It seems like full circle. I forget how many years ago but I don’t know, maybe seven, Drew and Sina set off to their first International Contemporary Furniture Fair with their dream of launching a modern, accessible, online home furnishings site. Here they are kicking it at ICFF again this week:

Sina, is it live or is it Memorex?

Drew considers the ramifications of changing his usual facebook photo pose with the daring leg up position…

I spy Blu Dot Real Good Chairs…

Despite the rain, the weird used booties we were forced to wear at many houses (I understand, owners don’t want their floors messed up, but what was wrong with my dry clean socks?), and my lack of expert cartography skills (I got majorly lost over in that navigational nightmare of a Marietta Blvd. area – thank you to the gatehouse guard on Bolton DRIVE for getting me to Bolton ROAD), I thoroughly enjoyed the Modern Atlanta House Tour this year. It was worth braving the rain and the incomplete Google map directions. I’m still trying to figure out why my new iLife 09 is uploading my shots to flickr in a random arrangement and have a ton of organizing to do, but if you want to check out what I saw click here.

Who cares that the neighbors have a fridge in the backyard when you have this view of downtown and midtown right over it?

While I usually avoid Buckhead like the plague because of the nightmarish traffic, I am SO glad I checked out the homes over there. The art collections alone made the house tours like an afternoon at the High Museum, and it was fun to see the fantasy modern lifestyle in addition to the urban pioneer poured concrete lifestyles. The tour had a range of all kinds of modern spaces, neighborhoods and materials. In addition, many of them got their LEED certification on and had great educational signage about all the green moves the designers and builders made. I’ll share the houses with you in more detail as I get my photos organized.

This addition to a traditional Ansley Park house was mind-boggling.

I don’t know if I’d ever actually seen hanging chairs outside of a magazine until yesterday.

Every light fixture and piece of artwork in this swanky Buckhead modern house stopped me in my tracks.

Wowzers, all of the eulogies were so heartfelt and emotional! I think some true tears were shed. Domino, you certainly touched our hearts and homes. Yes, that was utterly cliche but I had to say it.

Ok, now I’ll cut the chase. The randomly picked winners of the Domino book giveaway were Barbara (commenter #18) and Miss Ford (commenter #28). I’ll be contacting both of you today! Thanks to all who wrote such creative eulogies. R.I.P Domino.

For those of you in Atlanta this weekend, the Modern Atlanta House Tour is a can’t-miss event. $35 gets you into the party on Friday and a tour pass for Saturday and Sunday. I highly recommend allowing time on both days to hit as many properties as possible, and if the map sucks as bad as last year, realize you’ll likely need an hour or two to mapquest everything if you don’t have GPS the night before you tour. For more information about where to get tickets and the homes that will be featured, click here. For a little sampling of how good the tour was last year, click here. The house I shared with you went on to be featured in Metropolitan Home a few months later – Modern Atlanta is not messing around!

If modern gardens are more your thing, you may want to attend the High Museum’s Artful Garden Tour this weekend. Click here for more information. I would try to do both, but I am going to see Coldplay on Sunday night and it’s just too darn much.

As for Saturday night, the K2 Modern Art Series will be celebrating the modern design aesthetic from 8-11. For more information, click here.

Do you ever stumble upon a design firm’s website and get sucked in to every image from every project? I just did that with Dufner Heighes Inc. of NY, NY. I was stumbled upon them via Houzz and I’m glad I did, because at least it broke me of my ideabook photo adding frenzy. Here is just a tiny taste of Dufner Heighes. Go check out more of their work on their site. Also, the way the site is constructed is very graphically pleasing and well-planned (yeah for white space and easy navigating!). When you get to a project and have looked through all the photos of a product, click on the little square under the numbers and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Everyone with an online portfolio should take notes, because many of them are tough to navigate without getting completely annoyed.

I love EVERYTHING about this eating area…

…and this just totally RULES!:

• picture one from houzz.com
• picture two from dufnerheighes.com