Nina Saltman, ‘the improvised life’s construction and building consultant, is really good with her hands, and even better with extensions of her hands—namely, tools. Nina was one of the first women in the country to wear a hardhat. She’s worked her way up from apprentice carpenter to general manager of massive construction projects (see About).…
Read MoreA Streetside Vitrine Dispensing Free Handmade Pottery… and Joy
San Francisco ceramicist Nina Saltman created an inspired riff on the Little Free Libraries that have popped up across the nation. Nina’s Little Pott Shoppe is a tiny outdoor vitrine that offers her handmade cups and bowls for free. It’s a way she can give away “seconds”— work with minor flaws— and bring joy and serendipity to passersby. She never imagined how much her little offerings would affect people.
Read MoreWood Scrap Room Partition Surprise
We recently stumbled on designer Olivier Dollé‘s very compelling room partition. Or that’s what we thought it was until we started wondering why he add the two horizontal pieces at the top and realized… they were LEGS! It’s a table, turned on its side. Eureka!
Read MorePlywood Swirls via Jigsaw Make Surprising Tables and…
We stumbled on this lovely side table at the ever-illuminating Aqqindex. “Paint and parchment side table” was the only info. We instantly envisioned plywood, one of our favorite materials for its possibility and accessibility. You could make a table like this with three rectangles and two flat sides cut with whimsical swirls.
Read MoreStool, Reitveld Chair and Other Plywood DIYs, Via X-ray Vision
An essential practice of improvising is developing x-ray vision: you gradually train your eye, or mind to identify the essential structure of a thing, to understand how it works and how it is made. We learned about plywood construction by scrutinizing some cool simple furniture.
Read Moremimimalist book bar/paperweight (d-i-y or buy)
Recently, Manhattan User’s Guide featured a chic cast iron book bar from Beekman 1802 in a round-up of gifts under $21. It’s designed to hold open the pages of a book, while providing a horizontal guide for reading. It is 7 inches long by 1/4 inch square and weighs 4.4 ounces; with shipping, it costs…
Read Mored-i-y stylish stools made of random wood scraps
Stuart Mason Dambrot, ‘the improvised life’s resident concilientist|futurist has sent us many wonderful ideas since our first syncronous meeting on a New York City street corner. The latest, the work of designer Siren Elise Wilhelmsen, inventor of the Toast Spoons we recently blogged as well as Found, an oddly stylish stool put together from scraps found…
Read Morethe adjacent possible: birds as musical notes…
Nina Saltman sent us an email in response to our post about John Cage: “Regarding the ‘what if’ to music. You must look at this video! Jarbas Agnelli, a Brazilian musician and film director saw these birds on electric wires that reminded him of the music staff, and wrote a song based on their configuration.…
Read Morethe scoop on safe shipping pallets (shipping pallets 101)
Yesterday, a reader alerted us to the possible dangers of wooden shipping pallets, especially found ones that are so great for d-i-y projects. When we read that even new wood pallets could be subject to chemical treatments, we did some research to figure out how we can happily keep making things out of wood pallets,…
Read Morefaux brick concrete block wall
We love Nina Saltman‘s and her husband James Bullock‘s pun of a paint job at their house in San Francisco: faux brick painted on a concrete and block wall! Related post: We’re Back! (Let’s Paint a Wall)
Read Morecool material: rubber paint (+ oscar diaz’ strap bag)
[Photo removed by request of Oscar Diaz. You can check photos out on Design Boom and on Diaz’ website.] The very resourceful designer Oscar Diaz, who once made gorgeous utensils out of plastic bottles, devised a huge shopping tote called “Glueline” made out of a web of ordinary strapping material secured with rubber…
Read Mored-i-y folding screen (thinking out loud in cardboard)
Atlas Industries, who makes gorgeous, furniture-like, fiercely expensive shelving and storage, sent us an announcement of a new product: a folding screen. We are always on the look-out for folding screen options to divide rooms and hide the stuff we don’t want to look at in our small space. The screen costs $2400 and we’d…
Read Mored-i-y: cracking the code of a donald judd table
Recently, 2 or 3 Things I Know posted a picture of this table by the artist Donald Judd; it is miraculous in its simplicity and harmony. I put my face close to the screen to contemplate the structure. It looked to me to be made of big sheets of plywood with an ash or birch veneer: a…
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