Mailbox Finds: A little of this, a little of that

If you're attending the Architectural Digest Home Show, March 22-25 in New York, Modenus is hosting a Design Find Photo Contest throughout the show. Visit certain exhibitors and have your pic taken with your favorite product. The Grand Prize is a 6 day trip to London with BlogTour to the London Design Festival in September. Other prizes include iPads and design related items. Details here.  I'm planning on being there on Thursday the 22nd for Trade Day.  Hope to see some of you there!

Sherwin-Williams has just launched a new service called Chip It! that will scan an image and color match with paints from their line. It seems to do a good job matching colors and was very quick. I found the service to be a little glitchy - it didn't seem to want to actually save my "chip" so I did a screen grab to show you the results. It doesn't allow you to upload a photo, it will only read online images. I think this could be a problem for the average consumer if they wanted help selecting a paint color to go with their heirloom oriental carpet, for instance. It means they would need to find a place to upload their image to (Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, etc) and then run the process. This is possibly okay, but since most paint companies have the upload function, it seems that this would be a beneficial option that wouldn't be too hard to program. There is a log in via Facebook option, which is handy for some. But not, obviously, if you don't have an FB account. I do know people who don't! A handy tool for bloggers, designers, etc. I don't have my SW paint chip palette on hand to check the true color match. I'd say that as with any color system, don't assume the on screen color is a perfect match. Always test with real paint samples in the real room.

David West of Meadowview Construction [The Best-Behaved Boys in the Business] in Massachusetts has put together a nifty little gift list for the tool loving man.  See it here.

[Trianon Antiques showroom website image]

Tomorrow I am off shooting my next magazine cover with Michael J. Lee over at the Boston Design Center. If you're there, stop by in the early afternoon at the Trianon Antiques showroom. They have such beautiful things!

For dinner on Thursday, I am heading to the Back Bay for an intimate media dinner with Annie Selke, founder of Dash & Albert Rug Company and Pine Cone Hill.  Annie has just published a beautiful looking new book called Fresh American Spaces as well as a lifestyle website of the same name. She is doing a book signing on Saturday, February 11th at Hudson in Boston's South End. More details here.


If you would like my help on your design project, I would love to chat with you! Please email me. Thanks! Subscribe to ::Surroundings::