Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Melinda Hill| Wayne County Extension

Wayne County Fall is really a beautiful time of year, the warm glowing colors, the crisp mornings and in our case, baby calves to watch run and jump in the fields.

Its been a long time for me since science class so I found the following information a great reminder when it showed up in my email this week. Why do leaves fall? If they stayed on the tree it wouldnt be good for the tree.

When cold weather comes, the cells in the leaves would rupture, making them useless for photosynthesis, in which light energy is converted to chemical energy and keeps them alive. If the leaves didnt fall, they would increase the stress on the trees limbs when snows come, causing many of the limbs to break.

So we get the color in the leaves as the weather begins to cool and the chlorophyll production stops, revealing the reds and yellows that have been there all along. Then we get to enjoy the colors as we travel with the realization that next spring we will see the blossoms and leaves begin the cycle once again.

While I love the colors of the season, the falling of the leaves prompts me to think about the clean up around the home that needs to be done. Heres a few items that might need to have attention if you are a homeowner this fall.

Have your furnace or heating system serviced by a qualified service company. The guidance is every year for an oil furnace and every other year for gas furnace. Change the filter before turning on the heat, order new ones if needed so you have a supply to change according to your owners guide. Make sure all vents/registers, in the home are clear and clean. Vacuum electric baseboard heaters to remove dust.

If you have a chimney, with a working fireplace or woodstove, its also time to have it cleaned and inspected for safety.

Cleaning out the gutters is essential after the leaves come down so the weight doesnt cause damage to them through the winter snows.

Check the downspouts and splash blocks, water should flow freely away from the home, no ponding or erosion around the foundation.

Check the smoke alarm and carbon-monoxide detector and replace batteries

Weatherize with caulking, weather stripping, or sealing around windows, doors, etc.

Remove screens, and if they need cleaning or repairing do it now so they will be ready in the spring.

Check your sump pump and make sure its in working condition

Take a walk around the house and make sure siding is in good condition, caulk or repair as needed.

Unhook water hoses from outside faucets and drain sprinkler systems. Wrap pipes with heat tape if pipes are exposed to winter weather.

Vacuum radiator grills on refrigerators and freezers for them to work efficiently.

Check basement drains or outside entrance to be free from debris.

Clean and put away patio furniture and grills

Seal decks or other wooden structures, inspect for damage or rot to repair

Check exterior lights and replace as needed.

Your home is an investment and taking care of the little things will help to prevent the big expenses in the future. Take a walk and do an inspection with a list to follow up on, you will be happy you did in the long run.

If owning a home has been a goal for you and your family I would like to let you know that we will be having a series of classes beginning in November (10, 17, 24 and Dec 1) at 5:30 p.m.to share information on becoming a home owner. If you would like to know more details, contact the office at 330-264-8722 or my email at hill.14@osu.edu.

Melinda Hill is an OSU Extension Family & Consumer Sciences Educator and may be reached at 330-264-8722.

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There is a science to why leaves fall in the fall - Wooster Daily Record

Honoring Columbus Day and American tradition

By Ray Hanania

Monday is "Columbus Day," although given the wave of reverse racism and anti-mainstream hatred sweeping America these days, you would not have known.

The protestors assert Columbus was a racist foreign colonial settler, and that America was already discovered. Therefore Columbus should not be honored with the thousands of statues that have been erected in his honor since the United States was founded in the mid-18th Century.

None of the mainstream news media, the TV news broadcasts, the Left or even the City of Chicago acknowledged Columbus Day. I'm not surprised about Chicago which is turning into a real-life version of the 1981 Hollywood movie "Escape from New York" Chicago has become a self-imposed maximum "insecurity" prison for law-abiding citizens imprisoned by growing lawlessness, looting and street gang violence that neither Mayor Lori Lightfoot or the Black Lives Matter protestors care to stop.

Bashing Columbus is just the frontline of this new wave of racist hatred spreading across America that is directed against anyone who is "mainstream," or not a flaming leftwing reverse racist, the country's new movement of intolerance that has disguised itself as seeking "diversity" and "justice."

They anti-Columbus haters hide behind racist slogans like "White silence is violence" and "No justice, no peace."

It's not justice when you claim you have been left out of a system an exaggeration by the way and then you respond by excluding and marginalizing those you disagree with. The voices of the protestors have been almost inaudible in denouncing the looters and violence that has accompanied their protests and the tearing down of the statues.

