cheap + great
houzz.com
I see these outdoor junkyard tubs featured here and there, but I liked the rustic simplicity of this one, from a diy featured at Houzz: salvage transformed into elemental luxury.
We had one years ago on our back deck in Malibu. I found an old tub for $5 in a junk yard with a flaking ocean scene painted on the rusty sides. I bought a rubber stopper for a dollar,propped it up up on a couple of bricks to level it, and filled it with a garden hose. Helluva a lot cheaper than a hot tub. Or a real pool. No humming filters burning electricity day and night, no chemicals. In fact, no plumbing at all! When we pulled the plug, we watered the surrounding trees.
05.23.13 |
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in bath, bathing, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, diy, garden, how-to, outside |
Karin Matz Arkitekt2
Always on the lookout for clever way to divide and define a space, or give the illusion of different areas in an open space, we really like these clever “screens” from Swedish firm Karin Matz Arkitekt. They’re made of made from blue polypropylene string strung tight from floor to ceiling with hardware store fittings: simple, inexpensive materials, carefully thought out. read more…
05.07.13 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, materials |
Marc Berenson
Marc Berenson sent us some snaps of magazine wallpaper he spotted at Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The subject line read: I thought you might have an opinion on this homemade wallpaper from old magazine pages, it’s improvised
For sure we have an opinion: Although it kinda works in a public stairwell with that cobalt blue, we aren’t crazy about it since it’s so busy and we get addled by a lot of words and the pages don’t seem terribly well edited, and why look at commercial stuff? BUT…
WE LOVE THE IDEA!!!!
Lots of possibilities there. read more…
05.07.13 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, diy, reclaim, walls + windows |
photo: sally schneider
Over the years, just about every place we’ve lived has had hardwood floors. They’ve ranged from prewar bleached and polyeurathaned oak to white “pickled” new oak and lately, off-white, high-gloss painted slightly rough plywood. For all those years, we’ve searched for the best way to clean our floors without damaging the protective surface. Since New York City is a fairly dirty place, a simple dry-mopping won’t do; the dust that settles on the floor needs to be washed away or it will get ground into the surface (and our bare feet). The classic string mop is hard to wring out and doesn’t seem able to handle shoe marks very well.
Last week we came across an awesome combination: a Starfiber Star Mop read more…
05.01.13 |
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in cheap + great, floors, how-to, resources, strategies, tools |
sprinklesinsprings.com
On Sprinkles and Springs, we came across this diy striped tee inspired by the modish tee-shirt Marc Jacobs recently featured in his chic, stripey collection. It is a great example of I COULD MAKE THAT thinking that has infiltrated many a clever head. Sprinkles and Springs saw it and figured out how using a plain white tee shirt, masking tape and fabric paint. And then she generously posted a how-to that you could use to make Jacobs-ish stripes or your own graphic pattern (the method would also work fine on jeans, slipcovers, pillows, many fabrics…) read more…
04.15.13 |
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in apparel, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, diy, how-to, materials, projects + play |
http://talojajatoiveita.blogspot.com
We thought we were so smart when we thought to blog about the hacks we’d imagined for Ikea’s Löbbo shade, which is basically a sheet of polypropylene that you form into a drum and secure with metal struts; it can be placed on a lamp base or hung from a pendant. It comes in various sizes, but we bought several of the biggest with the idea of using the sheets of polypropylene — which is pretty heat-proof —as a RAW MATERIAL with which to fashion all sorts of shades, using our trusty exacto knife. (We’ve been searching for readily-available shade materials for years.)
First thing we planne was to tailor the Löbbo shade we’ve got on a standing lamp: slice off a 2 or 3 inches from the drum-like shade to give it a more sleek, retro look. Then we’d go to town playing with the remaining sheets of Löbbo polypropylene we have, to fashion some sort of scultpural pendant light, like this one we found at Ouno: read more…
04.09.13 |
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in before + after, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, diy, housewares, inside, materials, resources |
Lynsey Fryers
Every since we wrote about artist Dieter Roth’s work tables, which he covered with sheets of thick artist’s paper so that they would capture the processes of whatever he was working on, as well as notes and scribblings, we’ve loved the idea and have used it. Recently, we stumbled on a clever iteration: use a swatch of Kraft paper as your surface. Rolls of Kraft paper are cheap (48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper
$20!)and great to have on hand for a variety of uses, from drawable gift wrap to instant dining table “cloths” and place settings .
via Desire to Inspire
Related posts: dieter roth’s workspace + the courage to ‘leave crap the way it is’
kraft paper table “cloths” and place settings
d-i-y post-it table
at last, the right size sticky note (to buy or d-i-y)
graphing novels, business plans and other big ideas
04.03.13 |
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in cheap + great, d-i-y, elements, inside, materials, resources, working |
Tessa Traeger Fine Art
Suddenly realizing that Easter is just a couple of days away, we started thinking Easter eggs, the symbol of the day both Christian and pagan. Immediately, photographer Tessa Traeger’s egg series came to mind. All eggs collected from various birds, they provide inspiration for egg decorating from Nature. Witness Livet Hamma’s diy spatter-painted eggs below. Easy-to-do, freeform, and potentially really beautiful (with one caveat*).
