a special supplement of the watertown daily...

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A Special Supplement of the

Watertown Daily TimesWednesday, March 6, 2019

– WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES – SPRING HOME IMPROVEMENT – Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Dorothy Draper once said of her decorating projects, “I always put in one controversial item. It makes people talk.”

The influential Manhat-tan interior decorator was known for her exuberant use of color and pattern,

such as bold, black-and-white checkerboard, hot pink and crimson, lime green and blue. In her hands, stuffy chintz be-came flirty and vivacious.

That cheeky sense of fun is all over home de-cor these days, a coun-

terpoint to the serenity of minimalism and neutral palettes.

New York-based de-signer, potter and author Jonathan Adler is known for playful accessories, like ceramic trinket trays in the shape of pouty lips or pill capsules, and storage jars printed with imagery that references mind-expanding sub-stances. Brass and acrylic

objets d’art and vessels include mustache, finger, hippo and talon shapes.

Yet Adler’s serious about creating chic de-sign.

“A lot of my stuff ex-plores a hedonistic streak that I deny myself in real life. The wink in my work is just that — a wink,” he says. “My formula? Ninety-nine percent clas-sicism, 1 percent witti-

cism.”Maureen Stevens, an

interior designer in Aus-tin, Texas, seeks a similar balance. For a project in the city’s Seaholm Dis-trict, “the client wanted a boutique-hotel vibe with all the frills.” Ste-vens clad some walls in cobalt and magenta, and then dressed the home

Serious decor with a fun, playful edge

ASSOCIATED PRESSThis photo provided by designer Maureen Stevens shows a room in her project in the Seaholm district of Austin, Texas. Stevens incorporated a number of chic, provocative elements, like velvet barstools on hairpin legs, a sinuous gold-legged coffee table, curvy sofa and shots of bold hues. Carefully curating dynamic accessories, textures, color and furnishings in the space keeps the look tasteful and stylish.

(Continued on page 3)

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with bold pops of pattern, curvy furniture, state-ment art, and velvet bar stools perched on hairpin legs. There’s sex appeal, but it’s infused with taste-ful, thoughtful curation.

“I love a room of story-tellers,” she says. “Pieces that act as little memen-tos, curiosities and arti-facts.”

At last spring’s Shoppe Object show in New York, designer Helene Ige of Los Angeles displayed a fanciful pillow collection that transected pop cul-ture and traditional pat-tern, with foil-printed uni-corns and saucy phrases on tapestry and toile backgrounds.

Crown Objet has also played with textiles, cre-ating silk pillows print-

ed with alien heads and skulls.

Furniture with a soft, sumptuous feel — think velvet, chenille, buttery leather — is a good way to introduce sensual el-ements. Metals can be highly polished to dance the light around the room, or burnished to give the room warmth. Glass or mirrored pieces add glamour.

You’ll find well-priced velvet seating at Article, as well as a temptingly cool, apple-shaped, wire floor lamp.

Jenn-Air has disrupted the traditional high-end kitchen-gear market with a new collection called “Bound by Nothing.” The appliances are tricked out with Italian leather covers and trims, etched

and tooled hardware, and deep, rich hues. “Our in-spiration came from fash-ion, furniture and jewelry, and from art, music and travel,” says Jessica Mc-Connell, senior design manager at parent com-pany Whirlpool. “Having free rein to push bound-aries was quite freeing for us as designers. We stopped thinking about the way it ‘should’ be done and instead about the possibilities.”

Jenn-Air’s “Cuts” line features smooth or croc-embossed, leather-front, column refrigerators in colors like cognac and caviar. “Smoke & Brass” ranges have a lovely pa-tina, and anodized-brass and knurled-steel hard-ware. “Burlesque” fridges put the color and emboss-

ing in the interior, and then trim the whole thing with sensual LED lighting. The effect is more luxe, walk-in closet than ice-box.

Other utilitarian el-ements are getting a fashionable approach too. Kohler introduced the Ombre faucet col-lection, inspired by the technique’s popularity in clothing and even hair-styles. The graduated shading, from a rosy gold to nickel, or dusky titani-um to a pinky hue, gives the hardware a beguiling edge.

Artwork or wallpaper is a good way to play provo-cateur in a room. Minted and CB2, among others, have interesting photog-raphy, abstracts and bold graphic prints.

For a stronger state-ment, check out Timo-rous Beasties’ Graf-fiti wallpaper covered in wildly colorful and chaotic spray-paint and spatter patterns.

Or take a different tack with Given Campbell’s Di-vine Collection. The de-signer cheekily channels patron saints in contem-porary graphic motifs.

