Manolo for the Home

Are furniture designers artists? Is cabinetmaking an art form in an of itself? Jake Cress seems to think so with his whimsical furniture pieces that poke fun at traditional chairs and tables. His creations are made one at a time, very carefully, by one dusty old guy (that’d be Jake Cress) who works by himself in an ancient log cabin.

According to an article in the Roanoke Times, Jake Cress “was inspired to do his funny furniture after being embarrassed by telling a curator in Georgetown that a woman had left her gloves on a table. The gloves were a part of the sculpture, Cress learned.” Whoops!

Of course, Cress’ funny furniture isn’t for those on a budget… and his traditional pieces and refinished antiques don’t come cheaply, either. A box will run you between $100 and $2,400. I’m not saying that his chests and tables and cabinets aren’t worth the lucre — far from it. Rather, in my set, these are the sorts of things we admire from afar instead of buying.

But if you’re flush, the front page of Cress’ web site does say that everything you see is for sale. Then again, it also says that the cabinetmaker will turn into a termite at midnight, so who knows.

And then there’s this:

AAAAGH! For real, someone needs to kill this mouse murdering grandfather clock with fire.

It’s summertime. Unfortunately, here in MA’s north shore, it doesn’t feel anything like summer, and it hasn’t for ages. I have about had it up to here with gray days and rain, and apparently we were even hit with some hail the other day. That’s right, early morning hail in July! On one hand, all the plants in my garden, from the cukes to the tomatoes seem pretty happy and I don’t have to worry about remembering to turn on the sprinkler. On the other hand, weather like this makes me want to do something drastic.

Like shop. And if I’m shopping to drive away a case of the blahs, you know that I am buying something pretty and cheerful and possibly pink and, damn it all, it had better be floral. Cherry blossoms fit the bill beautiful. My bank account may be shrinking rapidly, but at least my sanity is intact!

I’m digging on cherry blossom lamps and cherry blossom sushi sets and cherry blossom art prints, for starters. I’m not sure what I’ll end up with, though the cherry blossom rice paper lamps are pretty tempting. Cherry blossoms just feel like such a breath of fresh air in this horrid weather.

(click on anything above to make your house very cherry)

From the outside, the Ramp House, conceived of by Acrhivirus Architecture and Design, looks like a regular three-story home.

But this home’s pedestrian facade hides an uber cool secret, tucked away in a roof addition.

Architect Athanasia Psaraki was tasked with creating a skatable habitat, and the result is nothing short of amazing. While I’d wager that many of us if given the same task would create beautiful structures featuring ramps and other skateboarder-friendly features, Psaraki integrated common skate park features directly into the design of the Ramp House.

What you end up with is a structure that is almost fully skatable, with enough curves, ramps, and lips to please almost any board fanatic. Psaraki told Environmental Graffiti that “The ramp transitions were made on site by skater friends who had experience skating mini ramps while construction details were drawn after extensive research via the internet and people who might know!”

Very sleek, and indeed very skatable. I wonder if you could ride a BMX in there…

(Images via)

I’ve been feeling kind of ansy in my office as of late, which leads me to believe it is high time for a decor change. Sometimes I can satisfy this urge for change with nothing more than an hour spent moving furniture and objets d’art. This time, however, I think nothing less than a new paint job will suffice. It hit me as I was thumbing through the latest issue of House Beautiful and saw the most alluring color of pink on the walls of one of the homes profiled. (Hint: Paint Style from Benjamin Moore is also a great place to find awesome paint colors.)

Have you ever found that? The perfect color, I mean. That color that just jumps out and sings to you? I was lucky in that I found such a color in the pages of a home decor rag, so all I had to do was read the caption to find out what I was looking at. In the real world, when one sees the perfect color, it is often on a flower or someone’s wall or in a work of art that cannot be easily transported to the nearest wall of paint chips. All is not lost, however, for those willing to drop $299 on the nifty gadget above. The Benjamin Moore Pocket Palette matches colors from, well, almost anything to the closest color in the Benjamin Moore color system. You can scan anything from that gorgeous blood orange in your fruit bowl to your favorite evening gown. Cost aside, how neat is that?

Oh, and that color I mentioned earlier? Razzle Dazzle!

(via and via)

I’ll freely admit to liking family pictures and portraits — my own family portraits, that is. On my living room walls, you’ll find my wedding photo, a picture of my paternal grandparents, posed shots of various family members at significant events, and even a picture of me with my Uncle Antonio in which four-year-old me drew a pirate mustache on the aforementioned uncle using burnt cork.

But really, these images are not very classy and, truth be told, my family pictures are starting to grate on my nerves. As dear as they are to my heart, they simply aren’t as artful or stylish as I’d like them to be.

What I’d really like to see in my home is something like this. Overall, I like the way the blown-up image in black and white pops against the vivid orange palette. And there’s something a little incongruous about the choice of infant portraiture in this modern space, yet the picture of two babies feels right at home.

The best part is that what we have here is an easy weekend DIY project that almost anyone with a little free time, a camera, and a printer or access to a Kinkos can complete. All you need are a few family photos — which you can jazz up with captions or photo effects — and appropriately-sized frames. If your photo printer can handle it, go for the 13″x19″ photo paper, which will create a much more dramatic and striking image than the usual 8″x10″ size. If you aren’t equipped with something like the Epson Artisan 800, you can get your family photos embiggened at your local print shop. Simple and chic!

