We are completely smitten with the pink-washed walls in this photo from the Milan Furniture Fair. It looks like plywood to us (or we imagine it as that) color-washed with an incredible shade of pink…(though it may also be a surface unevenly painted in close shades of flat pink paint) It made us start thinking…
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Xeni Jardin, a writer for Boing Boing, has been generously open about her experiences with having breast cancer. (Check out “What do To When ‘Stuff Happens’ for her powerful words.) On Wednesday she shared this amazing needlepoint that she keeps on her desk for inspiration, made by Heather Beschizza. We echo the sentiment, and hope…
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Hans Hofmeester filmed his daughter Lotte once a week for the past twelve years. Then he edited snippets of film together to produce this time-lapse video of her growing from a baby into lovely 12-year-old, in under 3 minutes. For us, GROWING is the operative word. Once you get past 40 or 50, aging often…
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The other day BoingBoing posted a ‘photo gallery’ from the newly-released Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter by Lloyd Kahn, a book of the possibilities for small space living of all kinds, from Colin Doane’s sauna, above, in Queen Charlotte Islands with green whale jawbones lashed to the front rafters to this spectacular little cabin in Montana’s mountains…
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(Video link here.) D-i-y shipping pallet creations are among our most popular posts, largely we imagine because of all recyclable materials, pallets offer a cheap (or free) source of an entirely natural material: wood. We’ve done A LOT of posts about pallets – including how to tell a safe pallet from a possibly toxic one…
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We found this quote (punctuation ours) on French by Design this morning and have been mulling it all day. It was unattributed. When we did a search to see where it might have come from, we found Weight Watchers and Islam and a bunch of other sources. What do we want MOST? Can we subject…
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At Anonymous Works we found this photo of a man happily covered in flowers and leaves. We wonder what the story is behind that image made in 1918. What a way to dress for spring: head-to-toe in flowers and leaves….!! And as with the Tutu Project, there’s something even more amazing about it being a…
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At The Chive, we came across a list of 16 simple solutions to some everyday dilemmas: a virtual, visual Hints from Heloise. We’ve found some incredibly useful, like using bread bag tags as cord labels (of course, with our obsessive minds, we’d go looking for stylish tag in a color we like: white! – and…
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When Mondoblogo published a post of Ruth Asawa’s extraordinary crocheted wire sculptures – with hardly any commentary – our first thought was: we want a house filled with that work, those forms hanging above. Then we looked her up. At RuthAsawa.com we learned: When Ruth was 16, she and her family were interned along with…
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When Design Within Reach launched the Sapien bookcase, it seemed like a brilliant idea: a bookshelf that allows books to be stacked vertically over five feet high, to form a neat stack from which you could easily remove any book. CB2 promptly knocked off the rectangular-pillar-with-removable-shelves-design. We bought one, then rued the day. The problem…
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Spotted at Accidental Mysteries, a boy (or is she a girl?) wearing stunningly chic, rigged glasses that seem to be more for look than practicality: there appears to be no glass. Who cares? For sure they give him a new virtual lens to look through and a unique identifying style. (We had a friend that…
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We knew that changing the shape of a sofa’s or bed’s legs can be a simple way of jazzing up lines and look AND that there are lot of options around for unfinished wooden legs of all shapes and sizes. And we’ve written before about mask-painting one or all the legs of a table or…
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‘improvised life’ editor-at-large David Saltman has just finished writing a historical novel starring Harry Houdini. From David we’ve learned about the amazing achievements of this real life superhero that go way beyond his well-known escapes from straightjackets and handcuffs. We’ve come to know a little of ‘the inside’ of the great magician. Houdini trained his…
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April is the time when ramps – wild leeks – appear throughout the Appalachian and Catskill mountains, one of the first edible harbingers of spring. Then they start hitting farmer’s markets. Since the pungent leek is one of the most delicious and transformative foods we know of, we’re reprising past posts about the famous lily,…
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We like to check into Marc Johns’ website occasionally to see what he’s got for sale… …like the infinite possibilities of a paper towel tube… …or a stick…
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Now that spring has officially sprung, we find ourselves ready for new projects, around our houses and outside. We keep coming back to our friend Kate Payne’s The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking, an all-purpose guide to doing-it-yourself in your home (and having fun, too) – for ANYONE, whether hip girl or not. (We think…
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(Video link here.) Matilda Klein is 94 years old, and danced during the World War II big-band era. She’s still dancing, in competition no less, with her dance partner Danny Maloney. We love the videographer’s – and Matilda’s – message of defying expectations and stereotypes about age – or anything else. via Neatorama! Related posts: vivienne…
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Lately, we’ve come across some extraordinary uses for OSB – oriented strand board (also known as waferboard) – a cheap, strong, durable building material made from pressed tree chippings and resin. It’s generally been viewed as garbage, something to use for structure and hide, until open-minded designers started to explore its potential and beauty. Architect…
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At Pinterest, we’ve been creating collections of images – boards- under specific categories like Lighting, Storage Solutions , Art and Artists, Food and Cooking – even Shipping Pallets!. They allow you to navigate ‘the improvised life’ through its images, so you can poke around our vast archive in freer, more organic way. When you see an image…
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This gif via the great DVDP, which was inspired by this (Playing with Water Sheets in Space), made us wonder “What have you been making today?” Related posts: peep show gif: funny, risqué, slightly x-rated mind shift: the great bell chant we mashup attenborough’s ‘what a wonderful world’ reminder: shooting stars all around us (gif)
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