Manolo for the Home

I was all set to post about a cute little crafting project that lets you make a ‘please remove your shoes’ sign because, hey, no one wants beach sand or road sand tracked all over their floors. But as I was poking around the Intertubes wondering what else I could include to flesh things out a little, I happened upon a much radder DIY project that is as cool as the other was country-ish.

I won’t say this is an easy DIY Pacman couch project — think woodworking and upholstery shaping, not Mod Podge and a couple of minutes with a cordless drill. But for those with the time, energy, space, and materials money to give it a go, I say try it! Then (whether or not you’re successful) send me a link so I can feature it here, of course.

Vintage pottery is just plain fun. It’s fun to collect. It’s fun to display. And it’s fun to use, because if it’s going to take up space in your home you might at well enjoy it. Plus, as collectibles go, it’s easy to find and inexpensive to buy (especially on eBay). What’s not to like? You can base an entire room around a cool piece of vintage pottery, especially if the piece has great color or lines.

What’s not to like? You can base an entire room around a cool piece of vintage pottery, especially if the piece has great color or lines.

I’m not advocating smoking, but if you’re looking for ashtrays that don’t scream truck stop, vintage is the way to go.

(more…)

Among the many books I received as a gift this Christmas, Wary Meyers’ Tossed & Found by Linda and John Meyers was a definite favorite. The husband and wife team visits places where furniture goes to die and brings that furniture back to life in awesome ways. It’s very. very cool.

So imagine my delight when I discovered that the Meyers have on their web site not only pictures of the spaces they have designed and decorated for others, but also photographs of their own home, which they call “a work in progress.”

Color, color, and more color defines this space — but it’s not overwhelming, balanced as it is by the muted couch and unusual but unobtrusive coffee table. This is just one corner of a living room that is elegant and beautiful, but also obviously made for living. It doesn’t look like a cut-out from a magazine; it looks like someone’s home.

Love the table. Love the chairs. Love the sideboard, exclamation point. Love the wallpaper. And love the way this dining room exists seamlessly between the living room and the kitchen.

And don’t even get me started! This guest room reminds me so much of a childhood spent in the house of a determined art book collector that it’s not even funny. I used to go to sleep surrounded by books upon books in a cozy room with mod furniture and eclectic artwork on the walls. Does this room’s familiarity make me love it more than I might? Just a little, but I like it plenty fine anyway.

Regardless of how you feel about the legitimacy of the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, I think we can all agree that this is a pretty sweet chair.

This take one the iconic Egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 is being produced in a limited run of, you guessed it, just 42 numbered chairs. The design pays homage to the Hitchhikers Guide series with a beautifully rendered hand-finished embroidered exploding earth on the back. The front of the chair features optical white hide with a cowhide seat cushion (which frankly, I could do without, but I suppose one could remove it).

Plastic isn’t just for deck chairs anymore!

Kartell’s Papyrus chair was designed by the Bouroullec brothers as a modern interpretation of an archetypal Antique Rush Chair. The modern Polycarbonate material enables the design to have structure, texture, translucency, and color.

This chair is a progression of both design and technology from the original Classic Lord Yo Chair, through the Dr No Chairs, to this amazing piece. Dr Yes is a one piece molding chair.

The totally unique MYTO chair designed by Konstantin Grcic for PLANK is a cantilever chair manufactured entirely of BASF Ultradur high-speed indoor/outdoor plastic. And it’s recyclable, though why you’d want to toss it is beyond me.

Finally, the Lizz Chair is manufactured in a single piece using a gas blowing mold technique. It has a squared contour, a generous wide seat, and low comfortable backrest. It is extremely stable, shockproof, and scratch resistant, and it can be used outdoors.

Want to class up your camping area or backyard patio? Maybe you live in a dorm and want to get away from the whole neon inflatable chair and beanbag thing.

A nice blow-up Chesterfield might just be what you’re looking for… if you have more money than you know what to do with, that is.

The surprisingly elegant looking Blofield Inflatable Chesterfield Sofa is portable and crafted from the same stuff life rafts are made of. Having five very pointy cats, however, I hesitate to call it truly durable, at least when placed in the home of pet owners. Or people with children.

The same goes for the Blofield Inflatable Chesterfield Armchair, which admittedly also looks quite fancy when viewed from far away.

