| Cleaning up and drying out |
| Published: 5/26/06 Source: TownOnline.com |
By Nadine Wandzilak/ tri-town@cnc.com
When water lapped at the curb next to the sidewalk outside her Middleton store, Victoria's Garden, on Mother's Day, a particularly busy day for flower shops, Andrea Voigt thought things couldn't get worse. They did. Two days later, Voight couldn't even get into her South Main Street in establishment because of the 18 inches of water inside. In the eight years that Voigt has operated the shop there, water had never come inside, she said.
This week, Voigt and some of her neighbors in the business mall near Dairy Queen on Route 114 were still cleaning up remnants of the flood. The concern now, Voigt said, is whether mold has gotten into the walls.
Several doors south of Voigt's shop, Sandra Eanes, who manages the Dairy Queen, is evaluating her losses. When Eanes left her store on Mother's Day, the water was receding. "How deceptive," she said. It crested several days later, around Wednesday evening, Eanes said, at about 10 inches inside. When she got into the store Thursday, most of the water had drained, she said. But silt covered the floor. "I started dumping things" into a just-emptied dumpster, Eanes said. In about three hours, it was full.
Throughout Middleton, water levels are down everywhere, Police Chief Paul Armitage said Tuesday. But you still can't cross Lake Street extension, he said, and part of Mill Street has caved in.
Many of the businesses affected by the flooding have reopened. Eanes opened this past Saturday - "come hell or high water."
Both Eanes and Voigt hired cleaning companies for their stores. A company from the Cape charged Eanes $1,150, half its usual rate, because she had no flood insurance, for the job. "At that time, $1,150 was a blessing for me," she said. Several machines in the store, including a freezer that had to be sanitized, haven't worked right since the flood, she said.
Several doors north of Dairy Queen, the bottom shelves of all the bookcases in Hand-It-Back Booksmyth are empty, as is the floor beneath them. Store owner Peter Smyth lost those books, paperbacks and hard covers, to the flood.
"The big thing was that you couldn't get in for two to three days," said Smyth. There was "nothing we could do until the water went down." Adding to the problem: books expand when they get wet.
Smyth found volunteers on a website, RisingWaters.com, and put out a call for help. He ended up with six volunteers, he said.
One business owner from the same mall has moved to higher ground. Bob Watts, owner of Bob's Better Hearing, started to see patients in his new office, just north of the Market Basket plaza, Tuesday.
"I got wiped out" at the old location, Watts said Wednesday. "I take care of a lot of people," Watts said. "If people have a problem with their hearing aid, it's an emergency."
Watts was leery about staying at his old address because of any of his customers' perceptions about possible lingering issues from the flooding, such as mold, he said. Watts' customers are happy with his new location, he said. "It's bigger" than the former space.
A little north of the hard-hit mall on Route 114, Daley's Restaurant was spared from flooding. The eatery did, however, close for 2 1/2 days as water covered half the pub's parking lot, according to General Manager Mike Maguire. The restaurant felt the impact financially, Maguire said, particularly because Sunday was Mother's Day.
"You don't expect this much rain in May," he said. After hearing stories of water woes from customers and staff, "It could have been worse" for his business, he said.
Maguire complimented his employees for their support during the flood. Many of them are from Peabody, which was hard hit by rising water, Maguire said. One person was put up in a hotel, he said, with five feet of water in her home's basement.
Dairy Queen's Eanes said she "survived" the rain at home. But she's putting up with a consequence of all the water now. She's looking for an exterminator to rid her condominium of carpenter bees, which, she said, pushed up from the water-soaked ground into her home. "They got flooded and moved up, too," she said. |
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| Fountain Genealogy Library gets help to grow |
| Published: 5/23/06 Source: The Journal Review |
By Bill Dotson
VEEDERSBURG — The Fountain County Genealogy Society is getting some help to acquire some much needed storage space for its ever-growing supply of research material.
The society has received a $1395 grant from Tipmont REMC which will be used for a new bookcase, file cabinet and other storage equipment at the society’s West Central Indiana Genealogy Research Library, housed in the d’Arlier Cultural Center in Veedersburg.