Cheeky sense of fun all over home —(Continued from page 2)

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Espalier design is an ancient pruning practice that fashions fruit trees, vines or flowering shrubs into artistic, two-dimen-sional forms. This lateral shaping makes it easier to harvest and mow, maxi-mizes sunlight, and helps trees fit into tight areas.

“It’s a great way to uti-lize growing space next to walls and fences while adding ornamental inter-est,” said Harold Taylor, outdoor landscape man-ager at Longwood Gar-dens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. “It is also used for efficient use of garden space and as a method for creating out-door rooms in the land-scape.”

To espalier (pro-nounced ess-PAL-yay) a

tree is to train it to grow flat against a support of some kind — a wall, fence or wires, say. Sup-port it with ties or brack-ets, and prune it to grow sideways by selecting several strong branches from separate levels and eliminating buds shooting toward the front or rear. The horizontal survivors eventually will become the tree’s fruiting spurs.

A half-dozen or more classic, architectural espalier profiles have evolved over time. Exam-ples include the “Cordon,” with its vertical trunk and multi-tiered horizon-tal branches; the self-descriptive “Fan,” whose branches grow from the trunk at 45 degree an-gles; the “Candelabra,”

where vertical branches rise from a single low hor-izontal limb; and the “Bel-gian” or “English Fence,” where espalier plants are linked in lattice-like fash-ion to freestanding trellis-es. The latter often serve as living fences to screen unattractive areas.

“Have patience, as it will take a couple grow-ing seasons or more for your espalier to start tak-ing shape, and five to 10 years until at peak form,” said Leonard Perry, a hor-ticulture professor emeri-tus at University of Ver-mont Extension, in a fact sheet.

Almost any woody plant can be espaliered, al-though some, with sturdy yet supple branches, are more genetically suited

than others for this train-ing technique.

“Fruit trees are one of the most widely used,” Taylor said in an email.

That would include ap-ple and pear trees, along with peaches, pome-granates, figs, cherries, plums, nectarines and apricots.

Ornamental plants with long, flexible branching also make good espalier candidates. Think camel-lias, holly, magnolia, bou-gainvillea, climbing roses and a host of others.

Dwarf, semi-dwarf culti-vars and young trees that haven’t developed thick branching are easier to train than are standard-size, open-canopy vari-eties. Young trees also are less expensive, while dwarf trees are less likely to outgrow their shape if

not pruned every year.Espalier trees often are

used in commercial or-chards to boost yields.

“Growing fruit trees as a fruiting wall is becoming common with commercial orchards because it takes less labor to prune and harvest,” said Renae Mo-ran, a fruit-growing spe-cialist with University of Maine Cooperative Exten-sion. “However, they do not have the look that a home-trained tree would have since commercial growers do not spend any time fussing with the tree’s appearance.

“To a hobby grower, the formal shape of an espalier tree may be the primary reason for choos-ing the training system,” Moran said.

Espalier pruning has artistic benefits

ASSOCIATED PRESSThis photo of an espalier tree, taken at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa., shows a typical ‘‘Cordon” design with its vertical trunk and multi-tiered horizontal branches. The lateral shaping eases harvesting, simplifies mowing, maximizes sun-light and helps trees fit into tight areas.


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There was a time when black walls were mostly the purview of goth teens and indie movie the-aters. But the color has been quietly cultivating a broader following among designers and homeown-ers who want a cozy, en-veloping ambiance that’s still got theatrical flair.

Bedrooms, libraries and bathrooms clad in inky or charcoal tones can be re-laxing retreats. If you’ve got loads of windows, the color helps frame exterior views. And if the space is mostly walls, black cre-ates a cocoon-like set-ting that can showcase a collection of objets d’art, vibrantly patterned rugs and furniture, or medita-tive warm woods and tex-tures.

L a b o r a t o r y - w h i t e kitchens are also yield-ing ground to kitchens dressed in dark hues. Houzz.com editor Mitch-ell Parker says black is having a moment in the

cooking space.“Our community of

homeowners is embracing a heavy dose of dramatic color with large swaths of black range hoods, island accent colors and full-on, all-black ,” he says.

For a kitchen in Brent-wood, California, Shan-non Wollack and Brittany Zwickl of Studio Life.Style wanted to add a little more punch. “The kitchen’s all-black pal-ette, infused with a large slab of black-and-white marble and bold brass ac-cents, warms and fills the space without feeling too heavy,” says Wollack.

LG, GE, Kitchenaid, Bosch, Frigidaire, Smeg, JennAir and others are of-fering suites of charcoal-black appliances with either a matte or satin smudge-proof finish. And there’s black cabinetry, countertop gadgets and cookery as well.

