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The best part about a blog is getting the word out fast. As much as I love magazines, it can be frustrating to wait for the next issue to announce a great find. So, let me tell you about this great new tile showroom in Alpharetta. Florim is an Italian manufacturer opening its first store in the United States right here in the metro area. Other tile showrooms have carried Florim products, but this is the firm's first flagship venture. Located in an ordinary industrial park, the showroom itself is anything but ordinary. They produce cutting-edge large format tiles that mirror lava, wood, and rare marble and stone. Shapes range from tiny squares to long strips to L-shaped pieces that can be assembled like puzzles.The CasaMood line is particularly design-friendly, with textures ranging from earthy clays to iridescent glass. There is even one group of large-format tiles that resembles toile. On a recent tour of the showroom, Marketing Director Melodie Nakhle explained to me, "Our product is art. We don't want you to think of it as tile." Lots of white space and concept boards provide plenty of ideas to inspire your artistic imagination. Definitely worth the drive out to the suburbs! The showroom is located at 155 Bluegrass Valley Parkway, Alpharetta, 30005, 678-393-8050.

A highlight of every year is the Atlanta Symphony Associates Decorators’ Show House & Gardens, which opens tomorrow and runs through May 11. I got to take a sneak peek yesterday, and this year’s house is truly elegant. It has just enough “over the top” spaces to make it fun, but just enough restraint to make it lovely. Over the years, Atlantans have discovered many of the city’s top designers through the ASO showhouse. I remember rooms by Jackie Naylor, Bob Brown, Patricia McLean, Carole Weaks, Cheryl Womack, and many more. In this year’s house, Camelot, you can see work by some of them plus tomorrow’s rising stars like Douglas Weiss, Jimmy Stanton, Leah Bailey, and Tish Mills. Because Camelot is a brand new house, the designers had relatively free range. They didn't have to work around dated cabinetry or bathrooms as they have sometimes been required to do in the past.

A highlight, this year as always, is a whimsical space by Randy Korando and Dan Belman of Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts. They have papered an oval dining room in a Zuber reproduction mural, with trellised panels, French statues, and an oversized bronze lantern—turning the space into a magical gazebo. Also notable is the grand salon. Using custom sofas, antiques, and an assortment of interesting occasional pieces and chairs, Pineapple House (Stephen Pararo, Nikki Bachrach, Leah Bailey) has transformed the giant hall into an inviting and even intimate space. This is a not-to-miss year, so buy your tickets now!

It’s hard not to love springtime in Atlanta. Even with the Dogwood Festival at Lenox Square and pine pollen blanketing my car, I can’t help but savor the cherry trees and azalea blossoms. One day this week, when traffic was particularly bad getting into Downtown, I turned the bend near Sixteenth Street on I-75, and there was a glorious profusion of wisteria in full bloom. It made me smile despite the Fourteenth Street Exit closing.

Perhaps this is why I was so taken with a new store in Roswell. Summer Classics is a well-established, upscale outdoor furniture line based in Alabama. They have recently launched their own line of “Master Stores,” and metro Atlanta is lucky enough to have the first one. This one is a joint venture between Summer Classics and Rocky Mountain Patio, which also carries their furniture.

The store is located in an old Seasonal Concepts spot on Holcomb Bridge, but the similarity definitely stops there. The new showroom includes indoor furniture, French and Asian antiques, and home accessories, as well as an exceptionally diverse range of high-quality outdoor furniture. I went in looking for outdoor furniture, but came out lusting after some modern chrome candle sconces, some green glass fossils, several outdoor lanterns, and at least three different table lamps—PLUS several lines of very chic outdoor furniture that was anything but typical. I am so happy that Atlanta finally has such a resource, and I’m completely inspired to start working on an outdoor space. At least until the bugs start buzzing. (855 Holcomb Bridge Road, Roswell, 770-998-5555)

Sometimes the weeks between Scott Antique Markets can seem so long. In Atlanta, there is no shortage of antique centers to fill the void. Some of my favorites are the Historic Roswell Antique Market, Foxgloves Antiques & Galleries, 14th Street Antiques Market, and, of course, the good old Bennett Street standbys Interiors Market and The Stalls—to name a few (my apologies to Chamblee, I live near Marietta). My most recent discovery is Antiques & Interiors of Sandy Springs. I had visited there a few years ago when it was the Lakewood Antiques Market, but it has definitely stepped it up under the current owners. I went to their winter sale back in February, and the place was packed—a true accomplishment for a suburban antiques market in the current economy. Their 55 or so dealers offer everything from fine 19th-century European antiques to vintage Americana, African artifacts, and inexpensive decorative trinkets. Just my style. I never really know if I’ll be coming home with a trumeau or a towel bar. But that’s what makes antiquing fun. I guess it’s appropriate that the place has a Lakewood pedigree (the other major monthly market besides Scott, now moved to Cumming) since it’s helping me wait for those second weekends.<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/usa3ecktd" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>

