Can it really be seven years since I made over my garage sale office chair?
Well, times have changed, and for the better. The office chair is now officially the craft room chair. It is now covered in Echino fabric, instead of an old t-shirt. And now the lone tiger has retired, bowing out to a big, busy group of animals and insects.
BEFORE:
"The home does not have to be planned out in detail, just put together by pieces its inhabitants love."Google's all dressed up today, to celebrate the125th birthday of Josef Frank, an Austrian/Swedish architect and designer of furniture and textiles.
- Josef Frank (via ScandinavianDesign.com)
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| Google homepage on July 15, 2010 |
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| "Brazil" pattern on the walls (1943-45) |
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| "Terrazzo" Fabric (1944) |
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| "Green Birds" fabric (1944) |
Josef Frank's, life could be wonderfully characterized as on always in motion. Moving with ease from architecture and furniture design to glassware, lighting and metalwork--his was an eclecticism fueled by curiosity. and nothing captures this roaming imagination better than his textiles...celebratory and vibrant, they redefined Swedish modernism.Read more about Joseph Frank on Huffington Post and Hoo-Hoo House - and see some more images on Apartment Therapy, Bonluxat and Swedish site Svenskttenn, as well as Google Images. Read more...
This shelf made from old National Geographic magazines is just brilliant.
Doesn't everyone have a huge stack of old issues collecting dust in their basements?
Totally digging the "This & That" feature on Oh Joy!, where Joy pairs a fashion piece with a matching item of decor.
I really like how Joy takes note of the small details in life, and celebrates them.
I love discovering connections between things, and seeing how seemingly random elements are related - whether or not this is intentional. What's more, the act of placing objects side-by-side, like Joy does, really makes them act as a foils to one another, highlighting their best qualities. In the same way that the people closest to you - friends, family, loves - pull out the best in you.
Check out more pairings tagged with "This & That" on the Oh Joy! blog.
Here's a quick DIY tip for making your livingroom more interesting.
Build a fort.
All you need are a few couch pillows, chairs, blankets...
Amir Fallah (who's the co-founder and Creative Director of the magazine Beautiful/Decay) has taken an excellent series of photos of livingroom forts - which he helped build.
The Fort series consist of collaborative forts created with male friends in their home. Each fort was built in under two hours. All materials for the forts were found on location and no aspect of the fort was preplanned.
And to talk more about designer homes - or rather designers' homes (thank you, apostrophe) in the sense of "homes that designers live in"...
Apartment Therapy San Francisco posted a look into the utterly lovely home of mutli-talented Jill Pilotte - illustrator, floral designer and small business owner.
I love the colour palette: white, green (mmm, i always love the green!), light and medium wood (yes, I know "wood" is not officially a "colour"), a little charcoal, and some punches of deep orange.
I also love the fuzzy felted plant pot holders she has all over the place!
And most of all, heavens to betsy, that work area. Check out that rainbowdelic selection of threads! And the cute paint detailing on the wall behind that! Way to live, girl.
Go here for more photos.
I've said it before, but I adore Design Sponge's sneak peeks into artists' homes. If the houses on all those renovation reality shows were like this... well, I guess I'd end up watching a lot more TV, but it'd be much more inspiring. (HGTV and TLC, are you listening?)
Here are a few of my recent faves:
Alyson Fox's home (here are her drawings): I love the wood/red/white/charcoal colour palette.
Amy Ruppel (here's her artwork): really nice work space and burst of artwork on the wall. The deer head and antlers creep me out a little.
Oijoy's home (here's her photography): wow, where did they get that crazyamazing cabinet? (But again with the dead animal parts on the walls... Hmm.)
Three Potato Four (here's their shop): awesome kids' area; makes me want to bust out the crayons and a huge roll of brown paper.
Trish Grantham's home (here are her paintings): love the explosion of small artworks, the retro furniture against that wall colour... and that's a darn sweet typewriter, too!
Sneak a peek at all Design Sponge's sneak peeks here.
Through a series of links, I quasi-randomly came across this photo of flickr user Liquid Stereo's living room. It was so awesome, I had to share. Shiny shiny floors, huge huge windows, fun fun colour accents... I never even thought of moving to Minnesota till now... ;)
What to do with that old office chair?
M. Patrizio has the answer. Check out her awesome recycled office chair transformation.
Here's a picture of the new chair in context. Much prettier than an office chair!
I am in love with these chairs that are on display at Orla Kiely’s flagship store in London. And the things that are available at the online store! Gah. I'm on the verge of pining away to virtually nothing. [via]
These days I'm really into Design*Sponge's sneak peeks into the homes of artists and designers.
I love it because you get to see how these creative people choose to surround themselves. How do their environments match up with the work they create? Does the place you live in inspire what you create, or vice versa? Or both?
Plus, it's better than walking around the neighbourhood in the evening, staring into people's windows! (Ha! I'm kidding. Ok, I'm not. Ok, I am. Not. Um.)
