hard
Ellen Silverman
A couple of weeks ago, we started posting about Lydia Wills’ former studio apartment in New York City; the 600-square-foot space had so much going on, we had to make it a series…
Here’s her renovated kitchen which, when she moved in, was the most generic of New York City apartment galley kitchens (there’s a gratifying “before” after the jump). A few years ago she ripped it out and rethought the original space. The question: How to create a pleasurable, efficient kitchen without moving any walls or spending a fortune?… read more…
07.08.10 |
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in eating, elements, hard, inside, kitchen, lighting, materials, reimagine, solutions |
When we were looking around for affordable knobs for a kitchen cabinet we wanted to use as furniture, we spent quite a bit of time hunting for ones that were the moderne shape we liked, only to discover that the finish was awful: too-shiny, too-brassy, too…cheap looking. Since the knobs we found had great lines and were inexpensive, we decided to try hacking them: we sanded them with fine sand paper to take most of the brassy coating off, and bring them down to the base metal (or was it the other way around?). We liked the roughed-up look even better than what we had in our heads.
We LOVE hacking things, customizing them, “overcoming their limits”, as Scott Burnham writes in his the very interesting pamphlet on hacking, “creating new options on one’s own terms”.
Is there anything that cannot be hacked? As we look around us, we think: It’s pretty much our imagination that limits what we can or cannot hack…
Related post: Kitchen Cabinets as Furniture
06.16.10 |
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in elements, furniture, hard, inside, materials |
Since we first set out on our mission to find good looking clips to make shelving out of boxes, we came across Indie Furniture‘s site. (That’s what happens when you hold an idea in your mind: answers and iterations start to appear). The folks at Indie devised a clamp/joint that can fit different sizes of wood, with instructions for using them. They are so passionate about creating a do-it-yourself shelving system that would allow people to configure their own unique shelving, that they even published a manifesto: read more…
05.17.10 |
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in furniture, hard, inside, materials, plans, resources, solutions, storage, stores |
Pamela Hovland, who is our BEST scout, found this cardboard box shelving system on Etsy. It’s a variation of the clipped-together shelving idea we wrote about earlier. It is to our mind a brilliant use of an ordinary cardboard box (which we’re thinking, could even be painted with rubber paint…) It seems to be the same deal as the other clipped-together systems we’ve found: to get the clips, you’ve got to buy the box. So we’re continuing our call for HELP finding something that will do as a clips to make sturdy shelves out of boxes. read more…
04.21.10 |
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in cheap + great, hard, inside, materials, resources, storage |
Sally Schneider
Vicki Beth Lynn has an eye for jewelry. She’s bought and sold lots of it over the years, especially the work of interesting designers from past and present. She knows dealers and jewelry-makers in Paris and London, and sells regularly to television shows and movies. (She also runs a multi-media production company but that is another story…)
Vicki and I were walking around Manhattan the other day when she stopped and pointed to a huge brass chain lying on the street, securing a bike to a post. “Look, Sal.” she said,”Wouldn’t that make a great necklace?”
And I looked and saw something I’d never have noticed before (but do now, thanks to Vicki): possibilities for jewelry in all sorts of everyday things, even in the street. Translate the look of that bike chain to a wearable version (real bike chains are HEAVY), and you’d have a dramatic and startling necklace…
…there are teachers all around us, sharing what they know…
Related posts: D-I-Y Anni Albers Necklace
More Anni Albers Common-Object Jewelry
Guest Post on Viviana Torun and ‘Seeing What Happens’
Sylvie Corbelin’s Lost/Found Jewelry
01.19.10 |
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in apparel, hard, inspiration, outside, people, sightings |
Albers Foundation
During World War II, when materials were in short supply, textile artist Anni Albers improvised charming, inventive jewelry using simple components usually found in hardware and stationary stores, and five-and-dimes. This dramatic necklace uses inexpensive window chain sold on giant wheels at hardware stores and steel bobbi pins. Seeing her necklace, suddenly these objects become BEAUTIFUL and full of unexpected possibilities; our notions of jewelry change. read more…
09.17.09 |
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in apparel, art, hard, identity, inspiration, materials, people, repurpose |
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 |
I’ve come across a number of posts about furniture made of pallets, those flat rectangles of rough hammered-together wood platforms commonly used to move bundled goods around by a fork lift. This lounge chair by Studiomama is a particularly good one; it has clean lines and looks like it would be comfortable – perfect at a beach house or on a patio. It is made out of two pallets and 50 screws, from an inexpensive, down-loadable plan. It would be great painted, or naturally weathered.
The ever-innovative Studiomama has other well-designed examples of pallet furniture read more…
07.29.09 |
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in furniture, garden, hard, how-to, materials, plans, repurpose |
I was just imagining how my friend Matthew, who is a gifted paper artist, might design a light out of a paper shade and hanging bulb were he given the challenge, when I came across some free, origami-like down-loadable plans on the internet. They are the “gift” of Arash and Kelly, an industrial design studio with a mission “to help to re-connect our global culture”. A video of their Octopus light being made gives a sense that this is really something an anyone might improvise upon.
But even more inspiring and full-of-info is a video of a light for which they don’t give exact plans, but do show the assembly of: plastic leaves with perforations along the edges that “zip” together to make a number of configurations. It made me think: “There’s a great approach to d-i-y lights and shades”: read more…
07.20.09 |
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in hard, how-to, materials, plans, resources, stores, tools |
Ellen Silverman
Although I am not a designer, I decided to try designing a table base myself. Using a ruler and pencil, I made a drawing with the totally cockeyed perspective of an outsider artist (since I don’t really know how to draw) with the exact dimensions. Then I faxed it to a guy I’d heard about at Tringali Ironworks in Boonton, New Jersey. He said he could make my base.
The reason I designed my own table is that I couldn’t find a base I liked or could afford to support a beautiful slab of slate I’d inherited. So I figured: “Maybe I can design one; what have I got to lose?” read more…
07.07.09 |
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in elements, furniture, hard, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, materials, plans, solutions, why not? |
For years, I made short-shrift of concrete block, associating it with the clunky cinderblock-and-pine shelves beloved by frugal college students, or bleak, prison-like garages and homemade tool sheds. I’d pass cheap, strong concrete blocks at construction sites and lumber yards, and wonder what I could do with them. Although I’m crazy about concrete, I seemed to have no imagination for concrete block.
Lately, new visions of concrete block have come my way, and opened my eyes to possibilities. read more…
05.20.09 |
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in elements, furniture, hard, inside, inspiration books + zines, materials, reimagine |
Ellen Silverman
My friend Holton Rower made me a cutting board from a hard wood log called Arbutus that he found on his land in the Pacific NorthWest. He had the board cut by a friend who has a saw mill, then carved “Golly’s Food” into it with a chisel, Golly being my nickname. Holton’s cutting board defies the usual modern thinking about cutting boards that is fearful of any cracks on the theory that they can harbor germs. Holton’s has a knot and a couple of natural cracks in it which is part of it’s beauty; I know this board is from a tree and enjoy that knowledge when I cook, an inspiring piece of REAL in a city kitchen. read more…
03.30.09 |
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in food, free + flea, hard, housewares, how-to, materials, reclaim |
