photo: nadim kamel
We were knocked out by the insanely colorful streetscape made by a Lebanese team of artists/designers, known as dihzahyners, in Beirut.
We imagined how the the worst and bleakest urban neighborhoods we’ve traveled through would be TRANSFORMED by color. All it takes is paint, vision, collective effort: read more…
We’ve been amassing quite a collection of pictures of stacked boxes and crates being used as shelving. And lately, they’ve included crates and boxes that are painted on the inside, outsides left their natural shelves. This simple embellishment presents the colors as a sort of surprise, that lends a lot of charm to the plain box look…
photo: magnus mårding
These recent pictures spotted on Desire to Inspire affirmed the enduring chic of noguchi-esque paper shades, a subject we’ve posted about before since so many true mid-century modern houses relied on them. The formula is simple: read more…
photo: richard powers
About a year ago, our friend Ellen Silverman came back from France with a beautiful linen flat sheet that she’d seen displayed in a Paris shop. The salesperson encouraged her to buy a king size sheet and use it as a coverlet that would drape on the floor and become it’s own “dust-ruffle”, hiding whatever lay hidden under the bed. It looked so pretty, and seemed like such a practical idea, that we hatched a plot to photograph it; both being so crazy-busy we still haven’t gotten around to it.
So I was pleased to stumble on a similar image buried in a recent Remodelista house tour. This huge flat-sheet coverlet is made of gauze but linen is lovely, washable, comes in a variety of colors, and doesn’t need to be ironed. Wrinkled is fine, as are ripped edges. We’re wondering what would happen if read more…
We love copper pipe and have blogged a fab diy table made of it as well as sculptural faucets. But this picture of this Amsterdam coffee shop took our copper imaginings to new heights: copper pipe light fixtures, copper pipe faucets, and copper pipe hooks, all in one space!! read more…
photo: jesper ray
We’ve been getting an increasing number of emails from readers their shipping pallet improvisations, as they push they realm of pallet invention. A recent favorite: this swell, stylish staircase by Natasha Figueroa and her husband Dan Husted who live in an up-and-coping gallery district in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We have a private gallery/studio located in Kødbyen, which is the old meatpacking district. Lot45 is the name, and it is an old ‘skin-house’, where they used to hang the hides for curing. Since we did all the work ourselves, we kept the budget quite tight and try to re-use as much as we could. Seeing as the meatpacking district still functions, there are a lot of old pallets laying about. Dan designed and built this so that it can also function as a hang-out during openings & parties.
Their pallet staircase functions as an old fashioned stoop where their friends do indeed hang out… read more…
We’ve long been fans of Aakash Nihalani‘s geometric tape illusions and wonder how we might apply the idea to our Laboratory. Could we make simple 3-D looking illusions out of tape on our ceiling to make it look higher, or on a wall to make it look like there is another room…? (Much of the Laboratory is crafted of illusions, most spectacularly our mirrored corner window illusion. read more…
When we saw this image from Natural Style Outdoor Spaces on Style Files, we immediately thought: shipping pallets would make a perfect base. You’d hardly have to desconstruct them. Just clean them up (stack if desired) and place slip-covered foam cushions on them (here’s a how-to), for chic lounging pallets that would work inside or out.
It’s curious how inspiring shipping pallets have become…We find ourselves building with them in our heads like some sort of mental Tinkertoy…
What are your ideas?
Related posts: the scoop on safe shipping pallets (shipping pallets 101)
ps: some possible dangers of wood shipping pallets
led-illuminated shipping pallet bed
brilliant D-I-Y pallet desks, tables, stairs
D-I-Y: pallet chair (and stool and lamp)
2 or 3 things i know
We recently stumpled upon a wonderful post from 2 or 3 Things I Know that we bookmarked AGES AGO (1/3/09!); it is a divinely minimalist place setting with a philosphy to boot:
The key is to not turn to
magazines for design
advice. buy buyIt’s all about
the placement of
(just a few) objects.and resourcing
cheap, found, basic
elements /materials
Cerre gives a little how-to and her favorite sources for creating a setting like this. read more…
gorden ammermann
While we were away, we got a very succinct, very cool email from reader Gorden Ammermann, with photos of the wonderful shipping pallet bed he made:
hi,
maybe i´ve something for your site. be free to post it: my new diy-pallet-bed
greetz
gorden
We not only love the white painted bed, but the deliciously rumpled linens in a very simple room as well. You can get the gist of Ammermann’s creation from the other two photos he sent: read more…
photo: sally schneider
We recently found some photos that we took in the fabled Chelsea Hotel’s a few months before anyone knew it would be closing. (Click here to listen to Leonard Cohen singing Chelsea Hotel,which he wrote for Janis Joplin, while you read on). We’d been to artist John Wellington’s birthday party in one of the rooms there, and as we were clumping down the iron stairwell on our way out, we couldn’t help but admire the wild graffiti that adorned the fire extinquishers in the corner of each landing: an ubiquitous, essential tool made into something grander than it’s usual self… read more…
One of the people we miss most since we left our old digs is paper artist extraordinaire Matthew Sporzynski, also known as the Couturier de Carboard. (Check out the Pinterest Real Simple compiled of his wonderful paper constructions.) It seems that whenever we ran into him in the elevator or on the street, we’d learn something illuminating. Matthew is endlessly creative and generous and we’ve posted a number of times about him, especially the spontaneous, and always perfectly-timed gifts he’d leave outside our door: stealth gifting. So we were delighted when emailed this picture of his “boat bag workaround”, where he fashioned a leather belt into an adjustable shoulder strap to allow him to comfortable haul heavy gear in his canvas boat bag:
I was rather pleased with a last-minute improvisation I made last week. I was going to a photo shoot at 23rd and 5th and needed to carry a big light box (two hands) and a boat bag full of heavy tools and supplies. I literally thought “what would The Improvised Life do?” read more…
photo: sally Schneider
Artist Holton Rower, of 3,000,000+ YouTube hits fame, (not to mention inventor of fabulous leather door pulls) takes all his tools very seriously, including the camera on his phone. It has a lens that is precision, easily damagable glass, just like any other good camera. You wouldn’t put a camera in your bag without its lens cap on, so why do it with your phone? We hadn’t thought of this obvious fact; Holton did. He devised an insta-lens cap: a piece of blue masking tape, which leaves no residue, and be “opened” and “closed” many times before it need replacing.
Simple, efficient, smart!
(And if you don’t like Holton’s rough look, snip the tape cleanly across with a scissors to make a more graphical embellishment.)
Thanks Holton!
Related posts: holton rower’s catalytic art (plywood + 50 gallons of paint + big imagination)
chic, minimalist gorilla tape cabinet door pulls
holton rower-inspired artwork screensaver
our d-i-y leather pulls, reinterpreted
holton rower’s pour paintings: intention + chance, in color
rule for living: apologize every dayx
(Video link here). Our recent balloon post about how wonderful it felt to let balloons go (and make a wish) created quite an uproar. It seems we hadn’t considered the environmental impact of balloons – especially the foil kind – on the environment, so we redacted it and tried to impart some semblence of fair-and-unbiased reporting into the mix. Even though we haven’t done deep enough research to know if latex balloons properly filled with helium and without ribbons pose a dire environmental risk, we’re stearing clear of sending balloons into the atmosphere, in case.
One reader had a suggestion: “tissue wishing papers that when lit on fire float into the air until they disappear into tiny bits of ash. My friends and I let the birthday person wish on one and send it soaring.” We googled “wishing papers” and came up with “sky lanterns“
