elements
Sally Schneider
Years ago, New York photographer Maria Robledo designed this simple, functional and really cool-looking storage for her studio. A few hours before she moved to a new space, I ran over to photograph them for ‘the improvised life’ because they are so smart and great, even though she’d emptied them out. They once held an impressive amount of office and photographic supplies, and linens and props for shoots.
Maria’s wall of cabinets is an unfussy, easy-to-duplicate approach that would translate well to all sorts of spaces. read more…
01.04.10 |
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in elements, how-to, materials, solutions, storage |
Sometimes when I need a diversion from writing, I poke around location scout Andrea Raisfeld’s website of interesting spaces for rent for photography locations. You can browse by type (apartment, barn, log cabin…), or description (contemporary, Modernist, Swedish…), or even by a feature (bunk bed, river, treehouse), and so on. I always find unexpected ideas there, like the rectangle of unframed chalkboard on a wall at designer Pamela Hovland’s house in Connecticut.
Pamela made a pattern of chalk squiggles that is striking. She says some people have it mistaken for a Cy Twombly (an artist famous for chalkboard-like paintings and magnificent squiggles), although Pamela wasn’t thinking of his work when she made it. This is a grown-up chalkboard, made to define the space in an un-kid-like way. read more…
12.06.09 |
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in art, copy this!, elements, inside, materials, walls + windows |
Ellen Silverman
Just about every cook I know has a favorite fork or a spoon that they use for all sorts of purposes in the kitchen; they reach for it before any other tool when they need to toss or stir or shift something in a pan, because it feels right in their hand, makes them feel right in the kitchen, and able to deal with whatever comes up.
Ellen Silverman took a picture of mine. I am certain that each utensil in this odd assortment HELPS me to cook. Each has a unique feel of its own. All are balanced, attuned in some special way that helps me to listen to whatever I am making. These implements are so much a part of my cooking that I am often not aware of all the different things I do with them.
They are the opposite of kitchen catalogue offerings; all except one are cheap and beat-up. They all have stories. read more…
11.03.09 |
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in elements, housewares, resources, solutions, tools |
Recently, 2 or 3 Things I Know posted a picture of this table by the artist Donald Judd; it is miraculous in its simplicity and harmony. I put my face close to the screen to contemplate the structure. It looked to me to be made of big sheets of plywood with an ash or birch veneer: a surface on a base.
Could it be that the base is made of notched sheets of plywood similar to those House of Cards games I remember from my childhood? read more…
11.02.09 |
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in elements, furniture, how-to, inside, materials |
When Margot Wellington designed the kitchen of her house in East Hampton in 1984, she defied the usual notions of kitchen design. Instead, she set out to incorporate the elements she found essential from many years of serious cooking and entertaining. One of her most remarkable innovations was the design of an eleven-foot-long stainless steel counter with a large shallow sink built seamlessly into the center of it. The sink itself becomes a work surface, allowing her to use the whole eleven-foot span to do many jobs at once, from prepping vegetables on the left to preparing a turkey for roasting on the right. She designed the sink herself and then found someone to make it for her.
Here she describes the logic behind her design, and how she made her idea a reality:
read more…
10.19.09 |
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in eating, elements, inside, reimagine |
Suzanne Shaker
Suzanne Shaker, whose spare modernist house was posted here a while back, wanted a window shade for her bathroom that afforded some privacy, let light in and didn’t block the view completely. She found an old japanese screen with paper on the back that was ripped. She removed the paper and her husband Pete added hooks and simple chain. It’s a beautiful bit of repurposing. Here’s another picture. read more…
10.12.09 |
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in bath, elements, inside, repurpose, solutions, walls + windows |
Ellen Silverman
It’s weird how easily taboos can sneak into our thinking: subtle, almost unconscious “don’t do that”s or “that’s not normal” or “not done”, that keep the status quo. They can apply the all sorts of mundane parts of our lives, and especially our living spaces. The standard height of kitchen wall cabinets is 18 inches above the counter which makes the work surface feel oppressive…why not make them higher? Why not make counters deeper than the standard 24 inches so there’s plenty of room to work, even if the carpenter or contractor says “You CAN’T”.
Ask “Why?” and you often get the answer “Because that’s how it’s ALWAYS done”. “But,” you ask, “if it’s the same amount of work to put an outlet in the middle of the wall (where it’s glaring and ugly) as it is to put it close to the counter where it blends in…why not do it the way that looks best, or is best for the way I live my life?” It can take persistence to identify an everyday taboo, and then to break it.
