Mary Jo Bowling
Mary Jo Bowling is California Home + Design's senior editor.
Posts by Mary Jo Bowling
A young architect is changing the look of Napa and Sonoma, one winery at a time.
Actress and style auteur Diane Keaton takes to the home and design sphere with a new book.
Now, you see a strip mall. But in 1927, a mansion and 30 villas stood here, nestled within three acres of tropical gardens, and they were home to some of the most famous—and notorious—stars and writers of the day.
Tackling a small space is a familiar—and welcome—challenge for Los Angeles designer Kyle Schuneman. The designer grew up in a 1,200-square-foot apartment with his sister and parents and has preferred a petite footprint ever since.
As an elevator pitch, it seems like a fail: A short public radio program celebrates the extreme esoteric in design. A lone man produces the show in a tiny shed behind his Kensington home. It sounds like audio Ambien, but make no mistake: The program "99% Invisible" is totally addictive.
Diane Keaton has conquered stage and screen and has done her time in the director's chair. Now she's added another notch in a new belt she's been wearing lately, that of design maven. Keaton is in San Francisco to promote her new book House and to get an up-close-and-personal look at the work of one of her favorite artists. In a one-on-one interview, I asked her why she chose to briefly focus her attention on something other than the silver screen.
Imagine this: A dining room table with large cracks and uneven, jagged edges. It doesn't sound great when you put it that way, does it? Yet thousands of Americans have succumbed to the look of the live edge dining table (including yours truly), and it's a design trend that shows no sign of waning. People, it's time to admit it: These tables are crazy pants.
The story goes that architect Louis Sullivan first uttered the architectural edict about form following function at the turn of the century, and the idea has been a cherished touchstone ever since. But anyone who follows design knows the truth: People often put looks before comfort, durability and common sense. Case in point: Cardboard furniture.
Developer Patrick Kennedy is about to complete SmartSpace 2.0, a building comprised of 300-square-foot studio apartments built with prefab technology developed by his Berkeley-based company, Panoramic Interests. And, if the Board of supervisors passes legislation allowing it, he's set to build SmartSpace 3.0, a micro apartment development that would have 287-square-foot units, the smallest ever in San Francisco and among the smallest in America. Can this be a good idea?
This weekend the French tradition of vide greniers—kind of a town-wide antique sale or flea market—is coming to Healdsburg. Two of the tiny Wine Country town's design powerhouses—Myra Hoefer and Denise Trefry—are joining forces and merchandise to present a shopping event guaranteed to suprise and delight the style-minded shopper.
