Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's historic bathhouses, where patrons are rinsed and massaged beneath graceful archways and tiled walls, may soon disappear as interest in them wanes.

Some of the bathhouses, known as "hammams" in Persian, are centuries old. But business has declined as modern conveniences now allow showers and baths in most homes across the Islamic Republic. The few that remain, mostly in old neighborhoods, largely draw day laborers and travelers.

"Nowadays, there are only three or four public bathhouses in Tehran," says Mahdi Sajjadi, head of the Tehran bathhouse owners' association.

In the old days, the bathhouses were more than just a place to clean up, shave or get a massage from a "dallak," who uses a mitt to scrub and exfoliate a client's back. Then, people gathered in the humid air to discuss current events and debate ideas.

Now, bathhouse owners like Gholam Ali Amirian, 70, who has spent four decades working in a hammam that is some 850 years old, fear the institution will dissipate like the steam from its heated pool.

"Some 35 years ago, before the revolution, we had lots of customers," Amirian says. "At 4 a.m., when I wanted to open the hammam, there were people already in a queue. Five people worked here and we had over 50 customers a day. But now we have three customers a day on average."

Sajjadi suggests the government could turn the bathhouses into tourist attractions by offering low-interest loans to owners to renovate their aging interiors. But so far, there's been no move to do that as the economic pressure grows.

Here are a series of images by Associated Press photographer Ebrahim Noroozi from inside some of Iran's remaining bathhouses.

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AP PHOTOS: Time slowly washing away Iran's public bathhouses

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Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

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While mother Lidia Flores (left) answers questions about her new apartment, her son Christian Ulloa and daughter Fatima Ulloa share a quiet moment reflected in a mirror. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee welcomed the first occupants of the new Broadway Sansome family housing development in North Beach Wednesday April 1, 2015.

While mother Lidia Flores (left) answers questions about her new...

Lidia Flores kisses her daughter Fatima Ulloa in the kitchen area of their new apartment after a ceremony. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee welcomed the first occupants of the new Broadway Sansome family housing development in North Beach Wednesday April 1, 2015.

Lidia Flores kisses her daughter Fatima Ulloa in the kitchen area...

Mayor Ed Lee handed over the keys to Lidia Flores for her new apartment although she has been moved in for two weeks. Her daughter Fatima Ulloa is at right. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee welcomed the first occupants of the new Broadway Sansome family housing development in North Beach Wednesday April 1, 2015.

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Residents relieved to be living in new apartments in North Beach

Among Nintendos numerous announcements last night was also confirmation of a brand new Animal Crossing spin-off.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, due out this autumn on 3DS, sees gamers playing as an interior decorator who must create amiable living quarters for an assortment of characters.

The game will also usher in Nintendos first Amiibo Cards. These work in exactly the same way as the Amiibo figurines, using an in-built NFC chip to communicate with the Wii U or New 3DS XL.

Older 3DS models will require the use of an upcoming external NFC reader, which is now due out on the same day.

The Animal Crossing cards will allow players to introduce additional in-game extras such as new characters. And, as you might expect, the Amiibo Cards will retail for less than the figures, although the final prices have not yet been confirmed.

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There's a new Animal Crossing coming, complete with Amiibo Cards

Exterior of the Folly. Photo courtesy of Michael Blevins Photography.

Built in 1880 and once billed as "The Strangest Home in the World," Krner's Folly in Kernersville, N.C. celebrated its 135th anniversary last Saturday. But it is not really a home in the conventional sense. Artist, decorator, interior designer, and "Man of a Thousand Peculiarities" Jule Gilmer Krner conceived of this structure as an entertaining space, bachelor quarters, horse stables, studio andmost importantlyshowroom for the wares of his Reuben Rink Decorating and House Furnishing Company.

Today, the population of Kernersville is approximately 23,000, but when Krner finished the Folly in 1880, the town was home to 200 people. Heading toward historic downtown Kernersville, you pass the usual suspects of Southern suburban AmericaCVS, Walmart, Hibachi Grill, Cookout, Biscuitville, and several gas stationsbut soon you leave these reminders of the present behind. The Folly is situated right up against South Main Street, as a business would have been in the late nineteenth century, in all its now-anomalous Victorian grandeur.

The Folly stands 100 feet high, with a "privy," or outhouse, also on the property. It was built with eight different sizes of bricks, which were made on the premises. The sheer variety of building materials was only one aspect of the variety that defined the house. From the outside, the Folly doesn't look particularly odduntil you notice its six chimneys. These are the first sign of what will also characterize the interior: endless options, designed to tempt the customer.

In 1785, Krner's grandfather Joseph left his town of Furtwangen in the Black Forest region of Germany, where he had been working as a business representative for a manufacturer and dealer in clocks, and moved to the Friedland settlement in central North Carolina, several miles south of present-day Kernersville. He established a business making watches and clocks, ran an inn, and eventually acquired more than 1,000 acres of land that he passed on to his three childrenSalome, Johann Frederick, and Philipwhen he died at the age of 61. Jule Gilmer was born in 1851, the last of Philip's eleven children. He was educated in art in Philadelphia and set up a business in Cincinnati as an artist and designer, but when his father died in 1875, he returned to Kernersville.

