copy this!
Ian McDonald
We stumbled on this wonderful hanging shelf on You Have Been Here Sometime, but when we went back to look it was gone! It’s from an exhibition by Ian McDonald called Wearing.
In our minds it’s art = a shelf = art = a shelf = wonderful to look at = practical = odd =art = a shelf….
The gist is really a wood slab and rod bored with holes through which to run rope or wire, elaborated on with a big metal ring, a hanging counterweight and the rod that sticks up for no apparent reason (which we love). It made us want to hunt down odd bits and start rigging them…
03.24.11 |
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in art, copy this!, materials, projects + play, storage |
Annaleena's Hem
Annaleena’s Hem recently published a whimsical “inspiration” wall, a styled visualization of a very practical process. She taped up clipped-from-magazine images of ideas for redecorating, and called it “Collect Your Dreams”. Says Annaleena:
Something I often say to…those who are renovating is to tear out pictures as you like, it can be inspirational images of colors, chairs, wallpaper samples or materials and place them in a binder. Then you have a frame to go to when all is said and done and you have to make choices.
We’ve recommended doing that very thing ourselves in past posts, though we’ve shifted our “notebook” largely from paper to virtual. Since we’re always scouting blogs and websites for ‘the improvised life’, we come across tons of visual ideas for our dream renovation. We just slide them into Evernote, a free software with which you can clip images, write notes to yourself, organize them any way we like, moving things around at will. (You can also sync it between computers and with your iPhone. When we’re out in the world, we sometimes take pictures of cool ideas with our iPhone, and send it to our Evernote). Here’s a couple of screen shots from our Renovation Notebook: read more…
03.22.11 |
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in copy this!, inside, inspiration, projects + play, reimagine, resources, tools |
There’s been a lot of press lately about journalist Joshua Foer’s book Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
. We’re sure that’s because forgetfulness is the curse of our age. Foer thinks it’s NOT because our brains are overloaded, but because we’re not really paying attention. The book outlines methods you can use to help yourself remember things. We found a great summary in The Guardian:
The trick, Foer says, is to adopt a process known as “elaborative encoding”, which involves converting information, such as a shopping list, into a series of “engrossing visual images”. If you want to remember a list of household objects – gherkins, cottage cheese, sugar and other items – then visualise them in an unforgettable manner, he says. Start by creating an image of a large jar of gherkins standing in the garden. Next to it, imagine a giant tub of cottage cheese – the size of an outdoor pool – and then picture Lady Gaga swimming in it. And so on. Each image should be as bizarre and memorable as possible.
In other words, you change boring bits of data into something colourful – and memorable – using your own energetic imagination to make them more meaningful. read more…
03.22.11 |
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in copy this!, how-to, learn, paths + processes, people, resources, resources books + zines |
MALIIN STOOR
We love this bed made of shipping pallets that the endlessly clever Swedish designer Maliin Stoor built for her daughters: a chain of LEDs illuminates it from underneath. Here are details, translated from Swedish (we hope accurately enough):
“Lights under the bed…Inspired by a hotel I recently stayed in…I bought a light chain and put it under the bed. (When we cast the concrete slab we made sure to fix a number of electrical plugs in the floors, even one under the bed. I felt smart!) The girls think it’s really nice and hoped that the loop shone all night, but the loop is set on a timer and is on from five o’clock to half-eleven; it works for us …” read more…
03.15.11 |
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in copy this!, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, kids, lighting, resources, sleeping, tools |
www.sha.org/bottle/wine
In a recent post at Radmegan: In Words and Pictures, crafty blogger Megan described improvising watering globes out of glass Coke bottles. Watering globes, commercially sold as Aqua Globes
, are basically inverted bottles that you fill with water and “slam into the moist soil”; they will slowly trickle water into your potted plants, a great solution for watering plants while you’re out of town or just busy. Megan also found that a Martinelli Cider bottle works well too (photos below).