The grant was part of Tipmont’s Operation Roundup program, in which customers allow their electric bill to be rounded up to the nearest dollar. That money then goes into a fund that Tipmont uses to distribute grants by request to various community projects. It costs the average customer only about $6 per year, said Ronna Bohlander, the utility’s customer liaison for the program.
Other recent Fountain County recipients include the Attica Public Library; the community of Stone Bluff, and the Every 15 Minutes Program.
Genealogy Society members are grateful for the aid since their current available storage space is becoming overrun with more and more resources to help people research their roots, including: marriage licenses, cemetery and census listings, biographies, family histories, obituaries, records from county area funeral homes, township burial indexes and more.
Most of the materials have been donated while others are considered on loan.
“There’s still a lot more to come. There always will be,’’ said Betty Dotson, who serves as the society’s membership secretary.
That’s partly because the services offered by the society have never just been limited to Fountain County, she said. When the facility was founded in 2002, West Central Indiana Genealogy Research Library seemed then to be “the best name to describe what we do and the area we cover,’’ according to Rebecca Haga, editor of the society’s newsletter.
The society, organized 11 years ago, also collects information and records dealing with Montgomery, Warren, Vermillion, Parke and Vigo counties.
Society member Ed Moyer said when the group first formed, there were no other organized genealogy clubs known to be established in any of those counties.
Research soon demonstrated that tracking family histories could easily require checking back and forth between all the surrounding counties, he said.
The society’s current membership numbers about 150, not all of whom live in Fountain County, though they have local ties.
“We’ve got members from Delaware to Texas to California,’’ Dotson said.
“You might say we’re coast to coast,’’ Moyer added.
There’s a $10 membership fee but no charge to use the society’s resources. In fact, people who come seeking help to trace their own roots often end up becoming new society members, like Barbara Cook of Bloomingdale, Ind.
“My mother lived in Kingman; I’m doing her family,’’ said Cook, who added that the aid of the society and its resources has been invaluable.
The dedication of the members is clear in the painstakingly detailed tasks they perform on a never-ending, volunteer basis. That includes walking every cemetery in Fountain County and transcribing data from each one, Moyer said.
The society holds regular meetings at the research library on the second Thursday of each month and visitors are always welcome, members said. In addition, the members serve as volunteer researchers at the library from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays and on the first and third Saturday of each month.
Society members say what they do is challenging and sometimes frustrating but always rewarding.
“It’s a hobby and it’s addictive. Once you get started, you never stop,’’ Dotson said.
“It never gets out of your blood once it’s in there,’’ Moyer said.
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| Longtime teacher's lessons go well beyond academics |
| Published: 5/16/06 Source: STAR-TELEGRAM |
By TERRY WEBSTER
STAFF WRITER
HURST -- Judy Dalrymple's classroom has everything a kindergartner needs.
There's a drinking fountain, a brown and white guinea pig named Cinnamon, two computers and colorful posters that remind the students to "be polite" and "be neat." At one end of the room, two small saws sit on a table used as a woodshop.
There's also something in her classroom at the Red Apple School, housed at Peace Lutheran Church, that wouldn't be found in a public school classroom.
A tiny bookcase at the front of the room is home to an altar with a cross and two votive candles in glass jars. Dalrymple lights the candles when the students say prayers and recite verses from the Bible.
It's a place where they can talk to God, she said.
Every day, the kindergartners reflect on how Jesus would want them to treat one another.
"Jesus asks you to love each person," Dalrymple tells her students.
Every day begins with a prayer and ends with the song Go Now in Peace.
Dalrymple, 62, has taught at Red Apple for 23 years, and she also served as co-director from 1983 to 1993. She retires Friday.
During a retirement party for Dalrymple on April 30, some of her former students and their parents wrote notes confirming her greatest hope: That the spiritual lessons she taught have stuck with them over the years.
"I was always interested in what God had to say. The insight from these lessons has gotten me over quite a few speed bumps in my life," wrote former student Michael Ray of Bedford, now in middle school. "Thank you so much for starting me in the right direction."
Although the kindergarten curriculum has changed over time, the basic Christian values that Dalrymple teaches her pupils have remained the same.