If, like us, you have been slow to get your Easter act together, look below for last-minute strategies, recipes and ideas. read more…
03.29.13 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, entertaining, family + friends, food, gifts, how-to, recipes |
santiagodiy.com
Reclaimed shipping pallets continue to be a material that inspires design-afficionados and diy-ers alike. Over the years we’ve posted many clever iterations of pallet sofas, beds, planters, wine racks, flat files (just type “shipping pallets” into our Search box)…As well as some serious research and info on the safety of pallets, what to look for, and what to avoid. But in all our navigating of the pallet world, we’ve never seen such a blow-by-blow, here-are-the-realities of actually making a nice piece of furniture out of found pallets, UNTIL we went to the website of one of our commenters, Santiago DIY, a new blog from Santiago, Chile (in Spanish and English).
There we found the real-life steps to making a platform bed out of shipping pallets, which is not nearly as simple as finding them, arranging and putting a mattress on top. Here they are: read more…
03.28.13 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, diy, furniture, how-to, materials, reclaim |
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Spotted in Design Milk’s recent story about Rua Confettora, unconventional, international design shop in Brescia, Italy: a white-painted ladder used as the support for glass shelves: instant, rustic/modern chic, made from ordinary materials.
When we hunted around, we discovered that Lab::Istanbul’s had created a line of shelving based on the idea: read more…
03.27.13 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, inside, materials, reclaim, resources, solutions, storage |
In the past month or so, two readers of ‘improvised life’ sent beautiful virtual bouquets in the form of emailed jpgs. You might think that a cyber bouquet would have little of the power or effect of a real one, but we’ve got to say, NOT SO.
Part of the reason they were each so powerful was that they were unexpected: thoughtful, handmade gifts of beauty from people who we’d never met, but are connected to through ‘the improvised life’; they sent them to express concern, care, appreciation for the work we do.
The first were some hyancinths from Sahana, a long-time reader and thoughtful Commenter; it came out-of-the-blue when we’d abruptly taken the site dark in order to recuperate from the flu. We felt like a friend had sent us flowers. In fact, she had.
The most recent bouquet came from Susan Dworski, who is fast becoming a regular contributor, with this note: read more…
03.26.13 |
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in cheap + great, d-i-y, family + friends, gifts, strategies |
(Video link here.) About 6 months ago, we got an email from Merete Mueller, a friend of a friend who was just finishing up a film about the Tiny House Movement.
The film, “TINY: A Story About Living Small” follows Christopher Smith and my attempt to build a tiny house from scratch with no building experience in the mountains of Colorado. It also explores the lives of other Americans who have downsized their lives into houses smaller than the average parking space.
We’re interested in innovative design and environmental sustainability, but most of all, we’re interested in “Home”—how we find it and how we know when we’re there, the small, strong details that make us feel comfortable and at-ease in a place.
Through homes stripped down to their essentials, the film raises questions about sustainability, good design, and the changing American Dream, and what we REALLY need to live well and happily. It’s also the story of Merete and Christopher embarking on a project without knowing what they were doing; they could LEARN what they didn’t know. And did. (TINY just premiered at South by SouthWest, an independent film festival. Way to go!!!!)
We already love the film for this wise nugget:
For some people bigger isn’t necessarily better. The world gets a lot bigger when you begin to have more cash and time. read more…
03.13.13 |
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in buildings, cheap + great, cool spaces, d-i-y, how-to, paths + processes, people, resources, wheels |
Desire to Inspire recently posted a reader’s mid century-style renovation. The kitchen’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures were not side-by-side and we found ourselves moving the cursor up and down to really understand the clever transformation. Ahh, we get it: Beth, who’d masterminded the kitchen’s update, thought carefully about what REALLY needed to be taken out of the kitchen, and what could be revamped a bit to give it a new look.
She replaced the upper cabinets with sleek white modern ones, and replaced the doors on the far left cabinet to match them. She left the lower cornball-paneled oak cabinets in place, painting them a dark black/blue/gray and changing the hardware to make them virtually disappear. (These uniquitous cabinets are the bane of many a homeowner. It’s heartening to know that it is possible to shift their look.) Beth also replaced the counter and backsplash wall and, it seems, left the sink in place, swapping out the faucet to give it more modern look.
She saved a pile of money doing this and got and a great looking, functional kitchen to boot. A girl after our own heart: we used similar principles in the new Laboratory’s kitchen. Story to come soon.
Related posts: kitchen reno: what stove will really make you happy?
scrabble tiles for kitchen or floor
marble tables with a rough, unfinished edge
15 improvised kitchen tools for summer house cooking
insta fridge fix: dalmation spots
02.21.13 |
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in before + after, cheap + great, eating, inside, solutions |
