I'm looking for a lighting designer. A few good lighting designers. My apartment is so badly lit--it's dark in crucial spots and flooded with spotlights in others. See what I mean? Here I am trying to hang paintings in the semi-dark. I'd like to get a few people in here to help me make it more inviting and make me and my friends look prettier in it.

Someone suggested that I call a film lighting designer or someone from Broadway. But don't those people create dramatic lighting? I want soft, flattering light. Are there people who specialize in domestic lighting? There must be. Anyone know anyone?

Remember when I was excited about the idea of turning my bedroom into an Oscar Wilde-inspired lair? I had hoped to reproduce the Aubrey Beardsley line-drawings from Wilde's play, "Salome." At first I thought I'd do a black silhouette tree mural on the wall--and I'm still considering it. But then I went to this Greek restaurant, Parea, the other night.

Just in the nick of time, I've found another source of inspiration. The three-volume "Phaidon Design Classics" is chock full of pictures and stories of 999 well-designed objects that remind me how simple and how old a good idea can be. Take scissors--Phaidon starts with a pair developed in China in 1663 by Zhang Xiaoquan.

Meow. And Miaou.

My cat Emma is going to be ghost blogging for me for the next week. Here's her first pick:

It's a table, but it's also a roof, it's a protective layer but it's open to the sky. As a little kitten I loved playing and organizing little scenes under tables--I'm an actress at heart. I think I would be drawn to do it again under this one table designed by French ebenist Jean-Paul Viollet, who makes most of his furniture to order out of precious woods and forgotten technique in good-old Brooklyn. Apparently this collection draws on the technique of Charpente, which doesn't use any nails or glue--like magic, or a wood puzzle.

But it may be a little big for my living room. He makes a round one supported by a beautiful triangular motif. I wonder about the leg and whisker space under the glass.

Here's the plan: I'm going to go through each piece of furniture in this room with you--don't worry, youv'e seen most of them. And we'll pitch them together. Ready?

A rocking chair is a really, really comforting piece of furniture. I bought this at a garage sale in South Ashfield, Massachusetts for a song. A really good song, but a song nonetheless. Do we like it? I mean enough to sand and restain--I hate that color wood.

(As usual, please to forgive the paint cans and cables surrounding this--paint cans STILL!)