The protestors are also demanding the removal of statues of George Washington, America's first president and not because he told a lie when he was young. Henry Lee, the father of General Robert E. Lee and the author of the resolution honoring Washington after his death, declared Washington was, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Not anymore, clearly. Protestors are tearing down both Columbus statues and Washington statues and they are doing it illegally without going through the Democratic process they claim they support but in reality do not.

For me, this year, it isn't just Columbus Day. It is Columbus Week. The hypocrisy of the anti-Columbus Day and anti-Washington protesters is glaring.

They dislike Columbus because they claim America was already "discovered." Yes, by a nation of Native Americans, who by the way violently and brutally wiped out and even enslaved the people who were here before them.

They complain Washington was a "slave holder." According to the protestors, only White Americans had slaves but that's not true, either. Many of the slaves brought to America from Africa were sold to European slavers by African tribes and profiteers. Yes, African tribes and powers enslaved people, too.

In fact, I would argue there has been slavery and racism in every society, not just here in America.

I sympathize with the Native Americans who suffered at the hands of our government from the time the Spaniards arrived until slavery was abolished by a White man named Abraham Lincoln. They have been abused and mistreated.

America also fought a war in part to end slavery. And 100 years later, African Americans were given equal rights and benefits to assist them to evolve in society along with everyone else. Yet, Lincoln's statue was toppled, too.

To me, Columbus is an icon. His discovery of America for the Europeans was a major event. History is replete with people who are brutalized and subjugated. It happens all the time. But some political opportunists seem to pick and choose who to champion and who to demonize. I think the picking and choosing less to do with justice and morality, and more to do with selfish politics.

I don't hear the protestors speaking about their history of violence, how their side coddled and embraced violence against the people who were here before them. Most of the Native Americans migrated to the Americas from Asia, wiping out people who were in their way.

I will continue to celebrate Columbus Day, which is held on Oct. 12, the day the Columbus arrived in the Americas, and was later designated as a national holiday celebrated on the 2nd Monday of October.

If we really want to honor the first people who lived in America, celebrating "Indigenous Day" is as much a lie as celebrating Columbus Day.

Maybe we should erect a statue of the Neanderthals, because they were here even before the Native Americas and were wiped out without any sympathy at all.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129042-first-americans-may-have-been-neanderthals-130000-years-ago/

ORLAND PARK'S PETTY PEKAU

A couple of readers sent me the audio they received of an anonymous robocall that criticizes Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau's turbulent and unproductive first term in office.

The robocall was stupid, although it included many facts. The voice was obviously computer-generated. No one claimed credit for it. Clearly if someone wanted to undermine and raise concerns about Pekau's tyrannical rule, the robocall doesn't even come close.

Pekau has called these anonymous robocalls "vicious" and a part of a political campaign to challenge his fairy tale myth that he has been a good mayor. He hasn't been a good mayor at all.

I hope the Justice Department investigates these anonymous robocalls and determines who is doing them because they are illegal. They are far from wrong but Pekau has cited them as evidence of how he has been unfairly criticized.

That's the real tragedy because Pekau has been more vicious and has made more personal attacks against others than the robocalls have made about him.

Pekau has attacked pretty much every person who holds public office who has ever disagreed with him.

He rules the village like a Soviet Era tyrant, something anyone can see by watching the board meeting broadcasts online. Pekau constantly bullies elected officials on the board who try to challenge his ruthless and wrong policies, like Dan Calandriello and Jim Dodge. And, he bullies them and others in his weekly eNewsletters, twisting and distorting facts to make himself look like he is the victim when he is not.

In 45 years of covering politics and government, in my opinion, Pekau is the worst elected official. What makes him the worst public official is not based on the issues he says he supports. It's based on his clear hypocrisy. Like when Calandriello asked the board in April to explore ways to help local businesses suffering because of the Coronavirus. Instead of embracing the idea, Pekau attacked and bullied Calandriello, and called him a political grandstander. One month later, however, Pekau did exactly what Calandriello suggested, claiming to want to help the businesses in Orland Park. The real issue? Pekau wanted the credit for himself, not Calandriello. He can't stand anyone who outshines him, which is pretty easy to do.

Too little, too late, Mayor!

Pekau has attacked me repeatedly -- like when I do what he fails to do, provide Orland Park residents data on how many people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Where is that information on the Village website, by the way? Anywhere?

The daily data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows COVID-19 infections continue to rise in erratic spikes. They rose 50 percent in July, maintained a threatening rate in August and spiked during the last few weeks of September.

