So, does anyone feel like giving me a crapload of money? I mean donating DONATING… yeah, that’s the ticket… a crapload of money to, uh, a foundation promoting, er, beauty and culture in, um, my house? Because I need NEED to replicate Jenny B. Allsorts’* creative studio in my own home. For reals

What’s that? No one is raising their hands? Shame, that. I guess I’ll have to wait and try to finagle something almost as keen using the stuff I already have. Oh, and hope that Ms. Allsorts doesn’t come after me for using her photo without asking. It was just too amazing of a space not to show off immediately, and maybe if I pimp her Etsy shop, it’ll make things all right?

*The alias of one Jenny B. Harris, talented children’s book illustrator!

I have a good but casual relationship with many of my neighbors, especially since having a baby. Nothing encourages crossing the street or popping around the fence more readily than a fresh-out-of-the-womb infant! We chat about the weather and gardening and the baby, of course. We wave hello if we are in our cars. We occasionally lend one another implements like wheel barrows, and once, my neighbor Paul even took pity on our snowblower-less butts and plowed our driveway! And yet, there’s a closeness lacking that might be nice to have. If I needed a cup of sugar, I’d drive to the Stop & Shop rather than knock on a neighbor’s door.

With that in mind, I was intrigued by a post over at The Simple Dollar that explained how one could set up a simple neighborhood cooperative.

Household equipment Why not share a lawnmower with your neighbor? How about a snowblower? One great model for this exists in our neighborhood, where one person owns a snowblower and provides fuel for it, but is not in good enough physical shape to operate it. Thus, one of her neighbors actually operates the snowblower, using it to blow the snow out of both driveways (and often doing a large swath of the block’s entire sidewalk as well).

Gardening If two or three neighbors all have gardens, why not specialize the gardens and freely share the produce? This allows one family to focus specifically on a crop or two, making garden maintenance easier for all of the people involved. You can even carry this to the level of canning and/or freezing, agreeing to swap prepared garden products with neighbors.

There are other ideas in the post, though I’m not sure how readily I’d leave my baby with a neighbor or share cooking duties on a weekly basis. I would like to get to know my neighbors, however, as previous to this, I’ve been living in apartments for years and years. This was in the cheapest possible sections of Brooklyn, so there was a lot more wall banging and language barriers than friendly interaction. Now I’m curious to know how well you are acquainted with your neighbors.

Somehow I don’t think one could ever be truly unhappy in this house belonging to someone by the name of Jolante (who, coincidentally, took these photos). A little glum on a rainy day? Sure. But seriously depressed? The only depression that I feel when looking at these interior shots is that caused by my wishing I had the time to make my own home look equally put together.

Oh man, would you dig that sunroom? And that light fixture? And the ottoman thingy with the plants on it? Gorgeous!

Obesity and this unique house designed by Jo Crepain just don’t mix. Built in and around an concrete water tower in Brasschaat, Belgium using mainly glass, steel, and striking fluorescent lighting, there is a lower level in addition to the water tank itself.

Spend a few weeks jogging up and down those stairs, and you’ll (maybe) be slim and trim in no time.

My lawd, the winter is finally over for us here on Massachusetts’ north shore, and amazingly, we haven’t gone from intensely cold weather to intensely hot weather in one go like we do most years! There is actual springtime weather to be enjoyed! That means that on most weekends (and even some weekdays) you’ll find the Never teh Bride family parked out in its little slice of suburbia trying to green it up.

This year, we’ve planted romaine lettuce, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, banana peppers, red and green peppers, cukes, cantaloupe, strawberries, and a blueberry bush. The grass I battled with so valiantly last year remains in a state of unpleasant brownosity for whatever reason, bumming me out. But oh well! The weather is fine, and I’ve got a garden! What more could I possible want?

Oh right, kitschy yard stuff. I’m a big fan of bird baths and bird houses and little stone statues and big letters nailed to the sides of sheds. While all of the flowers in my yard — thanks, previous owner! — do give my property a lovely burst of color every year, they’re gone so quickly that I like to replace them with… what would one call it? Lawn decor? Backyard accessories? You know, things like this:

Like this all-weather Vaca pillow, for example. Made with real Guatemalan bovine feed bags, they’re made to withstand the elements.

(more…)

It’s undeniable that mod textured wallpapers are a lot more interesting than your average floral print wallpaper, but are they better overall? I have to wonder whether all of those surfaces eventually become magnets for grime — I have enough trouble clearing cobwebs from the corners, now I have to dust my walls, too?

Voted Eco-friendly Product of the Year by Interior Design Magazine, SHAN-Shangri La wallpaper is certainly striking. This 3D embossed wall flat is made from bamboo pulp and features an automatic pattern repeat so even klutzes like me can put it up with no problems.

In conclusion, it’s easy to install. It’s green. And it looks damn good. But all those ridges… will they trap as much dirt as I think they will?

As a new mom myself, I feel compelled to remind everyone who reads Manolo for the Home to tell mom that she’s the best. And what better way to do just that than to buy her something beautiful and/or fun?*

Tracy Porter Vivre dinnerware can brighten up mom’s kitchen when you’re not around to brighten it yourself.

Of course mom’s not old! But she may still dig on these vintage magnetic kitchen timers. Everyone can use a little more time!

