Indiana Gazette from Indiana, Pennsylvania • Page 38

E-2 The Indiana, PA Gazette Sunday, October 17,1993 Faucets recharge bath, kitchen It's not always necessary to re- tnodel a weary kitchen or lackluster bathroom from scratch. Sometimes a simple recharge is all that is required. Faucets, which now come jn a vast array of colors, finishes and designs can be basic, quick and easy way to enliven today's kitchens and baths. Since faucets come in almost overwhelming variety, one leading manufacturer offers these tips for selecting and purchasing one of the nost used features in any household. Suiting your style Today, it is possible to choose faucets to match your own unique lifestyle and personal tastes: Before shopping, carefully consider your most important needs and desires for function and aesthetics.

For example, if you cook frequently with large pots and pans you could benefit from a high-rise gooseneck faucet which easily fills and rinses large pots. If there are older or physically challenged persons in your household, you'll want to consider a single handle or two handle lever unit which does not require grasping to operate. Determining your household's unique needs will allow you to choose the most suitable Self-contained add capped by family room, master suite By JEROLD L. AXELROD For AP Newsfeotures Problem: Frequently, a homeowner bent on adding-on can be discouraged by the costs of making internal changes to connect the new addition. The design for this two-story addition provides a unique answer to that problem.

Solution: This addition provides a new family room on its first floor and a new master bedroom suite above. The plan in different, not only for the distinctive architectural styling, but also because it includes its own star to the second floor. The stair enables ease of connection, since no second floor access is needed, unless desired. The plan is also very flexible regarding the location and style of the home to which it is attached. The design of the new second floor has been carefully planned to reduce its impact on existing windows.

The dropped rooflines on both sides of the second floor serve to narrow the area of connecting wall, which will result in less impact on existing second floor windows. For more information on this plan, write to Jerold L. Axelrod, 66 Harned Road, Commack, N.Y. 11725 or call 1-800-532-0053. Plan FBR06 Family Room 26'4x18'4 EXISTING ROOMS FIRST FLOOR ADDITION EXISTING BEDROOMS SECOND FLOOR ADDITION Notes: 2-Wet bar 3-Build-in media 4-Connection to second floor (optional) 5-18'addition For more information on this plan, write to Jerold L.

Axelrod, 66 Hamed Commack, N.Y. 11725 (or call toll-free 1-800-532-0053). Copies of these AP booklets are available for $4.95 each: "Remodeling: Family Rooms" "Remodeling: Kitchens" "Remodeling: Bedroom Bath" Send check or money order to: Remodeling, P.O. Box 50670, Minneapolis, Minn. 55405.

Be sure to note which books you are ordering. faucet's for your lifestyle. Since faucets now come in a variety of colors and styles, some advance thought about overall decorating plans will aid the selection process. One you decide on a traditional, colonial, country or contemporary look, selecting coordinating accessories is easy. Take your time when choosing these accessories.

They may seem like a little detail, but a faucet that matches the kitchen or bathroom decor adds dimension and enhances the overall setting. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, manufacturers now offer easy-to-install faucets to meet your needs. Quality workmanship Quality workmanship will help your faucets looking and functioning like new for years. Here are some construction guidelines to consider when choosing a reliable, smooth- flowing faucet: Look for well-built products. Faucets with yalving that is sand- casted are subject to pin-hole leaks.

Instead, models that are machined out of solid brass and bar stock resist leakage and prove to be more durable and reliable. Choose finished that are attractive and long lasting. If you choose a bathroom faucet accessory with a special finish, you'll want it treated with a powdered epoxy coating. Applied electrostatically, this protective coating provides a watertight over coat that is abrasion and is chemical resistant. Select long-lasting accessories that can adapt to changing family needs.

For example, while handheld showers promote easy bathing for child, they also are ideally suited to patient care. Be sure the manufacturer stands behind its products. Most good manufacturers offer waranties for their products. Safety factors Homeowners' concerns for safety and the environment are dramatically increasing. Technological innovations in plumbing include: Anti-scald pressure balance valves that prevent accidental scalding when water pressure in the house changes suddenly.

Kitchen or bath spray spouts with an internal vacuum breaker that helps eliminate the risk of backflow or back siphonage, which can result in tap water contamination when pull-out spray spouts are immersed in tainted water. Low flow showerheads and lavatory faucets that help conserve water. Showers with varying pulsating spray patterns that allow everyone in the family to find his or her own preference for water pressure. New accessories and faucets add charm to the bath. Jackon designs 'furniture to experience' By AVA VAN de WATER Cox News Service WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.

There's something almost magical about Dakota Jackson's furniture. Here's a man who has designed furniture for rock stars and Fortune 400 executives. He designed a dream bed for designer Diane Von Furstenberg; a Chinese puzzlelike desk for John Lennon. But he creates furniture that is more than something to sleep in, sit on or look at. He creates furniture to experience.

