Manolo for the Home

I always thought beanbag chairs were kind of stupid. Yes, they’re comfortable when they’re not the really cheap kind from Wal*Mart, but they’re always just a tad too small for the grownup human being. I generally view beanbags as being something you stick in a kid’s room until they’re old enough to know better.

Here’s me, eating my words as I contemplate cozying up to The Beard on this six foot beanbag from Studio OneUp. They still look like something you might blunder into in a stereotypical “mantuary,” but at least they’re big enough for two.

I was all set to write about moon gardens, but it’s already just shy of 11 p.m. and I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. so there goes that idea. A post about moon gardens is forthcoming, and to stimulate your appetite, here’s a description: “Designed to be enjoyed from dusk until the coming of the darkness, these gardens serve as a perfect complement to silvery moonlight, mild summer nights, and the spirit of rejuvenation.” Uh…okay, maybe not. Basically, moon gardens contain a mix of flowers and plants that look badass at night.

Until I muster up the energy to compose a missive about ‘em–look for it on Friday morning–please enjoy some pictures of freaky chairs…like this meat chair, for instance:

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Please don’t confuse this with the five things I can’t live without. It’s totally, totally different! For one thing, I already have some of the things listed below. It’s just that my particular versions aren’t quite as nice. And some of the things are totally impractical, pointless, and even silly!

It is the height of ridiculousness and something I could probably make myself, if necessary. We’ve talked about ceramic cats in the past, but this one is just a tad different. What’s stopping me from snapping it right up is the price tag. The Rosenau Castle cat (part of Nymphenburg’s Big Five porcelain trophy series) costs a cool $929. Ouch.

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Clear and colored plastics don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon if all these house and home rags I read every month are any indication. There are the various Ghost chairs designed by Phillippe Starck, and then there’s the polyhedron Alchemia chairs I mentioned a while back.

Here’s another, again designed by Starck:

The Mademoiselle armchair claims to combine two (or is it four?) aesthetic qualities: “solidity and space, materiality and transparency.” I like the fact that it comes in oodles of different colors and prints.

This is Starck’s chair in what is presumably its natural habitat:

I don’t particularly like the way it looks like it’s hovering in space, a la Dominar Rygel XVI’s floaty chair. Maybe it’s something about the wall the chair is up against, but the legs just seem to disappear. I suppose that’s the “space,” but I’m not feeling the “solidity.”

What with papercraft looking to be the next big thing — you know, now that knitting is mainstream cool again — why not try your hand at something a tad more useful than the average origami swan? Foldschool is a teeny collection of furniture for kids that parents can construct using the cardboard boxen everyone seems to keep stashed in the basement…just in case.

There’s even a manifesto:

Mass culture is run by superficiality and ecological absurdity. Foldschool supports craftsmanship as a face-to-face approach to design and brings together product and user the closest possible. The mindset of foldschool is to restore design to one of its original missions: to provide a product at an affordable price through a smart manufacturing process.

The downloadable patterns can be printed out with any printer, and you may already have the required tools: cutter, ruler, cutting mat, spray adhesive, needle, glue, masking tape, and folding tool. According to the site, the resultant furniture is stable enough to be used by an adult…though the pieces themselves are small, so consider scaling up. I can’t vouch for the scalability of the designs, but it’s worth a shot, right?

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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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?

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)

If you’re into the heavy metal aesthetic, perhaps you’ve dreamed of filling your abode with actual metal. FistFire molds steel, glass, aluminum, and acrylic into unique furniture that to me looks rather Mad Max-esque.

It’s a chair that doubles as giant-sized brass knuckles–perfect for those who are unsure whether their visitors will include people with tired tootsies or a race of giant (and violent) gang members.

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I love to blog hop, moving from one to another by following random blogroll links. It’s fun, it helps me to better understand the roll of my own links section, and I invariably find myself reading something awesome. It may take a few jumps to find those best-of-the-blog-world type sites, but the time I spend sitting at my desk nearly always proves worth it!

To illustrate, it was just yesterday that I happened upon It’s (K)not Wood, a blog celebrating all things “faux bois.” Written by Emilyn Eto and Jonathan Lo, this blog highlights the best in wood that isn’t actually wood.

The latest post introduced me to this faux wood wedge shelving from West Elm.

Neat, yeah? And not what I was expecting at all. If I were to create a blog about fake wood, it would probably be filled with lots of posts dissing the nasty faux wood paneling The Beard and I encountered in so many of the houses we looked at when shopping for somewhere to live. Ugh. You can paint over it in the short term without it looking too bad, but you’ll always know it’s there.

Luckily, faux bois is typically a lot nicer than that. Here are some of my (clickable) favorite things, all done up in white:

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