floors
Remember those potholders you used to make as a kid by weaving stretchy bands of fabric in a grid on a simple loom? Artist/crafter Crispina ffrench took the idea and scaled it UP. She uses a giant loom to weave cotton tee shirts or wool sweaters in the very same way, to make thick, dramatic rugs.
“Potholder Rugs are inch thick floor cushions that massage bare feet with every step. They are durable, warm in the winter and cool in summer and come in a wide array of rich colors and combinations of colors. Each one is hand woven on giant frame looms in Pittsfield MA with care, attention to detail, and environmental love. I make them out of cotton T-shirts or wool sweaters. This one (above) is made of 100% post consumer used wool sweaters like the ones you can buy at the good will… read more…
03.01.11 |
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in elements, floors, inside, materials, people, resources |
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 |
We love painted floors, especially white ones because they expand and brighten a space AND are a great inexpensive solution to dealing with not-great floors. We never thought of painting a little patch of colorfully painted boards to break up the expanse, as interior designer Annette Verkuyls did in her home in an early twentieth century warehouse…
…unexpected and charming…
via French By Design
01.09.11 |
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in floors, materials |
Like the website Knock-Off in Style, we love the challenge of finding an affordable version of some great piece of design – not necessarily a “knock-off” but an object of similar lines and intention, that is cheap. We’ve loved this wool Ikea PS Stuga rug (9′ x 9′, $299) from the moment we saw it, but think it’s even more of a value since we saw this printed dhurrie by John Robshaw (6′ x 9′, $795) featured on Better Living Through Design: read more…
11.16.10 |
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in cheap + great, elements, floors, inside, resources, soft, stores, textiles |
FreshHome
Lately, we’ve been seeing stones and pebbles used to fill odd spaces. Here they patch missing wood in an old floor. We don’t know what these green stones in a little entrance garden in New York City were meant to disguise: perhaps access to a pipe…or maybe they are just there because the owner thought they looked cool… read more…
09.30.10 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, floors, hard, materials, resources, solutions |
Daniel Hale
We are so happy to have discovered Serendipity Rising, architect Daniel Hale’s blog that is mostly about the evolution of his home in Napa Valley, which seems to be a sort of laboratory for his ideas. The guy loves soft metals like zinc and lead which he cuts and hammers in unusual ways; he transforms salvaged woods and ‘finds’ by applying modern lines and layers of techniques into an eclectic take, like this incredible flight of stairs: “I layered black over brown and ran a strip of lead sheeting up the middle”. What he does to his own house is freer than the “client” work we’ve seen, as he follows his ideas for his own pleasure. “Tickle” is a recent post – a sort of poem-story (edited here) – about his violent and fearless transformation of an old piano, which had been left in the winery he turned into his studio: read more…
07.19.10 |
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in bath, cool spaces, elements, floors, inside, materials, people, reclaim, repurpose, resources |
Rum Magazine
Lately, we’ve been seeing planks and bits of salvaged wood being used in bold geometric patterns to enclose bathtubs, and kitchen islands, make headboards and floors… Pieced together like a puzzle, with a good eye, “rustic” changes curiously to modern. read more…
07.12.10 |
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in elements, floors, furniture, hard, inside, materials, reclaim, repurpose, resources, resources blogs + sites, stores |
Kim Sykes
Architect Kim Sykes spotted these wonderful color-painted stairs in Sayulita, Mexico. Whoever made them cunningly painted each stair on the side that doesn’t get stepped on (so you’d only get the effect from a distance, and going up). Though Mexico is renowned for it’s brash use of color, colored stairs are a world-wide theme: a simple way to make the path up or down more welcoming and interesting.
Here are more sightings, including this spectacular, intricate pattern of colored vinyl tape made by artist Jim Lambie at the Museum of Modern Art. read more…
09.27.09 |
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in floors, inside, outside, sightings |
Ellen Silverman
Although I have a big built-in bookcase, there always seems to be books floating around my apartment; either there’s no room (because books – like food -are the purchases I make weekly), or they are books I am currently using. They need a place and a way to be that isn’t a mess, but is accessible and nice looking. My solution is to stack them on “stands” that I’ve found on the street, and that are to me, pleasingly elemental, like the three above. read more…
05.23.09 |
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in floors, reclaim, repurpose, solutions, storage, why not? |
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