Designer Mark Zeff and his wife, Kristen, have a home in East Hamp-ton, New York, that cel-ebrates black in several ways. The exterior is half-white, half-black. Inside, black serves as a narrative thread for large design elements includ-ing a floating fireplace, a stained pinewood wall in the master suite, and a glass wall in the show-er. Punctuation is added with black cowhide rugs; curvy Bibendum chairs

by Eileen Gray; and Eero Saarinen Womb chairs.

“Black has properties that make it ideal for in-terior design: It’s calm-ing to the eye, it’s elegant and it underscores organ-ic beauty,” says Mark Zeff.

“Some may think white is a more ‘natural’ choice, but it’s actually much starker in comparison to black when blended with an environment. Because of the use of black, our home appears to hunker down and stay closer to the earth, like a natural landmark.”

Adds Kristen Zeff: “We also like that black can paradoxically open up a smaller space when ap-

plied as a paint, to make a room feel much larger than if white is used. The illusion is achieved by tricking the eye into not knowing where a room ends, by disguising the edges.”

She says they painted pine wood with Benjamin Moore’s Black Jack. “The grain comes through, to develop a texture that deepens the shade.”

Kristen Ekeland of Chi-cago-based Studio Gild also likes adding black, using Benjamin Moore’s Midnight in a recent bed-room project. “We wanted to create a space that’s calming and cozy. It’s dark, but it has an ethe-

real feeling,” she says. Along with the paint, the designers selected a black sideboard from Sabin to add depth and texture.

Dee Schlotter, PPG’s senior color market-ing manager, says using black on feature walls, in-terior surfaces and furni-ture serves as an anchor to neutrals, patterns and mixed materials, and pro-vides a solid, classic ele-ment in any room while creating a sense of space and quiet.

Her color team liked the hue so much that they chose Black Flame as PPG’s 2018 Color of the

Black walls make a quiet comeback

Espalier training usually is done in winter when plants are dormant.

“Once a person over-comes the fear of mak-ing pruning mistakes, it’s easy,” Moran said. “Clean-ing up the prunings after-ward is more work than the pruning itself.”

Espalier —


(Continued from page 4)

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MADISON (AP) — When Mary Burke bought her house on Madison’s south side last year, she saw its white, aluminum-sided walls and thought it need-ed something more.

“It was almost as if it was a blank canvas,” she told The Capital Times .

Burke, the founder of Building Brave, who also sits on the Madison School Board, had recently seen a mural painted by Je-nie Gao at Working Draft Brewery. The mural reso-nated with her so much that she asked Gao if she could paint one on the side of her house, built in the 1920s.

“I was so taken by her mural, I really loved it,” Burke said. “And I asked her, do you do murals on houses and she said, ‘Well, you can.’”

So the two began talk-ing about the inspiration and topic for, “Rest and

Rejuvenation,” the piece of art that would even-tually span one side of Burke’s house.

“I am very interested in the topic of how we accept our setbacks, our challenges, our disap-pointments in life as an integral part of our growth and renewal,” Burke said. “We see it in nature. We accept it in nature, you can’t have the spring and summer without having the fall and winter, but yet as human nature, we are much less accepting in seeing the role that disappointments and set-backs can play and that’s what we talked about.”

Those themes are en-shrined in the mural, which is painted direct-ly on the siding of the house. The scene is vis-ible from the bike path behind the house, with the left side full of bright yellows with rays of sun-

shine and deep blues in a winter scene on the right. The mural is anchored by a tree with limbs that ap-pear as a hand reaching downward on one side and a stream of flowers on the other side.

Gao took that concept back to her studio and developed preliminary designs that she worked with Burke to boil down to a final piece.

“The design is finished before we even touch

paint to the surface,” Gao said.

Though Gao has done several murals and large installations, this is the first mural she has paint-ed on a private residence. She used exterior-grade paint and hired a team of contractors and an intern to help her paint, follow-ing smaller templates of her design. The painting took about four weeks and was completed on Oct. 18.

For Gao, the piece high-lights the value of public art.

“It’s a really good op-portunity for us to talk about the creative econ-omy and the role of public works,” she said. “This work is just a land-mark now on the south side. It’s something that doesn’t just belong to one house, it’s now a part of everybody’s commute who goes by that neigh-borhood. I think that it’s really important when people in our community choose to invest in the arts and integrate it with their surroundings.”

Burke said she loves her south side neighborhood and hopes that the mu-ral serves it. The theme of “rejuvenation” person-ally resonated with her, but was not intending to send a broader message about the neighborhood, she said.

“I’m certainly not com-ing in and saying the

Wisconsin woman hires artist to paint mural

ASSOCIATED PRESSMural by Jenie Gao, muralist, at Mary Burke’s house in Madison, on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018.