What was once expected of first-graders is now expected of kindergartners, Dalrymple said. Today, there is more emphasis on academics and preparing students for the state TAKS test in third grade.
"That's a real shame," Dalrymple said. "They still need time to play and to be free to pretend."
During a recent class, Dalrymple's students each placed five pieces into a Bugs Bunny puzzle, worked through math problems and prepared for show and tell, when imaginations can run wild.
Noah Ferguson, 6, showed his classmates a toy rocket during show and tell.
"It's a satellite, and it carries equipment from outer space," he said. "There's a store on the moon, or I think on Pluto, and it gets supplies and sends them back to Earth."
When the spaceship returns, "it's out of gas, so it has to float for a while before it hits earth or NASA," Noah said.
Other students sat on the floor in a circle around him, listening attentively.
Dalrymple says she teaches them to be respectful and refrain from nonconstructive criticism or saying things that would hurt others' feelings.
"They know there are certain things expected of them as a Christian person," she said. They are also taught that Jesus is their only savior, she said.
Even though the teachings are based on Christianity -- complete with Bible study and chapel services -- children from all religious backgrounds are welcome. Red Apple school serves about 190 students ages 2 years through kindergarten. Families from throughout the area, including from Colleyville, Fort Worth, Grapevine, Keller and Southlake, send their children to Red Apple, according to its Web site.
Marian Hamre, director of the school, said Dalrymple will be greatly missed.
"She's very supportive, she's fun and she has a great sense of humor," Hamre said. "Not only does she accept each child, but also each staff person."
Over the years, Dalrymple has been a mentor, always willing to share her ideas with other teachers, Hamre said.
Even now, days from retirement, Dalrymple finds it difficult to walk away from teaching students about reading, writing, arithmetic -- and God.
She plans to keep her name on the substitute teacher list.
"It's a good way to spend a life," she said.
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Terry Webster, (817) 685-3819 twebster@star-telegram.com
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| Leading the way |
| Published: 5/15/06 Source: Qunicy Herald-Whig |
By Kelly Wilson
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
Patricia Bissell looked for a job for months before an employer would take a chance on her.
As a visually impaired person who uses a guide dog, the task wasn't easy. But she finally got the opportunity she was looking for and has quickly proven that she can do the same work that her sighted co-workers can do.
"They've got me doing what everyone else does around here. Filing, computer work, answering the phone, I do what everyone else does," said Bissell, who started work in February at the West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living, 131 N. Fourth.
"I was so excited," she said, referring to the moment she learned she got the job. "It's very, very difficult to find a job. If you have a disability, it's three-fold harder."
Bissell was turned down by other employers, so she started to volunteer at the center to prove that she could handle the work setting.
The center hired her as an independent living specialist, with special expertise in blind services.
As part of her job, Bissell is promoting White Cane Awareness Week, which has a theme of "Losing Sight Does Not Mean Losing Independence."
The Center for Independent Living and the Quincy Lion's Club will host an open house from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday at the center to give the public a chance to learn about the visually impaired and the services available to help them remain independent.
The white cane became the symbol for the visually impaired in 1930 when the Peoria City Council passed an ordinance giving the right-of-way to a blind person using a white cane. Every state in the nation adopted a white cane safety law by 1956.
The canes not only represent safety, but also independence, for a visually impaired person.
But countless other devices and services are available to help the visually impaired function independently at home, on the job and in the community.
Bissell, for example, traded in her white cane for her guide dog Whisper last year. Whisper is her constant companion who was specially trained to keep her safe.
"She's not only for mobility, but she almost inspires confidence," she said. "It's also an ice-breaker if I go someplace new."
Bissell also uses a variety of adaptive devices to help in her job, many of them supplied by the Illinois Department of Human Resources' Division of Rehabilitation Services.
She has a closed circuit television in her office that can enlarge print, a computer with a talking program and a scanner with a program that reads aloud the information scanned.
She put Braille labels on files and file cabinets.
One of her most valuable devices is called the ID Mate2, which reads bar codes aloud. She can put a bar code on just about anything — from file folders and documents at work to canned goods, clothing, CDs and DVDs at home. When she scans a bar code with the device, it tells her what the item is and pertinent information about the item.
