I may be tapped into our local market here in Los Gatos and San Jose… it looks like more and more people across the country are feeling the same way as we do here in Santa Clara County.

Fewer homeowners may be starting complete kitchen remodels, but they’re still replacing countertops and re-facing cabinets. They’re also investing in improvements to make their homes more energy-efficient, according to a recent home remodeling and repair report by ServiceMagic.com. Others are splurging on hot tubs and home theaters after realizing that they may be in their homes for some years to come-and want to make them as comfortable as possible.

“People are not going bigger and better, but improving what they have more cost effectively,” said Craig Smith, CEO of ServiceMagic, a website that connects homeowners to prescreened contractors. For instance, instead of buying new furniture, they’re repairing what they have. Or they’re deep cleaning the carpet in lieu of replacing it.

All for good reason: Money is tight, lending standards strict and in a sluggish housing market you might not recoup as much of your remodeling investment at resale.

Home improvement spending is expected to decline 12% in 2009, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Lower financing costs may be starting to stabilize the downturn in existing home sales, but “they have not been enough to offset rising unemployment and falling consumer confidence and encourage homeowners to undertake major home improvement projects,” said Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center.

It’s much different than the days when home-equity lending was plentiful. Before doing anything, homeowners are carefully considering how they should spend their money.  If you consult with your favorite Real Estate pro before you start your project there is a better chance it will be a recoverable investment.   Besides,  you get to enjoy what you improve!

What would you estimate new Granite countertops (cost about $4000) will give you in return in say 3 years if you were to sell?

Wallpaper’s return has followed a decline in the popularity of faux finishes, noted Stacy Senior Allan, marketing director for wallpaper maker Thibaut Inc. Maybe one too many badly sponged walls convinced us to leave the wall decorating to the experts.

But like faux finishes, wallpaper adds a dimension that a plain coat of paint can’t, Allan noted. Especially in rooms without a lot of soft surfaces – dining rooms and bathrooms, for example – wallpaper adds softness and a layering effect, she said.

We talked to some leaders in the industry to find out the latest trends in wallpaper, and here’s what’s hot:

Tradition with a twist
Ages-old motifs are still around, but in oversized forms and surprising colors. ”Everything has gone large-scale,” said Paula Berberian, creative services manager for Brewster Wallcovering Co. Familiar designs such as damask and Jacobean prints are being blown up into bold proportions and rendered in unexpected hues or metallics.

The result is a less stuffy look that can work even in modern settings. It can be busy, though, so Lilly Sosic of the Brunschwig & Fils showroom in Beachwood’s Ohio Design Centre said wallpapers with oversized graphics might be best for areas where people don’t spend a lot of time – a powder room, for instance, or a foyer.

Or cover just one wall, suggested Gina Shaw, vice president of product development for York Wallcoverings. Not only is creating a feature wall a returning trend among designers, but it’s also a less costly way to bring interest to a room, noted her colleague at York, director of marketing LeRue Brown.

Sophisticated finishes
Texture adds a third dimension to many of today’s wallpapers. Thibaut’s Allan said improvements in manufacturing technology allow wallpaper to have raised textures and embellishments that weren’t possible earlier.

As a result, many of the new wallpapers enhance rather than dominate a room. ”Wallpaper used to be really ‘pay attention to me,”’ she said. Now it tends to play a supporting yet glamorous role.

Sand and tiny bead accents are popular, as are bits of bling such as crystals and pearls. Metallics are big, too, but don’t be scared away by bad memories of disco-era Mylar. Metallics now are more subtle, often used just for accents.

Eco chic
The world is wearing its Earth obsession on its walls. That means grass and leaf designs are popular, as is grass cloth, a classic look that’s making a comeback. It’s made of reeds, bamboo and other natural grasses, Berberian said, so it fits right in with people’s desire to decorate with renewable materials.

Spa blues and greens are strong from a color standpoint, as are other Earth-inspired shades. Brown remains popular, often paired with brighter colors.

’60s flashbacks
It’s a mod, mod world, at least for the people who missed the ’60s. The bold geometrics, pop art and bright colors that exemplified that groovy decade are in big demand among younger consumers, and that’s translating to wallpaper design.