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A new shopping plat-form announced Thurs-day at the World Econom-ic Forum aims to change the way we buy many brand-name products. “Loop” would do away with disposable contain-ers for things like food, shampoo, laundry deter-gent and diapers from some of the world’s big-gest manufacturers.

Instead, those goods will be delivered in sleek, reusable containers that will be picked up at your door, washed and refilled.

“Loop is about the fu-ture of consumption. And one of the tenets is that garbage shouldn’t exist,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of the Trenton, New Jersey-

based international recy-cling company TerraCy-cle, which is behind Loop.

“Removing plastics from the ocean is not enough. We need to get at the whole idea of disposabil-ity and single-use items,” says Szaky. “We’re go-ing back to the milkman model of the 1950s. You buy the milk but the milk company owns the bottle, which you leave in the milk box to be picked up when you’re done with it.”

Companies partnering with Loop include Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Pepsi-Co and other top brands.

“Our goal is that by 2030, all of our packag-ing will be reusable or recyclable,” says Virginie

Helias, vice president and chief sustainability offi-cer at Procter & Gamble. Loop, she said, “is a very new idea and somewhat risky because no one has tried it. But the response has been very positive, and we’ve selected 10 of our brands to be a part of the pilot project, with a plan to add more later pending positive results.”

Pantene shampoo, for instance, “will come in a beautifully decorated, l ightweight-aluminum pump container,” Helias says. “Tide in the U.S. will come in a stainless-steel bottle with a durable twist cap. Cascade will come in ultra-durable packag-ing. Crest mouthwash will come in a glass bottle. The idea is ultra-durabil-ity, convenience and also ultra-luxurious packag-ing.”

Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream, a Nestle prod-uct, will be delivered in a posh, double-walled, stainless-steel tub de-signed to keep ice cream cold longer.

And instead of adding dirty disposable diapers to landfills, soiled diapers can, starting only in the Paris area, be placed in sleek, durable diaper con-tainers. When a container is filled, Loop will pick it up and deliver a clean, empty one. New technol-ogy allows Loop to pro-cess and recycle the dirty

diapers, something Terra-Cycle has already started doing in Amsterdam.

“We have only one planet, and we have to take care of it for the long term,” says Laurent Freixe, CEO of the Ameri-cas Region of Nestle, which hopes to do away with all its non-recyclable packaging by 2025. “We

want to strive for Zero Waste at both the pro-duction and consumption level. Loop is so innova-tive that we felt we had to be a part of it and learn from it.”

The rise of the “Zero Waste” movement and concern about the envi-

Big brand names try reusable containers

neighborhood needs reju-venating. I think there is a really important culture of the neighborhood and I want to be a part of serv-ing that,” she said.

Burke said the motiva-tion for the design was personal, but she wanted to make sure it comple-mented the neighbor-hood, too.

“It was important for me that the identity of the mural and the feeling be-hind it certainly comple-mented the neighborhood but ... I wasn’t doing it as something (where) I was

stepping in and saying ‘I’m going to do this for the community.’”

So far the mural has gotten positive reviews from her neighbors.

She said kids ask, “are you the lady with the mu-ral and the paint on your house?”

“I’ve had neighbors stop me on the street and I’d be out walking my dog and say ‘We love it,’” she said. “During trick-or-treat for Halloween, par-ents were walking their kids around and said, ‘We love what you did with the house.’”

Wisconisn murals —



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To reduce waste and avoid unnecessary plas-tic bottles and chemicals — and to save money — many people are opt-ing to make cleaning products from scratch at home. You can find an abundance of recipes for household cleaning prod-ucts online, along with re-usable glass spray bottles designed to hold them.

But not all homemade cleaning products are created equal, and some simple concoctions can be downright dangerous.

“To have an unla-beled cleaning product

in a Mason jar with kids around can be a danger-ous thing,” warns Caro-lyn Forte, director of the home appliances and cleaning products lab at Good Housekeeping. “And be careful never to mix bleach with anything but water. Certain combina-tions can be toxic.”

Baking soda and vin-egar also should not be combined. Mixed togeth-er they are ineffective at cleaning and, if contained in a jar, likely to explode, she warns.

So when making your own cleaning mixtures at

home:—Double check the

safety of the combination you choose

—Keep all products out of reach of children or pets

—And list all ingredi-ents clearly on the jar or spray bottle.

Test your cleaning mixture before using it. “Making your own win-dow cleaner may be OK, but years of chemistry and safety research have gone into products like laundry and dishwasher detergents and furniture polishes, and you don’t

want to risk accidental-ly damaging something that’s precious to you,” Forte says.

Even so, it can be use-ful to know what to use

in a pinch when you don’t have time to rush to the store, says Stephanie Sisco, home editor at Real Simple magazine.