Take his well-known Saturn Stool, designed in 1976 and featured last year in an advertisement for Absolut Vodka. Jackson was dancing at the time with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and wondering how those dancers could spin and spin without getting dizzy. His curiosity led him to design the Saturn Stool, which spins and spins. His pink satin bed for Von Furstenberg, designed in the mid-'70s, was called The Eclipse. The headboard was the sun; the footboard the moon.

At sunset, beams of light emitted from the headboard, growing brighter and brighter until they stopped at 2 a.m. His desk for Lennon opened only at the touch of certain pressure points. "I've been called the father grandfather now of art furniture," the 44-year-old Jackson said recently while visiting the Design Center of the Americas in Dania. Jackson was at DCOTA to promote The Big Sleep, his first bedroom collection. It's part of Engineered Design USA, Jackson's ON GARDENING By ANNE RAVER N.Y.

Times News Service Here are a few of the ingenious recycling suggestions that have rolled in from readers: Many gardeners are making nodig raised beds by first putting down a thick layer of newspapers to kill the weeds, then adding mulch and compost. If you add enough compost six inches or so you latest production that signals his move from custom furniture design to what he calls "batch production," in which his company makes 15 to 20 beds at a time, rather than one. "It's halfway between custom- made (one-of-a-kind) and large- scale mass design," he explained. Furniture in the collection is less expensive than his custom creations. His library chairs are about $250; his stacking chairs run about $250 to $550.

Jackson's Big Sleep bed of stained ash is a dramatic work of art. He describes the bed's form as a contradiction "voluptuous and yet restrained." "On one hand it carries certain elements of Shaker with its spare silhouette, yet its scale is very grand, almost magical," he said. But at $11,775 in queen size, it's not for everyone. Jackson said he became intrigued with the notion that expensive furniture has always been likened to cars. "If a desk is $15,000, you think, 'I could buy a BMW for Jackson said.

"I thought why spend $20,000 to $25,000 on a car that would last three to five years when they could spend the same amount on an entire bedroom set that would last 10 to 15 years?" Jackson's background is as interesting as his furniture and a big influence in his designs. Like his father and grandfather before him, Jackson was a magician. He later became a dancer with the minimalist dance troupe Laura Dean and Company, and the Trisha Brown Dance Company. At the same time he became a special-effects can plant immediately. If not, wait until spring and plant through decomposing newspapers.

Plastic gallon milk or water jugs, their tops cut off, can be placed upside down over just-planted seedlings in the spring to protect them from chilly winds. This same-size jug makes a great drip-irrigation tool. Poke a few holes in the bottom and sink the jug up to its neck in the middle of a hilled bed for water-guzzling crops like toma- consultant to other magicians, as well as producers of movies and rock and roll concerts. Dakota Jackson is not his birth name. When he was 5, he traveled with his father in the Dakotas.

He liked the sound of Dakota and made everyone call him that. He became known as "Dakota, Jack's son." His real name? "I don't talk about it," he said. "It being a professional stage family, we all had different names." In his late teens Jackson had an idea that bucked the anti-establishment aura of the 1960s. He headed for Steinway where he demanded to see the president and was quickly turned away. Thus was born his corporate philosophy: revenge.

"If you can't join them, you beat them and then hire them," he said. It worked. Last year his internationally known design and manufacturing firm, Dakota Jackson had sales of $10 million. Since he designed that desk for Lennon 20 years ago, Jackson's style has undergone a natural progression from furniture solely as meaningful art, to furniture as functional, pleasing art. His first furniture was "Illusion furniture." Reflecting the 1960s view of art for art's sake, this furniture includes the "Self-Winding Table" (1978), a glass coffee table with three stacked glass planes that glide with the nudge of a finger.

But you have to be careful you can easily knock your cocktail off levels two or three. It is one of Jackson's most successful pieces and is still offered for sale $10,000. His "Furniture as Deadly Weap- toes and cucumbers. "Just fill the jugs with water and it will seep through the ground to thirsty roots, with nary a drop lost to evaporation. Plastic newspaper bags have a multitude of uses: add a little water to the bag and you can keep divisions of perennials and day lilies moist while transporting to friends; double the bags, roll down the tops and fill with potting soil for a temporary pot; use these same bags to pull up ons" collection in the 1970s was created "to invent objects that would create excitement for owners," Jackson said.

This collection included Von Furstenberg's Eclipse bed (its jutting footboard tripped Von Furstenberg's mom, just after Jackson assured her it was not dangerous). Also in this collection was his flag table, a patriotic statement created during the transition from the Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan years. The tip of the table was pointed "to reflect a dangerous time." But the point also tore one owner's pant leg every time he walked by. After this, Jackson developed a sympathy for function with his "Lickables" furniture. Jackson, with his dry wit, explained that he wondered what people do when they're alone and no one is looking.

His flan chest uses 10 to 12 colors of caramel, good enough to lick. In the late '80s, Jackson decided to simplify design. His Ke-'Zu (CQ) collection of chairs was named after a client said his chaise resembled a child's kazoo. It is the phonetic spelling of the children's musical instrument. Also in this collection is the PFM (Paris Flea Market) chair that sells for $1,200.

