Q: Are we crazy? We are redoing the master bath in our Victorian-style house and want to make it old-fashioned to go with our overall decorating theme. We've found vintage (real and look-alike) appliances for the kitchen. Now we're looking for old stuff for the bath but are worried the items may not be up to code, with all the new eco-requirements and all.

A: No, you're not crazy, just nicely obsessed with living in earlier, gentler times. (You're hardly alone — some 10.2 million Americans watched the latest season of "Downton Abbey.")

The good news is, you can have it both ways: yesterday's styling with today's efficiencies. Modern manufacturers may be lifting design concepts from earlier times, but they're bound by present-day laws to build eco-smart features into appliances, such as low-flow showers, low-flush toilets and low-voltage light fixtures.

This means you can relax and enjoy the fun of recreating the past with present-day furnishings. American Standard just gave you a huge boost "backward." Honoring the company's beginnings back in l872, they've introduced the DXV collection of bath ensembles paying homage to the four major design movements that have taken place in the past 15 decades.

This photo shows the first, the look that came in when the toilet itself first came into the house. The setting, as well as the fixtures, holds water, historically: The first Victorians that boasted indoor plumbing installed it in a spare bedroom properly decorated with wallpaper, carpets, curtains and plants. So proud were they of being "modern," they even invited over guests to admire their sleek new white furnishings.

American Standard's new "Classic" ensemble is also bright white, fitted out with platinum nickel and shown off in a setting that's company-ready, with its mirrored privacy screen, gas fireplace and formal draperies. See all the new DXV offerings at dxv.com.

Q: What's the word in cutting-edge furniture design?

A: How about "cutting-edge"? Standouts at this month's chic Architectural Digest Home Show in Manhattan were "made" furniture: one-offs, as the Brits say, designed and hand-built by a re-emerging army of individual craftsmen, working mostly alone in studios from coast to coast.

And yes, they tend to put the cut edges proudly on display. Vermont wood artist Daniel Oates (dbohome.com) also leaves the tree bark to frame his rugged chests and tables. Tucker Robins (tuckerrobbins.com) mounts a long erratic slab of edgy kumbuk wood on a steel base. And Washington State artist Greg Klassen (gregklassen.com) adds glass and flowing blue-water motifs to his "River" collection of room-maker tables and other pieces wrought in walnut, maple, cedar and even dogwood. As Klassen explained: "I live and work and am inspired by the Pacific Northwest."

It's artistry in wood that also works, Klassen told his admirers at the Architectural Digest Show.

"I'm just one man. I start with a slab of wood — a rough, dirty slab of wood. And I don't create products — I create functional art."

Everything old is new again: 19th-century design warms up a 21st-century bath. Photo Courtesy American Standard.

Rose Bennett Gilbert is the co-author of "Manhattan Style" and six other books on interior design. To find out more about Rose Bennett Gilbert and read features by Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.