Tips on making home-cleaning products

ronment have led many businesses to try to re-duce packaging and sin-gle-use containers. Loop is unusual in its interna-tional scope and the size of the companies partici-pating.

Initially, Loop will of-fer about 300 products, with plans to add to the list later. According to TerraCycle, partners in-clude Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Nestle, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clo-rox Company, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola, Mon-delez International, Da-none, Jacobs Douwe Eg-berts, BIC, Nature’s Path, Thousand Fell, Green-house, Grilliance, Pre-serve, Carrefour, UPS and the sustainable-resource management company Suez.

Greenpeace, which has criticized many big man-ufacturers for creating much of the plastic waste polluting the world’s oceans, joined in a panel about sustainable con-sumption at which Loop was announced in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Jennifer Morgan, interna-tional executive director of Greenpeace, said be-forehand, “While Green-peace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move away from throw-away culture and dispos-

ability . what the platform will mean for the environ-ment depends on wheth-er corporations world-wide are actually ready to change their business models, or if this effort just becomes a distract-ing side project to gener-ate positive PR.”

She warned that most businesses behind the initiative are still expand-ing production of single-use plastic, although company representatives focused on the progress they have vowed to make in adopting more sustain-able packaging.

Loop is slated to launch this spring in New York, New Jersey and Pennsyl-vania, and also in Paris and some of its suburbs. Shoppers will be able to buy Zero-Waste prod-ucts from the Loop web-site to be delivered to their homes in specially designed shipping totes, and, eventually, at partic-ipating retailers, such as Carrefour grocery stores in Paris.

Loop intends to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto and the United Kingdom by the end of this year or early 2020, followed by Japan — ide-ally in time for the 2020 Olympics, Szaky says.

“It means more deliv-ery trucks, but far fewer garbage trucks,” he says.

Reusable container —(Continued from page 7)


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Year. Glidden picked Deep Onyx, another black, as theirs.

“Black reflects the cur-rent state of rebellious-ness and contentious-ness in the world, but it also provides a feeling of privacy and protection,” says Schlotter.

Walls —(Continued from page 5)

And many homemade cleaning combinations do work, with far fewer chemicals than in many store-bought brands.

To help people make gentle cleaning products at home, Mike and Martha Robinson founded Clean-ing Essentials, which sells sturdy glass bottles in various colors and siz-es, labeled with recipes for solutions that can be made using mostly vin-egar, water and essential oils.

“Sixty years ago our grandparents wouldn’t have gone to the store for cleaners. They would have used vinegar, baking soda, some elbow grease, and been healthier for it,” says Mike Robinson.

Katy Kiick Condon, se-nior editor for home de-sign at Better Homes & Gardens magazine, agrees: “Just steam, hot water and some elbow grease can accomplish a lot.”DO’s:

Know the basics about the cleaning properties of various household prod-ucts:

—Baking soda is a great deodorizer and is useful as a mild abrasive

—Vinegar cuts grease, removes mineral deposits and has disinfectant qual-ities

—Lemon juice with some salt can remove

rust stains.DON’Ts:

— NEVER combine bleach with anything but water. And remember that baking soda and vinegar, while trusted standbys in-dividually, are ineffective for cleaning if combined — and will bubble up ex-plosively.

- Don’t use lemon on wood, since it can destroy protective finishes, says Sisco.

- Don’t overdo it with vinegar, which can dull surfaces, she says. There’s a reason that cleaning-product recipes call for adding water.RECIPES:

With the above basics in mind, here are a few recipes recommended by the pros.

Window cleaner: For clean, streak-free win-dows, Condon, at Better Homes & Gardens, swears by the combination of 2 cups hot water, 1 table-spoon corn starch, 1⁄4 cup white vinegar and 1⁄4 cup rubbing alcohol. “I tested a bunch of recipes, and this one is hands-down the best for mirrors and windows,” she says.

All-purpose cleaner: Sisco, at Real Simple, rec-ommends combining 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 cups of water and 1⁄2 teaspoon of castille soap, such as Dr. Bonner’s. For a stronger cleaner, she rec-ommends mixing 1⁄2 cup vinegar, 1⁄2 cup vodka, 10 to 20 drops of essential oil and 11⁄2 cups water.

Carpet cleaner: Sisco recommends blotting the stain then saturating it with club soda. “The bub-bles will work the stain to the surface,” she says.

Then coat it with a hefty dose of table salt, which will absorb the stain, she says. “Then just vacuum it up once it’s dry, maybe 12 hours later. It’s a good

overnight cleaning solu-tion, and great for wine and other stains. The key is to blot all excess stain before starting with club soda and salt.”