Still, I’d skip it, considering you could get a serviceable set of living room furniture for the same price.

What’s on the outside doesn’t always correspond to what’s within. This little caravan for rent doesn’t look like much until you open the door and have a peek inside at what turns out to be a surprisingly stylish interior.

Yes, those are the Ikea dog butt coat hooks!

The rental information is below, if you can read it.

I usually go in for nice hotels, unless I’m traveling by myself in a foreign country, in which case I usually like to check out the cheapest option. Usually that’s a hostel calling itself a hotel, and sometimes there’s a pool. Here in the States, my preference is for accommodations in which I don’t have to worry about touching the bedspread for fear of catching a venereal disease. (Seriously, don’t touch hotel bedspreads any more than you have to.)

Now the Madonna Inn on the Central Coast of California… does it fit my criteria? Well the thing is that I can’t figure out if it’s a nice hotel trying to look like a cheesy hotel from the 60s or an actual cheesy hotel from the 60s trying to market itself as a retro kitschy nice hotel!

JUST HEAVEN: “This celestial room is embraced by golden cherubs and kissed in shades of blue to create a little heaven here on earth. An enchanting staircase winds upward into a private viewing tower above the king bed…where gentle rays of sunlight filter through multi-colored glass during the day and soft touches of moonlight linger at night. Graceful French-style furnishings fashion an affectionate ambiance in this heavenly creation for two.”

(more…)

Yellow is a vibrant, energetic color, but it can also be as relaxing as it is invigorating. When combined with scads of languid butterflies in this
hand-painted Chinese storage cabinet and situated in a bedroom or den, this hue becomes very relaxing.

The butterflies themselves are rendered in springtime pastel paints mixed with “tongfen,” or bronze powder, to guarantee a fadeless gleam. Two large doors swing open on “menzhou,” an ancient hinge-less mechanism which allows them to be easily and completely removed, revealing ample interior storage space. The doors are kept securely closed with custom bronze butterfly hardware from which flowerpot handles hang beneath a peach key latch.

In Chinese thought, butterflies represent change, rebirth, and duality. Zhuangzi, a Taoist poet and philosopher, wrote “I once dreamed I was a butterfly fluttering here and there. But did I really dream of the butterfly? Or is the butterfly now dreaming of me?” A thought-provoking question, indeed.

It seems that today, being Memorial Day, is an appropriate day to post about how wartime homes can positively influence the evolution of small and/or affordable housing, at least in terms of interior space utilization. You see, once upon a time in the post-WWII era, the family home tended to be smaller, forcing the people who lived therein to make the most of all available space.

“In the same way that the proud new householders of wartime homes made numerous accommodations and undertook several modifications as a means of coping with the small size of their residences, so too can designers of contemporary affordable housing devise methods of living comfortably in a space no larger than 1,000 square feet,” state [Avi Friedman and Maria Pantalopoulos's in "The Wartime Home as a Paradigm for Today's Affordable Housing Design" (1996)]

I have a personal interest in this sort of thing, because my own home (which measures in at 1,100 square foot) was built just after WWII. While it’s not quite affordable housing, it is on the smallish side, so The Beard and I do what we can to keep our little cottage tidy and clutter free. We do a good job, too, though I can’t say we are quite so thorough as the homeowner in this wartime home case study:

One Affordable Housing Research Project drew the following conclusions from Friedman and Pantelopoulos’ article:

SPACE
There are numerous ways a space can be designed so that it feels more comfortable and inviting. The relationship of rooms whether they are adjacent or removed can interrupt or guide the circulation patterns in a home. The amount of natural light that enters a room is also important. Usually, a space will feel larger when there is a plentiful source of natural light entering the room. Floor space is extremely valuable in today’s compact houses. Built in furniture is an excellent way to maintain maximum floor space, especially in bedrooms where built in furniture eliminates the need for dressers and desks.

STORAGE
Abundant storage is necessary in the design of today’s compact houses. Storage is a key selling point, because families accumulate more and more belongings the longer they live in one home. Therefore, the designer must be receptive to the demands for ample storage when designing a small, compact house (Friedman and Pantelopoulos, 1996, 191). There are many ways unused spaces should be used for storage, such as in the corners of rooms, and areas near the ceiling. Attics and basements are also ideal areas for adequate storage space.

Yes, yes, and yes. Then again, is it just me, or does this all seem like common sense?