But taboos also apply to how we live, and what we think we can and cannot do. read more…
10.06.09 |
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in bath, bathing, elements, principles, reimagine, why not? |
I stumbled on an archived post on Automatism of some pictures of jewelry designer Ted Muehling‘s New York City apartment. Blogger Lori had reprinted an article on Muehling’s apartment that she’d saved for years, from Maison Francaise in the late 1990′s. The place looks as appealing today as it did then (THAT’S style). In response, a woman named Joanna wrote “SO beautiful. i’m downloading these for the inspiration journal… xo”.
The Inspiration Journal. It reminded me of folders I’ve often kept of clippings from magazines: of spaces I liked, or ideas I wanted to pursue. Seeing pictures can help you bring to life your own ideas, as you take the gist, or a kernel, or a detail and run with it. Nowadays, it can be done digitally of course, and kept on a computer or printed out. An Inspiration Journal is a much better way of framing things than a “bookmark”. read more…
10.05.09 |
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in cool spaces, elements, inside, inspiration, media, people, rooms, solutions |
www.dinnerwithjulie.com
Once the door to an idea opens, information often miraculously seems to appear. There’s some sort of attunement that seems to happen when you hold a question in mind and start trying to figure it out; perhaps it’s simply a shift in awareness that makes us see the answers around us.
Right after I wrote about d-i-y pizza-ovens, I started to stumble upon books and websites with in-depth instructions and resources for building and using wood-fired ovens, a change in name that expands the content considerably (beyond pizza – just about any food benefits from being cooked in a wood-fired oven). Even if you don’t actually have a space to build a wood-fired oven right now, these resources can help you formulate ideas for when you do, or for when you’re out camping and want to apply some of its principles to a make-shift oven. Some books, like the definitive The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens
, will even guide you to achieving some of the effects of a masonry oven, using an ordinary gas or electric oven. read more…
09.29.09 |
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in buildings, elements, how-to, outside, plans, resources, resources blogs + sites, resources books + zines |
A big part of improvising is imagining possibilities, or “listening” to the possibilities inherent in a situation or a thing. That can mean any thing, even something as ordinary as a hook, though its always easier if it has a simple, rather classic design that can work in a variety of situations. The trick is to ignore what the item was originally designed for. This handmade brass boat hook from the great, bordering-on-fetish website Hook Lady is a fine example. It is at once handsome, understated, and elemental, both modern and rustic. It would work equally well as a bathroom towel hook, a closet hook, key hook, fireplace tool hook…as coat hooks (a row of them on a wall by the door), or, as a “pot rack” (many hooks composed in stacked rows or as a cluster on an entire wall of a kitchen)… read more…
09.02.09 |
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in bath, elements, housewares, inside, reimagine, solutions, stores |
Dish racks and kitchen storage systems are among the most disappointing offerings in stores; it’s hard to find one that really functions well and looks great. The design group Studio Matière has designed a kitchen storage system built of pine splints in an irregular, ladder-like grid that can hang from a tree branch, or be free-standing. The tree-thing is definitely out-there (charming…impractical for many), but the shelf part does seem to me to be a design-model that could easily be improvised upon read more…
08.10.09 |
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in copy this!, eating, elements, housewares |
Ellen Silverman
Years ago, when I was putting together my very make-shift kitchen, I searched and searched for a pot rack that was the opposite of the ones that seemed to be everywhere – clunky or “country”-ish, overly ornate or verging on Medieval. Nothing I found accommodated my personal pot rack idiosyncrasies that includes not liking pots hanging over head, or making my small space looking cluttered.
So I turned to towel bars. It was a small shift in thinking to envision these sleek steel bars hung with hooks and copper, rather than terry cloth. Why not use a towel bar as a pot rack? (Or simply change its name?) read more…
08.05.09 |
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in bathing, elements, hard, repurpose, solutions, storage |
Right after I posted “Are you a secret lighting designer?” about down-loadable lamp shade plans and cool, flame-proof materials to improvise with, I came across this really inspired, inexpensive, endlessly useful clip-on lamp shade for sale at tweek. It’s just about perfect for hanging bulbs or wall fixtures. Still, I couldn’t help falling into an obsessive Google hunt to find the material it is made out of: read more…
08.04.09 |
comments (8) |
in elements, inside, lighting, materials, soft |
(follow the directions and caveats 
(fine for jars with a flat surface).
