Idea House inspiration: new Cliff May book

By Sarah Gaffney, Sunset Idea House program manager

Former Sunset home editor (and Idea House architectural guru) Daniel P. Gregory has just published a book on Cliff May, the founding father of modern ranch house design and architect of Sunset's headquarters here in Menlo Park, California. Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House gives an inside look at nearly 20 of May's designs, which in the 1950's and '60s popularized the casually elegant indoor-outdoor floor plan now so familiar to the pages of Sunset. The photography is luscious enough to make me want to fork over the $60 for this beautiful coffee table book. For more of Dan's musings on architecture, check out his blog here.

Idea House style: vintage Sunset

By Sarah Gaffney, Sunset Idea House program manager

The hunt continues for an outdoor chandelier for our Monterey Idea House. There was hope in re-using some vintage lighting from the Sunset building that we have stashed away in our warehouse.

The fixture shown in this photograph was under consideration, but it's a bit too Bonanza-feeling for the house. Look at the enormous shadow it casts on the wall. This is on our entertainment patio at Sunset.  I've  never seen so many suits, or men, in our building!  Would love to know what Mr. Chef Hat was preparing for lunch that day. No doubt, something delicious!

Shop I love: Relish at Home

By Jess Chamberlain, Sunset home & design writer

If you're a handcraft design enthusiast in the San Francisco Bay Area, here's your evening's  agenda.

If you're outside the region, check it out online.

What: 2007 “Tides and Trees” exhibition by Jill Bliss (acclaimed West Coast illustrator, author, and designer)
When: 7pm-10pm tonight (artist reception/exhibit unveiling) *Work will be on display through December 29, 2007
Where: Relish At Home Boutique, 2703 7th Street #112, Berkeley, CA
Info: FREE & open to the public, (510) 981-9400

About the shop: Relish At Home is a gallery and boutique located in Berkeley, California showcasing a wide variety of emerging, independent design from the Bay Area and afar. Owner Kelly Sperbeck and team exhibit and sell handmade work and limited edition products in addition to manufacturing their own signature line of accessories designed exclusively for the boutique. Supporting local talent is vital to them and defines who they are in the community. They strive to carry work that is innovative and expertly crafted, while also creating and sustaining a unique network of artists. Their exhibitions rotate every 10 weeks and the boutique offers a wide selection of limited-edition accessories, handmade jewelry, stationery, ceramics and gift items.

Kelly's product selection is as thoughtful as her personality is adorable.

(Pic above is of the store pre-redesign for the exhibition unveiling tonight)

Event/exhibition details: In conjunction with the shop’s 2 year anniversary, tonight’s event launches Tides and Trees, a solo exhibition by West Coast artist Jill Bliss in her first comprehensive East Bay show. Tides and Trees is the first of a bi-monthly series of engaging artist exhibits on display and for sale within the Relish At Home boutique. The exhibition will be shown from September 29th - December 29th, 2007, with an opening reception held tonight, September 29th, from 7-10pm. Come celebrate the show, enjoy refreshments, and meet Jill Bliss.

About Jill: Bliss, a native of Northern California who recently transplanted to Portland, Oregon, draws her inspiration from the natural world that surrounds her. Meticulous lines and attention to detail are native to her farm life childhood, while her sparse use of color and design stem from her academic and professional career in fashion design, illustration and design theory at New York's Parsons School of Design and San Francisco's California College of the Arts. Tides and Trees is a collection of Jill’s work from the past two years. Utilizing mostly drawn lines on paper, the artist has been preoccupied with design repetition and small details, both real and imagined, found in her two favorite places: near the water’s edge and deep in the forest.

More than 50 pieces of original work by Jill will be for sale.

Also featured at the shop: Planter pots by Joanna Mendicino, letterpress products from Satsuma Press, Lotta Jansdotter designs, Tampopo ceramics, and a great selection of new lifestyle, home, stationery, accessories and gift items from from local talent and beyond.

Not to miss.

Gardening on top of a lake

By Sheila Schmitz, Sunset online editor

Margy Lutz lives much of the year in a floating cabin on Powell Lake in British Columbia.  "I love to garden, but my lake surroundings make it a little difficult," she wrote in a recent post to our community boards. But with the help of her friend John, she grows vegetables and strawberries in raised beds on floating cedar logs. Pulleys allow her to move her garden away from shore (and critters) and back again for summer harvests of lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions, potatoes, radishes and asparagus.

Here's the garden pulled in to the dock. A solar panel runs the water pump.

Here's the garden in its protected position along a log boom.

Margy and her husband Wayne J. Lutz still keep a home in Pomona, California, and maintain another residence in Bellingham, WA. "But the place we want to be most of all is at our floating cabin in Powell River," she says. "Living on the lake has been the most exciting experience of my life."

You can read more about the lake life in Margy's blog and Wayne's books.

The pair discovered float cabins on Powell Lake in 2000 and quickly found the one for them.  Most cabins on the lake float like theirs on cedar logs anchored in place or tethered to the shore; water rights are leased from the province.

Porous heavy-duty mesh cloth covers the bottoms of her garden beds, which stay just above the lake surface. 

"I plant my kitchen garden in the beds just like you would if they were on land," she says. "I just have to be careful that I do not put anything in the soil that would be harmful to the water.

"The first harvests for lettuce and green onions begin in June and last throughout the summer.  Potatoes, carrots and my early strawberries come in July. As I harvest, I replant.

"This year my second planting included zucchini and tomatoes which will be ready for September picking. I am trying a few bush beans but don't know if there will be enough time before the frost this year to get them in.  We eat everything fresh, but I do dry herbs for use in winter stews and soups."

Read about Sunset's own ultra-local harvest.

Have an interesting story about living in the West?  Email us.