We stumbled on this crazy-great painted floor artist Matthieu Lavanchy on the very out-there/interesting 2thewalls by New York designer Keehnan Konyha (Slide show of his apartment here; we couldn’t find any actual info about him.) + (Warning, 2thewalls has been likened to “falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland”. It’s easy to get lost looking at all the wild stuff.)
Dutch Interior magazine VT Wonen recently commissioned stylist Frans Uyterlinden to create interesting ‘show house’ using an eclectic mix of materials. (Check out a preview at VosgesParis). Our favorite bit: a bench/sideboard made by lashing together recycled boards. We see big possibilities in this idea… read more…
A few years ago Suzanne Shaker made the decision to change her path, from stylist par excellence to interior designer. She quickly became known for “a unique style that combines modern, traditional, and custom-designed furnishings, using natural materials and the sculptural qualities of light, personal objects and art” to make serene, minimalist spaces. Soon, she was invited to be in Remodelista’s coveted Designer Directory, where you can view some of her work.
Also check out the recent story and slideshow in the New York Times about the house she and her husband Pete Dandridge built from scratch on Shelter Island, under fierce budgetary constraints. The story of her struggle to make hard choices to stay within her budget is a compelling one. read more…
(Video link here.) Our friend Maureen Rolla sent us this email; it is so expressive, it became a post:
“I am writing to tell you about a person and documentary that you should know about – it is called “Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio” – about an amazing architect, thinker, dreamer who ran a program called the Rural Studio at Auburn University in which architecture students designed and built homes, churches, and other structures for the residents of the very poor Hale County, Alabama. It is perhaps the best statement about the transformative power of architecture on regular human beings lives that I’ve ever seen (as opposed to big name, star power architecture that pretty much only benefits the star architect…) The students use some ordinary materials (hay bales, tires) in innovative ways to create some simple yet soaring projects. The film is available on Netflix (disk only, unfortunately). Unfortunately Mockbee died in 2001, only in his early 60s.”
We found a trailer for Citizen Architect (above) that makes us hungry to see the film. Check out this moving interview with Mockbee read more…
One of the best virtual “house tours” we’ve seen of late was designer Scott Newkirk’s Brooklyn, NY apartment featured on Remodelista via An Afternoon With. Newkirk’s place is beautiful, completely unfussy and full of smart, do-able ideas that make great use of limited space. He’s culled many of his treasures at flea markets, transforming them in interesting ways. Newkirk “finds beauty in the ordinary”, evidenced by dramatic curtains made from rough burlap. We love his stacks of books that double as display shelf.
Details of the apartment are well noted, so you’ll find great information about materials you can apply to your own space… read more…
We worked with Jeffrey Miller many years ago when he was prop stylist and always marveled at his wonderful eye. We also marveled at the apartment he lived in, which at the time was a tiny studio with a giant window on the lower east side of Manhattan. We loved its extreme minimalism which combined function and beauty way before those ideas became popularized. He’s in new digs now, which were recently featured in New York Magazine. For a guy whose work is fabulous stuff, his home is a story of extreme restraint and quirkiness. We love his door stop made out of a found rock tied with twine, and read more…
Announcing our latest book giveaway: Leslie Williamson’ Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid-century Designers, published by Rizzoli. Photographing with only natural light, Williamson documented details of the homes of fourteen mid-century designers, artists and craftspeople, including Jens Risom, Eva Zeisel, Harry Bertoia and Walter Gropius.
We love that the photos show the homes exactly as they were when the designers lived there, as with the image of Walter Gropius’ desk. You get to experience the personal touches that actually make a home feel like a home. Williamson set out to shoot the homes not only as examples of modernist design, but also to capture how these designers crafted homes that were meant to be lived in. Her exploration into the nexus of art and function, and forgoing design perfection in the name of a livable space is one that is close to our hearts. read more…
(Video link here).We have long admired musician/artist Björk, so were happy to stumble on this YouTube video of her giving a house tour, even though it’s clearly years old and from another era of her life. No matter; it is so full of quirky charm and ideas, it seemed like a fitting post to come back with.
We also recommend checking out Björk’s website. The first page is really beautiful, and there’s a compelling little track of her speaking that you can click on at the bottom…
In honor of the conclusion of our Artists’ Handmade Houses giveaway contest, here’s one final photo from the book: some lovely chalky walls at Paolo Soleri’s Cosanti .
Six small sleeping areas, located along the east side of Cat Cast (so named because the earth pile on which the concrete was cast was mounded with a Caterpillar tractor) are divided by tilt-up concrete panels, which were cast onto carved earth. The colors, painted onto the earth forms prior to casting, adhere to the surface of the panels.—Michael Gotkin
We’re wondering if we could possibly create such an effect by rubbing pastel chalks over the surface of stucco or plaster…one of the endless ideas the book has given us. read more…
BoingBoing recently posted a compelling video (below or link here) of a toupeed fellow named Augustus Gladstone giving a tour of the room he lives in in an abandoned hotel, in some unnamed city. Gladstone’s apartment is an eccentric, strangely homey place decorated with what appears to be mostly found stuff and collections of bric-a-brac. There’s some question as to the authenticity of the video but no matter. It’s really interesting either way.
What caught our eye (in addition to two old TV’s placed one on top of the other) was an ingenious shelving unit using stacks of books as bricks to hold boards. It’s clever, and in another setting, could be pretty chic. Just for the hell of it, we typed “books as bricks” into google images and found some beautiful iterations of the idea, like read more…
As we combed through Artists’ Handmade Houses, the prize in our current book giveaway, we noticed an interesting theme running through the houses of many of the 13 artists featured. They often used the simple rice paper globe ceiling lights pioneered in the 50′s by Isamu Noguchi: an electrical wire hung from the ceiling from which hung a bulb surrounded by a translucent rice paper shade. Paolo Soleri, Sam Maloof, Wharton Esherick, Ruth and Robert Hatch all used them to great effect: they lend a pleasing sculptural element to a room while casting a lovely light.
George Nakashima had them all over the house. We’re wondering if he made this clever wall light by cutting a globe in half and affixing it to the wall. read more…
To our minds, paint is about the easiest way to give something a new look without spending a lot of money. We have a special fondness for painted floors, since floors are a pain-in-the-neck and expensive to replace. We stumbled on this inspiring idea while leafing through Artists’ Handmade Houses: the sublime yellow floors Constantino Nivola painted in his Long Island home.
Nivola was given the yellow tractor paint he used to coat the kitchen floor by the Mobil Oil Company, for whom he did a commission. When the sun hits this remarkable surface, the room is bathed in a honey glow. —Michael Gotkin
We are thrilled to announce ‘the improvised life’ latest giveaway: Abrams’ lush coffee table book Artists’ Handmade Houses, with text by Michael Gotkin and photographs by Don Freeman. It is a sublime collection of thirteen homes created by artists and master craftsmen, both infamous and little known. We first learned about it when we saw images of sculptor Raoul Hague‘s eccentric, inspired cabin in Woodstock, New York on Mondoblogo. The title of the post was “Who the Hell is Raoul Hague?“, which we didn’t know either. But we were smitten by Hague’s rustic, beautiful, wildly improvised home and workspace, especially his bedroom with its pivoting lectern rigged to make it easy to read in bed. read more…
, published by Rizzoli. Photographing with only natural light, 
giveaway contest, here’s one final photo from the book: some lovely chalky walls at Paolo Soleri’s 