Because many of the fans of ’60s design are young enough to be decorating dorm rooms or first apartments – or even their tween or teen bedrooms – the look is strong in lower-priced, repositionable decals. The peel-and-stick decals use an adhesive like the one used in Post-it notes, so they leave no residue when they’re removed.

Handcrafting
The renewed interest for handmade goods is apparent in wallpapers, too. Shaw thinks it’s an effect of the uncertain economy, an appreciation for things that are crafted thoughtfully and made to last.

Handmade wallpaper can be pricey, but more mass-produced wallcoverings have the look and feel of hand crafting. Berberian said many have raised inks, which give the illusion of hand-printing. Asian-inspired designs and line drawings or other simple motifs are common, too.

Such wallcoverings often include layered colors and small mistakes that make them appear handcrafted, Allan said.

Global influences
Our well-traveled society has shrunk the planet and brought the colors and designs of other cultures to Western walls. African countries and India are particularly strong influences in wallcovering design and in home decor in general, Berberian said.

You’ll see that in paisleys and ikat designs, elongated geometric patterns originally used in fabrics that have the appearance of having been stretched. Animal prints are strong, too, and you can even find wallpaper that resembles faux reptile skins so closely they almost look and feel real.

© 2009, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Kwik Googie Vid

With all the dismal news everywhere I thought remembering some good times would be fun. There is no question Googie architecture will spark some great memories. With the Mediteranian of the 90s and all the “new” Frank Loyd Wright inspired construction becoming somewhat boring…Googie is a fun escape.   Googie Architecture!

Googie architecture (also known as populuxe or doo-wop) is a form of novelty architecture and a subdivision of futurist architecture, influenced by car culture and the Space Age and Atomic Age. The style is related to and sometimes synonymous with the Raygun Gothic style as coined by writer William Gibson. Originating in Southern California in the late 1940s and continuing approximately into the mid-1960s, the types of buildings that were most frequently designed in a Googie style were motels, coffee houses and bowling alleys.

Features of Googie include upswept roofs, curvaceous, geometric shapes, and bold use of glass, steel and neon. Googie was also characterized by space-age designs that depict motion, such as boomerangs, flying saucers, atoms and parabolas, and free-form designs such as “soft” parallelograms and the ubiquitous artist’s-palette motif. These stylistic conventions reflected American society’s emphasis on futuristic designs and fascination with Space Age themes. As with the art deco style of the 1930s, Googie became undervalued as time passed, and many buildings built in this style have been destroyed.
The new smaller suburban stores were essentially signboards advertising the business to vehicles on the road. This was achieved by using bold style choices, including large pylons with elevated signs, bold neon letters and circular pavilions.  Hess writes that due to the increase in mass production and travel in the 1930s, Streamline Moderne became popular due to the “high energy silhouettes its simplistic designs created.” These buildings featured rounded edges, large pylons and neon lights, all symbolizing, according to Hess, “invisible forces of speed and energy,” that reflect the influx of mobility that cars, locomotives and zeppelins brought.   Streamline Moderne, much like Googie, was styled to look futuristic to signal the beginning of a new era – that of the automobile. Drive-in services such as diners, movie theaters and gas stations built with the same principles developed to serve the new American city.  Drive-ins led the way in car-oriented architectural design, as they were built in a purely utilitarian style, circular and surrounded by a parking lot, allowing all customers equal access from their cars. These developments in consumer oriented design set the stage for Googie in the 1950s, since during the 1940s World War II and rationing led to a pause in the development due to the imposed frugality on the American public. According to Hess, increasing consumer edge to commercial architecture was influenced by the desires of the mass audience.  The public was captivated by rocket ships and the atomic energy, so, in order to draw their attention, architects used these as motifs in their work. Buildings had been used to catch the attention of motorists since the invention of the car, but the 1950s took it a step further and created a genre of architecture that was used exclusively for the roadside service industry.

Origins

According to author Alan Hess in his book Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, the origin of the name Googie goes back to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed the coffee shop Googie’s, which had very distinctive architectural characteristics. Googie’s was located at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles but was demolished in the 1980s. According to Hess, the name Googie stuck as a rubric for the architectural style when Professor Douglass Haskell of Yale and architectural photographer Julius Shulman were driving through Los Angeles one day. Haskell insisted on stopping the car upon seeing Googie’s and proclaimed. “This is Googie architecture.” He made the name stick after an article he wrote appeared in a 1952 edition of House and Home magazine.

