Since we posted The Oil Spill: What You Can Do, we’ve seen lots of websites offering solutions that echo a common sentiment: whether we like it or not, we are all in this together; the risky actions of oil companies are fueled by demand, which we all contribute to. That reminded J.P. Townley of the…
Read Moredreaming in concrete
Knowing we have a serious thing for concrete, Lydia Wills sent us this picture of a light fixture designed in 1960 by Le Corbusier for the Chandigarth Zoo in India. It’s massive – about a yard across, a yard high and 22 inches deep – yet wonderfully graceful. We’d buy it if had $36,000 to…
Read Morealliums as alt-summer flowers
Last weekend, instead of the usual fabulous summer flowers – sunflowers, zinnias, roses – we picked up our favorite alt-flowers from our farmer friend Keith Stewart. He sells the flowers from his alliums (members of the onion family) like onion, shallot and chive: long green stems topped by white modernist globes.We also buy Keith’s garlic…
Read Morehangable, folding stools and chairs
One of the details we loved about Lydia Wills’ apartment, featured yesterday, are the folding stools hanging on the wall in the foyer. They look great, take up no space and are perfect for a million uses, as extra chairs for a dinner party, side tables, a place to sit and take off your boots…On…
Read Morelydia wills’ apartment: before + after + in between
Knowing that Lydia Wills was about to move to a bigger apartment, we enlisted Ellen Silverman to photograph her 600-square-foot studio near Gramercy Park. We’ve known Lydia for years and have watched her apartment evolve into a home with lots of good ideas, far too many to cover in one post. So we thought we’d do…
Read Morewrap and tie a table?
What is it that we love about this? This wrap job is a whole OTHER thing than a mover would do. The use of twine and rope, akimbo, along with the fine lines of the unseen table (which could be made out of anything), turned it into a sculpture. We’re filing that in our heads…
Read More5 ways to make time to improvise
Improvisation requires focus and time, two commodities few of us possess. And when you’re waist deep in alligators, it is hard to remember you came to drain the swamp. How can we get focus and time? Many people we know have read The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. The title appeals to our…
Read Morethe brilliant design thinking of everyday india
Pamela Hovland alerted us to a wonderful essay posted on Design Observer recently, called The Subtle Technology of Indian Artisanship; it is about how “everywhere you look in India you will find evidence of the maker’s hand.” A sign painter, faced with a drain opening smack in the middle of his underwear ad, transformed it…
Read Moreanthony giglio’s secret weapon: a china marker for home entertaining
At a dinner party at wine writer Anthony Giglio’s house one evening, we saw him scribble the name of each guest on their wine glass with a white marker: a chic way of helping guests keep tab of their glass in a crowd (and avoiding unnecessary pours – and washing – of fresh glasses). There’s…
Read Morean inspiring early improviser (age 4)
kimono + 7 belts + 7 beaded necklaces + red shoes + heart shades + Mickey cap ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! With thanks to Tara Mann (who this is/was in 1995)
Read Morehacking cabinet knobs
When we were looking around for affordable knobs for a kitchen cabinet we wanted to use as furniture, we spent quite a bit of time hunting for ones that were the moderne shape we liked, only to discover that the finish was awful: too-shiny, too-brassy, too…cheap looking. Since the knobs we found had great lines and were inexpensive,…
Read Moresidewalk wisdom: yes we can (dance…anywhere)
From the always-illuminating Peace, Love and Noticing the Details: –“Okay, you can’t just break out into dance on the sidewalk.” –“Yes, I can.” ….Sidewalk voices, one woman to another…
Read Moreal fresco music lessons and practice (what do you do in your park?)
We were walking through Prospect Park in Brooklyn one twilight evening when we heard the mellow sound of saxaphones reverberating “a capella” through the trees. We came upon two men standing in a leafy clearing. We stopped to listen, then asked where they were from. The confident man strolling slowly with his alto soprano sax…
Read Morebeauty in the defects
via Happy Mundane via You Have Been Here via Apartment Therapy
Read Moremissing tobias wong
A couple of years ago (when ‘the improvised life’ was just an idea), we stumbled on this picture of Tobias Wong‘s file cabinet bed in Reference Library, and bookmarked it, thinking we’d write a post about it someday. It is such a great, direct idea, with many possibilities for implementing in different ways. But we…
Read Morecreative reuse: paint a salvaged table
Constance Old recently sent us a compelling email: “After our comments exchange on your post about “American Pickers” I had a feeling I might see this table again that location agent Andrea Raisfeld plucked from my car and reworked.” And sure enough, the little table appeared completely transformed on Andrea and her husband Bill Abranowicz‘s blog A…
Read Morethe oil spill: what you CAN do
Our feeling of powerlessness over the continuing oil spill in the Gulf Coast has made us feel just terrible… Until today, when the ever-wonderful Manhattan User’s Guide has published a long list of actions you can take in response to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill “large and small, short- and longterm”, from participating in a Hands-Across-The-Sand…
Read More‘the improvised life’ taglines (50 or so!)
Last week, we sent out a call for help in creating a tagline for ‘the improvise life’ and were knocked out by the response we got, both as Comments and as emails: an amazingly wonderful and wide array of descriptors and points of view + some disagreement (which we embrace). Pamela Hovland, who has been…
Read Morelol
We LOVE this teeny guerrilla action… …love that someone took the time to make this sign that makes us look again, shakes up our thinking, makes us laugh…for no obvious return: stealthy, anonymous public gift-giving. With thanks to Pamela Hovland Related posts: Cars as Paint Brushes and Other Guerrilla Activities How to Be a Guerrilla Gardener
Read Morerecharging y(our) inner batteries
We know quite a few people who are working so hard these days, under the constant pressure of all there is to do, that they can’t seem to stop until they hit a wall: they get cold and need to go to bed, or find themselves sitting in front of a computer trying to write…
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