In the grocery store, for example, it gives her the name of the product, the size and the nutritional content.
"There are no limits as to what you can do with a loss of vision," Bissell said. "You can do everything you used to do, except drive. You just have to find new ways of doing them. There are adaptive things out there and a lot of tricks you can learn."
During Tuesday's open house, new products for those with impaired sight will be demonstrated. Representatives from the Illinois Department of Human Services' Bureau of Blind Services, Talking Books, International Eye Care and Quincy Public Library Outreach Services also will be on hand to answer questions about their services.
Information about the Lion's Club — which has a long history of providing vision services through eyeglass donations and vision screenings — and the Impaired Vision Support Group will be available.
The support group is for people with any level of vision impairment and meets from 10 a.m. to noon the first Thursday of each month at the Center for Independent Living. It provides information, speakers and social opportunities.
"We try and help them with the expertise we have how to adapt to their life of being visually impaired," Bissell said.
Transportation System Surveys will be available for visitors to fill out at the open house. Quincy Transit Lines will use the survey results to explore ways to improve transportation for Adams and surrounding counties.
For more information, call the West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living at (217) 223-0400.
Contact Staff Writer Kelly Wilson
at kwilson@whig.com or (217) 221-3391
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| Renovation of Mendham home provides surprises |
| Published: 5/6/06 Source: DailyRecord.com |
BY LORRAINE ASH
DAILY RECORD
Some houses reincarnate. Brian Graham has breathed new life into a grand old beauty just feet off the old Route 24 in Mendham Borough -- Chapel Hill Manor.
At least that's what the latest version of the 7,500-square-foot manor home is called. Outside and in, the home is architecturally thrilling, featuring influences of many styles, including Arts and Crafts, Gothic and Colonial Revival.
A church influence also presents itself in a chapel reconfigured into a home theater, which even has mezzanine seating. When Graham bought the house, he did not realize the chapel was there.
"I know that sounds crazy," he said.
But it is not so crazy for an 18-room house that began its life as a reflection of the eccentricities of William Cordingley, the Harvard-educated architect who designed and built it for himself in 1918. The stucco and stone home -- with five discontinuous floor levels -- contains bookcase walls on pivots for access to concealed staircases and secret rooms.
Once inside and exploring, Graham and his crew found a panel on the first floor leading to a makeshift ladder inside the wall that ran all the way up to the third floor to a hidden chamber. They found an entire winder staircase where they first had wanted to install a coat closet in the entranceway.
Even so, discovering an entire chapel was a surprise.
"Over the years the chapel had been broken up into several rooms on several levels," explained Graham, a general contractor who lives in Mendham. Built into the space was a large kitchen, probably created in the late 1960s after Cordingley's death. "The kitchen ceiling concealed the arches above."
There was a basement below the kitchen and a long winder staircase that lead upward to what is now the balcony of the theater. It was only by peering through a small access panel on a landing at the top of the staircase that the arches and vaulted ceiling of the original chapel could be glimpsed.
Graham opened up the complete chapel space, arches and all, and installed a huge screen above a stage on which television, cable and DVDs can be viewed by an audience sitting in a dozen theater seats.
He is delighted and excited as he gives numerous tours of his creation to would-be buyers. Graham is hoping to sell the manor house for some $2.8 million as a new landmark on what already is an historic streetscape in downtown Mendham.
More than once, he said, he was advised to raze the building and erect a new one way back on the big lot he purchased. But he resisted that plan. He loved the old-fashioned pine library, complete with its own fireplace and enough room to shelve 2,100 books.
He loved shopping for early 20th-century fixtures such as doorknobs and light fixtures, and choosing just the right triple-pane, energy-efficient, custom-leaded diamond-shaped windows to replicate the original leaded windows on the house, even though it took some 300 small panes to cover 75 window units.
He enjoyed creating just the right Arts and Crafts-style balusters to complement the geometry in the windows, and he liked the challenge of preserving the dramatic ceiling and wall angles in the five bedrooms, in-law suite, four bathrooms and two powder rooms throughout the house.