History

Googie’s roots lie in the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s.[2] Alan Hess, one of the most knowledgeable writers on the subject, writes in Googie: Ultra Modern Road Side Architecture that mobility in Los Angeles in 1930s was characterized by the initial influx of the automobile and the service industry that evolved to cater to it. With car ownership increasing, cities no longer had to be centered on a central downtown but could spread out to the suburbs, where business hubs could be interspersed with residential areas. The suburbs offered less congestion by offering the same businesses, but accessible by car. Instead of one flagship store downtown, businesses now had multiple stores in suburban areas. This new approach required owners and architects to develop a visual brand so customers would recognize it from the road. This modern consumer architecture was based on communication.[3]

The 1950s, on the other hand, celebrated its affluence with decadent designs. The development of atomic energy and the reality of space travel captivated the public’s imagination of the future.  This was the vision that architects looked to for reinventing modern architecture. Googie architecture tapped this vision by incorporating energy into its design with elements such as the boomerang, diagonals, atomic bursts and bright colors.
The identity of the first architect to practice in the style is often disputed, though Wayne McAllister is usually given credit for kick-starting the style with his 1949 Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in Toluca Lake. McAllister got his start designing Streamline Moderne drive-ins during the 1930s and did not have any formal training as an architect.   McAllister developed a brand for coffee shop chains by developing a style for each client – which also allowed customers to easily recognize a store from the road.  Along with McAllister, the most prolific Googie architects were John Lautner, Douglas Honnold and the team of Louis Armet and Eldon Davis. Also instrumental in developing the style was designer Helen Liu Fong, a key member of the firm of Armet and Davis. Joining the firm in 1951, she created such iconic Googie interiors as those of the Johnie’s Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, the first Norm’s Restaurant on Figueroa Street, and the Holiday Bowl on Crenshaw Boulevard.

America’s preoccupation with space travel had a significant influence on the unique style of Googie architecture. Speculation about space travel had roots going as far back as 1920s science fiction. In the 1950s, space travel became a reality for the first time in history. In 1957, America’s preoccupation grew into an obsession, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first human-made satellite that “slipped the surly bonds of Earth.”[12] The obsession intensified into a near mania when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1 carrying the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into Earth orbit in 1961. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations made competing with the Soviets for dominance in space a national priority of considerable urgency and importance. This marked the beginning of “The Space Race.”

With space travel such an important part of the national zeitgeist, architects decided that they wanted to give people a little taste of the future in the here and now. Googie style signs usually have something with sharp and bold angles, which suggest the aerodynamic features of a rocket ship. Also, at the time, the unique architecture was a form of architectural braggadocio, as rockets were technological novelties at the time. Perhaps the most famous example of Googie’s legacy is the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. A revealing comparison can be made between the Space Needle and the non-Googie Osaka Tower of 1966.[citation needed]

Characteristics

Cantilevered structures, acute angles, illuminated plastic panelling, freeform boomerang and artist’s palette shapes and cutouts, and tailfins on buildings marked Googie architecture, which was beneath contempt to the architects of Modernism, but found defenders in the post-Modern climate at the end of the 20th century. The common elements that generally distinguish Googie from other forms of architecture are:

Roofs sloping at an upward angle – This is the one particular element in which architects were really showing off, and also creating a unique structure. Many roofs of Googie style coffee shops, and other structures, have a roof that appear to be 2/3 of an inverted obtuse triangle. A great example of this is the famous, but now closed, Johnie’s Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Starbursts – Starbursts are an ornament that goes hand in hand with the Googie style, showing its Space Age and whimsical influences. Perhaps the most notable example of the starburst appears on the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, which has now become somewhat famous. The ornamental design is in the form of, as Hess writes, “a high-energy explosion.”[13] This shape is born of the 1950s fascination with the future and atomic age. It’s also an example of non-utilitarian design as the star shape has no actual function but merely serves as a design element.