For (dis)organized moms, the What-Nots Chest of Drawers makes sure there’s a place for everything and mom can put everything in its place.

Nothing says “mom” like bunny slippers — make mom’s feet happy with heated herbal lavender bunny slippers

*Why, yes, I am fishing for gifts. Why do you ask?

I have a love/hate relationship with depictions of human innards, particularly the skull. Hate because I’m a total wuss when it comes to things like horror movies and gore, and love because stylized depictions of skulls tend to end up on my consumer purchases (think shoes, hoodies, artwork) with a surprising frequency. In other words, I am afraid of skulls that look like skulls and enamored with skulls that look like, well, pirate emblems or cartoon monkey heads.

That’s why I’ve fallen hard for this uber cute bed-in-a-bag from Domestications. Sure, it’s still, and yes, it is sold in the section of the shop meant to appeal to a demographic rather far removed from my own, but I don’t care. Some skulls are scary and some skulls… they watch over you in your sleep, bwahahaha!

To complement yesterday’s post on choosing interior paint colors, I thought it might be fun to look at the topic from another angle. Color can do more than influence the feel of a room — it can influence the inhabitants of that room! While I wouldn’t necessarily choose color therapy over regular therapy, hue has both physiological and psychological effects on us.

For a rundown of the impact the colors you surround yourself with have on your life, check out Demesne’s guide to color psychology. Since yesterday’s post specifically mentioned gray (or dark whites, but who’s keeping track) I thought I’d see what the guide had to say.

Grey tends to enhance creativity, which can make it a good color for offices and studios. Grey is also favored as an executive color. As a neutral, grey provides an unobtrusive background for an infinite number of color combinations.

Greys on walls are often very liveable for a long while, provide an flexible neutral background for furnishings, and can be extremely stylish. Greys can be buttoned down and traditional, modern and contemporary, or beach house friendly.

Sounds good to me!

(Image via Paint Chip Diaries)

Texas hottie Jo writes:

I’m planning to paint my bedroom white. It’s got three windows, two on the south side and one on the west side. I live in Texas, so those are bad exposures in terms of heat and light. Right now the bedroom is a cool bluish-green, which is nice, but I’m looking for something more minimalist.

How on earth do I choose a good, cool white for the bedroom? Do you think it’d be okay to keep the trim Behr Ultra Pure White as it is now, or should I go with a tone closer to a greyed-down white? For what it’s worth, the floors are red oak and the ceiling, after I paint it, will be a blue–something like Yolo’s Water 03.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. To give you some idea of how big an idiot I am when it comes to picking colors, I’d originally intended to paint the bedroom peach…..which made it into a blast furnace, visually, before I even got the first wall halfway done.

I can feel your pain, having had a similarly exposed bedroom once upon a time, While I was not in Texas — far from it, in fact — the room in question, for all its window-y goodness, rarely received anything resembling a breeze. In the winter, I baked; in the summer, I broiled, unless I had the AC going around the clock. The good news is that while you can’t change all that much about the way sunlight affects a space thermodynamically, you can change the feel of that space using things like paint and furniture.

Now, first and foremost, cut yourself some slack. Knowing that white isn’t just white puts you one step ahead of many novice home designers! For some context, there are 140 different shades of white in Benjamin Moore’s Off White Collection and hundreds (if not thousands) of whites sold by other paint manufacturers. That said, I’m really digging on the grayish white idea, but for the walls rather than the trim. For what it’s worth, Behr “Ultra Pure White” is one of the cleanest and whitest reasonably-priced white paints out there, and it goes well with a wide range of other whites, so I wouldn’t worry too much about mucking about with the trim unless you’re really keen to paint it.

The benefit of choosing a really, really, reeeeally light gray (or is that quite a dark white?) is that a soft cool neutral can make both the heat and the light entering your space via the windows seem less intense. I know from experience that while an intense stark white can have a cooling effect, it can also ramp up the impact of light, making an otherwise normal bedroom feel like an operating theater or psychiatric cell. And warmer whites? Well, remember what happened with the peach? I get the sweats just thinking about it. As for the YOLO Water.03 on the ceiling, however, I love it!

Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to point you toward a specific color that will solve all of your problems, my ability to browse hues is limited by the vagaries of computer design. What looks on my monitor like the white that will solve all your problems — YOLO Air.05, Benjamin Moore White Heron, and Rodda Paint Co. Mercury come to mind — might very well turn out to be too greenish, too blueish, too dark, or too something else when viewed on your monitor or in person. That said, Colorcharts.org has a paints and stains gallery that lets you check out whites, off-whites, and other paint colors from a bunch of different manufacturers before you ever step foot in a hardware store paint aisle.

Settling on the right white paint, as difficult as it can be, can also be fun. Once you have some whites in mind, contact the manufacturer to find out if they offer either poster-size “chips” or mini-cans. Hang up the poster chips and/or paint largish squares of white on your walls to see how they look in the daytime, the afternoon, the evening hours, and finally, under artificial light at night. It shouldn’t take you long to figure out which whites subdue the intensity of the light streaming into your bedroom while still looking sharp once the sun has gone down and coordinating well with both your red oak floors and your uniquely hued ceiling. The hard part will be choosing between those that satisfy your needs!

(Photo by Andrea_R)