Pekau says the infection rate in August was 9.6 a day and was "only" 9.1 in September. "Puh-lease," Mayor. You are so irresponsible. The daily infection numbers jumped high in the final week of September. It should be troubling for any responsible public leader. Nine Orland Park residents are infected EVERY DAY ... that should be troubling, not a political weapon in your ruthless arsenal of denial.

The steadily rising infection rate is troubling enough. The fact Pekau doesn't seem to care is worse.

(Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and columnist. He writes on mainstream issues for several Southwest regional newspapers and for the Patch each week. He also covers Middle East issues for the Arab News which has bureaus in Riyadh, Dubai, Japan, France, Pakistan, London, New York and Chicago. Reach him on his website at http://www.Hanania.com. And, he does government media consulting work.)

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Honoring Columbus Day and American tradition - Patch.com

The biggest challenge was using what was already here but making it better, says Tiffany (left). This isnt our forever home, so I had to be really smart about what I decided to spend money on and what just needed a small facelift. Its way easier to bring your full vision to life without any restrictions, but the fun part is figuring it out with those limitations.

When interior designer Tiffany Thompson bought this two-bedroom Portland, Oregon, town house in 2016, she was working at Nike and viewed its close proximity to the companys headquarters as a major benefit. It also didnt hurt that she had access to a community pool and tennis court, or that the drive toward her street was lined with towering trees. But the deciding factor, Tiffany remembers, is that it had a certain Pacific Northwest luxury. What initially drew me to this place was the amount of natural light it received. Its pretty bright all of the time, Tiffany says. Coming from Miami where its usually sunny, the thing that scared me most about purchasing a home in Portland was that it was going to be dark and rainy seven months out of the year.

The challenge would be turning this cookie-cutter town house into a personalized haven. Tiffany was surrounded by a blank canvas. Luckily, her boyfriend, Julian Gaines, is a fine artist. With all of the art, we want to evoke emotion and really let them be the highlight of our home, she says. Being with an artist is amazing because I have endless items to choose from.

For the dining room art, Julian imagined himself being next in line on his way to heaven and seeing the person in front of him receiving his halo, she says. The table is from Lillian August, and the surrounding chairs are from Design Within Reach. The Studio Eero Aarnio Mini Pony Chair in the corner was found at Finnish Design Shop.

Tiffany couldnt touch the exterior or overhaul its interior, thanks to a homeowners association and a limited budget, but she could reimagine its white walls. She pictured a theme of timeless and cozy beauty, punctuated by details that were functional yet exciting upon a closer glance. Tiffany considered her canvas for a year, figuring that it was best to take her time on making this home feel like me. And when she was ready, she landed primarily on a black-and-white palette. Its amazing how these two colors bring a sense of balance to a space, Tiffany says. Theres also so much greenery outside that the black-and-white palette grounded my home and makes the backdrop of the outdoors feel and look even more intense.

These types of homes have exteriors that all look alike, so it was important for me to have some features that were our own and fun, Tiffany says. The accent wall is made of one-and-three-fourths inch oak slats that were nailed to the wall in one-inch gaps. The entire project was painted in Tricorn Black by Sherwin-Williams. The coffee table and floor lamp are from CB2, and the chrome Wassily side chairs were found on Chairish. The framed artwork was created by Julian and the masks are vintage.

Read this article:
This Tiffany Thompson Turned Her Cookie-Cutter Town House Into a Personal Art Gallery - Architectural Digest

Ann Getty in her San Francisco home, 1977

Horst P. Horst / Conde Nast via Getty Images

Ann Getty was as beautiful as she was philanthropic. Tall, at a statuesque 5ft 9, she was a devoted benefactor of the arts and did not allow her legacy to be dictated by the man she married nor the wealth she married into. A sharp, California farm girl, she grew up driving tractors on her fathers peach and walnut farm before marrying the composer Gordon Getty, the fourth son of oil baron J Paul Getty, then the richest man in the world.

Ann, who became a globe-trotting publisher, author, interior designer and philanthropist, died in September, aged 79. Although she lived a ritzy life, adorned with extravagances like a private Boeing 727 (that the press were quick to nickname Jetty) complete with a bath and two bedrooms, she adeptly managed to resist being cordoned off as a delicate socialite. In the lavish plane, Gordon and Ann would travel to the worlds greatest music and arts festivals, a passion the couple shared.

