We stumbled on these HUGE dish towels and ordered a set to check out, having learned the hard way that the real thing is often way different than pictures. We washed them and…they are great, 100% cotton, wonderful-looking and useful for many things.
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Our readers know Sally has been occupied lately with the serious illness of a close friend – namely, myself. Now recuperating, we’ve realized something about perfection: it does not mean being super-human or doing everything exactly right. It simply means means being normal. This revelation was amplified by our friend Thomas Ashcraft, a remarkable artist/science.
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If this beauty of of a gif doesn’t show in the post (gifs can be glitchy), click here. via Hedviggen
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We chose plain white Corian for the countertops in the Laboratory kitchen renovation and love working on it: it presents a “clear” palet of a work surface that is a pleasure to prep food on. It’s ONE drawback that our old, visually-busy granite counter tops didn’t have: we can’t put a searing hot pot directly on…
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Japanese artist Toshihiko Shibuya has placed ‘water pallet’ floating on a square pool of water at the Sapporo Sculpture Garden, Painted with pinks, blues and greens on the underside of their base, the white circles glide on the surface of the basin, reflecting a colorful hue when they overlap. We discovered a lot when we tried to figure out how we could do it.
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One of the many unexpected materials artist Holton Rower uses to make his art is money —physical paper money— rolled, folded and fashioned into all manner of unexpected scuptures. His concrete block filled with tightly-rolled bills resonates strongly with us. Like Rower’s illuminating art works, money + energy + creativity = something unique and tangible.
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If this isn’t the absolute essence of the escapist wilderness whims we had as children, we don’t know what is…. We wonder what it would be like to lay still in one of these floating spheres and listen to a slight wind coming through the trees.
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In our endless search for “adult” Legos with which we could actually make some home projects, we’ve checked out all sorts of possibilities. Here’s the closest we’ve come.
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Japanese botanical artist, Makoto Azuma works with plants as sculpture and installation, using micro-climates as an art form. We’re particularly taken by one installation which brings botanicals into the home — with walls and floors covered entirely in living plants. We wondered how we could apply it to our own.
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About the time we saw this sign at Hedviggen, we stumbled on an image of a tree growing at an extreme angle by Jaci Berkopec, in the School of Visual Arts’ annual student photography portfolio. The two together made us think about the “planting” of creative projects, dreams, artworks, projects, writing, brilliant ideas.
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This just in from frequent contributor Ellen Silverman, spotted on a wall in Rome: FREE YOUR MIND!!!!!
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Spotted in a house tour at Desire to Inspire: one swell idea. Want to add some moderne architectural interest to a prewar room? Hang a giant Noguchi-esque paper shade. We’re talking BIG: 36-inch or 42-inch in diameter We like the Maru white paper lantern available at Shoji Decor. They also sell single cord lantern kits for…
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In our continueing search for examples of the incorporation of organic and decayed materials with modern functionality, we present Australian architect Raffaello Rosselli‘s lovely repurposing a corroding tin shed in Sydney to create a small office and studio apartment.
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We often think of computer passwords as utilitarian, if we even think of them at all; they’re ugly, unwieldy little burdens that exist only to keep our information safe. Mauricio Estrella decided to shift his thinking and use his passwords as a message to himself that he must think about every day.
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Although you can serve chopped salads year round, they are perfect summer fare. They are easy to make, portable enough for picnics and barbeques and refreshingly juicy in warm weather: salad, vegetable and salsa all rolled into one. They are a wonderful foil for simply-prepared meat, poultry and fish. Every cuisine seems to have its own version…
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Recently, we found some great examples of using window shades —both Venetian blinds and solar shades — as instant room dividers to close off or define a space.
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Recently we wrote about a slick renovation that sadly covered over a beautiful aged wall that would have made a wonderful addition. Since then, we found an interesting mix of marriage of old and new details by architect Karin Matz in a cost-conscious renovation of a Stockholm space that had been used as furniture storage for 30 years.…
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(Video link HERE.) Laurin Döpfner used an industrial sander to shave off 0.5 mm at a time from logs, electronics, a camera, and a walnut, and then made a time lapse video of the results. Jason Kottke likened the astonishing finished video to a full-color MRI. For us, it’s like some kind of X-Ray vision of our…
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If the gif isn’t here, click here to view. via Holton Rower via Beautiful Decay
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Outdoor wooden benches are a pain to move around. Here’s a clever wheelbarrowish solution as well as our own simple hack.
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