Studies show that while homeowners aren’t any more or less happy than renters, they experience more negative feelings related to their domiciles. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that female homeowners weigh more than female renters.

Researchers discovered homeowners, on average, outweighed renters by 12 pounds. In addition to excess weight, female homeowners were also carrying around more aggravation, making less time for leisure, and were less likely to spend time with friends.

Apparently the researchers controlled for age, as it would seem logical to assume that homeowners are on average older than renters and people tend to put on weight as they ride the chronology train into the future.

Fat House by Erwin Wurm (2003)

Alas, age has nothing to do with it. Researchers speculate that homeowners spend less time doing things like socializing with friends, walking, and playing sports because they are too busy fixing roofs, installing new wainscoting, and walking the aisles of Home Depot looking for deals on pedestal sinks for that half-bath they plan to install one of these days.

The findings present a chicken-or-the-egg question for social scientists, who are unsure if home ownership causes these patterns or if people prone to less sociability, less interest in leisure activities and higher stress are simply more attracted to owning homes.

Full disclosure: I am a female homeowner. I may be carrying around an extra pound or two, but not necessarily twelve. That said, I walk every day. And I wasn’t all that social to begin with. But this smacks to me of one of those “correlation does not imply causation” situations.

Those of us who inherit bed frames don’t get a lot of choice, obviously. But that doesn’t mean we have to wait until the perfect headboard shows up on Craigslist or in the classifieds in the newspaper. I’ve touched on DIY headboards before, but it struck me that I’ve never written about the ersatz headboard idea I used for quite some time.

The most basic version of the faux headboard is nothing more than a screen, fabric covered or otherwise, tacked up to the wall behind your bed. For years the Beard and I used a Shoji folding screen as a headboard. We didn’t even have to attach it to the wall — it stayed put just wedged between the wall and the bed. If you don’t want to DIY, you can always go with a floral screen and a folding screen with built-in storage, which are great for those who don’t have room for proper sidetables.

If you do want to DIY, however, there is no shortage of headboard how-tos out there. The easiest will have you stapling fabric to a simple wooden frame, while the more difficult ones involve a bit of sewing or actual construction work. Still, even for the novice, this is a fairly easy DIY project and nothing to be afraid of!

Today’s post is a shorty because my grandparents just rolled into town. Just about the only house and home topic on my mind today is how when I glanced at the cover of my latest This Old House magazine, I thought I was looking at House Beautiful.

Did I miss an editorial change? I’m used to seeing hardcore manly power tool reviews and full on tutorials teaching things like how to install a deck or water heater. This past issue, however, was full of cozy storage solutions and cutesy upgrades that involved decorating rather than building (or, my favorite, demolition). Not that I’m complaining, mind. It was just… weird.

Purple is associated with (among other things) royalty, imperialism, nobility, Easter, Mardi Gras, the upper class, poison, friendship, hope, and sympathy — in other words, it evokes feelings that are both light and dark, positive and negative. Perhaps these dichotomies exist because purple can be both intense and gentle. Think byzantium versus wisteria.

I long to see the rest of this building. In case you can’t see it clearly, the window itself matches the shutters. Don’t be afraid to combine purples to see what you come up with. If you need to ease into it, grab some paint chips and play.

A little purple can go a long way, though as La BellaDonna frequently reminds me, more is indeed more. If you can handle a deep, saturated purple, go for it!

Then again, this soft purple makes for a great background for blues and neutrals. It looks like the ceiling, rather than being white or cream, is a very, very light purple. I’m afraid to say all my ceilings are white, but I am fascinated with the thought of colorizing them.

White kitchen? Forget it. If buying all new cabinetry doesn’t fit into your current home improvement budget, you can always paint kitchen cabinets to give your kitchen a makeover. (via)

Finally, purple is potent, which means even a few dashes of it here and there can really jazz up a room. You don’t *have* to commit to purple if you don’t want to!

For our second wedding anniversary — the cotton anniversary — my mother-in-law offered to buy me and The Beard a hammock. With thoughts of backyard lazing in our heads, we said yes. Naturally, our hammock’s arrival corresponded to weeks and weeks of rainy, blah weather that does not make one want to retreat to the outdoors with a mojito in one hand and a good book in the other.

Wikipedia tells me that hammocks were created by native inhabitants of tropical regions for sleeping — presumably because they’re easy to rig up and less toasty than a proper bed — but also notes that the invention of the hammock has been attributed to the Athenian statesman Alcibiades, a student of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Sailors adopted hammocks as the go-to shipboard bed because they maximize the available space, and adventurers followed suit because hammocks are quite portable. Eventually, the hammock became a sort of emblem for a certain type of weekend summertime relaxation that is the purview of individuals with a spot of land to their names.

Hammocks, of course, come in all manner of sizes, shapes, and configurations. My mother-in-law opted to purchase for us one that does not have spreader bars on either end (American style), and instead bought a Brazilian style hammock, which requires the operator lie diagonally across it to keep it open. I’m looking forward to trying it out if the weather ever changes.

In the meantime, I’m shopping for outdoor pillows that won’t get all nasty moldy if they do accidentally get caught in one of the downpours that have so far defined the summer of 2009. Check out some of my faves by clicking on the pics!