The Folly struck people as odd when it was under construction. The name came from a passing farmer's exclamation that the building would prove to be "Krner's Folly," but Krner wasn't offendedin fact, he loved the name. As with many histories in North Carolina, his is bound up in the tobacco industry, which prepared him to take on the Folly by honing both his appetite for controversy and his advertising skills. For several years in the early 1880s, he painted outdoor billboards for Durham's Blackwell Tobacco Company, manufacturer of Bull Durham products. The advertisements, which were sometimes as large as 80 x 150 feet and appeared on barns, buildings, and boulders all across the country, were known for their anatomically correct bulls, which some found scandalous. Krner seems to have enjoyed this. In fact, he even wrote letters to the local paper, posing as miffed young women and demanding the removal of the ads.

Having advertised someone else's product in the past, he was more than prepared to advertise his own. "Reuben Rink," the pseudonym he had used to sign his bull advertisements, became the name of his interior design business. The Folly would be his ultimate marketing tool. When Krner devised this unique showroom, most of Kernersville's residents would have selected decorating materials from catalogues and printed advertisements. Krner took the catalog and made it a physical space. Where catalogs had transformed the real into representation, he transformed representations back into the real.

His customers were wealthy, and they sought large pieces to suit their large housesnot unlike today's suburban consumers who fetishize the space-filling designs of mass producers such as Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. (Approximately 90 percent of the furniture in the house today is original.) The enormous floor-to-ceiling buffet in the dining room was built in the room and has not been moved since. He also stocked the Folly with wallpaper books, fabric swatches, and other materials that customers could peruse. Ultimately, these materials could be compiled into custom sketches, a movement back to representation after the client had absorbed all the options the Folly had to offer.

And the options proliferated. The house had multiple levels and ceiling heights ranging from five-and-a-half to 25 feet. Every doorway and window was unique. Murals were painted on walls, ceilings, and even the undersides of staircases. Fifteen fireplaces showcased tiles of different colors and designs by both Krner and the American Encaustic Tile Company in Zanesville, OH (likely ordered from their New York showrooms). The carved woodwork throughout the interior represented Krner's signature patterns that could be arranged in different combinations: roping, beading, and egg and dart. The wainscoting alone contains approximately 10,000 feet of bead molding, all of which was carved by hand. Even the utilitarian cellar was outfitted with tile and other decorative motifs, and some of the mosaic patterns on the floors mimicked carpeting or rugs and can also be found on the porches, which were added in 1906.

The reception room upstairs was designed for social events, complete with conversation chairs and corners draped in green curtains to hide canoodling couples. Krner liked to entertain, and welcoming customers into the Folly was another form of hospitality, albeit a more commercial one. The house was peculiarly positioned between the public and the private, and it partook of both. Krner anticipated the customer's desires and attempted to answer them by offering plenitude. Would you like this fireplace? Or this one? Or perhaps something that combines the two? Each room suggested infinite combinations of elements: wallpaper, carvings, furniture, curtains, carpets, and tapestries.

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Curbed Features: Creating Korner's Folly, 'The Strangest Home in the World'

AVON PARK - Through herself and her father, shes a local connection to one of the most historical events in United States history.

Throughout late 1962 and into 1963, Loretta Bartletts father, Frank Boerder, worked for Jack Ruby, the nightclub operator in Dallas. Nov. 24, 1963, Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who was in police custody after being charged with the murder of President John F. Kennedy two days earlier.

Boerder was a German immigrant, raised in New York City who was living in Dallas and worked as an artist and interior decorator. In the late 1940s, he had moved to Dallas from Lima, Ohio, with his second wife and three of his daughters, including Bartlett, now 65, and living in southeast Avon Park.

In the living room of her Anglers Stream road home, Bartlett spoke about seeing her father work at Rubys nightclub, the Carousel Club, a burlesque venue in south Dallas. There, at 10 or 11 years old, she said she remembers meeting Ruby on several occasions and the black hat he always wore.

She also remembered her father telling her Ruby said he came to Dallas to be a hit man. Thats what he told me.

He seemed pretty laid back, a nice guy, she said. They(Ruby and her father) were pretty close. My dad got pretty emotional when he (Ruby) did what he did.

Bartlett - who works as an instructor at Cloud Nine Beauty School, Avon Park - said she isnt sure exactly how her father and Ruby originally got in contact. She said her father, who died in 1971, mentioned a wealthy business owner who was backing the club that may have put the two men in contact. That man may have been Joe Slatin, according to a Dec. 19, 1963, FBI report,

Bartlett said one of her most prized possessions, which she has stored in a safe-deposit box in Lima, Ohio, is a voided check which on the back, Ruby had written her father a note. On it, he wrote: Dear Frank, I stopped in to see you. Stop by and see me at the club. The note was left at the Carousel for Boerder.

