Torgny's Profile

Furniture that has quality construction and materials costs more than something that is cheaply made. But there are limits. It seems to me that the furniture designed by Eames, Corbusier, etc., and now licensed to Casina and others, is priced far beyond the cost to make it, especially given the improvements in furniture making and materials that now allow these pieces to be made more cheaply than they were years ago. As many of these designers sought to make well-designed pieces accessible to all, this is a real shame and I bet many of these designers would be rolling over in their graves if they knew the prices their pieces are being sold for today (mass produced as they now are).

I highly second avsforum.com. You can find recommendations and information on just about any audio or video system you are interested in. And yes accurate and immersive sound only comes from larger and more expensive speakers than most people want in their living room. But that's the price you pay for good sound, just like the price you pay for an immersive picture is a larger TV than you might want around (or a projector). You just have to figure out where you draw the line on trade-offs.

It's actually spelled "Påskris", and yes, feathers are standard in Sweden. But I'm not used to seeing quite so many things packed onto the branches. You should see more branches and less decoration. "Less is more," so to speak.

While fancy shakers look cool, they often leak and are hard to clean. Speaking as a former bartender, the best shaker is the simple Boston shaker: essentially a heavy clear pint glass and a metal cup. It doesn't leak, is easy to clean, and is a real workhorse. It's also the only shaker left off this list for some reason . . .

A lot of good movies mentioned. But don't miss "Blackbeard's Ghost", an old Disney movie with Peter Ustinov and others. I've never seen my kids laugh as hard as they did during that movie. And even my wife and I enjoyed it!

While I don't mean to knock all of the products in this review, I have to laugh about a review of "audio docks where sound quality takes center stage" that focuses almost entirely on looks, does not include any specs, does not mention how these products sound with various styles of music or in different environments, and highlights a Bose system that is reviewed at the same time as not blowing your socks off and being good enough to be your home's primary sound system!

You have one of the best design blogs out there, but you leave a lot to be desired in your reviews when it comes to performance. Good design should mean more than just good looks; it should mean good performance as well or else what's the point? You'd help your readers a lot more if you at least gave equal attention to design and performance, especially in tech reviews.

You missed the best cocktail app out there: Flip 'N Drink. Speaking as a former bartender, it has gorgeous photos, top notch recipes from one of the best cocktail revivalists out there, and cool facts about every drink. It also skips silly drinks and sticks to the classics, which is a plus that you don't have to wade through hundreds of college bar drinks to find the good ones.

Unplugged does a lot of things well, but home theater advice is not one of them.

You often get a bigger bang for your buck with a projector than with a flat-screen TV; a sub is probably a better addition than headphones; cheap speakers are never a good option (you'll regret it in the long run); and mis-matched speakers are also not a good idea. You should also run as fast as possible from anyone who advises you to spend hundreds of dollars on cables!

If you are planning a real HT, a media room, or just a living room with a TV and speakers, and want to get the most for your money, go to a real audio/video site such as avsforum.com and get accurate advice tailored to your specific goals and needs.

I have a functional fireplace but one we don't use often. I put a framed photo of a log fire in it. It's gotten a lot of good coments from visitors!

While trying not to be rude, I agree that the title of this piece is grossly misleading. "Before & After" implies changes someone made to a room they decorated both before and after. It does not apply to rooms decorated by different people or to a room decorated for the first time (as in new construction). And it is very tacky to publish the interior of someone's home without their permission, especially when you publish it as the "bad" styling. Shame on everyone involved in deciding to do that.