Effervescent and brilliantly intelligent, she was the perfect hostess for Gettys sumptuous parties in San Francisco, attended by aces of the classical musical world, from Luciano Pavarotti to Plcido Domingo. It was while traversing the globe that she met George Weidenfeld, the eminent publisher, and came to save the publishing house from collapse, buying a nearly quarter-size stake in the company. The next year, she and Weidenfeld teamed up to buy the New York publishing house, Grove Press (for $2 million), which had a roster of avant-garde authors and was famed for its audacity but was in a bad way financially. Ann, while she was the president of Grove Weidenfeld, told the New York Times: Im a publisher because its a cover for my indulgence. I love to read all day. But I come from nice Puritan stock, and I grew up believing that you have to work all day, so I made reading my work.

Ann Getty with her husband, Gordon Getty

Alan Davidson / Shutterstock

When in the 1980s she hopped over the continent to New York (following the sale of Getty Oil to Texaco for $10 billion), she was wooed to the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and New York University and fast-tracked to the epicentre of the grandest social circles. She had also been a benefactor for the University of California, San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco Opera amongst legions of others.

As for her and Gordon Getty, the story goes that in 1964 she was drinking with some friends in a North Beach Bar when Gordon Getty introduced himself and challenged her to match him shot for shot. She did and the rest is history. They were married that Christmas and J Paul Getty was said to be charmed by his sons choice.

Not just the arts, Ann earned a reputation as a fabulous interior designer and only the true masterpieces would do. In 1995 she founded the interior design firm, Ann Getty & Associates, and the obvious way to showcase her style was by opening up her and her husbands 1913 house designed by Willis Polk, the American architect. Veranda Magazine wrote: The couple have amassed a museum-quality collection of European antiques, Venetian paintings, French textiles and Russian chandeliers. She wrote and published a book, Ann Getty: Interior Style in 2012 which celebrated her love for English and French antiques and Chinese porcelains.

Despite long experience as a society hostess, she was shy and never quite at ease in New York favouring her life in San Francisco. Gordon would reportedly sometimes escape to a sound-proof room in their home to listen to opera, the Times says that she once described him as a perfect monk.

She is survived by her husband and their sons Peter, John and William, and six grandchildren. Ann Getty was born on March 11, 1941. She died of a heart attack on September 14, 2020, aged 79.

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Ann Getty, glamorous publisher and devoted arts patron, dies at 79 - Tatler

In June 1954, an article published in House & Home magazine read, The Japanese had some of our best ideas300 years ago. The piece highlighted three main attributes of Kyotos Katsura Imperial Villa, built in the 1620s: the open post-and-beam plan, the use of verandas for climate control, and its modularity based on tatami mats and shoji screens. The article coincided with the opening of the Japanese Exhibition House at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. On the recommendation of architect Antonin Raymond, the artist Isamu Noguchi, and others, the museums architecture and design curator, Arthur Drexler, commissioned Japanese architect Junz Yoshimura to design the house as part of the museums House in the Garden series. Yoshimura was inspired by a 17th-century temple home near Kyoto named Kojo-in. He designed and built the house in Nagoya and then shipped it in 636 crates, to be installed in the museums garden, where it received thousands of visitors daily over a period of ten months. Shofuso (Pine Breeze Villa), as Yoshimura named it, was subsequently moved in 1958 to West Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, where it remains today.

Sixty-two years later, and after several months of lockdown, Shofuso has reopened with an exhibition that revisits the historical-cultural exchange between Western modernism and Japanese traditional craft and architecture. Shofuso and Modernism: The Architecture and Design of George Nakashima, Antonin and Nomi Raymond, and Junz Yoshimura honors the close friendship and community-based collaboration between Yoshimura, architect and woodworker George Nakashima, architect Antonin Raymond, and interior designer and graphic artist Nomi Pernessin Raymond.

The exhibition was co-curated by William Whitaker and Yuka Yokoyama. Whitaker is the curator and manager of the architectural archives at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked with the Raymonds and the Nakashima family for many decades. Whitakers 2006 book and exhibition Crafting a Modern World: the Architecture and Design of Antonin and Nomi Raymond highlighted the designers longtime connection with Japan and Japanese architects and craftspeople from 1917 through 1966. Yokoyama boosted her knowledge of the history of ancient and contemporary Japanese craft by working for hands-on industrial designer Sori Yanagi, a pioneer in modernist Japanese design and the son of Setsu Yanagi, founder of the Mingei movement in Japan.

Shofuso is considered an Utsushi, which Yokoyama described as an homage to spirited inspiration. In Shofuso and Modernism, Utsushis are present everywhere, from the building itself to an ikebana arrangement resembling one at the 1954 MoMA installation to the newly commissioned photography by Elizabeth Felicella. Felicellas photographs, presented through a retro slide projector alongside archival photography by Ezra Stoller, show the current working life of the Raymond Farm and the Nakashima Studio.

