Landscape Designer Pat Brodie recently sent us pictures of her very cool stacked stone bench inspired by a passing vision:
I was at the stone yard with my client looking at stones for her garden when we saw stones randomly stacked on a pallet and I noticed that it was suggestive of a sofa. We purchased the pallet but of course when we got it to the site we had to reinvent the stacking and came up with this very comfortable seat. It makes me laugh.
We LOVE the massive, primal, very inviting bench (with foot rest!) AND the way it came about.
Brodie also devised a clever seat built into a retaining wall. read more…
Always on the lookout for clever way to divide and define a space, or give the illusion of different areas in an open space, we really like these clever “screens” from Swedish firm Karin Matz Arkitekt. They’re made of made from blue polypropylene string strung tight from floor to ceiling with hardware store fittings: simple, inexpensive materials, carefully thought out. read more…
For the renovation of my 1,000-square-foot ‘Laboratory’ in New York City, my mission was to open up the space to the spectacular park view AND fluidly accomodate an open kitchen, workspace, dining area, and living area. To do this, I removed a small bedroom to dramatically expand the main room and built an office area along one 15′ wall in the big space. The pressing question then became: how to “disappear” or close-off the office so I could “leave” my work? (This is the great dilemma of people who work at home; I learned the hard way that sleeping where you work is NOT a good idea.)
I discussed the problem with Scott McFarlane, an interior designer I consulted with early on in the project. A curtain won’t do”, said Scott. “It’s not substantial enough. You need to close your work off with a WALL, that will really make you feel it’s gone.” He thought for a moment. “I remember seeing a mechanism that was basically flat panels that roll on a track to become a flush wall that would conceal the office. When you rolled them back to reveal the office again, they would “nest” in a specially built nook.”
When we first saw the yellow freehand painted two-tone wall at Style-Files (below), we were of two minds: good idea but something held us back.
Then we came started to come across an iteration Remodelista found at the Norwegian company Lady Premium Paint & Colors blog that made us think it held lots of possibilities. Out-of-the-blue we spotted the freehand-by-brush two-tone painted iPad sleeve (below) at Swiss-Miss. We began to think imagine embellishing all sorts of things with free-hand two-tone paint, like pillows a la Wary Meyers… read more…
Recently we’ve been noodling around with the idea of with making a Murphy Bed with a lift-system of bungee cords. We haven’t heard of such a thing, but having seen the realm of industrial bungees available, thought it might be possible.
Then, with the simultaneity we’ve come to expect when we have an idea, we stumbled on some images of beautiful bungee cord chairs designed by René Herbst, a contemporary of Robert Mallet-Stevens and Le Corbusier, in the 1930′s. They illustrated the part of our idea that had been eluding us: how to make our improvised solution be visually appealing as well as practical, two qualities we strive for in all of our home improvisations (travel and emergencies are another matter): read more…
Just as we posted about the many possibilities for using plywood as a wall covering, we learned of this brilliant play on the idea: moveable MAGNETIC silkscreened tiles made out of plywood. They are the brainchild of Giovanna and Matt Taylor, a couple who had never designed before. Remembering the blue-and-white ceramic tiles of her Italian childhood, Giovanna imagined lightweight wooden tiles with magnetic backing would allow for endless applications and arrangements from wall art, to back splashes to headboards to….The couple started making them in their Brooklyn shop and Moonishco was born. read more…
On Sprinkles and Springs, we came across this diy striped tee inspired by the modish tee-shirt Marc Jacobs recently featured in his chic, stripey collection. It is a great example of I COULD MAKE THAT thinking that has infiltrated many a clever head. Sprinkles and Springs saw it and figured out how using a plain white tee shirt, masking tape and fabric paint. And then she generously posted a how-to that you could use to make Jacobs-ish stripes or your own graphic pattern (the method would also work fine on jeans, slipcovers, pillows, many fabrics…) read more…
Two images spotted on Japanese Trash recently opened our eyes to the possibility of using geometic cuts of plywood veneers as a wall covering. Ah, no, on closer inspection, the fireplace surround above appears to be stone…but it COULD be done with plywood…
Why not?
