It feels like H&H is changing before our eyes.....or is it ALWAYS changing? This week it is definitely more youthful and offbeat, and it seems to be borrowing ideas from the blogs, who borrowed them from other media, who got them from simply responding to readers... It has bright spots but seems sort of depressing (Readers VOTE below).

Our top pick this week is a bright spot, On the Seine, Haut Baroque, which profiles French designer, Herve Van der Straeten. A single-minded Gallic creative with a style that seems old and new at the same time, he is worth bookmarking. Pics, pics, pics are here!

Some of his work is available at:
Maison Gerard
Homer
Vivre

Top Stories

• Caleb Carr: Rebuilding the Past in Words and Wood: The author at his period home on Misery Mountain (reallly)
  

• Thinking Inside the Big Box: Julia Christensen studies big box stores that are reused.... interesting?
  
  
  
• Old Bricks, Anyone?: Great new feature, this addresses how to clean Modernica lamps among other things
  
  
  
• If Tiffany Sold Plants: All about a Californian garden mecca - Western Hills, a little nursery on the fringe of Sonoma County
  
  
  
• Personal Shopper: Pots for plants and too much plastic!! (see 200 Words from LA)

• Checking Out That Man With a Van: GREAT article on new online moving watchdogs (citimove.com, movingscam.com)

  Currents: Always Refreshing

• Aswoon/Susan Woods Studio who we loved at Brooklyn Designs
  
  
  
• Tord Boontje's new porcelain dinnerware line, Table Stories, for Authentics
  
  
  
• Provencal table linens woven by small mills in the South of France at Amelie Michel
  
  
  
• Cappellini, is opening a shop in SoHo (and we thought they were shutting down!)

• Olafur Eliasson transforms a private house into a public art project.
  
  
  
• The Arthur Ross Awards, for contributions to classical design, were just awarded