Make cleaning products from scratch—

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Custom-built decks can expand usable out-door entertaining spaces. Decks can surround pools and create outdoor patio areas that make it easy to

establish multitiered liv-ing spaces, improving the functionality of outdoor areas.

Certain deck trends have emerged as industry

experts’ top picks for the upcoming remodeling and renovation season. For those thinking of revamp-ing an existing deck, or building an entirely new one, these trends are on point.

— Established perim-eters: “Picture framing” is not a new trend, but one that has taken greater hold in recent years. The term refers to aesthetical-ly appealing designs that conceal the ends of deck boards for a clean finish. Some designs feature contrasting material col-ors on the ends for even more impact. This helps create refined perimeters for a polished look.

— Roof-top decking: Ur-ban areas also can bene-fit from decking to create usable outdoor spaces. In fact, many new condo-

minium and townhouse communities are incorpo-rating roof-top decks into their designs, particularly in communities with wa-ter views or other impres-sive vistas. HGTV experts

suggest roof-top decks feature light-colored ma-terials and fixtures to help keep the area cool even in direct sunlight.

Experts top picks on emerging deck trends

Deck trends continue to improve on the form and function of outdoor living spaces.


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— Distressed hard-wood: Builder and De-veloper, a management resource for profession-al homebuilders, says that the trend for using distressed hardwoods at home has migrated outside. Some decking manufacturers have re-cently introduced low-maintenance composite deck boards that mimic the look and feel of dis-tressed, rustic hardwood flooring. This weathered appearance gives the look of age without the upkeep of real aged wood.

— Wooden walkways: Decking can be the more traditional design people envision with a patio ta-ble or outdoor furniture. But it also can consist of wooden walkways or a low-laying patio to ac-centuate the yard.

— Mixed materials: Homeowners may be in-spired by commercial eateries, breweries and urban markets in their exterior design choices. Decks featuring compos-ite materials and alumi-num railings blend so-phistication, urban appeal and comfort.

• Personal touches: Homeowners can cus-

tomize their decks with personal touches. It’s not unheard of to wrap col-umns in stone or glass tiles for more impact. And a vast array of decking colors now enables fun interpretations for out-door areas.

— Fire pit conversation area: Many decks can in-corporate water or fire el-

ements for visual appeal. Gas-fueled fire elements can expand the function-ality of decks beyond the warm seasons, or make enjoying them practical on nights when the tem-perature plummets.

Decks are re-imagined in many different ways with continually evolving trends.

Deck trends are on point —(Continued from page 10)

Plastic is versatile, lightweight, cheap — and seemingly everywhere. It’s also a scourge on the environment.

While plastics have im-portant uses, the bulk of plastic waste — much of which ends up clogging landfills and polluting oceans — comes as things designed to be used ex-actly once, and often for only a few minutes.

“We produce around 407 million tons of plas-tics a year globally,” says Kera Abraham Panni, conservation and science outreach manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is trying to spread the word about plastics that pollute oceans. “Of that, only 9 percent is re-

cycled.”And sanitation experts

say “downcycling” may be a more accurate term than “recycling” where plastics are concerned. While glass and metal can be recycled and made into something of the same quality, plastics degrade as they go along.

“With plastics, you’re just delaying their even-tual journey to the land-fill,” says Amy Korst, au-thor of “The Zero-Waste Lifestyle: Live Well by Throwing Away Less” (Ten Speed Press).

Twenty-two aquariums across the country have launched a coordinat-ed campaign to reduce sources of plastic pollu-tion, starting with straws.

‘Refuse, rethink, reuse’cutting back on plastics

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NEW YORK (AP) — One day, finding an oven that just cooks food may be as tough as buying a TV that merely lets you change channels.

Internet-connected “smarts” are creeping into cars, refrigerators, thermostats, toys and just about everything else in your home. CES 2019, the gadget show open-ing Tuesday in Las Vegas, will showcase many of these products, including an oven that coordinates your recipes and a toilet that flushes with a voice command.

With every addition-al smart device in your home, companies are able to gather more de-tails about your daily life. Some of that can be used to help advertisers tar-get you — more precisely than they could with just

the smartphone you carry.“It’s decentralized sur-

veillance,” said Jeff Ches-ter, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washing-ton-based digital privacy advocate. “We’re living in a world where we’re teth-ered to some online ser-vice stealthily gathering our information.”

Yet consumers so far seem to be welcoming these devices. The re-search firm IDC projects that 1.3 billion smart de-vices will ship worldwide in 2022, twice as many as 2018.