Shofuso was always intended to be an exhibition house and not inhabited. Nonetheless, this show has enlivened it with a careful selection of furniture, art, and textiles. Bringing these pieces into Shofusos 15-mat room seemed a natural extension of the shared experiences of the Raymonds, Yoshimura, and Nakashima, Whitaker said. A 1933 Nomi-designed chair with grass rattan covering made for the Akeboshi Tetsuma House in Tokyo is placed next to a standing lamp from the 1950s with a handmade mulberry paper shade, along with a rug bearing a graphic abstraction of a lotus field circa 1935, also by Nomi. Alongside the houses shoin (a built-in desk) by Yoshimura hangs Nomis award-winning textile Strips, Trunks, Trees, Dots from the late 1930s. It was originally exhibited with two of her other fabrics at the 1941 MoMA show Organic Design in Home Furnishings, albeit under her husbands name.

The connection between the Raymonds and their protgs Nakashima and Yoshimura goes back almost 100 years. In 1934, a young George Nakashima from Spokane, Washington, having trained as an architect at the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Fontainebleau, joined the architecture office of Antonin Raymond, who, together with Nomi, had established a practice in Tokyo in 1921 after working with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Imperial Hotel. Nakashima would soon learn through the Raymonds work and writings how vernacular and modern elements could sensibly be joined. The Raymonds evolved an approach over 18 years of working in Japan that addressed the complexity of the cultural context, connected with Japans deep craft and making traditionsall the while maintaining a connection to modernisms interest in universal solutions, Whitaker said. An exceptional example is their summer studio in Karuizawa, Japan, built in 1933. Its design drew inspiration from Le Corbusiers Maison Errzuriz in Chile, an unbuilt project from 1930, but merged details particular to Japanese traditional cottages, such as awnings and organic fiber blinds, with modern concrete constructions, such as cantilevered platforms.

Yoshimura, classically trained in Japanese culture and traditions in Tokyo, had joined the Raymonds as a student in 1928 and later as a full-time architectural designer in 1931. Nakashima learned from Yoshimura the sophisticated nature of Japanese architecture as they traveled together through Nara, Hakone, and Ine. Nakashima reminisced in his 1981 autobiography Soul of a Tree, [Yoshimura] knew so well the elegance and power of simplicity, the beauty of proper materials in building, where the error of a fraction of an inch can make the design fail absolutely. He knew these things well in both the time-honored Japanese design and in the free, modern concepts, and he passed them on to me.

Nakashima was exposed to the craftwork of rural families in one of his first projects with the Raymonds, St. Pauls Church, finished in Karuizawa in 1935. Traditional Japanese carpenters (or daiku) made use of as much of a tree as possible, Whitaker explained. Larger sections [were used] for structural elements, secondary structural elements [were made] from midsize elements, and narrow diameters were used for the legs of furnitureall from the same tree. Even bark had a place in certain projects.

In 1938, Nakashima volunteered to work on the first reinforced concrete building in India, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry that had been commissioned to the Raymond office. Nomi maintained strong and deep interests in the spiritual basis of work, Whitaker said. Her connections to theosophy and other perspectives that explored the universality of human experience led her to an early interest in Aurobindo in the mid-1920s. Nakashima was also driven toward this mystical approach and embedded it in his life and work. To my mind, this is where Georges work as a woodworker beginsbeginning out of the wellspring of spiritual devotion, Whitaker asserted.

The Raymonds eventually moved their practice to the United States and in 1939 settled on an 18th-century farm of Quaker origin in New Hope, Pennsylvania (currently run by their granddaughter Charlotte). Yoshimura joined them for a year until war hostilities steered him back to Japan. Ironically, this was when Nakashima made the reverse move and decided to settle back in Seattle, where he began his woodworking practice. Shortly after, Nakashima and his family faced dehumanizing hatred of their Japanese ancestry and were forced to undergo imprisonment at the Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho. Guards were ordered to shoot whoever got close to the fence, Mira Nakashima, Georges daughter, recalled. Georges learning from skilled carpenters in Karuizawa and his karma yoga, hands-on work in the ashram at Pondicherry would prove fortuitous for this time. At Minidoka, Nakashima met Gentaro Hikogawa, a daiku from whom he learned woodworking. Such an opportunity would have been unthinkable within the stratified society in Japan.

