Mr. Prof designer home

Well it's official~~the dog days of summer are here. We go from one extreme to the other. No rain, too much rain. I am actually quite surprised by the stamina of my gardens this year, as usually most of my plants are looking more than a bit tired by now. It isn't easy to garden in Florida. Early on I tried to achieve the cottage garden look, and I will admit that I wasted a lot of money on fussy perennials that never stood a chance even though Jackson and Perkins guaranteed they would. Those plants are but a memory now, and while I long for peonies, snapdragons and delphiniums I have learned to use what works in this brutal climate I call home. Here is a look inside the gardens at Sweet Pea...

When I requested help for my kitchen countertops, a number of people suggested concrete.


One of them -- Kevin Ritter of Timeless Kitchen Design -- even sent a link to a kitchen he did that featured tin wall tiles and concrete countertops. Looks good, doesn't it? I've also experimented with staining concrete (your garage floor is a great place to experiment), and you can get some nice color tones -- copper is one of them.

In addition to staining, there's lots of possibilities in concrete -- you can embed things in it, or score it, or combine ideas to make something particularly spectactular.


I don't know what I'll end up doing, but concrete is definitely worth thinking about. It would add a nice industrial edge to my traditional cabinetry.

Lee sent me a link to these instructions on how to make old appliances look "new." The new they are referring to here is faux stainless steel, but the same type of contact paper is also available in brass....



In fact, I think brass contact paper could have a multitude of uses in a steampunk home. (Or copper, if you prefer.) Covering a boring side table? Papering a wall in a bathroom? Adding interest to the interior of a bookshelf? Any other ideas?


Now, if only someone can come up with a way to antique it.

Need a last minute summer vacation? Have a couple tens of thousands of spare dollars lying around?


Poseidon Undersea Resort is the world's first seafloor resort. The luxury resort is accessible by elevator, and you sleep 40 feet below surface. They'll even teach you to pilot one of their 3 passenger submaries and "explore the abyss."


So the decor is a bit disappointing compared to what it could be, but there's a lot of potential. Too bad it isn't steampunk.

Thanks to Mr. Jon McDougal for pointing this out.

Ms. Heather Morris, a reader, spotted some rather steampunk finds recently at Anthropologie.

The "Old World Lamp" incredibly seems to combine distressed cotton-linen, a globe, and a light into one perfect piece. I'd put this into my Airship Room, if I actually had one.



Also charming are the colored chemistry lab vases -- I suspect lab glass was never actually made in these colors, but then I also find that clear glass ones tend to get "lost," visually, in a room, so this might be a good antidote.

Ms. Morris also points out the tea bowl lanterns and inlaid pearl light switch covers.

Mr. von Slatt was so kind as to point out his recording of the Steampunk Design Panel at Readercon.

It's a lovely rambling panel that covers the politics and philosophy of Steampunk Design (I'm not a purist, nor were most of the panels) -- DIY was deemed a core part of the approach, but it doesn't actually have to carry steam to be considered Steampunk.

Holly Black (author of the Spiderwick Chronicles) mentions her Tudor home that she's redone with hidden passageways, etc. I'll see if I can track down or wheedle pictures of same.

There's some nice references to the Steampunk Home, as well. *blush*

They wrap up the panel brainstorming what a "Steampunk Gibson Chair" would look like -- as best I can tell, it's a steam-warmed hovercraft chair, with armature for dealing with creatures of the night. Fun!

"CHILD TRAINING" by Voddie Baucham