Friday, November 3, 2006
We have some new Beautiful Rooms photos on the website. They were taken at a home full of Schonbek crystal chandeliers.

I called one of these photos Life in a Villa, and that’s how this home feels to me. I’ve visited a few Italian villas in my travels, and there’s something wonderfully noble about these properties. The owners must have stood up very straight and walked with stately steps, in keeping with their spacious rooms and the wealth of architectural detail that surrounded them.

If your décor is suggestive of a villa, you’re committed to very high ceilings of course, which is why you need crystal chandeliers in just about every room. Certainly the high baroque fresco on your domed ceiling will cry out for an oversized crystal chandelier. The prismatic light produced by crystal is ideal for warming up frescos.

See the great room in this villa, which must inspire guests to mind their manners. The enormous glass arm crystal chandelier seems to be the biggest thing in the room, although this may be a trick of the camera. It’s easy to imagine grand entertainments taking place in this space. But I can also picture a romantic heroine all alone in the room, curled up on one of the sofas with a book of poetry, wondering when her prince will come.

See Ceremonial Slumbers to view a bedroom in this home.   When you have a bedroom like this, you have many incentives to retire early.   You need extra time to close the sumptuous drapes and get inside the elaborate bedding. But even before that, you probably want to meander around the room drowsy with delight, poking at the fire a bit and admiring the fabulous carpet, the gorgeous moldings and the seventeenth-century style Versailles crystal chandelier.

The dining room is very old world, and appropriately lighted by an Olde World crystal chandelier. I love dining rooms with lots of red. There’s a feeling that the people who dine here are passionate about food.   The trompe l’oeil painting in the far end of the room has a stately avenue of Lombardy poplars. Very Italian Renaissance.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

People used to have identity crises. I’m not sure if they still do. I personally believe that re-decorating is an excellent way to discover who you are. You have to admit to yourself what your favorite colors really are, what century you’re living in emotionally, whether you like to shock or soothe other people, how important TV is to you, and how many ways you’re willing to split your personality to make different statements in different rooms.

Happily, regardless of what identity or multiple identities you establish for yourself, you can work crystal chandeliers into the picture. There’s a game on this website called Meet Your Mate that invites you to explore different crystal chandelier styles in terms of your personal characteristics.   The only reason we can have this game is that Schonbek makes so many different kinds of crystal chandeliers.

The game is based on a completely non-scientific analysis of   which chandeliers might appeal to which type of person. It’s pure conjecture informed by years of avid people watching, novel reading and movie going.

Just for fun I decided to play the game myself. I’ve forgotten the answers, except for recent entries, since we put the game online over a year ago.

I hit Passionate collector and found that I should consider a Buckingham. I happen to love this magnificent rock crystal chandelier, so that was right on the mark. Except that it’s designed on too grand a scale for my house.

I clicked on History excites you and got a recommendation for Olde World. Sure enough, here’s another crystal chandelier I would love to possess. I just need to build an addition to my home to accommodate it.

Finally I clicked on Prefer moonlight to sunlight, which describes me on most days of the week. The website recommended Artifact, a crystal chandelier I actually own and am still in love with.  

So my faith in the game has been strengthened. And I seem to know who I am.

Yesterday I read about an amusing discovery in the paper: elephants enjoy looking at themselves in the mirror. Dogs don’t have this trait, but people and chimpanzees do. Scientists see this behavior as proof of heightened self-awareness. Human or elephantine, self-awareness is a beautiful thing.

 

Monday, October 30, 2006

There’s a new commercial case study on the website: Red Rock Casino, Resort and Spa.

The Schonbek crystal chandeliers in this resort are pretty amazing.

In the casino there are enormous, spherical crystal chandeliers that appear to be suspended by mere threads shimmering mysteriously. The chandeliers are actually very securely suspended, so the players below need not worry. The floating quality of these crystal chandeliers is an optical illusion, the result of very clever design and engineering.

The area with the High Limit games has a 60-foot long crystal box , as well as a number of crystal cylinders. There’s something surreal about all of these intensely dazzling crystal shapes.

I think when you go on vacation, there’s a tendency to want to leave real life behind, to enter a realm that’s a total fantasy. Traveling way out into the desert, finding yourself surrounded by every luxury, and encountering a plethora of crystal chandeliers of extraordinary dimensions and brilliance must feel like entering another world.

I can enter into the spirit of this, even though my own vacations tend to take me to the dusty past, rather than to a futuristic fantasy realm.

If dazzling geometric crystal chandeliers appeal to you, check out Geometrix™ on this website. I’d recommend going to the Geometrix™ videos page.