Today’s the day! We’re throwing our baby up in the air, and we hope you’ll help us catch her! Today we start our Friends with Benefits subscriptions. If you subscribe, you continue to receive all Improvised Life posts and full access to our vast archive. If not, you’ll be able to read ten posts per…
Read MoreBeing There for Friends —or Strangers — in Trouble (Muhammad Ali)
After we stumbled on this image of former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali talking to an obviously distraught, suicidal man, we had to know the story behind it. Was it for real? We found this remarkable 1981 clip of Walter Cronkite reporting the story on CBS News:
Read MoreHelp Improvised Life Leap…Tomorrow
For the past 4+ years, Improvised Life has published 5 days a week, upwards of 2500 articles and 8000 images. It has been a labor of love, full of pleasures and rewards and, for the past while, serious challenges and demands. Our “reality sandwiches” include 60+ hours a week of Sally’s reporting, writing, and editing…
Read MoreThe Unexpected Beauty of a Matless, Glassless Picture Frame
Recently, we gave our friend Maria Robledo a silver picture frame we’d had for many years. It was handmade and so beautifully and simply wrought, we’d never put a glass or mat in it, or even a picture. In Maria’s hands, it became something totally else. We’d never SEEN it that way…
Read MoreSoften an Angular Modern Space with Rounds
Many modern spaces, including our own Laboratory, suffer from having so many right angles, rectangles, linearity, that they can be a bit harsh. The simple solution is to shake them up with rounds, patterns, art. We love the solution in this image found at Bohemian Homes:
Read More12 More Commandments Culled from Commencement Speeches
Over the past few weeks, we’ve collect close to 50 great rules and principles for living from Commencement speeches and a tweet of new Commandments…Now we’re mulling how to hone it down to the most essential.
Read MoreHow to Eat a Watermelon (Happy Memorial Day!)
Our friend Holton Rower eats baby watermelons by slicing it in half and eating it with a soup spoon: a perfect and refreshing improvisation to start the summer season. Happy Memorial Day from Improvised Life! Thanks Holton!
Read MoreStrawberry Rhubarb Milkshake, an Unexpected Dinner Party Dessert
This image from Livet Hemma looks exactly like a Strawberry-Rhubarb Milkshake I devised years ago when I was monkeying around with rhubarb and strawberries, which are full-tilt right now. It got me hankering for one, and reminded me what an unexpected and delightful dessert they make for dinner parties. So I thought I’d share how to make it…
Read More‘Things Come Apart’ will Teach You How Things Work
(Video link HERE.) Photographer Todd McLellan’s Things Come Apart is an expansion of his original Disassembly Series, and the focus of a book by that name. His images of deconstructed items that have, are, or will be in our everyday lives have a curious effect: They demystify their seeming complexity and afford a big leap in understanding how they…
Read MoreA Cheap, Easy Solution to Standing Desk Leg Fatigue
We know a lot of people who have created standing desks and love them (and we’ve posted over the years.) They generally feel energized because their bodies are, in effect, exercising just by standing as they work. They have, however, almost universally complained of one problem: leg fatigue. Standing for hours each day puts stress on…
Read MoreDIY Cross-Cut Tree Slice Floors, Outdoors or In
One of our most popular diy posts is an outdoor floor made of wood “bricks”, the sawed-off ends of boards placed in a brick-like pattern. Recently, we saw a very cool variation on that theme: an outdoor floor made of cross-cut tree trunk slices, which make for a wonderfully graphical floor of circles.
Read MoreThe Burning House: What are Your Most Essential Objects?
We’ve written about Foster Huntington’s love of simplicity before, but we’ve recently discovered another project of his: The Burning House. This one, makes us think about our Life Essentials by asking the question, “What would you take with you if your house was on fire?” We love that Huntington has taken this familiar question a step further by asking…
Read MoreImprovised Life WITH Ads (NOT)
Lately, we’ve been mulling ways to support Improvised Life. One thing we’re sure of: we hate ads on websites. Even though we understand the economic realities that make ads a part of life, we’re going to see if we can find another way to keep Improvised Life afloat AND a clear space, full of unique ideas.
Read MoreHow-To Hang A Hammock Indoors
Having a hammock indoors is pure joy, and there are a variety of ways to hang them, depending on your space.
Read MoreHow to Hide an Ugly Flat Screen TV
We’ve long wondered why we see so many ugly black flat-screen televisions proudly displayed on walls of living rooms. One of the best disguises we’ve seen for flat-screens is a painting or mirror that sits in front of the TV on special hinges that lift it up when you want to watch TV. An especially beautiful iteration of this idea is like a minimalist abstract painting, but is a panel made of antique Flemish linen.
Read MoreEmbrace Your Body, Change Your Life
I’m betting that one thing we all could use is a Get Out Of Jail card to help us learn how to love our bodies – just as they are. I’m also wagering you may be asking yourself, as I did: why is this woman on the right smiling? What’s wrong with her?
Read More37 Signals on the Value of Constraints
We learned to LOVE constraints because they’ve usually led to our most creative explorations, as well as ordinary but useful solutions. We found some fine advice about constraints at 37 Signals’ free pdf, Getting Real.
Read MoreTrending at the Int’l Furniture Show: Faux Distressed Surfaces
Designer Laura Handler, whose Montana home we featured a while back, sent us a report of her vist to ICFF, the yearly International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City. Here’s the trend she spotted and her funny and insightful commentary : I did notice an interesting phenomenon. There seemed to be a growing trend of faux distressed…
Read MoreA Zennish Reclaimed Wood Coffee Table
Despite the idiotic title of the Times’ T Magazines recent piece about the Greenwich Hotel’s multi-million dollar penthouse suite renovation designed by Axel Vervoordt, the house tour yielded some lovely ideas, like this low table made of 4 pieces of wood. It reminds us of the alter-ish low diy-able tables/shelves we’ve seen in the past.
Read MoreA Surprising Micro-world Inside Our Tears
Rose-Lynn Fisher has found a fascinating world of differences inside the tears we weep—be they from joy, frustration, grief, or cutting into a pungent onion. In the tradition of Eadweard Muybridge‘s high-speed shots of everyday movements… —which startled the public upon release…or Wilson Bentley‘s fabulous snowflake photography, prior to which scientists assumed most snowflakes were probably alike––…
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