Manolo for the Home

I love the jutting sink, and you’ll never hear me saying no to extra cabinet space. The half-concealed toilet? I’m not so sure about that–it brings to mind images of airplanes and Greyhound buses. The bowl seems to be lost in space, like the plumber has temporarily set it down there while he prepares a more fitting spot for it in some other part of the lavatory. Plus, I can’t imagine it would be at all convenient when plumbing repairs are in order.

What say you?

I’d happily trade all my family gifted dinnerware and kitchen accouterments for the same pieces as designed by Jonathan Adler if I happened to have the excess dough lying about. Sorry mamman! Sorry dad! My most generous relatives can breathe a collective sigh of relief, however, as it turns out I’m just not solvent enough to replace my kitchenware at this time…no matter how wonderfully beautiful that pitcher is.

Pets come with accessories…there’s just no getting around it. Me and The Beard? We keep cats, and thus we know that the ugliness of the cat pan is legendary. A few enterprising furniture makers have endeavored to help people for whom aesthetics are of utmost importance hide the realities of their cats’ daily lives.

Below you’ll find just a few examples of the many attractive cat pan hideaways out there. Perhaps kitty is craving a little privacy this holiday season?

A few days ago, I wrote about the kitchen stuff you absolutely positively should not buy for the people on your holiday gifting list. But what about the kitchen stuff that is timeless, useful, and will be appreciated for years to come?

All of my other pots (and even some of my pans) have been put into semi-permanent retirement since I got my sweet sweet cast iron skillet. It makes a great pancake and makes wonderful sauces…all without the risk of sticking. Plus, they look fabulous hanging up on the wall if you happen to have a country kitchen thing going on.
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A man I know in Costa Rica lives at the top of a mountain in an open-air home. It’s not nearly as pretty as the picture you see above, being as that it’s made of a scrap wood frame paired with corrugated metal sheets. Nonetheless, I get the feeling that one of these floating beds would fit perfectly in with his charmingly rustic decor. What I’m not to sure about is whether these round, hanging beds are actually comfortable.

The site claims that they’re not only comfy, they’re also healthy.

The floating motion is scientifically designed to reactivate a deep relaxation response in our cellular memory. It will dramatically improve your sleep, or spare moments of relaxation. It is a powerful remedy for the problems of modern living.

Bunker than a bunk bed? I hope not. At $3195 for a queen size bed frame without any bells and whistles, it had better deliver on its promises.

Give an Ikea ISIG to lifestyle guru Matthew Mead and you’ll end up with something lovely. I found his easy-peasy DIY directions through ikea hacker, a blog devoted to finding the most interesting and innovative uses for boring old flat pack furniture.

Go and check it out, then come back and tell me about your most creative furniture hacks. After all, just because something came from Ikea (or the Goodwill or the Dollar Tree) doesn’t mean it has to look like it did!

I’ll admit that a wood stove would look absolutely ridiculous in my house. There’s a reason there’s no fireplace–the living room is properly cottage sized. But at the same time, I do occasionally dream of installing a sweet little wood burning stove somewhere in my abode. The winters north of Boston are shaping up to be just a touch colder than I expected!

Why heat with wood? EPA certified stoves are a lot more efficient than the old school potbellied models that probably come to mind when someone says, “wood burning stove.” The also look a fair bit sleeker, though they are nowhere near as charming. Were I to redo my decor in a less modern style, I could probably incorporate a stove into my living room…and I could probably do it myself, according to this document from Hearth.com.

Am I ready to do something like punch a hole in my house for the purposes of adding more heat? Er, no. If my cozy cottage was a bit more cottage-esque, I’d consider it. For now I’m going to have to stick with my electric space heater for the foreseeable future. ::shiver::

The Beard likes his counter space, and I like my cabinet space. Put us together, and you’re talking about a couple that doesn’t much care for pointless kitchen gadgets. What makes a kitchen gadget pointless? Think about gimmicky tools that only have one function and furthermore have a large countertop footprint. A truly beautiful kitchen is not cluttered up with silly gadgets or time saving devices that are nothing more than a waste of your time.

When the holidays roll around, thousands if not millions of people decide that there’s nothing their loved ones want more than the gadgets they saw in infomercials and on the discount shelves of their local supermarkets. Why this is, I cannot guess. The end result is that people who prefer that their kitchen tools perform multiple tasks have to grin and say things like, “Why, how thoughtful…I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to put it.”

Do yourself a favor and don’t saddle anyone on your holiday gift list with these:

At my house, we make an awesome pizza in this pizza cooker we like to call “an oven.” Fans of dedicated pizza cookers say that they make a better pizza faster, but the only place I could put something this unwieldy happens to be exactly where The Beard rolls out his homemade dough. And I love homemade dough too much to make that sacrifice.
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Cubes have gotten a bad rap, what with so many people working in those ucky tight workspaces commonly known as cubes. This utterly adorable jacquard cube makes it easy to forget that you’re chained to a whole different sort of cube for eight hours each day. You can put your feet up on it after a long stint at the office and then use it as makeshift seating when one too many post-dinner visitors come knocking at your door.

In fact, just keep your feet up. Speak in hushed tones, and whoever is asking to be let in will give up and go away so you can enjoy a little sit down and a big glass of wine in peace.

When The Beard and I moved into our new house, we didn’t exactly have a lot of moolah left over to dedicate to decor. Our apartment was of course nothing like the house, and I’m big into decorating to suit a space. I could have just settled and saved–to some extent I still am–but who wants to live in an uncomfortable habitat? Not me, that’s for sure.

I feel good and work well in spaces that have a nice homey quality to them. Had I just moved each room of the apartment to the corresponding room of the house, I would have gone crazy. Maybe it’s just an obsessive compulsivity that drives me to want everything to be in its rightful place, but I knew that I needed to make my house into my home as quickly as possible.
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