Someone told Jackson it would never sell here because it was too small Americans like large chairs. The signature piece of his CuB-a collection is a much more generous club chair in a cubist design. His third seating collection includes the Vik-ter chairs. Named for the RCA Victor dog, the chairs tilt back, resembling the tilt of the dog's head to the megaphone. poison ivy without touching the stuff.

Panty hose can be used to tie tomatoes and sunflowers to stakes; they're strong but soft enough not to sever stems, and their earth tones don't attract attention. Have any old windows? Elizabeth Schoonmaker, an artist in Oneonta, N.Y., made an elegant sculpture for her garden out of windows that remind her of the old house that she left, a bit regretfully, to build something new. HOME IMPROVEMENT Installing exhaust fans in poorly ventilated rooms By JOHN WARDE N.Y. Times News Service Installing an exhaust fan in a poorly ventilated bathroom, laundry pr kitchen can help prevent indoor condensation and problems like peeling paint and damaged Mounting a fan on an outside wall may be reasonably easy, but mounting one in a ceiling can be difficult unless the ceiling is accessible from an attic. That is because ceiling fans require separate and sometimes lengthy ducts to carry exhaust air outside.

In all cases electrical wiring has also to be installed. A fan's size is expressed by the cubic feet of air it can move a minute, or CFM. To select an adequate fan, know the volume of the room to be ventilated. Multiply the length, width and height, as well as number of air changes an hour recommended for it. Stores may have charts with the information.

Government and industry standards recommend 8 changes an hour for bathrooms, 6 for laundries and 15 for kitchens. Divide the product by 60, the number of minutes in an hour. The result will be" the recommended fan size in cubic feet a minute. The noise a fan makes is expressed in sones. The lower the sone rating, the quieter the fan.

Most small exhaust fans are rated 3 to 7 sones. Low-sone fans can produce about half the noise of their ordinary counterparts, but cost about twice as much. To mount a fan on an outside wall choose a spot between studs near the ceiling. Studs are usually spaced with centers 16 or 24 inches apart. After marking the desired position drill a small hole and probe it with an object like an insulated screwdriver to make certain that there are no electrical cables or water pipes inside.

If there are, reposition them or relocate the fan. Next, go outside and measure from a window or another landmark to transfer the location of the hole to the outside wall. Mark the wall with a pencil or nail to identify the spot. Cut a circular hole through the inside of the wall to accommodate the built-in duct. Use an electric saber saw or a keyhole saw.

Cut a similar hole in the outside of the wall. If the wall is masonry break a rough hole with a rented hammer drill, a fast method used by Or use a carbide-tipped masonry bit to drill quarter-inch holes around the outline of the opening. Use a cold chisel and a small sledgehammer to cut through between the holes. Do not try to install a fan on stone walls. That requires a mason.

If the directions specify, remove a square or rectangular area of siding from around the hole for the outdoor hood. That is not necessary on flat walls, because the hood can rest squarely against them. With wood siding, that can be accomplished with a circular saw. Set the depth of the blade equal to the thickness of the siding to avoid sawing through the underlying sheathing. Do not saw all the way to the outline's corners, or the blade will cut beyond them.

Instead, cut the corners with a chisel. With aluminum and vinyl siding it is usually easier to remove the siding, trim it with shears and then reinstall it. Attach strips of Ix2-inch lumber around the inside of the opening to shim the hood so that the base is nearly flush with the outside surface of the surface. Apply caulking around the rear of the hood. Remove any insulation from the hole in the wall and insert the hood and duct section attached to it.

Fasten the hood with nails or screws. On masonry walls the hood can be installed directly against the surface with masonry fasteners. Then apply caulking around the outside of the hood to seal the joint. Install wiring for the fan, but do not connect it to the main power supply. Many wall fans operate by means of a pull-chain mounted on them.

Other wall fans and all ceiling fans require installing a wall switch. Fill any space around the duct with fiberglass insulation and insert the remaining duct section. It usually extends into the outer section to compensate for walls of varying thicknesses. Thread the wiring through the opening for it in the duct section. Fasten the two sections together screws usually come with the fan and connect the wires to the duct wiring box.

Attach the fan, usually by bolting it to a bracket spanning the duct opening, and plug the fan into the outlet in the wiring box. Attach the grille covering the front of the fan, connect the fan's wiring to the main power supply, and restore the power. The fan is ready to use. Ceiling-mounted fans are installed by cutting a hoje in the ceiling between two joists, inserting the fan and anchoring it to the joists with brackets. From an attic, flexible plastic duct can easily be connected to the fan and directed to a hole in an outside wall or a roof.

The hole has to be protected by a hood. Where there is no access from above, installing a duct requires removing part of the floor above the fan or part of the ceiling next to it. Both have to be parallel to the joists, so that the duct can go between them. Never vent a fan into the space above it, as serious condensation problems can result..