Installing four new zoned air conditioners -- and four furnaces, one with access behind a fake bookcase in the library -- also was part of the design, drawn by Dennis Kowal Architects, which specializes in historic preservations and adaptive reuse.
"Piece of history," Graham said. "Instead of losing it, we save it, keep it around for another 100 years."
Charles Topping, a founder and current treasurer of the Mendham Borough Historical Society, said the property had become a sow's ear.
"But Brian turned it into a silk purse," he added. "I laud his effort. It took a lot of perseverance and patience."
It also took some innovation. So the project could at least approach financial feasibility Graham subdivided the lot he bought, sold the back portion to another developer, who built a luxury home there, and poured the proceeds of the sale into preserving -- and thoroughly modernizing -- Cordingley's house.
The borough granted him the subdivision he needed with the support of the borough historic preservation commission, Graham said, after he agreed to put a deed restriction on the house that compelled him to renovate it as if it were in the historic district. The house, however, is not in such a district.
"Maybe this is a model that can be used again to save other older homes," Graham said.
It has been used once before in the borough -- on the Drake House on Cold Hill Road, according to Topping.
Back in the day when Cordingley lived alone in the house, then known as St. Hilda's Lodge, he occupied one wing, which included the library and the chapel. That is the wing that, after the renovation, is most reminiscent of Colonial Revival architecture, Graham said. Cordingley used to rent out the rest of the house as two apartments.
The place suited Cordingley, who was part recluse and part public servant. A native of Brookline, Massachusetts, he came to Mendham to design the Convent of St. John Baptist, which is adjacent to his property, and afterwards the chapel, various outbuildings, gardens and a cemetery on the premises. When Cordingley died in 1965 at age 79 after being hit by a car in downtown Mendham, according to newspaper reports, the house was turned over to St. John Baptist in accordance with his will.
While he was a man who liked a good read by the fire in his library, he also was building inspector for Mendham, a justice of the peace and a mayor for two terms -- 1935-1936 and 1941-1942. Cordingley founded the Ralston Historical Association, donated the first ambulance to the local First Aid Squad and was a trustee and member of the Holy Name Society of St. Joseph's Church.
His colorful personality was legendary, according to Topping. A Republican, Cordingley resigned early from one of his terms as mayor after losing an election to a Democrat.
"People were so happy to get him out of office that firemen and a Republican committeewoman rode down the Main Street on a fire engine with the siren going at 4 o'clock in the morning to celebrate his defeat," Topping said. "In those days that would have been the time, after the polls were closed, that the results became public knowledge."
A newspaper account of the day reports that an enraged Cordingley wrote the following message on the blackboard at the empty firehouse: "A fine thing has come to pass when the firemen and residents use the municipal apparatus as a playtoy. What would happen if there was a fire now?" The returning firemen, it was reported, erased the rebuke.
Such are the stories that make old towns special, and nothing saves the stories like a house that is well loved and preserved.
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Lorraine Ash can be reached at (973) 428-6660 or lvash@gannett.com. |
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| New wing is gift for students |
| Published: 5/6/06 Source: New Britain Herald |
By DANIEL REMIN, Staff Writer
NEWINGTON -- On the day before vacation, second- and third-graders at Elizabeth Green School moved into new classrooms located in the recently renovated wing.
The school is undergoing construction that includes renovations to the building and a new gym. Thursday was the pupils’ first day in their new location. Teachers moved everything Tuesday night and Wednesday
The classrooms contain built-in computer workstations, sinks with a soap dispenser, cubbies for all the kids and a wardrobe closet for the teacher to hang her coat. The cubbies and wardrobe are already in while sinks will be put in next week. Bookcases are also coming, along with televisions.
Having computer stations will save space, said principal Wendy Crouse, because now they don’t need to have one on a cart.
"The kids found out they were moving Wednesday, and they were really excited," Crouse said. "We’re excited. Our theme (for this area) is the rain forest."
That is evident in green bulletin boards in the hallway.
There are seven classrooms in the new wing. There’s also a learning center, new lighting and a new heating system in place. Each room has green carpet on most of the floor. Tiles surround the area where the sinks will go and where the children’s cubbies are.
The tile varies by color depending on the room. One has yellow, another green.