The boomerang was another design element that captured movement. It was used structurally in place of a pillar or esthetically as a stylized arrow. Hess writes that the boomerang was a stylistic rendering of a protruding energy field.[14]

Architecture professor Douglas Haskel (mentioned below) perhaps described the Googie style best, saying that, “If it looks like a bird, it must be a geometric bird.” Also, the buildings must appear in some cases to defy gravity, as Haskel noted that, “Whenever possible, the building must hang from the sky.” Googie is not a style noted for its subtlety, as inclusion, rather than minimalism, is one of the central features.

The most famous Googie building may be the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) designed by James Langenheim of Pereira & Luckman and built in 1961.

One of the last remaining and largest Googie-styled drive-in restaurants, Johnie’s Broiler in Downey, California, was partially demolished in 2007.

Districts

Classic locations for Googie or Doo-Wop buildings are Miami Beach, Florida, where secondary commercial structures took hints from the resort Baroque of Morris Lapidus and other hotel designers; the first phase of Las Vegas, Nevada; and Southern California, where Richard Neutra built a drive-in church in Garden Grove.

The beachfront community of Wildwood, New Jersey features an array of motel designs, colorfully described by such sub-styles as Vroom, Pu-Pu Platter, Phony Colonee and more.  The district is collectively known as the Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District by the State of New Jersey.[17] The term doo-wop was coined by New Jersey’s Mid-Atlantic Center For The Arts in the early 1990s to describe the unique, space-age architectural style. Many of Wildwoods Doo-Wop motels were built by Lou Morey, who specialized in such designs.[18] His Ebb Tide Motel, built in 1957 and demolished in 2003, is credited as the first Doo-Wop motel in Wildwood Crest.[19]

Googie/Doo Wop architecture today

The architectural community never appreciated or accepted Googie, considering it too flashy and vernacular for academic praise. The architecture of the 1970s reflected this change. The rise of postmodernism in architecture replaced Modernism. As Hess discusses, beginning in the 1970s, buildings were meant to blend in to the urban sprawl, not attract attention. Since Googie buildings were part of the service industry, most developers did not think they were worth preserving as cultural artifacts. Despite the humble origins of Googie, Hess writes that, “Googie architecture is an important part of the history of suburbia.” Googie was a symbol of the early days of car culture. It wasn’t until the 1990s that efforts at conservation began. By this time it was too late to save famous landmarks such as Googie’s and Ship’s which were demolished. Despite the loss of these important landmarks, other famous Googie buildings such as the Wich Stand and some of the original Bob’s Big Boy locations have been preserved and even restored to their original splendor.

In Wildwood, a “Doo Wop Preservation League” works with local business and property owners, city planning and zoning officials, and the state’s historic preservation office to help ensure that the remaining historic structures will be preserved. Wildwood’s high-rise hotel district that is the first of its kind in the nation to enforce “Doo Wop” design guidelines for new construction.

Influence

Googie Architecture developed from the futuristic architecture of Streamline Moderne, but at the same time rejected it. While 1930s architecture called for simplicity, Googie embraced excess. Hess argues that the reason for this was that vision of the future of the 1930s was obsolete by 1950 and thus the architecture evolved along with it. During the 1930s, trains and zephyrs had been on the cutting edge of technology, and Streamline Moderne mimicked their smooth simplistic aerodynamic exteriors.[27] This simplicity may have reflected the depression era’s forced frugality. Googie heavily influenced retro-futurism. The somewhat cartoonish style is appropriately exemplified in the Jetsons cartoons, and the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California featured a Googie Tomorrowland (much of Tomorrowland still features Googie architecture, such as the Tomorrowland Terrace, Pizza Port, and Disneyland Railroad station). Googie was also the inspiration for the set design style of The Incredibles.

The eye-catching style flourished in a carnival atmosphere along multi-lane highways, in motel architecture and above all in signage. Private clients were the backbone of Googie, though the Seattle Space Needle qualifies as “establishment Googie” (even though the Space Needle is, and always has been, privately owned). Ultimately, the style fell out of favor and, over time, numerous examples of the Googie style have either fallen into disrepair or been destroyed completely – usually being replaced with buildings that lack the distinctive flashiness of the style.