Companies say they are building these prod-ucts not for snooping but for convenience, although Amazon, Google and oth-er partners enabling the intelligence can use the details they collect to cus-tomize their services and

ads.Whirlpool, for instance,

is testing an oven whose window doubles as a dis-play. You’ll still be able to see what’s roasting inside, but the glass can now dis-play animation pointing to where to place the turkey for optimal cooking.

The oven can sync with your digital calendar and recommend recipes based on how much time you have. It can help co-ordinate multiple recipes, so that you’re not under-cooking the side dishes in focusing too much on the entree. A camera inside lets you zoom in to see if the cheese on the lasa-gna has browned enough, without opening the oven door.

As for that smart toi-let, Kohler’s Numi will re-spond to voice commands to raise or lower the lid

— or to flush. You can do it from an app, too. The company says it’s all about offering hands-free options in a setting that’s very personal for people. The toilet is also heated and can play mu-sic and the news through its speakers.

Kohler also has a tub that adjusts water tem-perature to your liking and a kitchen faucet that dispenses just the right amount of water for a recipe. For the most part, consumers aren’t asking for these specific features. “We try to be innovative in ways that customers don’t think they need,” Sam-sung spokesman Louis Masses said.

Whirlpool said insights can come from some-thing as simple as watch-ing consumers open the oven door several times

to check on the meal, los-ing heat in the process.

“They do not say to us, ‘Please tell me where to put (food) on the rack, or do algorithm-based cook-ing,’” said Doug Sear-les, general manager for Whirlpool’s research arm, WLabs. “They tell us the results that are most im-portant to them.”

Samsung has several voice-enabled products, including a fridge that comes with an app that lets you check on its con-tents while you’re grocery shopping. New this year: Samsung’s washing ma-chines can send alerts to its TVs — smart TVs, of course — so you know your laundry is ready while watching Netflix.

Other connected items at CES include:

— a fishing rod that tracks your location to build an online map of where you’ve made the most catches.

— a toothbrush that recommends where to brush more.

— a fragrance diffuser that lets you control how your home smells from a smartphone app.

These are poised to join internet-connected secu-rity cameras, door locks and thermostats that are already on the market. The latter can work with sensors to turn the heat down automatically when you leave home.

Chester said consumers feel the need to keep up with their neighbors when they buy appliances with the smartest smarts. He said all the conveniences can be “a powerful drug to help people forget the fact that they are also be-ing spied on.”

Gadgets with voice con-trols typically aren’t trans-mitting any data back to company servers until you activate them with a trig-ger word, such as “Alexa”

Home items are getting smarter and creepier


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or “OK Google.” But devic-es have sometimes mis-heard innocuous words as legitimate commands to record and send private conversations .

Even when devices work properly, commands are usually stored indefi-nitely. Companies can use the data to personalize experiences — including ads. Beyond that, back-ground conversations may be stored with the voice recordings and can resurface with hacking or as part of lawsuits or in-vestigations.

Knowing what you cook or stock in your fridge might seem innocuous. But if insurers get hold of the data, they might charge you more for un-healthy diets, warned Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clear-inghouse in San Diego. He also said it might be possible to infer ethnicity based on food consumed.

Manufacturers are in-stead emphasizing the

benefits: Data collection from the smart faucet, for instance, allows Kohler’s app to display how much water is dispensed. (Water bills typically show water use for the whole home, not individual taps.)

The market for smart devices is still small, but growing. Kohler estimates that in a few years, smart appliances will make up 10 percent of its revenue. Though the features are initially limited to pre-mium models — such as the $7,000 toilet — they should eventually appear in entry-level products, too, as costs come down.

Consider the TV. “Dumb” TVs are rare these days, as the vast majority of TVs ship with internet connections and apps, like it or not.

“It becomes a check-box item for the TV manufacturer,” said Paul Gagnon, an analyst with IHS Markit. For a dumb one, he said, you have to search for an off-brand, entry-level model with smaller screens — or go

to places in the world where streaming services aren’t common.

“Dumb” cars are also headed to the scrapyard. The research firm BI In-telligence estimates that by 2020, three out of ev-ery four cars sold world-wide will be models with connectivity. No serious incidents have occurred in the United States, Eu-rope and Japan, but a red flag has already been raised in China, where automakers have been sharing location details of connected cars with the government.

As for TVs, Consumer Reports says many TV

makers collect and share users’ viewing habits. Vizio agreed to $2.5 mil-lion in penalties in 2017 to settle cases with the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey officials.

Consumers can decide not to enable these con-nections. They can also vote with their wallets, Stephens said.

“I’m a firm believer that simple is better. If you don’t need to have these so-called enhancements, don’t buy them,” he said. “Does one really need a refrigerator that keeps track of everything in it and tells you you are run-ning out of milk?”