We wondered: why use an ugly bottle with a label when there are so many beautiful glass bottles to be had? Why not figure out some pleasing-to-look at solutions? Our favorites for many years (and many purposes) are wine bottles with the labels soaked off, which allows you see their form: sensual, sculpture, subtly-colored. (We especially like the elongated bottles used for Albariño – a perfect summer wine from Spain. ) read more…
03.14.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, garden, housewares, how-to, inside, outside, reclaim, resources |
via Emma's Design Blog
Every morning we scroll through A LOT of blogs looking for delicious/interesting/useful ideas and improvisations. Lately, we spotted some Ikea pieces buried in features about stylish interiors. Our view of Ikea is that when it’s great, it’s really great, like the Alto-esque stacking stools they used to sell for $12 and the geometric rug, above, that we blogged a while back. And then there is Ikea that becomes great when used cleverly…
Take this very basic Ikea PS metal cabinet for $99, for example… read more…
03.04.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, furniture, inside, resources, solutions, storage, stores |
Stacey Harwood
After reading our post on painting fabric-covered furniture, Stacey Harwood sent us an email about her great “guest” chair. “I knew a white chair would not stay white for long in my NYC apartment so I bought some fabric markers and I invite our guests to sign it. I’m happy to say that it has been signed by some of our most celebrated poets: Mark Strand and John Ashbery are toward the top; Charles Simic is on the seat. You can also distinguish Jim Cummins, Susan Wheeler and Star Black (poet, collage artist, photographer). To the lower right is Gabriella Gershenson, a senior editor at Saveur. On the left is Deborah Landau and Richard Howard…”
Harwood’s husband, David Lehman is series editor of the annual The Best American Poetry books, which is how they come to have to many fine poets and writers as friends. Their blog is The Best American Poetry.
“It’s a wonderful record of the first two years in our apartment and truly a one-of-a-kind piece that gives us much pleasure.”
Harwood improvised a whole other order of guest book…
…
….That long list of poets made us poke around the internet to read some poems. Here’s a beauty by Mark Strand: read more…
02.22.11 |
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in celebrations, copy this!, family + friends, furniture, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, materials, people, resources, textiles |
French by Design @ Etsy
Years ago at a tag sale, we bought some ancient flower frogs, tiny spiked metal stands meant to hold flowers in a graceful arrangement. They are weighted so they won’t tip over. We never used them for flower arranging; instead we stuck pictures in them, for an impromptu, instantly changeable display.
We’ve had them on our list of things to photograph for ‘the improvised life’ and then stumbled on this image at the Etsy store of the wonderful blog French by Design. There, proprietor/blogger Si offers vintage treasures that she’s found. She has one lovely flower frog for sale, and some great ideas for using them: “as name cards for my formal table when we have guests… You can also collect them and use them as wedding centerpieces or to hold special photos.” read more…
02.02.11 |
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in copy this!, elements, repurpose, resources, stores, tools |
Sally Schneider
After we wrote about making bookshelves out of black pipe, we stumbled on these images of black pipe closet fitting. We’d taken them a couple of months ago at our friends’ newly renovated, about-to-be-moved-into, Brooklyn brownstone; there are no clothes hanging yet so you can really see the detail. We’re thinking that the resources in the bookcase post – where to buy, and the basic how-to’s – are about all you need to do this-cool-closet-treatment yourself.
The black hangers turn the whole thing stylish and artful. read more…
01.31.11 |
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in copy this!, elements, hard, inside, materials, resources, storage |
Writing ‘the improvised life’, we discover that themes come in waves: one idea (or image) seems to attract another that takes the idea a step further, or gives it a different spin (may be it’s simply that our sights are honed…). It can happen with several themes at once.
Lately, a big one has been painted floors. We keep seeing clever little tricks we never thought of , like this wonderful painted “rug” painted on concrete. It could be done freehand, or with cut out shapes to use as a stencil… read more…
01.28.11 |
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in copy this!, floors, inside, materials |
; it is made chic by drawing attention to it and what is around it. It reminded us of the beautiful wreck of wall that photographer 
.
