What great lines you have!

The Helios chair from Spigoli Vivi is part chair part night light. The Italian design duo wanted to solve the "improper use of a chair" when used as a bed side table - which I'm sure most of us did at some point during college. Now you have a piece that correctly functions as both. Some of their other products hide lighting in interesting ways too. Check out Stick. All of the headers on the website are in English but all the content is in Italian so maybe some of you out there can glean some further insight into their inspiration.

Hodnebo is a Norwegian furniture and accessory company with a very comfy residential feel. The Spinnaker chair uses old boat sails for the sling support topped with an upholstered cushion. The sloping, cradling shape is supposed to be good for blood flow and for the back, but also mimics the shape of an actual spinnaker sail. The steel framing and hardware also found inspiration in boat rigging. So on those freezing cold Norwegian winter days, you can curl up in your sail chair and dream of those cold Norwegian summer days on the water.

No really, check out the lines on that chair! The Tour Lounge from Aprro Design (you will have to navigate from the menu on the left) has a singular support that comes up from the base. This allows the seat to give with what I think would be a fair amount of bounce, but it also rotates around the base. The angle of the seat compliments the angle of the support and the mirrored finish on the base minimizes its appearance. Be sure to click through their other designs. The JFK series looks great too.

It's BACON!

I have found the perfect gifts for the people in your lives that are true bacon lovers at their slowly clotting hearts.
We've got a full range of bacon chocolate bars from Vosges. There's milk chocolate, dark chocolate, gift boxes that include a complementing beer, and even a bacon chocolate chip pancake mix. Why have the bacon as a side to your pancake breakfast when you can have it mixed right in?
Along that same line is candied bacon from The Sticky Pig. These culinary delights come in flavors like Cookies and Cream and Coconut Curry Lime, and you can sign your loved one up for a Candied Bacon of the Month Club.
I'm not sure why it took so long for someone to make it, but there is finally an award winning bacon flavored vodka called Bakon. Apparently mixologists are enjoying serving Bakon Martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives - which actually doesn't sound too bad. But you can see other recipes on their website including a Waffle Shot and an Elvis Presley that includes Bakon Vodka, hazelnut liqueur, banana liqueur, and cream - did anyone else just gag a little? I see a fun experimental Friday cocktail hour in everyone's future.
And for the true bacon lovers that don't want to fool with this fancy, novelty stuff, there is J&D's where everything should taste like bacon, including salt, popcorn, and mayonnaise - excuse me, Baconnaise.

YAYA Originals

Wall Hanging

Curtain Panels, Pillows

Hand Crafted Chair

Framed Carpet Sample

This week the Delta Regional Chapter of the International Interior Design Association held their annual Holiday Party for their New Orleans center. Along with the food, drinks, and Toys for Tots, the event held the concluding silent auction for their fall IIDA Gives Back program. This year's program partnered with YAYA Inc. to create a competition for their young artists to design a fabric, a rug, and a piece of furniture. The artists were introduced to the world of Interior Design through talks with reps, designers and manufacturers along with factory tours and design critiques. The entries were judged and the winning pieces were actually created to be auctioned off at the party.

The top two pictures are the fabric designed by Donnie de Frazier. The artist worked with Purple Monkey

to sharpen up the repeat and the fabric was printed in different scales in their shop here in New Orleans.

The chair was designed by Jourdan Barnes and built by Dutel Homes in their newly relocated shop in Lacombe, LA. The chair will continue to auction for another week and you can contact YAYA for information.

The rug was designed by Quinton "Que" Gilmore and produced my Avenue Rugs. The photo here shows a framed sample that was auctioned, but there was also an actual 4x6 rug for auction as well.

The auction was a success with all the proceeds going to YAYA Inc., and as part of their philosophy, each artists gets a percentage of those sales.

Bacteria Excretions

In Architecture future, bacteria might be what holds our buildings together. Scientists and students are working on genetically modifying a bacteria normally found in soil to repair cracks in concrete. The bacteria that they are calling "BacillaFilla" consists of 3 types of cells; the calcium carbonate producers, the filaments, and the "glue" producers. The cells start working when they come into contact with concrete and the final product is a crack filler that is just as hard as the concrete and has thereby reconnected the structure.
And to make it even more sci-fi, when injected into a crack the bacteria swims down th crack, knows when it's hit the end because of something called "quorum sensing", then it knows when to stop working because of a built-in self destruct gene.
Of course if this other scientist with these students from this other school succeed  in creating "crack-proof" concrete with nanotechnology, then we won't need bacteria poo and all their hard bacteria research will be for naught.