The Wall Street Journal - 17.08.2019 - 18.08.2019

D8| Saturday/Sunday, August 17 - 18, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**

DESIGN & DECORATING

MICHELLE SLATALLA / A MATTER OF LIFE AND DÉCOR

Must Staying Cool Be So

Aesthetically Wretched?

AS THE TEMPERATURE climbed

on a recent hot afternoon, I tried

to avoid eye contact with my hus-

band as he rushed around opening

all the windows.

“Notevenabreeze,”he

said, sighing theatrically. “I’m

dying here.”

I’d been watching him nervously

since morning, when he had

changed into shorts and his “spe-

cial” huarache sandals. The shorts

are fine, of course, but the huara-

ches are always a precursor to

something awful.

“Don’t do it,” I pleaded, trying

to throw my body between him

and the basement door.

But it was too late. He darted

past me in his breathable woven

footwear to enter his subterranean

storage lair. Moments later he re-

appeared triumphant—with the

ugly contraption that I had most

feared cradled in his arms.

The Fan Man cometh. Unlike the

90% of American households that

the International Energy Agency

reports have air conditioning, we

don’t (and don’t miss it much in

our coastal Northern California

town). But on the rare day when

so much, a few years ago he re-

turned from a business trip to

China with a half-dozen miniature

propellers that plugged into the

USB port of his laptop. (“Why?” I

asked. “I can give them away as

gifts,” he said, hurt.)

Now, as he plugged in a gray,

desk-sized fan he describes as “a

snappy little number,” he warned,

“Move back!”

Maybe in every lifelong marriage

there are things you agree not to

agree on. But electric fan usage

should not really rise to the level of

an irreconcilable difference. I vowed

to make this the summer of com-

promise—by coming up with a plan

to make our house feel cool, with-

out sacrificing its décor.

For advice, I phoned Los Ange-

les-based architect Roberto Sosa,

who learned how to defeat hot

weather with good design during

his childhood in tropical Venezu-

ela. “There, houses have enclosed

outdoor spaces and you basically

live outside,” he said.

The biggest trick to keeping an

indoor space cool, Mr. Sosa said, is

to create ventilation to let out the

hot air. In his vacation house in

upstate New York, where he chose

not to install air conditioning dur-

ing a recent remodel, he relies on

screen doors, attic vents and

french doors to keep air moving.

“That keeps it cool even on the

hottest days?” I asked.

“It can be hot, but you get in a

mood there and you dress differ-

ently and slow down a lot,” he

said. “I grew up in Caracas where

you learn to enjoy the weather.”

“My husband grew up in Penn-

sylvania, where he learned to com-

plain about it,” I said. “Short of a

remodel, how can I make the

house feel cooler quickly, say, right

this second?”

“Take up the rugs,” he sug-

gested. “In summer it feels hot

and stuffy even to look at a big,

heavy carpet.”

In fact, Mr. Sosa said, if you

swap out any kind of textured or

winter-weight textiles for lighter

fabrics—on throw pillows, win-

dows or a bed—a space will in-

stantly feel cooler and breezier.

“Even better, take down the sheer

curtains too,” he said. “I love a na-

ked window.”

Good suggestions, but most of

them I’d already tried. My heart

sank. Was I doomed to a life of

ugly electric fans?

“Fans are tricky because there

are not many beautiful ones,” Mr.

Sosa agreed. “But there are things

you can do. I did a restaurant in

Harlem where we needed to add

something to move the air in hot-

ter months. We put a row of six

super small fans—they were Vor-

nado Mini Classic fans in white—

on a high shelf, in a line. They

looked great.”

A ceiling fan can look good too,

so long as the design complements

your décor, Mr. Sosa said, adding

he frequently uses customizable

models from California-based Mat-

thews Fan Company. “You can

change “the blades, finishes and

colors of wood for a completely

different look,” he said. “If you

choose black, the fan will look

older. With brass, you get more

of a marine theme.”

“What if my husband likes to

randomly place electric fans

around the house?” I asked.

“Get vintage fans,” he said.

“Beautiful ones look like sculp-

ture. You can use them for

props, creating tabletop vignettes.

If they’re beautiful, you can

still use them for display when

they stop working.”

That could work. Maybe we

could compromise by upgrading

my husband’s fan collection in-

stead of jettisoning it.