The fourth grade will move into the second- and third-graders’ old classrooms because their area is going to be renovated. They will remain there until March 28, when the work is expected to be completed.
"The process of moving students around will continue for the rest of the year," said superintendent Ernest Perlini.
Similar work is also being done at the Ruth Chaffee School. Some were supposed to move in to new classrooms already but couldn’t because there was a delay in receiving new windows. They are expected to arrive next week, according to Perlini.
The entire construction projects will be completed about one year from now. |
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| High Point furnishings market showcased six designing names to remember |
| Published: 5/5/06 Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel |
By Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub
High Point, N.C. · The looks that shouted "buy me" at the International Home Furnishings Market had clean lines, beautiful colors and a dash of celebrity cachet.
Think national designers such as Candice Olson, Jessica McClintock and Barbara Barry. And recall those with roots in the town of Palm Beach, such as Mimi McMakin, Brooke Huttig and Celerie Kemble.
Manufacturers aren't tiring of the name game, and as long as the collections are stylish and innovative, neither will those of us who shop for furniture with a trained eye.
Mimi McMakin and Brooke Huttig
This Palm Beach duo from Kemble Interiors has a reputation for combining great style with a touch of whimsy. McMakin and Huttig, who could star in their own sitcom, don't take themselves or their decorating too seriously. And that's what makes them stand out from those who play it safe.
This time, their Palm Beach by Mimi and Brooke for Laneventure features fun accents like the dove feet on the La Paloma accent table ($649) that was inspired by the landscape and tranquility of Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. Tree Tops, McMakin's childhood home, inspired the new Tree Tops bar table ($1,749), which features a flower-inspired metal base and glass top.
The best story, though, is the La Salona accent chair ($1,309), featuring shirred borders, button tufting, a scalloped skirt, crisp welts and fluted legs. The smaller-scale chair was created in honor of a good friend and client, Palm Beacher Burk Ross.
"He has four of them in Palm Beach," McMakin says. "He loves them. He likes to sit lower than his friends. He feels that it honors them."
Celerie Kemble
Kemble, who runs the New York office of Kemble Interiors, is McMakin's daughter. She's a regular on the party pages of W as well as in design magazines such as House Beautiful.
Her young, hip, sophisticated and contemporary look translates well in her Celerie Collection for Laneventure. Her signature piece at this market is the sculptural Vera chair ($1,309), with its open flying back. It's covered in her fave look of the moment -- shagreen vinyl.
"I am putting faux leather on the walls, on the interior of bookcases," Kemble says. "It's a miracle fabric. It can be Liberace, Elvis or rock star. It is very timely and terribly usable. I have totally gone over the deep end with it."
The faux leather, which is part of the Celerie Collection for Valtekz, just came out and is available to the trade and furniture manufacturers only. It sells for $45 to the high $80s a yard. Kemble says it applies like wallpaper and comes in an infinite array of colors.
"I don't want to bash leather," she says. "I love the patina in an old leather piece, but this is consistent and comes in 54-inch widths. Only the super-trained eye will know it's not leather."
Candice Olson
Olson, former Canadian volleyball star-turned-designer and host of Divine Design on HGTV, has created her first collection of upholstered furniture for Norwalk. Traditional designs have been slimmed down and dressed up with details such as pleating, nailheads and tufting. Color rules from bright orange to brown. It's glam to the hilt.
Her signature piece is the Giselle, an upholstered headboard born from the traditional wing chair and dressed with nailhead trim. The showroom samples were in a feminine damask and a macho black leather($1,300 - $1,700). A more contemporary style is the Beckett chair ($737), which she says is her interpretation of a classic Barcelona chair.
Olson describes the 14 upholstered pieces as "classics with a twist."
"People are scared of contemporary," she says. "All the designs have details that speak to the past -- rolled arms, nailhead trim, curves. The recognition of the past calms the fear of contemporary."
Jessica McClintock
What comes to mind when you hear the name Jessica McClintock? The fashion designer known for her feminine prom gowns and wedding dresses has created a line of upholstered furniture for C.R. Laine. The furniture designs were inspired by her elegant Pacific Heights home in San Francisco, as well as her travels.
