NYT > Home & Garden Design Notebook: The Audacity of Taupe The Home Section asked decorators, pundits and others for their reactions to the Oval Office makeover. Home Is Where the Tax Exemption Is As tax authorities look for cheats, they are finding that many people who are eligible for the benefit fail to apply for it. On Location: In Switzerland, a Cast-Concrete Mountain Retreat An art collector builds a nontraditional house in an Alpine village where life hasn’t changed that much in decades. Shopping With Marc Murphy: Picnic Essentials The chef Marc Murphy shopped for good things to put in the basket while the weather is still nice. In the Garden: As Summer Fades, Duties in the Garden Shift The focus turns to preparing plants for cooler weather, assessing what flowers grew well and what didn’t, and then planning for spring. Property Values: What You Get for ...$275,000 A one-bedroom condo in Philadelphia, a three-bedroom bungalow in Tennessee and a two-bedroom house in Wisconsin. Currents | Q&A: How Women Reshaped the Modern Kitchen Talking with Juliet Kinchin, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art exhibition “Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen.” Currents | Online: A Web Site for Midcentury Modern Buyers The new site Townhouse.bz includes rare furniture and decorative accessories like a Knoll armchair. Currents | Open: Monocle Magazine Opens West Village Shop The small store, which opened last week, carries a fairly large, well-edited selection of merchandise. Currents | Décor: A New Tableware Line at Metropolitan Museum Gift Shop Le Chat Noir, a collection inspired by a 19th-century French poster. Currents | Furniture: Tables Made With Birch Branches The three tables in the new Resting Branches Collection have glass tops, acrylic sides and white birch limbs suspended underneath. Currents | Tableware: Ceramics That Seek a Timeless Look Eric Bonnin, a French designer, has introduced a ceramics collection, his first in this country. Currents | Deals: Sales at Intérieurs, Nest Interiors and Desiron Discounts on sofas, stools and other home furnishings and accessories. Design and Geoscience Collaborate A collaboration between design and geoscience has led to a groundbreaking discovery of what may be the earliest known form of animal life. Graphic Content | Thurston Moore's Indie Books Ecstatic Peace Library, started by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, is an indie publisher that's taking a chance on -- of all things -- books. Venice Report | Dreaming of Architecture Wrapping up the Venice Architecture Biennale.