We love the simple white-on-concrete? stencils designer Paola Navone put in her Greek summer home. They act like rugs, and can be done on wood floors as well. We’ve seen this done before, but not quite so beautifully. read more…
inside
linen flat sheet as stylish bedspread (dust ruffle included)
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…
glossy white tile wall as erasable white board
photo: mikko ryhänen
We love the glossy white wall tiles used as white board at Bar & Co. a bistro-style bar in Helsinki, a great idea for a kitchen wall. We’re suddenly viewing our oversized rectangular bathroom tiles in a new way: message boards (with the possibility for leaving little wash-off-able notes in a normally scriptless room). read more…
copper pipe lust: inspirations from a chic dutch barber shop
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…
kitchen-testing chilewich floor mats
Chilewich is a brand of chic, minimalist woven polypropalene floor mat that is a staple in design magazines. You’d think the material from which they’re made – woven polypropyline – would be available in off-brands, but we haven’t found any in our searches. (We did, however, find a number of seller’s on Ebay who sell seconds or discontinued styles; Chilewich mats aren’t cheap.) We’ve been thinking of possibly using a Chilewich floor mat for the kitchen whose painted plywood floors take a lot of wear and tear. So we ordered some samples from Chilewich’s site.
From having cooked seriously and sometimes wildly-with-a-number-of-cooks-at-once, we know about all the bits of food that can end up ground into the kitchen floor, from scraps of fat from trimmed meat to fruit peels. We worried that all this stuff would mash into the weave and make for more work than we want. So we decided to do a test to see if the Chilewich would really clean easily despite our abuse. read more…
faye toogood’s intentional unfinished hole in the wall
photo: dezeen
After our friend Lisa Morphew took a shovel and demolished the wall separating our living room and bedroom of our soon-to-be-renovated space, we sent a photo of the newly-opened room to our friend Tom Fallon, an interior designer whose given us lots of great ideas over the years. He emailed back: It’s great. Why not keep it the way it is?
Well, we thought, the idea IS great, but practically speaking, we just wouldn’t be able to do all the things we needed to do in that space. We ended up demolishing the entire wall to open up the room, and finishing the walls in the usual manner i.e. sheetrocking and painting (all except one, that moves, but that’s another story).
Recently, we saw a wonderful iteration of Tom’s idea from designer Faye Toogood who cut a wall between rooms read more…
how to demolish a sheetrock wall with a shovel (++++++ other life lessons)
In the process of planning our Laboratory’s renovation, we called on a number of friends for advice: designers, artists, and people who just had plain good sense of one kind or another. When I told artist friend Lisa Morphew of the prices some of the contractors we’d spoken to were quoting us she said: “Honey, what you want to do isn’t rocket science. It shouldn’t cost so much.” Lisa, who had worked construction and transformed a wreck of a house in North Carolina into a wondrous space, proceeded to give us a lesson in how our place was made.
Pointing to the sheetrock wall that bisected the living rooms and second bedroom which we were dying to take down, she said “I could take that down with a shovel if you have one. I’ll show you how easy it is, and you’ll understand how it’s made”. A shovel?!! We didn’t have a shovel on hand so we went around to the hardware store and bought one then and there. We weren’t going to miss the chance to see that wall come down.
Lisa, and a friend, proceeded to demolish the wall in less than half an hour. read more…
‘games we play’ + a design game to play in your head
(Video link here.) This video about the private little games people (especially kids) play in their heads reminded me of one I’ve been playing for years.
When I walk by a really tacky store–say, of clothes or furniture–I look at the display and imagine, if I absolutely had to, how or what would I choose and alter and arrange to make it appear somehow stylish. For example, when I’m in the garment district passing store windows with cheesey nylon evening gowns, I imagine which I would pick if I had to wear it to some occasion, and what would I do to make it work. It’s my own private design challenge.
It’s made for endless hours of secret design fantasy and problem solving while walking around the city.
What private little games do you play in your head?
via Kottke
ever wonder what an orange floor would look like?
One of the big surprises in our renovation of ‘the improvised life’s laboratory was the floor. When we took up the funky carpeting, we didn’t find the concrete we expected but a soft gypsum compound that couldn’t be hardened. We had no budget for a floor so we started to look around at possibilities. We entertained the idea of linoleum, which we love, but found even it was too pricey and labor intensive (it needs sealing periodically). Still, we found ourselves fantasizing about an orange linoleum floor. We weren’t quite able to imagine it.
Well, long after the fact, we found a picture of what such a floor would look like. read more…
nihalani’s geometric tape illusions: home decor idea?
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…
why a guy dressed as a slab of bacon is inspiring
Curiously, this man in a bacon costume inspires us. He epitomizes the out-of-the-box, sometimes silly, sometimes outrageous, sometimes-even-embarassing creative thinking that we love so much. We could view this man as a fool or brilliant, and realize sometimes they are the same thing.
via Retronaut
Related posts: why not half a mustache?xwhat helps you see things differently?
powerful words: devise, invent, create, change…
‘the tutu project’ explores identity, change and love
howard rheingold: on becoming (“life…forks every day, in every moment”)our lives, in brief (secrets, 6-word memoirs, even obits)
dig this swell red brick floor (like alexander calder’s)
This lovely brick floor spotted at Style Files reminded us of the floor Alexander Calder installed in the huge windowed studio he added on to his Connecticut farmhouse. It eventually became his living room, with a giant hearth, and huge table for his friends to gather around. We visited once and remember looking down at that floor in surprise. It was made of the most ordinary of materials – sans morter or cement. read more…
annals of bad design: mirrored credenza?
Having installed quite a few mirrors into ‘the improvised life’s’ new laboratory, we’ve witnessed first-hand how quickly they show fingerprints and smudges, along with a streaky glare acquired a week or so after being cleaned. We’ve also been experiencing how much “shows” on or white high gloss doors and walls – and they don’t come close to mirror-like.
So we took one look at Mikiya Kobayashi‘s mirrored Lacus credenza and thought: Are you CRAZY?!!! read more…
color inspiration: pink, acid yellow + a blue geometry
We always have our eyes for ideas we could use at home, office, spaces we need to support us and lift our spirits. The right color can do that. Since we’re not being entirely comfortable picking colors on our own, we look to ways other people have done it for inspiration and guidance.
First we came across this deep pink wall…then we got this blast of acid yellow in Morocco. read more…
plydesign: an essential guide to diy plywood projects
As we’ve mentioned, ‘the improvised life’s laboratory is something of an homage to plywood. We’ve used it for many things, from window sills to cabinets to floors. We love the stuff, and are constantly hatching plots in our head for furniture, housewares, endless inventions. So we are smitten with carpenter and author Philip Schmidt new book PlyDesign
Each project includes photographs, designs and lists of tools you’ll need. One of our favorites: Barnaby Gunning‘s 8 x 2 tables: read more…
