Sometimes people adept at designing things get jammed and stuck by thorny design problems. When that is the case, making a prototype with moveable parts can help to test out various iterations. You can shift them around and play with them to see how they will actually work and feel. Somehow, I had forgotten this essential technique until a friend reminded me and got my stalled hideaway bed/storage/bookcase unit project MOVING.
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Over the years, we posted a good number of stylish housewares made from copper or black pipe, from closet fittings to faucets to table bases and pot racks, all diy-able. Sometimes we don’t diy because we don’t really have a sense of the essential workings of the process: how do we actually do it?
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(Video link HERE.) This morning first thing, we listened to J.S. Bach’s Herr Gott, Dich Loben Alle Wir Chorale (BWV 130): PERFECT music to start the day. And along with it, as we went our morning routine, was the vision of musicians performing it. There is something remarkable about having the performance “live” even if we…
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Where are we going? via Fowler Museum at UCLA with thank to who ever sent it our way Update: A VERY astute reader wrote to tell us it was Proust. Even better!
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We stumbled on this compelling interior and were smitten by the slats of colored wood displayed on the wall, someone’s-we’don’t-know-whose artwork. Research hasn’t yielded the answer, but did tell us that the image is really about the small blue painting propped on the right of the mantle. Others in this series have found their way into very interesting interiors.

According to London-based design firm Doshi Levien, this fence was the inspiration for the line of cabinets below. We think the fence itself is just swell in it’s simple, curiously modern lines and simple construction. As for the cabinets, were interested to see someone else’s iteration of our long-held fantasy of using corrugated metal for cabinets and doors, even room…
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We discovered decorative painter Deirdre Newman when she reached out on Facebook to say “I can paint a lot (all) of the painted floors and walls you suggest! Would love to execute some of your amazing ideas!”. We poked around her huge portfolio of projects and found a trove of clever, meticulously-executed ideas. We especially like her faux parquet…
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Artist Holton Rower taped this sign in his studio years ago: a simple, powerful practice to constantly clear misunderstandings or hurts. Recently, we read literary critic D.G. Myers description of a practice he’s taken up since hearing of his diagnosis terminal prostate cancer:
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Lately, we’ve been seeing some pretty interesting uses of helium-filled balloons, which we’ve been fans of since we got a gaggle as a gift. First we stumbled on Tokyo-based design studio, h220430‘s balloon chair which promised a change of mood: “if you sit in this chair, you’ll be able to think positive thoughts even if you are feeling…
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Part of our philosophy at Improvised Life is to TRY THINGS OUT, whether it be ideas we have, or products we see. We test them on ourselves, in our own lives, to see if they will work. Our most recent test was a products we’d be waiting for for years: a safe way to remove…
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Over the years, lighting designer par excellence Lindsey Adelman has posted free diy lighting instructions on her website, where she also sells her beautiful, pricey creations. A generous act indeed; Linssey reveals the tools and techniques to many of her designs. Her simple, liberating words: Make your own light. Experimenting with off-the-shelf parts is how Lindsey…
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(Video link here.) Our friend David Saltman is, among other things, a magician. Over the years, we’ve learned from him that magic requires PRACTICE. When you see a great illusion, it is the result of hundredes of hours of practice, thought, innovation. This lovely illusion, found at his blog The Houdini File is an example of practice…
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I’ve always struggled with Mother’s Day. Too pink, too saccharine, too much forced happiness when the reality so often cloaks a good deal of ambivalence, sadness, and hidden anger. That all changed when I opened our Little Free Library on the front fence yesterday and discovered Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi’s extraordinary graphic memoir of…
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Jim Dillon of The Thousand Dollar Shop recently sent us this image of a unique play on ramps — wild leeks — that he tasted at Sobban, a local Korean-Southern fusion restaurant in Georgia which is his neck of the woods: Shrimp and Ramp Yakidori and Kimchi Rice Sushi Rolls wrapped with ramps instead of sheets…
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Browsing through my image files, I came across photos I’d collected of matte black door hardware, which I contemplated using in the Laboratory. The first time I saw it used was in a friend’s just-renovated Brooklyn brownstone: black hinges add a surprising graphic element, as does the rosette of the crystal doorknob. Beautiful. Although I only used black hardware in one detail of the Laboratory, I learned its biggest lesson and caveat.
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Over the last three years, an anonymous artist has wandered around the streets of New York City finding random pieces of urban infrastructure, from trash to fire hydrants to street lights and parking signs, and turning them into something useful. The 23 “interventions” are inspiring because they are great examples of innovative thinking about everyday…
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In our ongoing theme “The Annals of Bad Design” we’ve critiqued ultra-wide bigger-than-the-mattress beds that look cool — and allow for an instant spot for your drifting-off-to-sleep-reading—but make for scraped and banged calves when getting in and out of bed. New York based designers Cristoff : Finio devised a clever solution to this dilemma in their design for…
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(Watch video HERE.) While compiling our post about Men Wearing Skirts, we stumbled on a picture of athlete Noah Galloway, missing both an arm and part of his leg, embarking on a grueling physical competition while wearing a skirt. Who is this guy, we wondered? So we went to his website to find out. On December…
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Our friend Chris Eldredge alerted us to a fashion trend he’s noticed: Men Wearing Skirts. He said that he’s seen a number of stylishly dressed men wearing skirts lately —definitely NOT in drag. Interesting. A search took us to The Facebook page of Women Wear Pants. Let Men Wear Skirts, which features a lot of…
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Another simple, surprising re-envisioning of an ordinary object by interior designer Andrée Putman: vintage garden chairs used forthrightly as dining chairs — indoors. They are comfortable and bouncy and have a similar, strangley modern feel as her modernized clawfoot tub. The white chairs in the image are classic Retro, easily found at yard sales and on Ebay. We’ve…
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