furniture
One of the very best products that Ikea has carried over the years was their plywood Frosta stool. It is a fine ripoff of the famous Alvar Aalto stool, but cost only $12 (as opposed to $300+). It is no longer available in the United States, but is available in other countries, including France, Italy, Ireland and Sweden. It was featured prominently on Ikea’s Swedish blog recently, with ideas for painting the stools in stylish way; to us that array of Frosta’s is like a pile of French macaroons we weren’t allowed to eat.
We find ourselves now treating the four Frosta stools we’ve had for years as though they were as precious as Aalto stools. They are endlessly useful as side tables and impromptu seating, and stack to store out of the way. We’ve seen many great hacks using the bent-plywood legs as shelf brackets, speaker holders etc …
We’ve written Ikea twice to ask why, what the possible logic could there be to dictate such a decision; we haven’t heard back. So we have to two ideas: read more…
01.13.12 |
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in cheap + great, community, elements, furniture, inside, resources, strategies |
photo: ellen silverman
For many years, I’ve enjoyed this amazingly-designed mid-century folding desk. The desk unit looks like a normal small wardrobe but when you open it, closed cabinet swings open on both sides to reveal pull-out desk. It has many any moveable shelves, a large drawer with pencil/pen holder, large slide out shelf and a even a moveable light that works. It is made of very hardwood, teak perhaps…possibly beech and walnut. The fittings are brass.
You can store a lot of stuff and paperwork in it and “disappear” everything in two movements. It is a 1950’s copy of the-desk-in-a box designed by Mummenthaler (you can see lots of pictures at this site.) Versions of this desk have been displayed at Nicole Fahri and Urban Outfitters. My life is changing and now it’s time to pass it on.
The desk is in excellent shape for its age with a near perfect work surface and top. read more…
11.30.11 |
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in furniture |
On a recent Selby visit, we spotted this fabric-draped sofa in the wonderful home of Hitoshi Uchida-san – owner of J’Antiques Tokyo (check out the full story). The beauty of it is that the sofa is covered with a really big swath of fabric that can bunch and drape luxuriously. The fabric is wide enough to go from the floor in front of the sofa, over the seat, up the back and hang over by a couple of feet – not something the usual 54-inch width of fabric can do. But where do you find affordable fabric like this? read more…
11.30.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, furniture, inside, repurpose, resources, soft, solutions |
Last week, we posted our best recipes for how to brine a turkey, make side dishes and freeform tarts, and some suggestions for wines to serve at the feast. If you’re having a crowd, now’s the time to figure out what to serve all this on, and where the guests will sit…
We went back into the Archive to dig out links for how to make big tables both round and rectangular, and a variety of makeshift seating options, including our favorite bench made of chairs. We’re posting it early, in case you need to stop by the lumber yard for plywood of planks.
The essential liberating rule of thumb: nothing needs to match…neither tableclothes, nor napkins, nor dishes, nor chairs…nor glasses… read more…
11.21.11 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, d-i-y, family + friends, furniture, solutions |
For years we’ve enjoyed a mantle with no fireplace. It was taken out of an old house in Maine; it’s color, an ochre yellow milk paint. It leans as a sort of sculpture against the living room wall, defining the space in a unique way, and just like that, it is a pleasure. Then some images of fireplaces in modernist dollhouses (which are in themselves amazing) got us thinking about implementing the idea of “fire”, even without an actual fireplace: making some sort of trompe l’oeil image of fire… read more…
11.01.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, furniture, reimagine |
Spotted at Core 77: a floor-mounted Book Rail from the 1930′s. It’s an odd and beautiful thing that we never heard of before. It would make a perfect low-down display for objets or a moderne altar. Wonder where to get one or something like it… The one, above, is from Factory 20, a trove of vintage object in Sterling Virginia. It kind of reminds us of rough, low African stools that you can find on Ebay or at flea markets.
