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Rare Woods Salvaged from Shipping Pallets, Transformed

Artist, designer, craftsman, longtime friend Jamison Sellers solves a bit of the ethical wood-sourcing dilemma by delving into the world of shipping pallets. He explores these familiar, reclaimed objects on a much finer scale than most by collecting bits and pieces of coveted woods (and even again recycling his own shop scraps from past projects) to create ornamental patterning inspired…

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1001 Pallet’s Trove of Ideas and Info

Over the years, we fed ours and reader’s passion for practical things made of shipping pallets, with examples of the very best, most stylish versions we could find of pallet beds, sofas, side tables, steps, even a version of Le Corbusier’s iconic club chair. Gradually, novel ideas for pallet began to drop off as the diy-universe reached a saturation point,…

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PopUp Hotel Rooms Inspire Cabin Thinking

Last October, 22 temporary hotel rooms popped up around Mannheim, Germany, as part of the Hotel Shabby Shabby event for the city’s Theater der Welt festival. Designers were invited to build temporary cabins in unexpected locations using found or recylable materials, for a strict 250 pounds (less than $400) budget. It yielded a many ideas for building…

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big shipping pallet and concrete block outdoor table

Last weekend, we walked down to the Urban Garden Center to check out the pig roast they hold every Saturday in the summer in their rough-and-tumble party pavilion. The pavilion is made of all sorts of found and rustic materials, including mismatched chairs and junk store finds. We especially loved the huge table made of shipping pallets and concrete block, two of our favorite building materials. It could easily seat twelve AND weather the elements.

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Water Lily-ish Sculptures and Other Floating Possibilities

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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cool steel grating chair + our favorite catalogues for diy

This sculptural mesh chair ($2,000 at yliving.com) by designer Damien Velasquez has a deep, springy ergonomic seat. It looks to us like it was made from standard punched metal sheets used for grilles and other architectural applications. We checked one of our favorite catalogs for McMasters-Carr, and sure enough, that’s what it is. We wonder if Velasquez…

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diy window boxes and planters: modern to rustic

Julie Houston, whose home reno we posted last week, sent us this image of the clever window box she made using some of Hurricane Sandy’s twig debris, glued onto plywood frames (made to order by her husband). It came just as we’ve been collecting images of the various diy planters we’ve spotted around town.  …

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enzo mari’s autoprogettazione for diy furniture designs

Autoprogettazione, roughly translated “self design,” was a project and book by the modernist artist and designer Enzo Mari that gives instructions for building easy-to-assemble furniture — tables, chairs, bookshelves, wardrobe  — using rough boards and nails. Originally published in 1974, it has been reprinted many times. Mari created the project because he thought …if people were encouraged to…

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