To get a sense of range of possibilities, we recommend read more…
Recently, a friend mentioned her attempt to paint her wooden kitchen cabinets white using latex paint. Several months after she’d completed them, they’d yellowed and were difficult to clean. We’ve heard that complaint before about latex-painted furniture, and experienced the way it can remain “sticky”, a serious problem with bookshelves. We’d always thought that oil-base paint was the only serious solution. Fortuitously, Jim Dillon, a reader and cabinet maker, had just commented on our ‘the magic of an orange table top + high gloss oil paint‘ post, sharing a water-base solution he’d discovered in his furniture-painting forays.
…it was one of those techniques that I heard about in passing and tried out because it met the needs of the moment – - I had a client who wanted me to build new built-in bookcases and paint them white. Somebody told me this was the solution to books sticking to painted bookcases in August humidity, and it worked too well to not try in other places.
Been carving them since 1980 when our house burned down, and only my studio was saved. All four of us all lived in that one room for a while, and the only art I could make was something small, low tech, and cleanuppable: ink, paper, and stamps. After buying some commercial ones, carving erasers was a natural move, and proved effective therapy for the kids, who spent many hours stabbing away at erasers, and swabbing with colored markers, retelling their stories of the fire illustrated with the stamps. The neighborhood kids all got into the act, too. It was a lively time!
When your house burns down, make art!!!! An amazing point of view. read more…
We thought we were so smart when we thought to blog about the hacks we’d imagined for Ikea’s Löbbo shade, which is basically a sheet of polypropylene that you form into a drum and secure with metal struts; it can be placed on a lamp base or hung from a pendant. It comes in various sizes, but we bought several of the biggest with the idea of using the sheets of polypropylene — which is pretty heat-proof —as a RAW MATERIAL with which to fashion all sorts of shades, using our trusty exacto knife. (We’ve been searching for readily-available shade materials for years.)
First thing we planne was to tailor the Löbbo shade we’ve got on a standing lamp: slice off a 2 or 3 inches from the drum-like shade to give it a more sleek, retro look. Then we’d go to town playing with the remaining sheets of Löbbo polypropylene we have, to fashion some sort of scultpural pendant light, like this one we found at Ouno: read more…
(Video link here.) We’re sometimes leary of the trend of making useful things our of ANYTHING because the object made are often so homely. We find ourselves inspired by French Designer Pierre Lota’s video introduing his video series 1 Object in 1 Minute. His assemblages of coat hangers, paper, and spoons have a strong design sense, and his videos show them to be do-able. What the video’s really do is encourage us to see visually-appealing, useful possibilities for ordinary materials and realize we could, with patience and perhaps some experimenting, do them ourselves.
One of our favorites: a spoon bent into a hook you can rest on a table to keep your handbag off the dirty floor of a restaurant, read more…
Every since we wrote about artist Dieter Roth’s work tables, which he covered with sheets of thick artist’s paper so that they would capture the processes of whatever he was working on, as well as notes and scribblings, we’ve loved the idea and have used it. Recently, we stumbled on a clever iteration: use a swatch of Kraft paper as your surface. Rolls of Kraft paper are cheap (48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper $20!)and great to have on hand for a variety of uses, from drawable gift wrap to instant dining table “cloths” and place settings .
(Video link here.) First we came across Spanish musician Xavi Lozano playing a street barricade like a flute: brilliant!. (He claims he can play just about anything like an instrument)…That led us to Spanish percussionist Jorge Pérez of patáx who uses four women’s thonged bottoms as percussion instruments. Why women’s bums, we wondered? Why read more…
$20!)and great to have on hand for a variety of uses, from drawable gift wrap to 