In the exhibit at Shofuso, a contorted bitterbrush sculpture by Nakashima mounted on a cedar base sits atop a low table. Nakashimas use of bitterbrush has always fascinated me, Whitaker said. Something so humble as gathering wood in the midst of the Idaho desert, at a time of great personal distress and the inhumanity of war, cleaning it up to reveal the beauty and complexity of its growth over timeand to find a way to allow people to touch that, in an everyday wayseems magical to me.

Thanks to Nomis persistent requests, Nakashima was released from the camp with his wife, Marion, and his daughter Mira (leaving his parents and siblings behind) to the Raymonds New Hope farm in May 1943 on the condition that he not practice architecture. The Milk House table that supports the bitterbrush sculpture in the exhibition is a prototype Nakashima built in a small building on the farm that he adapted as his workshop. Some of his earliest 1940s pieces in the show, like the Straight Chair prototype, the Windsor-like Arm Chair, and the Grass-Seated Chair he designed for MoMA director Ren dHarnoncourt, have a heaviness and an earthbound quality that a lot of furniture did not have in the 1940s, design historian Derek Ostergard said in a recently premiered documentary directed by John Terry Nakashima.

The legacy of the Raymonds, the Nakashimas, and Yoshimura is genuine and palpable through this insightful showa coming together of friends and longtime art and design enthusiasts. An original film accompanying the show produced by Greenhouse Media and directed by Philadelphia-based artists Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib debuted on October 9 and gives even more information about the shows participants.

Natalia Torija Nieto is an architecture and design writer trained in modern art, design, and material culture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently working on a book on the architectural work of George Nakashima.

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Shofuso and Modernism revisits a major mid-century East-West cultural exchange - The Architect's Newspaper

The pictured design from Mary Norris Interiors won in the Outdoor Spaces.

The Interior Design Society (IDS) gathered virtually to honor winners of the 2020 Designer of the Year competition on Oct. 8.

The Designer of the Year competition demonstrates our commitment to recognize the outstanding work of our members nationwide says Jenny Cano, IDS executive director. This year we received a record number of entries, our award-winners consider it a prestigious honor.

The virtual gala, available to view in full at this link, also honored two individuals that received the 2020 Outstanding Leadership Award, Beth Clark of Portland, Ore. and Audrey Clawson of Charlotte, N.C.

The winners of the Designer of the Year competition are:

Space Designs:

Singular Areas:

Specialty Awards

Impact Awards

Adelaide Addie Elliott is the web editor for Casual Living, Furniture Today and Designers Today. Before being promoted to web editor in May 2019, Adelaide worked as Furniture Todays editorial intern for a year. Get in touch with her on Twitter at @AElliott_Writes or by email at aelliott@designerstoday.com.

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Interior Design Society taps Designer of the Year winners in virtual ceremony - http://www.designerstoday.com

Design your passion into the career of your choice!

Were you always the artsy one? The one who (mentally) rearranged every room as soon as you walked into it? The go-to setup committee for every event and celebration?

And then it came time to plan a career. And you dreamed of finding the perfect choice that would allow you to:

Utilize your innate creativity and talents

Work well with your inborn people skills

Hold down a job while completing the coursework

Was that too much to ask for?

ICA, The Institute for Career Advancement, was founded with one overarching goal: that of enabling talented young men and women to fulfill their career dreams at an affordable price, in a timeframe that worked well with the busy lifestyle of todays generation.

The renowned ICA Interior Design Course was created just for you the creative, artistically-inclined soul who wants to channel their inborn gifts so they can profit and live off their talents. This course offers you the ability to turn pro and become a professional interior designer in just 12 months. With separate classes for men and women, and sessions held on evenings or weekends, this course was designed for busy creatives like YOU.

To ensure the very highest standards of education, course instructors are licensed and professional interior designers whose real-life experience in the field brings their lessons to life. The course covers the basics of design style, with an emphasis on aesthetics that doesnt compromise on functionality. Also included are the drafting software and the important technicalities like code compliance and presentation skills, so that you are fully prepared to deal with every job you may encounter.

Why stifle your inner creativity when you channel into a lucrative career? With an over 85% job placement success rate, and a number of graduates who opened their own interior design firms upon completing the course, the ICA Interior Design Course is the option of choice for aspiring interior designers.

Design your passions so that they form the groundwork for your future career success!

Next cohort begins October 25 20. THIS may be YOUR opportunity.

Call 718-506-0912 to register or to learn more.

