The Home Entertainer’s Ultimate Refrigerator – Really?

At the 2013 CES show Samsung decided to throw their hat in the ring with other manufacturers who have shown Refrigerators with touchscreens.

The 32 cu. ft. capacity Samsung T9000 LCD Four-Door Refrigerator represents the next evolution in refrigerator design, with a new form factor that delivers the most fresh food storage in its class according to Samsung.

The top compartment is a refrigerator with 19.4 cu. ft. capacity French Door compartment. The bottom left is a 6.1 cu. ft. freezer. The bottom right side can be either refrigerator or freezer depending on your personal needs.

The refrigerator also comes with apps to help families stay connected and organized. Whether you’d want your Calendar and Weather apps on your kitchen appliance is up to you. Samsung seems proud to offer Evernote integration. While I love the app, I can’t help but imagine all the smudges you’d have on the screen.

No pricing is available yet for the refrigerator but the touchscreen-less model out in the spring will be around $3,999.

$Samsung t9000 \ KitchAnn Style$

January 2, 2013

Retro Appliances

We’ve seen companies offering retro looking ranges and refrigerators but have you every seen a retro microwave? The only option for homeowners was to hide a small microwave inside a cabinet when they desired a Period Kitchen.

An Italian appliance manufacturer has nicely solved this problem with their compact line of appliances. Restart offers microwaves, built-in coffee makers, pizza oven and steam oven in their compact collection: Compact Series di Restart.

I really like the all burnished brass finish shown on the microwave/oven combination unit. The mechanical parts of the EFM451 are from Miele. Features include TouchControl in 20 languages, 15 cooking combination methods, and 100 recipe presets.

The EMC451 built-in automatic coffee machine with grinder and cappuccino maker is equally stunning to look at and undoubtedly easy to use with Miele technology.

The Navitronic, multilingual display makes brewing two coffees simultaneously a breeze. There is also the ability to customize 10 different user profiles and choose between bean or powder for brewing.

Restart’s showroom is on Florence so unless you are traveling abroad, these units will be hard to see in person. I haven’t seen a detail spec sheet so I can’t tell if they can easily be converted to American voltage – but, one can hope.

December 21, 2012

Merry Christmas

Christmas is full of shiny things

That sparkle, gleam and glow;

These holiday pleasures dazzle us,

And yet, deep down, we know…

That Christmas has its special gifts,

But our year-round joy depends

On the cherished people in our lives,

Our family and our friends.

Happy Holidays and a Bright New Year!

December 19, 2012

Pantone 2013 Color of the Year: Emerald

Pantone recently name color 17-5641: Emerald Green as its 2013 color of the Year.

The Color of the Year for 2013 is a very clear departure from 2012’s Color of the Year: “Tangerine Tango,” a hot color that Pantone’s Eiseman described as “sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive…an orange with a lot of depth to it.” In 2011, “Honeysuckle Pink” was the top hue, a retro hue that some characterized as “Mad Men Pink.”

But 2013 is all about a vivid, verdant shade of green that “enhances our sense of well-being further by inspiring insight, as well as promoting balance and harmony.”

To the casual observer the Color of the Year designation can seem arbitrary — in recent years, it’s bounced from shades of blue to yellow to green to pink to orange — those who study color say it’s hardly random.

“When we’re traveling around the world, we look at little clues to how we think color is progressing,” said Eiseman. said.

But like so many good things, the emerald trend seemed to start at home. “We started to see it in housewares,” Eiseman said.

Cuisinart and Le Creuset have been introducing emerald into their lines, and in Europe, the color has been showing up in glassware and ceramics.

“It has a natural affinity to work beautifully with anything with that glow,” says Eiseman.

The fashion world seems to have embraced the color, especially with celebrities Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Elizabeth Moss looking fabulous in jewel-colored gowns. The reaction from Interior Designers seems to be mixed.

Are you on board or will your color choices tend to shift a different direction?