After all, there are some in-

sanely beautiful old fans—with

nary a plastic part. The next

day after poring over photos of

#vintageelectricfan owned by

#antiquefancollectors on Insta-

gram, I developed an instant ob-

session. What would it be like to

own a 19th-century Edison “Iron-

clad,” with a cast-iron housing

and a clear glass panel on the

back to enable you to watch the

motor work?

This question led me to René

Rondeau, an antique-fan collector

who coincidentally lives just one

town away from me. In addition to

an “Ironclad,” he has several other

rare fans including a 1903 GE

“Pancake” fan with unusually large

blades and a six-bladed Edison “Bi-

Polar” fan from 1894.

“I have a 1914 Emerson that

I routinely use,” said Mr. Rondeau, a

retired watchmaker. “But I wouldn’t

recommend it for the average per-

son. Some of these old fans are re-

ally scary. The electrical connections

are exposed, and ones that have

cages around the blades wouldn’t

keep anybody’s fingers out.”

These fans did not sound like a

good fit for my husband. If he cut

off his fingers, how would he

buckle his huaraches?

After I hung up, I had an idea. I

found my husband working on his

laptop in front of an open window.

I plugged one of his little Chinese

propellers into the USB port.

“Consider this your personal,

portable cool zone,” I said. Then I

quietly unplugged the snappy little

number and carried it to the ga-

rage. Happily I noticed a change in

the weather.

temperatures climb above 80 de-

grees, my husband thinks the best

way to keep cool is to set up an

obtrusive electric fan—in virtually

every room.

It’s not just the cords snaking

across the floors and the ugliness

of yet another unnecessary electric

appliance that bug me. His fans

also blast dehydrating air, which

makes my skin feel as taut and lac-

quered as a Peking duck.

My husband has quite a collec-

tion. There’s the vile, rickety stand-

ing fan affixed to a 3-foot plastic

pole. For extremely hot days, he ex-

humes a 1970s-era box fan he

bought at a Long Island yard sale—

he uses this one sparingly because

it emits a gale-force wind that once

blew off his glasses. He loves fans

My husband’s fans also

blast dehydrating air,

making my skin feel

as taut and lacquered

as a Peking duck.

MICHAEL PARKIN

THE MEDIATOR

SOLUTION 1

Introduce a striped

wallpaper in colors

akin to those of the

bench and chair.

New York designer

Young Huh turned to

Tempaper’s Painted Stripe wall cover-

ing, which includes hues similar to the

colors in the other pieces, to fulfill a

design principal. “A classic thing to do

is have a graphic, in this case the

bench; a floral or other organic, here

the chair; and stripes,” she said. $20

per roll, tempaperdesigns.com

SOLUTION 3

Balance the jaunty pat-

terns with the earth tones

of an ashwood lamp. To

ground the ebullient fabrics

of both objects, Denise

Morrison chose the simple

silhouette and neutral hues of Rejuvena-

tion’s Folk Tripod Floor Lamp. The sleek ash

meshes with the wood legs of the other

pieces, and the dark wool shade adds so-

phistication. “The rich chocolate makes

the vignette feel rich and elegant,” said

the Newport Beach, Calif., designer. $799,

rejuvenation.com—Eleanore Park

SOLUTION 2

Add a calming white dresser to induce

a visual respite. A birchwood chest of

drawers gives the eyes a resting place

between the patterned pieces, said Sarah

Bartholomew. It contrasts in three ways:

texture (hard, not cushioned), material

(paint, not fabric) and absence

of color. Details in the drawer

fronts nod to Louis XVI style. “I

wanted a piece that rooted the

group in a sense of timeless-

ness,” said the Nashville de-

signer. Auburn Wide Dresser ,

$1,099, potterybarnteen.com

As You Wish Upholstered

Storage Bench , $349,

crateandbarrel.com

Cassia Kids Chair,

$640, curatedkravet.com

How to Make

Kids’ Furniture

Play Nice

THE CONFLICT

Amongtheshowergiftsnew

parentsreceivedareastorage

benchcoveredwithterrazzo-

patternedfabricandabarrel

chairupholsteredinpainterly

bunnies.Weaskedthree

designerstosuggestitemsto

bridgetheaesthetic gap

F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (WALLPAPER)