The collection is divided into four themes. Studio has clean lines and is more transitional. Boudoir has a smaller scale and is more romantic. Parlor is classic with upholstery details, such as rouching, upholstered buttons and fringe. Conservatory brings the outside in with garden colors and woven botanicals.
The design team sketched the furniture based on a trip they made to her home. McClintock reviewed the drawings and made some changes. For example, one of the sketches contained orange, not one of her favorite colors.
"I love England and I love the French creative palate," says McClintock, who was dressed in a black Donna Karan pantsuit that she made her own with the addition of white lace cuffs. "The French always throw their homes off-balance with an interesting pillow or vase or the way they put things together. They make their home reflect the people living in it."
Barbara Barry
The Los Angeles interior designer known for clean lines and soft colors continues to create elegant environments with her Barbara Barry Realized for Henredon. Her color of the moment is blush, a creamy tone that flatters the skin of those sitting in the room. The natural light changes the color, says Judy Acks, vice president of the Barbara Barry brand. It appears soft and cool in the morning and it gets rosy in the afternoon.
"Blush is a new color for us," she says. "Barbara loves colors. She always uses a tint along with a pale neutral such as grays, greens."
Highlights of the collection include the Hexagonal Hatbox occasional table ($2,250) featuring her characteristic oval motif and the streamlined Conversation sofa in a rich auburn velvet and her solid walnut dining chairs with blush lacquered linen upholstery ($1,500-$1,600 each).
"We all live hectic, crazy lives as working women," Acks says. "When we come home at night it should be a calm, restful place."
Acks sees the prime customer as a wealthy, young couple with a lot of disposable income.
"There is a young customer that had Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel in their first home," she says. "They want to create their own look. This is a grown-up version."
Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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| Design pair turn ideas into reality |
| Published: 1/9/05 Source: STUFF2 |
Whether it's a miniature pump, a reclining chair mechanism or a safety belt clip for kids, it seems no design job is too tough for Jon Fifield and Peter Wilcock.
The pair founded Petone-based design engineering company Exactus in 1999, and since then have helped more than 80 companies and individuals take their ideas from drawing boards to reality.
The pair were the brains behind a miniature pump system and some of the other 80 parts which make up Impian Technologies' AutoVet - a computerised drug infusion pump for dairy cattle.
They also came up with the ground-breaking technology for the reclining system in Formway's award-winning office chair, the Life Chair, as well as an ergonomic and safe transport system for delivering Rockgas gas bottles.
In the competitive world of design, where intellectual property is closely guarded, most of the projects they have worked on remain under confidentiality agreements, at least for the time being.
The pair met in 1992, when they were starting out in the product development department of Wellington-based lock and security company Interlock.
Mr Wilcock started as a tool maker in the factory and Mr Fifield as a design engineer on the company's cadet course.
Despite going their separate ways for a few years, one into teaching and the other to design role at another company, the two finally decided it was time to set up in business over a Christmas barbecue in 1998.
"We both have very different styles and experiences which is really useful because we are dealing with all sorts of things from design to machining to marketing and sales, so we are always calling on different knowledge," Mr Fifield said.
Exactus has expanded to employ two other fulltime designers and three part-time contractors. It also employs about 20 other people through outsourced manufacturing work.
As well as helping other companies with design, manufacture and tooling through Exactus, Mr Fifield and Mr Wilcock have a second company, Weave. Its Weave products include commercial office furniture and fittings such as office lights, door and desk handles and whiteboards.
The pair have also designed the Exactus locking clip, a safety belt devise for child restraints and a range of floating, rust-proof fishing equipment.
Mr Fifield and Mr Wilcock do not want to turn Exactus into a big company, but are planning to design more of their own products before teaming up with other manufacturers and distributors.
Mr Wilcock said their "point of difference" is that because they have designed and marketed their own products, they have a good idea of the whole process of taking something to market. Usually, design engineers just work on one project.
"We have a whole range of clients from the man or woman in their shed who comes up with a good idea through to established companies who want to look at redesigns of a product to get a few more years of life out of it."
Keeping products "stylie" is almost always the most difficult part, the pair say. |
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