But we never showed what actually happens over the course of a week as the tightly-closed bulbs open and bloom. So we photographed the hyacinths that we’d plunked into a Smarta bowl from Ikea about 5 days ago. All we had to do was water them lightly every few days. Over days we watched the plants transform in front of our very eyes. We realized that we had actually created a tiny tabletop garden, whose subtle changes we could enjoy daily.
One of the things we love so much about The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking is that Kate Payne always thinks to share the simple–but totally essential–skills that many of us manage somehow not to have picked up. A perfect example is the series of useful knots on her blog. Her tutorial for tying a bowline knot is perfect for setting up the clothesline she was making, but of course has an endless number of knot-securing-uses. Just one more reason why we’re excited to give away a copy of Kate’s book next month. If you haven’t already, leave us a comment telling us what project around the house or in your garden you’re most looking forward to tackling this spring/summer, and we will randomly choose a commenter to receive a free copy of this great book. Deadline is May 19. read more…
(Video link here.) D-i-y shipping pallet creations are among our most popular posts, largely we imagine because of all recyclable materials, pallets offer a cheap (or free) source of an entirely natural material: wood. We’ve done A LOT of posts about pallets – including how to tell a safe pallet from a possibly toxic one – and we’re always on the lookout for new ideas. We found a trove in this video put together by The Canadian Wood Pallet & Container Association; we lost count at 150 in the short 2:30 second video.
When Design Within Reach launched the Sapien bookcase, it seemed like a brilliant idea: a bookshelf that allows books to be stacked vertically over five feet high, to form a neat stack from which you could easily remove any book. CB2 promptly knocked off the rectangular-pillar-with-removable-shelves-design. We bought one, then rued the day. The problem is, once the bookshelf is loaded with books, it becomes too heavy to move, a major flaw for something that is really about living fluidly, the opposite of built-in shelving.
So we devised the perfect hack: a ready-made set of wheels (originally made to hold metal file boxes) that fit the Sapien base perfectly. read more…
We knew that changing the shape of a sofa’s or bed’s legs can be a simple way of jazzing up lines and look AND that there are lot of options around for unfinished wooden legs of all shapes and sizes. And we’ve written before about mask-painting one or all the legs of a table or chair. But we hadn’t thought of putting the two ideas together until we saw a how-to on the French blog Morning by Foley.
By by masking off parts of the an unfinished wooden leg with tape, you can create all sorts of designs – subtle and not-so – that lend a pleasing detail to a bed or sofa; read more…
Now that spring has officially sprung, we find ourselves ready for new projects, around our houses and outside. We keep coming back to our friend Kate Payne’s The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking, an all-purpose guide to doing-it-yourself in your home (and having fun, too) – for ANYONE, whether hip girl or not. (We think it would be a great book for guys setting up their first apartment.)
The books covers a ton of ground, from what you need to stock your home (and how to make your own resources) to the basics of easy, stylish home design. She has trouble-shooting options for virtually any common home mishap. It was Kate’s blog, of the same name, that we turned to last week when we needed instructions for how to hang pegboard in your kitchen.
Some of our favorite springtime gems from Kate’s guide include, her how-to on setting up your own bucket garden; read more…
Lately, we’ve come across some extraordinary uses for OSB – oriented strand board (also known as waferboard) – a cheap, strong, durable building material made from pressed tree chippings and resin. It’s generally been viewed as garbage, something to use for structure and hide, until open-minded designers started to explore its potential and beauty.
Architect Carl Turner’s use of it to clad the interiors of two barns borders on obsession; it is everywhere as itself: as walls, beds, sofas, benches, even an interior pod that houses a bathroom and utility room. read more…
Today Remodelista featured Garde, a new shop in Los Angeles that sells “stylishly understated” housewares. We are smitten with the poplar-top table’s Garde’s owner Scotti Sitz designed to display her wares, and which are available by custom order.
The bases appear to be an ingenious use of simple copper plumbing pipe. We’ve thought of all the times we’ve found ourselves in the plumbing department of our local hardware store, mulling the possibilities for copper pipe, t-joints and other fittings. Copper, left uncoated, is beautiful shiny or dull.
Today, not for the first time, we mistook an artwork for a household object – a mirror actually. We saw this work by Winston Roeth at YouHaveBeenHereSometime right after seeing some images of mirrors and our brain said: “Wow, what a great deeply-orange painted mirror! Why don’t we make one of those?!!” Then we scrolled down and read the copy. We looked back and realized there was no shiny mirror surface after all, but pure geometry on canvas.
Beautiful. So we read about Roeth and looked at some pictures.
We still loved the idea for a deeply orange-framed mirror, inspired by Roeth (whose work we can’f afford) and went hunting around for how to make, or get, one. read more…
Practically, pegboard is masonite (tempered hardboard) with holes punched in it to hold metal tool holders. Visually, pegboard is polka dot masonite that can be painted any color. It is cheap, strong and light (a 4′ x 8′ sheet costs around $20). At Coffee Supreme, they use pegboard in all sorts of ways: as a surface, above or as a simple, polka dot wall…
Our friend Maria Robledo has an ever-improvisational way with “flower” arranging. Here, she cut sprigs of a fragrant vine from her garden and arranged them running down the center of her dinner table, placing the cut ends in shallow ceramic bowls of water to keep them fresh. Perfect. Come to think of it, jar lids, especially the glass lids from French canning jars would work as well….
It seems that once we start focusing on a subject, we begin to find all sorts of solutions and iterations. Lately, it appears to be shelving…
Recently on Remodelista, we spotted these clamped together shelves used at Dyke & Dean, a housewares store in Hastings, East Sussex, England. It reminded us of the clipped together cardboard box shelving we posted about a while back, that ultimately turned into a several post riff (see Related Posts, below). Basically, Dyke and Dean’s are made of simple plywood boxes, stacked in various ways, and secured with metal clamps, for clean, industrial look.
It turns out there is a whole WORLD of cool clamps, beyond the classic “C” Clamp. We’re wondering what we could do with this pulley clamp we found at Carolina Biological Supply (a source for all sorts of useful tools for off-use): read more…
One of the amazing and surprising responses to our going “dark” last week were Comments and emails the came in from ‘improvised life’ readers – whom we’ve never actually met – sending words of support, understanding and gratitude for what we’ve been doing over the past year or so. It knocked us out, reaffirming what we learn daily as we post, that there is a huge vein of generosity coursing through the world and the internet is a powerful conduit and connector. We are grateful for our virtual, curiously tangible, community.
We also got a shout-out from our new blog discovery Mike and Molly’s House, just as we were planning to feature their unbelievable Snaptastic Room Divider, an ingenious modular wall made up of an array of panels that are fit together with slotted connectors. Their way and spirit are totally after our own hearts, as we appear to be to them. They nailed ‘the improvised life’ in a post called “A Little Help from Our Friends“: read more…
Some time ago, Desire to Inspire ran a post called Room Porn. It wasn’t our idea of room porn (which we’re very into, but for a totally different sensibility) EXCEPT for the scrawled writing across the top of the room; it segues with our strange lust/love of signs. It’s do-able by mere mortals and holds lots of possibilities.
Dig this flight of stairs with a quote you read as you walk up… read more…
is that Kate Payne always thinks to share the simple–but totally essential–skills that many of us manage somehow not to have picked up. A perfect example is the series of 