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Design your passion into the career of your choice! - Yeshiva World News

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Port of Portland shares first look of new main terminal design on PDX's 80th anniversary - KPTV.com

Lifestyle and interior designer Amanda Hilton Sawyer is founder of Irish Girl in Brooklyn. She lived in the US for 25 years and moved back to her native Limerick two years ago she wants to bring that Brooklyn look here.

*What have you done to make your home more eco-friendly?

I have a Victorian house in the city that its 100 years old is of itself an environmental choice. The walls are two feet thick. When we were putting in a window, the builder said thick walls were that eras insulation they didnt allow damp to penetrate.

Everything I do is sustainable I have expensive taste so, if I buy anything, its for life. I believe sustainable should include workers rights and fair trade. When I lived in America, I bought from union factories [where workers have a union]. If you buy something cheap and the materials are sustainable but it was produced in a factory where labours underpaid or conditions are sub-par thats not acceptable. For me, coming from a working-class background, thats a deeply-instilled belief.

I have an aversion to anything disposable. If I get tired of it I change its use, repurpose it or send it to auction. Most of my choices are based on that philosophy. Ive had old linen curtains repurposed into roman blinds for most of the house.

All my furnitures old.

I only ever use low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint. My wallpaper isnt vinyl-coated. All my sheets are organic fair-trade linen, which wash so well and become better with time well worth the upfront investment. My cutlerys old silver-plate, available at every flea market in the world cheap and fabulous. I also collect and use old mason ironstone white plates they have a great look. *Whats the most do-able eco-friendly home decor idea you've come across?

I love the [current] dried flower trend. Many florists are trying to do only local flowers now because the flower business can be so toxic roses in supermarkets are usually from Africa, where theyre grown with lots of pesticides. But at certain times of year, there arent many local flowers, so theres a trend towards using dried flower arrangements. An over-the-top arrangement looks amazing on mantle, sideboard or dining table. You can have fun foraging for branches and twigs, as well as drying your own flowers, e.g. hydrangeas. And at the holidays dress it up to be festive, or add fresh flowers in spring.

*What sustainability-conscious household habits do you routinely practice at home?

I use eco cleaning products. I buy veg at farmers markets to avoid plastic packaging. We walk 90% of the time thats why it was important for me to live in town. Its how we lived in Brooklyn and I didnt want to give that up. Im not getting in a car to buy a pint of milk!

An interior designer for 25 years, Gwen Kenny is founder of Dublin-based Divine Design. She lives in South Dublin.

*What have you done to make your home more eco-friendly?

It was a two-storey, three-bed house. Then we did an attic conversion and two extensions. We insulated all exterior walls and the roof space to reduce heating costs.

We also changed the heating system. Its much more economical. Its a zoned system you can have just the upstairs heating on or the downstairs. Its operated by thermostat once it hits the temperature youve set, it turns off. We have thermostatically-controlled radiator valves so you can set the temperature you want in each room.

We added a stove in the back extension, where we mostly live. Its a wood-burning stove of course, there arent endless supplies of wood but its more efficient than a coal fire. All our light-bulbs are energy-efficient. *What's the most do-able eco-friendly home decor idea you've come across?

I bought an amazing sideboard and mirror in an auction house a huge, fabulously-carved Jacobean piece. It was heavy, dark brown and nobody wanted it. I got it for 300, I painted it and then everybody wanted it! Nobody could see it out of its ugly duckling phase my husband said what did you buy that for when he saw it. I painted it grey and highlighted it with very soft white. We went to see Downton Abbey and they had the exact same sideboard. My husband, Tadhg, said look, they have our sideboard I wanted to rewind, but of course you cant in a movie!

I could see the quality in it from the start, the weeks alone itd have taken to do the carving they dont make stuff like that anymore. I didnt use any new materials other than paint, so I see it as really minimising our footprint. *What sustainability-conscious household habits do you routinely practise at home?

We try to be a non-plastic family for example, we buy vegetables loose rather than in packaging. We recycle as much as possible I have a wormery in my garden. You get plant food and composting out of it. We use old-fashioned hand soap rather than plastic bottles. I do in the shower too. I get them from Dalkey Handmade Soaps, which also makes shampoo in bars. I havent convinced the kids yet though theyre 17 and 10 thats a work in progress!

Cork-based interior designer Cathy Angelini set up Flamingo Interior Design in 2017.

*What have you done to make your home more eco-friendly?