One of my faves is Alyson Fox's home. (Here's her home and her artwork.)
It was hard to choose from all the homes, but among my faves were Lisa Congdon's place (here's her site) - I love the greens, oranges and white colour combo - and Sarajo Frieden's beautiful tree mural (and here's her site).
This is great inspiration for how to live. Down with bland homes!
Explore all the D*S sneak peeks here.
Ding ding ding!
It's time for another round of Aww vs Awe!
In the first corner, we have a new contender for Aww: upholstered tree stumps by Madelon Galland. Making the city a prettier place, one dead tree at a time. (You can learn how to upholster your own tree stumps right here.)
And the challenger for Team Awe: stacked chairs by Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo. This is why musical chairs and Jenga do not mix.
Who will win Round 2 of Aww vs Awe?
Will cuteness prevail? Or will astonishment continue its reign?
Vote now in the comments section below!
(Related: Aww vs Awe, Round 1.)
There are some pretty, pretty things at Urban Outfitters...
And then there are rugs! And lamps!
Oh, and at Target, there are some beautiful casserole dishes.
Following up on the last post, I came across another company making bookshelves from books. The Curiosity Shoppe is offering some really cute bookshelves made by Little Fish Furniture. They have a great selection of titles, including The Great American Chewing Gum Book, Superachievers, Mind Drugs, Let's Start Praying Again and Love, Remember Me. I think the book you chose would affect what you'd consider storing on the shelf.
You know it's bad when you're at the door, waiting for the Ikea delivery person to climb the stairs to your apartment, and you look around your living room and suddenly think, "Oh my god, there's too much Ikea in this room. This is just embarassing. What can I hide from the Ikea guy?" Seriously, I did this. However I did manage to resist the urge to throw the coffee table, bookshelf, carpet, curtains, plant pot or plant (dear god) into the other room.
This behaviour is similar to the fact that, on occasion, I've avoided going into a particular clothing store beause I'm wearing something from that store. What is that? It's like I don't want the store employees to assume that I'll buy the clothes there. Or that I like their clothes too much? That I only shop there? Who knows. Am I the only person who does this?
Anyway, back to the story. The story is: I have a new couch. I assembled it myself. That was fun - and surprisingly easy, too, for such a big (and plush) item. The NON-fun part was that Ikea initially "forgot" to deliver some key parts of the couch - you know, stuff like arms and legs - and it took them just over 3 weeks, a kazillion phone calls, and even more broken promises on their part to get it all sorted out. The whole experience was maddening: don't tell me you're going to call, and then not call! And then deny you said you'd call! Yeesh. But now (after much gnashing of teeth) I have a couch, and it's great. And comfy. Which is great, too.
Anyway, if you love Ikea too much, or if you hate it, or if you hate to love it, or love to hate it (I think I qualify for all four categories right now!), check out Ikea Hacker. This blog shows how people have decorated, improved or otherwise altered their Ikea purchases. Everything from turning a potholder into pin-hole camera to using baskets for lampshades to using the assembly instructions as a colouring book (presumably after you've used it to figure out where all the screws go). Get inpired and submit your own ideas. But my couch is staying as is, thank you very much.
iBride (pronounced like "hybrid" in French) is really taking table legs seriously. They make tables with animal legs - ostrich counters, sheep tables, dog stools, and more. Funny.
(Link via mocoloco.)
For those who like post-it notes, I present a find: the post-it note table. This one seems a little extreme (huge post-its, yellow-and-black colour combination, hyperactive website), but not a bad idea.
On another note, did you know that there are courses out there for models on how to look/be more photogenic? Makes sense, I suppose. Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, you can get a few tips for yourself: 5 steps to being more photogenic. (I think that crazy clown was a bad choice as an illustration of successful photogeneticness, but some of the tips are interesting.)
My second wood painting project in as many weeks is finished! (Here's last week's.) I was originally thinking of painting a pattern on the table, but after much deliberation I decided against it. Too many ideas - and not one that stood out as "Yes! That's an image I want to see everyday!" (Also the reason why I'll probably never get tattooed.)
It super easy and fast, considering there are three coats of varnish on top of the stain. I'm happy with the stain colour - Varathane in "Traditional Pecan" - not to be confused with that "Punk Pecan". It had to be dark enough to cover the curry and turmeric stains that were impossible to wash off the table.
I think I've painted eveything wooden in the house now. I should stop. (For now.)
Before...
...and after!
It looks like a happy table, don't you think?
In the few of weeks between roommates, I'm taking advantage of the temporarily-extra, now-empty room by using it as a painting room. Here's the mini-reno I did on an old chair (but new to me!) that I bought at Sally Ann this summer. Just a little stripping, painting, varnishing, glueing of maverick feet caps, and screwing in of one wobbly arm. Before, during and after...
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