Design Your Bathroom Around Your Rug!

In preparing for the 4th annual Bathroom Blogfest, I came across a tweet [i.e., a Twitter post] from @PassionForRugs with a link to an article titled Bathroom Rug Mosaic, which delighted me! It showcased a bathroom that had been redesigned around a patterned rug [pictured here].

Don't you find the effect brilliant? What a marvelous way to make the 5th wall in a room the visual anchor for design!

The design premise had me thinking about Thom Filicia and Designing From The Floor Up.

It also reinforced what NKBA New Zealand described in summing up what it had observed from the entries to the 2009 NKBA Awards: "a return to clean and simple lines, kitchen and bathrooms that are minimalist in style but with a bold feature or texture."

At around the same time, I came across a link [thanks to @TLSbyDesign] to NKBA's Top Ten Kitchen & Bath Design Trends for 2009. The trends include:

1. Steel counters
2. Glass elements
3. Stone hearths
4. Black & White kitchens
5. The return of chrome
6. Shoji screens
7. Tin ceilings
8. Floating cabinets
9. Mirrors away from the walls
10. Resin panels

Given these trends, and the wonderful potential that designing your bathroom - or any other room for that matter! - around your rug holds, how would you go about redesigning and coordinating for as marvelous an effect as the bathroom referred to above?

Happy Bathroom Blogfest 09!

For more information, and links to all of the 2009 Bathroom Blogfest posts, visit BathroomBlogfest.com.



Photo credit: Attic Mag, Bathroom Rug Mosaic


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Strange Carpet Store Names: What's Your Favorite?

I recently rediscovered an article titled "Strange carpet store names can floor you - Giant Don, Big Bob, Jungle Jim -- it seems size matters" by Julia O'Malley from the 05/09/09 Anchorage Daily News that had me giggling and reminiscing.

Giggling because I could picture the owners of Giant Don, Big Bob's and Jungle Jim -- and Kash's Carpet, Signs Carpet and Chubby Chicken's Cheap Cheap Carpet or Dirt's Cheap Carpet -- as they described the profound logic behind their choices of names.

Now, to be fair I have spoken with Big Bob David Elyachar and, even over the phone, he comes across as bigger than life and hugely passionate about his business. [Here is the story of how he got started.] His name is also the tamest... although some of his commercials are beyond description [I couldn't find the Bohemian Rhapsody commercial, but do check out these two Big Bob's classics.]

The more extreme and strange names had me reminiscing about my Wear-Dated upholstery fabric days and more specifically a series of conversations leading to a presentation with John Case, formerly president of La-Z-Boy and CEO and president of Elecrolux, about the types of sales events that furniture retailers would put on. Like "Big-Ass" Sales with graphic images that - unlike Apartment Therapy's promotion of one - go against any kind of association with design or style or interior inspiration.

Because after all isn't that what a carpet or furniture or other home interior item is supposed to be a part of? A beautiful, stylish, elegant, inspiring and comfortable home?

Which explains why a name like Floorcraft or Town and Country - as the article mentions - sounds a lot more appealing than, although perhaps not as memorable as, Dirt's Cheap Carpet.

Do you agree?

So, now I'm curious. What are the strangest carpet store names you've come across? And, what about unusual sale event names? Which are your favorites?

If you need further inspiration, check out check out Roadside Art Online: Grog N Groc Hall of Fame. As the tagline reads "Great names, normal places, we do not make these up." It's guaranteed to generate giggles, guffaws and a few dropped jaws.





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