A lot of the furniture is vintage most rooms in my house in Waterfall have two or three pieces. Any storage unit I buy is vintage or antique. I have a 1960s writing bureau in the hallway that we use as a hall table. Nearby is an armchair from the 1970s next to a table from the 70s with an old record player on it.

I didnt go vintage with the sofa it can be hard to get one in good condition. Comforts key in a sofa, so we went new with that. My beds also new but my eight-year-old daughter Nancys bed is an old iron one we got on Done Deal. *What's the most do-able eco-friendly home decor idea you've come across?

When looking at dcor, go for natural materials. Choose eco-friendly paint with fewer chemicals and where pots are recyclable. Get hands-on with up-cycling. Rather than throwing out a tired old bed-side table, I painted it bright blue and put some brass handles on it and its now in my daughters room. *What sustainability-conscious household habits do you routinely practise at home?

I dont own a dryer and have no plans to get one. I line-dry clothes or use the clothes horse.

I dont use spray cleaners. I buy a bar of cleaning soap wrapped in brown paper from Green Outlook (https://www.greenoutlook.ie/). I bought one in October, it lasted four months and cost only 4.50. You wouldnt clean an oven with it but its great for cleaning down countertops, the sink, dining room table or, when doing a deep clean, the window frames. And it smells lovely.

Green Outlook also does eco-friendly beauty products I use reusable make-up pads, as well as bamboo toothbrushes. Theyre biodegradable and look nice.

My daughters using solid bars of shampoo and conditioner from Holland & Barrett. Im shortly going to make that switch. When you squeeze shampoo out of a bottle, you tend to use too much, whereas a bars a slower process and its great for travel.

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Meet the interior designers who take pride in their green houses - Irish Examiner

Portland, Oregon-headquartered architecture firm ZGF Architects is celebrating the 80th anniversary of its hometown air travel hub, the Portland International Airport (PDX), by publicly sharing several early design renderings of the upcoming new main terminal at the airport, expected to be completed in 2025.

With a price tag of $1.5 billion, the new main terminal building at PDX is the largest of five major capital improvement projects that have been completed or are underway at the airport as part of the Port of Portlands PDX Next campaign. Designed by Hennebery Eddy and Fentress Architects, an expanded Concourse E opened to the public this summer as part of the $2 billion airport overhaul. Meanwhile, a redeveloped and expanded Concourse B, also designed by ZGF, along with a revamped rental car center and parking additions are all due to be completed in fall 2021. Concourse A, home to the last remaining swath of PDXs extremely locally beloved geometric-pattern teal carpeting, was closed for demolition late last year to make way for the new Concourse B.

As for the 17,5000-square-foot new main terminal, ZGF cites the rugged landscapes of the Pacific Northwest as being a major influence in its health- and wellness-focused designa design that will boast nature-infused interiors and a spacious, versatile footprint geared to accommodate an anticipated influx in passenger volume at PDX in the coming years. Frequently highly rated by passengers as one of the best domestic airports based on various criteria, PDX currently ranks as the 30th busiest airport in the United States based on total passenger traffic, falling in between Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu and Nashville International Airport.

The influence of the regions natural landscapes will be most evident in the terminals vasttimber roof, which will be studded with massive skylights and stretch across enlarged lobby and ticketing areas. As noted by ZGF in a news release, the roof, which will begin installation in 2022, is to be constructednot at all surprisinglyfrom sustainably sourced regional wood.

The roof design was inspired by the forests of the Pacific Northwest and the feeling you get while walking through the woods, the experience of light filtering through the trees, and the protection of the tree canopy, explained Sharron van der Meulen, ZGF partner and lead interior designer for the project, of the terminals strong arboreal influence.

In addition to the timber roof, the outdoors-y vibes continue throughout the interior of the energy-efficient, earthquake-safe terminal with plans for a considerable amount of lush greenery to be incorporated into the design.

While the design of the terminal pays explicit homage to the forests and coastlines of the Pacific Northwest, it also nods to the human-scaled, neighborhood-oriented streetscapes of Portland itself. As elaborated by ZGF, passengers traveling through the new main terminal can expect to see independent storefronts clustered together along a tree-lined street and cafe seating spilling out onto sidewalks.

Were taking the airport that has served the region well for the past 80 years and updating and upgrading it, said Vince Granato, chief projects officer with the Port of Portland. While the space will look and feel different, we are keeping the heart and soul of the airport that Portlanders know and loveeasy to navigate; bright, open spaces; and local shops and restaurantsit will still feel like home.

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Get an early glimpse of the new timber-topped main terminal at Portland International Airport - The Architect's Newspaper