Manolo for the Home

Who’s Jo Meester? He’s a designer from the Netherlands and co-founder of the Meesters & Van der Park Design Studio. I enjoy his work because of its amazing diversity — instead of sticking to one discipline, he moves from one to another with great skill. He explores woodworking before moving on to crochet before taking up a needle to create art from cast off pieces of wool. Not everything is particularly functional, but all of it is fun.

These err on the side of functionality, though the name — Ornamental Inheritance Vessels — speaks to me of urns and ashes. I think I’d set them up somewhere instead of, say, filling them with filberts.

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It doesn’t get much simpler (or cheaper) than the DIY $10 hanging pot rack! I found this easy instructional on Wise Bread ages ago while searching for kitchen storage solutions. We weren’t sure how our landlord would take to us drilling onto the ceiling, so we planned to implement the idea in our home. Now that we have said home, we’ve discovered that our ceilings are just a tad short for hanging kitchen gear without risking black eyes and bumped heads

Materials necessary include:

• 1 piece of 4 foot re-bar
• 1 package of black chair tips
• 1 can of el cheapo black spray paint
• 1 package of eye hooks
• 2 packages of s-hooks
• Spray paint in whatever color you fancy
• A little bit of duct tape

Have you ever used surprising materials to create something fab in your home? Tell us about it in the comments!

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this, but the entire second floor of my home is right now nothing more than an overlarge attic. Nothing lives up there, outside of a spider plant, a succulent, an aloe plant, and some parsley, and they are only segregated from the rest of the house because our cats have a fondness for makeshift salads. This barren wasteland of a level will eventually become a full bath and two rooms for children, which means that between now and then I get to pick out all manner of fanciful things with which to cover floors and walls and windows.

If I remember myself correctly, I would have been ga-ga for solid wood puzzle flooring as a kid. For the grownups out there, it’s easy to install, as the company that produces it sends it to the buyer as a pre-measured kit. According to the site, the polyurethane and aluminum oxide finish is one of the most wear resistant hardwood finishes you’ll find anywhere. Best of all, the wood is sourced from Certified Managed Forests, meaning that the wood used to manufacture each puzzle floor will be replaced by new trees.

Ever wish you could have your own secret lair? I know I have. Conversely, perhaps you’ve often wished you could keep the downtrodden safe in times of great upheaval. I’m no sure that wish has ever been in the forefront of my mind, but it, too, is an interesting thought. Maybe you just hope that a handsome doctor will pop into your life one night to save you from bogeymen?

Creative Home Engineering can make most of those wishes come true. Their luxe choices include a bullet proof vault with pin-hole video bookcase with a fully automated out-swing door or a rotating fireplace that only turns when you pull down on the customized candlesticks, though they do have much more basic options like dressers and plain cabinets. Pretty much anything you’ve seen in the movies can be yours, according to the site.

The thing that really wows me is that you can custom design your switch — want to pull down on a leather-bound library book to activate the whole works? No problem. Would you prefer to have to press down on any number of integrated carvings before your hidden door will open? That shouldn’t be a problem. How cool is that?

Every now and again I regret not registering for wedding gifts, as the ubiquitous wedding registry represents a way to scale up one’s home. However, at our very cores, The Beard and I are “reduce and re-use” kinds of people, meaning that we both agreed it would be entirely silly to ask for plates, glasses, and so forth when our current stock already overflows into boxes stored in the basement. Still, it’s fun to look and to dream and to collect ideas because someday, I’m sure, all of those things we currently don’t need will finally wear out.

Today I’m pretending that we turned a blind eye to our values and created a gift registry at Gump’s of San Francisco. Here are some of the pretty things I’d pick out for my home:

If you’re going to register, you can throw in as many big ticket items as you like provided you have plenty of low- and mid-range gifts on your list. What are some of the beautifully domestic gifts you regret not asking for on birthdays, holidays, and other occasions?

I have a case of the Monday blahs, and the promise of plenty of pretty things to look at was what eventually got me out of bed. As lovely and sunny as it is outside, it’s still hellsa cold. I’m in the process of redecorating my kitchen and it’s beginning to look more and more like the demented altar of a crazed sun worshiper. Hey, I can’t help it if I’m desperate for springtime to get here!

These are just what the doctor ordered, and I love them. The cheery pieces above hail from Villeroy & Boch’s Wonderful World line. I think they’re worth every penny when the wintertime doldrums are threatening to sap my motivation, but whether or not you consider $17 a reasonable price to pay for a bread plate is up to you. If I had my way — and a great deal more money than I do — I’d pair my little Wonderful World collection with something like this:

When I look at this stove, I can’t help doing the Homer Simpson “UGGHHHGHHH” thing.

