materials
photo: sally schneider
While walking in the woods upstate last week, we came across this ad hoc bench positioned across from a massive, ancient tree. The bench had been forged out of the forest’s own materials, without nails. We love the asymmetry of the stump pillar on one side, and the pile of flat rocks on the other, supporting a thick slab of sawn wood, bark intact. The bench was completely stable and comfortable, and the wood slab ample enough to lie down on, to look UP into the mighty tree. read more…
10.25.12 |
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in copy this!, d-i-y, diy, furniture, materials, nature, outside, resources |
photo: courtesy of tillett and rauscher inc
We were instantly smitten with this kitchen, for its spareness and simplicity (on the upper East side of Manhattan no less), but especially for the marble slab table with a rough, unfinished edge. Such a simple detail to leave undone, yet the effect is bold and surprising. It could be done with any stone surface.
It is the vision of D.D. and Leslie Tillett, influential post-war textile designers whose townhouse on the Upper East side of Manhattan served both as family space and workspace for the textile design and printing. They are the subject of a retrospective that has just opened at the Museum of the City of New York. “D.D. liked surfaces to have broken edges. She had a ‘Wabi-sabi’ aesthetic,” says her son Seth in a recent New York Magazine interview.
We’re going to run over and see it as the house appears to be full of adventurous design ideas. In addition to rough-edged table tops… read more…
10.24.12 |
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in cool spaces, copy this!, floors, furniture, hard, inside, materials, paths + processes, people, textiles, why not? |
photo: sally schneider
After we set up our office’s wonderful 15-foot desktop, we were dismayed to see the ugly cords dangling underneath – power strip, hard drive plugs, usb hub etc. Because of where our electrical outlets are placed, and the fact that we need to be able to access the various cords, we couldn’t simply hide the cords behind the file cabinets. We cast about for a solution, first propping a white-painted plywood scrap leftover from the renovation against the wires. read more…
10.23.12 |
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in before + after, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, inside, laboratory, materials, resources, solutions |
photo: hellosandwich
Every since it burst on the scene, we’ve been in love with washi tape masking tape, using it for all sorts of decorative purposes, from wrapping gifts to tacking images or making signs on walls; we’ve posted about it a number of times. Then, over a year ago, we stumbled on a post about washi tape wallpaper, wide rolls of washi tape you could apply to your walls, and repositioned like masking tape, only these are really wide swaths of color. Darned if it wasn’t available, just like a lot of the great design ideas we find, so we didn’t post it.
Until today, that is. read more…
10.11.12 |
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in elements, inside, materials, resources, stores, walls + windows |
We love checking in to Cabin Porn a site which provides “inspiration for your quiet place somewhere”, which right now, is in our heads.
Recently, we became smitten with this hut overlooking Lake Bonney in the southeast of South Australia. All we know is that “it was built over 5 years with salvaged materials”; no other details were given. So we looked close at what those salvaged materials might be: we saw corrugated aluminum, windows, concrete blocks, reclaimed timber, a door, some sort of thin modern glass, driftwood…
Inspired, inspiring. A place to think…
Related posts: house tour: laura handler’s montana log cabin
cabin porn fave of the day: garden cottage, netherlands
‘tiny homes: simple shelter’
favorite escapist blog: cabin porn
the unexpected stylishness of walls of stacked logs
10.10.12 |
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in buildings, dream houses, inspiration blogs + sites, materials, outside, reimagine, repurpose |
photo: city-furniture
Le Cabanon by Le Corbusier – Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
Being weak (but learning) in the interior color department, we’ve loved Flavorwire’s recent round-up of the Surprisingly Colorful Homes of 10 Famous Architects. Although we’ve actually been inside Le Corbusier’s Le Cabanon in the south of France, we hadn’t quite realized just how much color he’d incorporated into his largely plywood interior. The slideshow covers a lot of territory, including the fabulous use of pink Luis Barragán made at Casa Barragán in Mexico City, the wonderful seemingly impromptu way Ray Kappe placed painting right next to the bed at his house in Los Angeles, and Albert Frey’s cool use of a corrugated metal ceiling in his house inPalm Springs. We especially love Finn Juhl’s understated home in Ordrup, Denmark. read more…
10.09.12 |
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in cool spaces, elements, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, materials, people, solutions |
A perfect impromtu side table, made from worn stacked boxes, each worn in a unique way as to contribute to a striped, graphical design. This is the kind of thing that salvage places are perfect for…
via Japanese Trash
Related posts: d-i-y vintage-box furniture (and obsession)
dreaming of a rietveld crate desk
cardboard, crates + chairs as building materials
led-illuminated shipping pallet bed
alt bookcases: stacks on stands
10.08.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, hard, inside, materials, resources |
photo: nadim kamel
We were knocked out by the insanely colorful streetscape made by a Lebanese team of artists/designers, known as dihzahyners, in Beirut.
We imagined how the the worst and bleakest urban neighborhoods we’ve traveled through would be TRANSFORMED by color. All it takes is paint, vision, collective effort: read more…
10.04.12 |
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in art, celebrations, community, d-i-y, materials, outside, paths + processes, projects + play, sightings, video |
These balloons bearing the message “Sorry I am such an asshole” are meant as a slightly humorous and generous apology. They made us think of how great it would be to be able to buy balloons with all sorts of messages beyond, “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations!” or “Get well,” like: read more…
10.01.12 |
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in celebrations, entertaining, materials, quotes, signs, stores |
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…
09.27.12 |
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in copy this!, d-i-y, housewares, inside, materials, resources, sleeping, soft |
Since our every early post Concrete Block Love, about a table base Marcel Breuer had designed of concrete blocks, we’ve posted quite a few posts about concrete blocks and what you can do with them. We LOVE them because they are so mundane with so much potential to be stylish.
The other day we discovered a fantasy concrete block made out of a big Lego mold. By fantasy we mean they aren’t readily available for sale, though the should be (apparently, they are one or two sources online that will custom make them).
They’re stackable (up to a point) and wonderful looking, the perfect combo-platter: concrete block and Lego. Having a good amount of inteior channeling, we imagine they’d be better than common concrete blocks. read more…
09.26.12 |
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in materials |
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…
09.25.12 |
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in elements, floors, inside, kitchen, materials, resources |