Dig this one-legged one we spotted on Ebay; it’s really a head rest but… what a thing to arrange things on…in perfect balance!! read more…
10.20.11 |
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in elements, furniture, inside, repurpose, resources |
photo: basetrack's photostream/flickr
Charles McFarlane alerted us to these pictures of makeshift chairs. They were taken by a reporter embedded with Marines deployed in Afghanistan in 2010, using his iPhone. Improvised out of wreckage, in a war zone, the chairs have a moving and strangely beautiful sculptural quality; they force us to imagine the stories behind them. read more…
09.26.11 |
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in furniture, outside, paths + processes, people, sightings |
Architectural Digest, New York Interiors, 1979
When You Have Been Here Sometime recently posted some images from Architectural Digest, New York Interiors, 1979, we were struck by this one. Although lamps and pouf and carpet are all pretty dated and rigid, a great idea remains: covering a homely piece of furniture with beautiful fabric. Who knows what’s under the ochre yellow panel? It could be two horizontal file cabinets placed end to end for all we know. Layering fabrics adds substance and a mix of textures and colors. The fabric covers don’t HAVE to be hemmed: intentionally ripped linen can be beautiful… read more…
09.26.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, how-to, inside, materials, reimagine, resources, soft |
photo: rikkianne van kirk
Our post on artist Holton Rower‘s gorgeous d-i-y leather cabinet pulls has been one of our most popular in recent months, and continues to make its way around the internet. But until yesterday, we hadn’t seen someone take the idea and make it their own. Rikkianne Van Kirk’s post on Re-Nest gives a step-by-step of the drawer pulls she made for an old desk, using an old leather belt that she cut into strips…the perfect material: strong, good-looking and recycled…
read more…
09.21.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, furniture, how-to, inside, materials, repurpose, solutions |
Harriet Bell alerted us to this beautiful candy wrapper chair and the story of how she found it…one thing leading to another in the course of a few minutes:
Our friend Peter Davis just returned from San Miguel de Allende; knowing that I love handbags made from Mexican candy wrappers, he brought me three! One candy wrapper in the bags looked weird, so we started poking around the web to identify it. And we found this amazing candy wrapper chair.Thought you’d get an improvised kick out of it.
The gorgeous chair designed by Mexican designer Emiliano Godoy takes a very old and simple idea – weaving candy wrappers (which we remember doing as kids) into a strong “textile”, and EXPANDS it, literally. The large size squares and monochrome palette gives it a definite chic. We found a step-by-step how-to here, and a video (below). We’re imagining scaling up the method to larger sheets of whatever cool paper-like material we find (magazines, high-end paper shopping bags…?…It might even be done with leather or some of the out-there synthetic materials you can find at fabric and art stores these days. You can drap and stitch it…Think of the possibilities for using this strong geometric weaving as furniture covering (of an ordinary wooden Ikea chair, perhaps), rug, tablecloth, satchel, room screen!!!!???
read more…
09.15.11 |
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in cheap + great, furniture, housewares, how-to, inside, materials, repurpose, resources |
We were researching the idea of making cardboard prototypes of ideas we have for furniture when we stumbled upon a series of designs, with pictures of folded cardboard furniture at DesignBoom. They are easily copy-able and stimulate thinking of cardboard furniture possibilities. Our favorite is this lovely “folding chair”/stool/side table designed by Carine Imhof:
“Kui-Kui is a folding chair made out of a single piece of carboard…and a stick of wood serves the purpose of holding the stool together. By folding the flat cardboard as seen in the following pictures, you obtain the necessary rigidity to make a square-stool…The square form is given from the folding processes. This stool is light, easy to build, and can be made in different colors.”
We’re thinking a chopstick might work become the “stick of wood” that secures the folded cardboard…
Related post: D-I-Y Folding Screen (Thinking Out Loud in Cardboard)
‘create your own’: building block system for your own inventions
perfect 9.5 minute ted talk: janet echelman
‘pop-up’ room redux: interlocking cardboard
what a painted slab of plywood can do (d-i-y)
09.12.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, how-to, materials, projects + play |
We totally love this collection by of elements and connectors for making whatever you want, designed by Louise Cohen. It is like a perfect fusion of built-it-yourself Lego/Tinkertoy/K’nex/ErectorSet-esque material for adults.
The CREATE YOUR OWN Collection is a building system consisting of 18 galvanized elements and 5 kind of connectors. According to individual desires unique living accessories can be composed.
Constructions for all kind of purposes can stand, lay or ride, hang from wall or ceiling. read more…
08.25.11 |
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in d-i-y, elements, furniture, gifts, housewares, how-to, inside, materials, resources, stores |
photo: Sally Schneider
Since we’ve been hanging out with our friend Ana, helping her fix up her place in Harlem (more on that soon), we’ve noticed that people in the neighborhood love to hang out on the street. We see men sitting on folding chairs at card tables playing poker, and families on stoops, and there’s alway a crowd around the bike repair place, where a chess game goes on in the midst of the fixing and conferring.
Recently we spotted these makeshift seats: boards cleverly wedged under the fence along Marcus Garvey Park to create a leverage effect and seats with backs. Someone even thought to bring a pillow. It’s the perfect, impromptu way for two friends to hang out on a summer day.
Related posts: new york city’s taxi farmers
makeshift hand splint/sculpture
inspired makeshift: a year of personal fashion
holiday resource: makeshift seating
08.24.11 |
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in community, furniture, outside, reclaim, sightings, strategies |
For a fat, liberating dose of inspiration, check out the long riff on Mondoblogo of chairs Italian Designer Gaetano Pesce painted in the nineties for his kids.
His “Open Sky” chairs are out-there, fun, wild, loose, and awesomely beautiful… read more…
08.24.11 |
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in art, d-i-y, furniture, inside, kids, materials, playing, projects + play, strategies |