My mom has a boat — it’s a little boat meant for fishing and cruising around Long Island bays. One can sun oneself on the bow and then slide into the water when the sun’s rays get a smidge too hot. All in all, it’s a seaworthy vessel with few affectations. Even though it has an inner cabin, I wouldn’t want to spend the night. The lack of a commode puts me off.

Given the chance, however, I’d certainly take a yachting holiday…just like Prince Charles and Camilla are doing right about now. On their official tour of the Caribbean, they’re traveling aboard one Sir Donald Gosling’s £50 million “superyacht” Leander. According to the Daily Mail, they’ll have a crew of twenty-four hands, two master bedrooms to choose from, a twenty seat dining room, a pool, a gym, and a helipad for those unexpected drop-in visitors.

But is it nice? Eh, I think the innards of the aforementioned superyacht resemble a hotel rather than a home. A good yacht, in my humble opinion, ought to look stately in a subdued way, and being that a yacht is a traveling vessel, it should be comfortable without being fussy.

The picture quality isn’t fantastic — consider that a warning — but the room seems rather resortish to me. I would have gone with clean lines with plenty of whites and blues…predictable, yes, but I’ve always thought boat interiors deserve to look boatish. What’s the fun in waking up in your superyacht if it just look like any old room?

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I have a friend who grew up in the wilds of New York City and subsequently cannot stand grass. He feels that it is a useless indulgence and far more trouble than it’s worth. I can’t say I agree with him 100%, because there really is nothing as lovely as stepping out barefoot into a nice patch of fresh, springy grass. But now that I have a lawn of my own — a lawn that has grown steadily more sickly looking as winter has dragged on –I have come to appreciate his point.

While sipping iced tea and watching The Beard navigate our property with a push mower is indeed an entertaining diversion, he really ought to be lazing on the porch with yours truly. In thinking about this, I was forced to ask myself why we even have lawns. While I wouldn’t want to give over the entirely of my backyard space to herbs and creepers and flowers, my front yard doesn’t get much foot traffic. Here’s what I discovered:

Do you know where the American suburban obsession with lawn grass and big yards comes from? European royalty. Status. The idea of having a wide open space that you own but do nothing with except grow grass is part of value system that traces its roots to medevil feudalism, the whole concept of the King’s lands.

So what can one plant in lieu of the usual greenstuff? I found some wonderful suggestions at Hot Gardens and elsewhere:

• Ivy
• Chamomile
• Moss
• A hedge maze
• Lantana
• Mint (grown responsibly)
• Ryder or woolly thyme
• Clover
• Dichondra
• Ornamental grasses
• Alpine geranium

If none of these appeal to you, do a search for “treadable ground cover” or “grass alternatives” for even more pretty, easy-to-maintain ideas.

My office is designed to make people think I’m smart and bookish and well-read. That means I have a lot of old, dark furniture meant to be a little intimidating. If I wanted to be really intimidating (while also projecting an uber-nerdy image), I supposed I could have Tom Spina Designs make me up a “Han Solo frozen in carbonite” desk.

I don’t, however, know that I could bear having Harrison Ford’s agonized face looking up at my mouse hand while I, um, play World of Warcraft or watch free episodes of classic Trek.

(thnx, Raincoaster)

I like wood floors. To a lesser extent, I like floors that are practically indistinguishable from wood. I like tile floors a teensy-weensy bit, but not all that much. And I don’t particularly like linoleum at all.

Not that there’s any in my house. The middle floor of my home is all wood except for the shoddily installed vinyl in the kitchen and the shoddily installed tiles in the bathroom. Someday I’m going to call up the previous owners to ask them why they chose to DIY without first learning how to properly DIY. Then I’m going to rip everything up and replace it with some nice wood that matches all of the other flooring. Problem solved.

That said, I’m always open to exploring new flooring ideas, and when I came across Forbo Mamoleum I thought, all right, I’ll have a look. Marmoleum linoleum is all natural, made from linseed oil, wood flour, rosin, jute and limestone, and lined with cork.

Pros:

• It’s easy to install oneself, it’s simple to maintain, and it’s eco-friendly.
• You can design and install your own pattern, so long as your chosen pattern uses primarily cubes and rectangles. Or you can get a custom floor based on a design you create.

Cons:

• The color in the DIY range is sorely limited. There’s black but no white! And they don’t give you much information regarding the fancier design options.
• It still looks like the floor of my elementary school cafeteria because of the swirly pattern of the individual pieces — does it have to be swirly?

Methinks that Forbo is trying to expand its customer base from the commercial to the public arenas. I don’t know how successful they’re going to be. I don’t know about you, but I think that Marmoleum, for all it’s colors and wacky patterns and greenness, just looks too darned industrial.