Author Archives: Tamara Dalton

Design Thought for the Day

A watched soft-close toilet seat never closes. ~ New American proverb

Design Thought for the Day

Good design matters and it requires patience.  Patience to “create, fashion, execute, and construct according to a plan.” (~Webster’s)  Behind every beautifully designed space lies a Brain Storm of creativity, deep-probing inquiry, and mettle.
Expensive, exotic, or rare materials do not equal Good Design.  Don’t cheap out on the brain power required for Good Design, because no [...]

Master Bathroom Renovation

It’s a Winner!
Update (posted February 9, 2011):
At the end of the voting period on February 7th, my project earned one of the top three winning spots in the America’s Ugliest Bathrooms: Solved contest, sponsored by www.daily5remodel.com and American Standard.  My sincerest thanks to ALL of you for rallying behind me in my effort to win.  I [...]

New Year, New Mantras

These are my favorite Christmas gifts this year.  Double great advice for the New Year, wouldn’t you say?  Calm in the face of a storm, and grace under pressure, with my tongue firmly in-cheek.  Just good British design, old and new (and I love all things British).
Here’s to 2011!  Great beginnings and lots of hot [...]

Tree vs. Treadmill

We decided to set up our Christmas tree a couple days before Thanksgiving this year, and our usual conversations about where to put it started.  The few viable spots for a Christmas tree in our house have been reduced over the years with the location of my office in the Living Room, and since having [...]

Wordsmithery and My Love of Metaphor

The time dilation in effect for most of this year is now over.  Time has headed over a cliff and is now falling toward December faster than I can hang on to my safety ropes.
Time dilation allowed me to do all sorts of things this year: gardening, complain about the heat, start a compost bin, [...]

That’s just good humor

“Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so.”
So says Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by the late, brilliantly funny Douglas Adams).
I love science fiction, and well, wickedly funny science fiction is just about my vision of nirvana.  I would like to give you more quotes from this funniest series of stories ever [...]

Happy Halloween

Passing the Test

This week’s Blog Off topic is “Is there a reason to be optimistic?”  My take on this is highly personal, as usual.  Be sure to visit the other blog participant’s posts.  You can find a list of them here: www.letsblogoff.com
Something wonderful happened to me recently.  After a long, downtrodden, worrisome year full of angst, [...]

Designers Hate Shopping

Shocking, isn’t it?  Yes, I know, it is a generalization.  There are plenty of designers out there that love shopping, especially with their Jackie O sunglasses, cream linen suits, and their little dogs in tow.  I’m just not one of them.  Strange as it may seem, since sourcing out product is an integral part of [...]