Smart devices in your home —(Continued from page 12)

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Interior designer Abbe Fenimore knew that add-ing a kitchen island was one of the most impor-tant decisions she’d make in remodeling her 1940s-era home in Dallas. A well-designed kitchen island can offer storage space, a work surface, comfortable seating — even a cooktop or spare sink.

But like so many as-pects of kitchen design, it needs to be planned with extra care. An item this large and central isn’t something you’ll want to replace within just a few years.

So Fenimore and her husband created a card-board island in their kitchen with precise di-mensions to live with it

before committing. They tinkered with the details on its size and location. They debated which fea-tures were necessary, and which were too much of a splurge or took up too much space.

In the end, that island “has become the literal hub in our home for so-cializing,” Fenimore says.

We’ve asked Fenimore,

founder of the design firm Studio Ten25, and two other interior designers — Los Angeles-based Betsy Burnham and New York-based Jenny Kirschner — for their thoughts on great kitchen-island de-sign and trends.

MAP OUT THE DETAILS

Because careful plan-ning is so important, Burnham suggests work-ing with a designer on kitchen-island design or finding resources online for drawing up a floor-plan.

“You’re going to need about 3 feet of space around it — at least 3,” she says. Homeowners sometimes end up with too crowded a kitchen if they choose an island that’s too large.

“It shouldn’t literally be an island off by itself,” Burnham says, “but it shouldn’t be too close to perimeter countertops ei-ther.”

Other important ques-tions: How many people do you want to seat? Leave plenty of depth for people’s legs when they sit on bar stools or seats at your island.

And do you want one

level or two? Burnham loves the clean lines of one level surface. But Kirschner sometimes de-signs an island with two levels — one at counter height for cooking prep and a lower level at table height, so you can sit in chairs rather than bar stools.

Families with young kids who worry about little ones falling off bar stools often love this op-tion, Kirschner says.

SPECIALTY STORAGE

Some of Fenimore’s fa-vorite elements are deep, pull-out drawers for pots and pans, and drawers with mechanisms that lift a mixer or other small appliance up and out for easy use. Also: drawers designed to hold contain-ers of spices, and deep drawers holding metal containers for serving utensils, as you might see in a restaurant kitchen.

“A lot of people under-estimate storage needs,” Fenimore says, so really think about how you cook and what you use.

Kirschner also sug-gests considering what you might want to store

Creating the perfect kitchen island


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that isn’t technically a “kitchen” item. Her is-land includes drawers for her children’s art sup-plies, because the island

is where they do arts and crafts projects.

Islands often have closed storage, but some people prefer some open shelving.

Fenimore has a trash can built into her island, with a stainless steel opening in the island’s surface where unwanted items can easily be swept during cooking. It’s a de-tail that didn’t add much to the cost but makes life exponentially easier.

THE COOKTOP QUESTION

It sounds lovely — hav-ing your stovetop in the island, so you can chat with someone seated there while you’re cook-ing. But things splatter, Kirschner points out. And tearing up the floor to add power and gas lines can be expensive if your kitchen doesn’t already have these utilities in the middle of the floor.

The same goes for add-ing a sink to your island: These designers say an island sink is a great fea-ture and popular with cli-ents, but you have to con-sider the expense if you’ll need plumbing work done in the floor.

Lastly, your cooktop needs ventilation. Do you want a range hood mounted in the ceiling and looming over your kitchen island?

“There are downdraft

vents,” Kirschner says, “but they tend to not work nearly as well” at ventilating your cooking space as overhead ranges do.

MATCH OR COORDINATE?

Some people love an island that seamlessly matches the rest of the kitchen, with countertops and cabinetry identical to what runs along the room’s perimeter.

But our three designers say you can also think of your island like a piece of gorgeous furniture that is coordinated with the rest of the room but a little different. If you want the island to be the kitchen’s focal point, Kirschner says, get creative.

Kirschner loves natural

stone surfaces for kitchen islands, especially quartz-ite, which she says has beautiful veins of color but is more durable than marble.

Burnham agrees that a kitchen island can be a dramatic statement, and there is a wide variety of styles. Do you want a Eu-ropean farm-table look, or modern and sleek mar-ble?

“We’ve seen a lot of the dark blues and grays and greens, in reaction to all the white kitchens we were seeing for a while,” Burnham says. “Maybe mix things up. Keep all the countertops the same, but maybe the perimeter cabinetry is one color and the island cabinetry is a different color.”

Great kitchen-island trends —

ASSOCIATED PRESSThis undated photo shows a kitchen in a Santa Monica, Ca-lif., home designed by Betsy Burnham. Although tiny pendant lights were once popular, designers now tend to choose more substantial overhead lighting above kitchen islands and select fixtures that can express the homeowners’ personal style.


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