I recently read a funny article in The New York Times about “art anxiety.” Reporter Joyce Wadler observed that anyone from recent college graduates to Wall Street barons (if any still exist after the Bear Stearns debacle) can become paralyzed over buying art. I think my favorite quote was: “Who wants to admit that ‘I’ve had these posters since college, I know that as one of the American Top 10 Orthodontists I should get some real art, but I don’t know what that means’?” Wadler goes on to explain how people are often paralyzed by not knowing what art is “worth”—and are terrified of embarrassing themselves by making the “wrong” choices.

Wadler’s comments ring all too true. Like many Atlantans, I went through a folk art phase during the late 1980s and early 1990s. I did collect a few pieces of actual value—even visited R.A. Miller along the roadside during his post-R.E.M. glory days. My favorite piece is still a Howard Finster mama rabbit, with the inscription, “Mother Rabbit has a hard time raising her little babys [sic].” That seemed only too appropriate for me, who had two young toddlers at the time. But now most of my folk art screams 1990s as surely as our shiny brass chandeliers (which I’m still getting rid of – it’s incredible how many our house had!!). And now I’m faced with buying “real” art. It’s daunting, it’s expensive. Will my tastes change again? Do I really care if something appreciates? And how do I weigh purchasing a new painting against the college spring break trips my “babys” want to take now?

Atlanta Magazine’s HOME must be the only shelter magazine in the country that did not produce a “green issue” in 2007. This also makes me one of the only editors in the country who didn’t write either “Green is the new black,” or “Despite what Kermit says, it’s easy to be green.” Of course, we did publish stories on eco-friendly remodeling, decorating, and building; we just didn’t devote an entire issue to the topic. Somehow, publishing a “green issue” just seems too gimmicky to me. Conservation and recycling should be part of our everyday lives, not something we do only on Earth Day—or only in one issue. Didn’t everyone’s grandmother teach them, “Waste not, want not?” And, for that matter, why wouldn’t I want to keep her lovely old desk and fine china rather than replace them with something new?

However, I have been researching low-flow plumbing fixtures for a story that Atlanta magazine will publish this summer. And I find myself in an ethical dilemma. How much am I willing to sacrifice style for efficiency? I have ordered a new handle that converts regular toilets to dual flush. Very cool concept, but rather ugly handle. And how do I give up lovely things like the blown-glass faucets by Glass Faucet? You can’t exactly stick an aerator on them! And, finally, I have issues with discarding old appliances and fixtures and replacing them with more efficient ones. Doesn’t that create unnecessary waste in landfills? Shouldn’t we wait until the appliance needs replacing otherwise?

All winter I searched for the perfect sunburst mirror. It was cold and gray. It was dark when I left for work in the morning AND when I got home at night. When we tried to pick a new paint color for our master bedroom, I would have to wait a week between testing shades so that I could actually see them in the daylight. It was depressing.

So I’m blaming my obsession on the weather. I just had to have a sunburst mirror. Originally, it seemed like a simple purchase—the kind of thing I could probably pick up at Target for $39.99. And, indeed, Target did have a wire-and-capiz version ($69.99), but it was too mid-century modern for our bedroom. I wanted something a little more, um, French—but I still wanted to pay $39.99.

Last month I was certain I could pick one up at the Scott Antique Market, but there was barely a solar ray in sight. The few that I did see cost upwards of $1,000. Apparently, this is not unusual. I read that a circa 1960 Roi Soleil mirror by French metalsmith Line Vautrin sold at auction for $144,000 a couple of years ago. Vintage models from the 1950s often bring $2,000 or more. I spotted some great ones at Stephen Barnwell’s newly expanded One10East, but I was sure they were out of my price range.

I am by no means a purist. I wanted this mirror for simply decorative purposes and would have been quite content with a knock-off. So I turned to E-bay. My previous experience with E-bay auctions had been fairly limited. I had never felt the frustration of trying to decide how much and, perhaps even more importantly, when to bid. With irritation I realized an auction I’d watched for five days was going to end right in the middle of my son’s first college-planning meeting. Darn priorities. So I posted my bid an hour before the auction ended—and was swiftly outbid by “anniem7.”

So, imagine my surprise when I finally found the perfect mirror last weekend at Stein Mart! Of course, I snapped it up and it looks great. But I confess to a tiny bit of buyer’s remorse. If sunburst mirrors are in Stein Mart, are they yet another vintage revival destined for overkill by mass merchandising? What do you think?

Or maybe I just don’t need the mirror so much now because the days are getting longer, and I’m actually seeing the real sun again.