I still find it strange that my dad saved that note from Jack Ruby, she said.

A bit of what Boerder knew about Ruby and Oswalds murder is outlined The Warren Report, the presidents commission on the assassination of Kennedy. Boerder was mentioned after three to four months of being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and on page 363, the report mentions Bertha Cheeks, the sister of a housekeeper where assassination suspect Lee Harvey Oswald lived. The report states Cheeks visited Ruby at his club Nov. 18, 1963, met an interior decorator and stopped in to possibly provide financial backing in Rubys new nightclub.

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AP woman living link to Kennedy assassination, Oswald murder

Hard Maple Flooring Installation
Bob checks out Shaw #39;s Chateau wood flooring, which contractor David LaFosse and his crew are about to install in the great room.

By: Bob Vila

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Hard Maple Flooring Installation - Video

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Jan. 23, 2015: This selfie taken by Julie Sabatier, at Portland International Airport in Portland, Ore., shows her feet on older carpet due to be replaced at the terminal.(AP)

Oregon locals and visitors lined up inside Portland International Airport last week to snap photos with a 30-year-old carpet that has reached celebrity status.

More than 800 pictures were taken of people standing next to a segment of the floor covering hung up for an event called PDX Carpet Fest.

The city threw a farewell party for the airports trademark teal carpet, which is being replaced after three decades under travelers feet and wheeled suitcases.

"I guess this carpet is really iconic, and I can't imagine another city getting this worked up over carpet," said Sierra Prior, a Portland resident who posed for photos before boarding her plane to New Orleans.

The 80s-style carpet at PDX is decorated with dark-blue liners and red, lavender and purple dots meant to symbolize air traffic controllers view at night.

Once word spread the carpet was going to be torn up, the weathered floor covering became an online sensation. More than 40,000 foot selfies photos people took of their feet on the carpet were plastered on Instagram. Companies even started to sell T-shirts featuring the pattern.

"I'm getting married on November 6th, and I think I'm going to have all my groomsmen wear the PDX carpet socks," said Derek Harguth, a Portland native who went to the airport to check out the PDX Carpet Fest.

Demands for remnants of the carpet have been so high that airport officials are giving four local vendors 1,000 square yards to incorporate into items such as sofas, doormats and cat beds.

Carpet Mill Outlet received a request from a fan who was recently proposed to on the carpet and wants to use a strip to make a runner for the wedding.

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Airport carpet reaches celebrity status

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TSA officers Andrea Green, left, and Edmund Gray stand beside a piece of dressed up old carpet from the terminal at Portland International Airport on March 20. (Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian/The Associated Press)

SALEM, Ore. Visitors and locals lined up inside Portland International Airport to have their photos taken with an odd celebrity a piece of nearly 30-year-old carpet.

By days end, more than 800 photo booth-style pictures were snapped of people standing next to the segment of floor covering, hung up for an event called PDX Carpet Fest.

It was classic Portland, a city known for keeping it weird: a farewell party for the airports trademark teal carpet, which is being replaced after three decades under travelers and luggage wheels.

I guess this carpet is really iconic, and I cant imagine another city getting this worked up over carpet, said Sierra Prior, a Portland resident who posed for photos before boarding her plane to New Orleans.

The unmistakably 80s carpet at the airport known as PDX is decorated with dark-blue lines and red, lavender and purple dots a design meant to symbolize air traffic controllers view at night.

As word spread that it would be torn up, the weathered floor covering became an online superstar.

More than 40,000 foot selfies photos people took of their feet on the carpet were plastered on Instagram. The carpet got its own Facebook and Twitter pages.

Some local companies started selling T-shirts, coffee mugs and other products featuring its signature pattern.

Read more here:
Worn carpet on a roll at Oregon airport

Portland's infamous airport carpet.

By The Associated Press2015-04-02 17:38:03 UTC

SALEM, Oregon Visitors and Oregon locals lined up inside Portland International Airport to have their photos taken with an odd celebrity a piece of nearly 30-year-old carpet.

Before the day was over, more than 800 photo booth-style pictures were snapped of people standing next to the segment of floor covering, hung up for an event called PDX Carpet Fest.

It was classic Portland, a city known for keeping it weird: a farewell party for the airport's trademark teal carpet, which is being replaced after three decades under travelers' luggage wheels.

"I guess this carpet is really iconic, and I can't imagine another city getting this worked up over carpet," said Sierra Prior, a Portland resident who posed for photos before boarding her plane to New Orleans.

The unmistakably '80s carpet at the airport known as PDX is decorated with dark-blue lines and red, lavender and purple dots meant to symbolize air traffic controllers' view at night.

As word spread that it would be torn up, the weathered floor covering became an online superstar.

More than 40,000 "foot selfies" photos people took of their feet on the carpet were plastered on Instagram. The carpet got its own Facebook and Twitter pages.

Some local companies started selling T-shirts, coffee mugs and other products featuring its signature pattern.

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Portland airport's carpet has become a celebrity