Inside the Washington Design Center

After getting the car inspected this morning, someone I know and yours truly took an hour or so to visit the Washington Design Center, six floors of furniture and fabrics in a converted warehouse a stone's throw from the US Capitol. It was really a surprise to find such nice stuff in the bleak area by the railroad tracks and freeways. It also marks a change for Washington, which wasn't exactly a fashion or furnishing center. This place was "absolutely fabulous" with all sorts of strange things, including a bathtub made of stone that looked like an Egyptian sarcophagus from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. Favorite vendor was the Fabricut distributor who informed us their old-fashioned patterns and prints came from European venues like Paris's Ritz Hotel--via company headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma Company founders Mssrs. Guterman and Finer were Holocaust survivors who, after a few years in New York, headed West in search of wide open spaces, according to their company's informative website.