Before the official launch of the blog, I wrote about shopping your home when you need a decor pick-me-up. What do you do, though, when you’ve found all of the perfect new furniture for a certain room in your house or apartment, but you have no clue how to arrange them? When I find myself facing this conundrum, I put scissors to paper.

I could explain myself in my own words, but Seeds of Knowledge wrote it out so succinctly:

1. Measure your room. Draw it to scale on graph paper which you can find at your local discount store. Use a 1/4 in. equal 1 ft. scale. If you can’t figure out how to draw out scale, ask your know-it-all teenage son!

2. Mark anything on your room drawing that will affect the arrangement of the room. Outlets, telephone, cable, light switches, windows, doors that open in, the space between windows, and the height of the window sills are all things that should be measured and noted.

3. This is the fun part! Make scale paper cutouts of your furniture (just like cutting out paper dolls!) Use the cutouts to arrange and rearrange the furniture in your room until you are satisfied with the result.

That’s it — without breaking a sweat, you can be sure your old rooms with their new furniture will look wonderful in their new configuration. Even if you find drawing tedious, it beats asking your friends, significant other, or “know-it-all teenage son” to help you move your couch over and over and over again.

Like KIOSK‘s description says: Germans will tell you that it’s impossible to boil eggs without an egg pricker. Indeed, being that my family is comprised partly of off-the-boat German immigrants, I grew up eating boiled eggs that had been violated with an egg pricker.

The egg pricker, for those not in the know, is a device that supposedly keeps eggs from cracking while they’re doing their little boiling water dance, but I’ve eaten many an smooth-shelled boiled egg since growing up and moving away without the benefit of an egg pricker. I live without it, but you can take away my egg cups when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

I’d wager that something like 90% of my acquaintances and colleagues have never seen an egg pricker, much less used one. Have you? If so, has it positively impacted your egg cooking experiences?

Caravans aren’t just for gypsies, according to a certain Daphne. They can be retreats, guest quarters, studios, sheds, playhouses, and more, provided you have somewhere to store them when they’re not rolling on the open road.

You can even live in a caravan as Daphne did if you’re ready to eschew some of the comforts of home — heat and indoor plumbing come to mind. Apparently, the popularity of traditional caravan living is undergoing a resurgence in the UK.

If you’re in love with the idea of having a house that you can hitch up to your car, there are DIY caravan kits for sale at The New Gypsy Caravan. At around $500 for the double bed model, it’s a rather budget-friendly way to roam if you can turn a blind eye to the inevitable increase in gas expenditures.

Would you give caravan living a go if you had the time and the freedom?

A happiest of holiday to you and yours! If, unlike moi, you have a Christmas tree somewhere in your home, tell us about it. Real or faux? Little or sprawling? Fresh and green or plastic and pink?

Whether you say belen, creche, crib, jeslicky, manger, nacimiento, pesebre, presepio, putz, or szopka, check out Friends of the Creche if you just can’t get enough.

It’s shaping up to be one of those days. You know, one of those days where you forget to put the filter carriage into the coffeemaker and coffee goes absolutely everywhere before the darn thing belches out a never ending wave of coffee grounds? No kidding, this just happened to me and my coffeemaker about fifteen minutes ago, and I’ve been sopping up wet grounds ever since.

Coffeemakers are nice — though truthfully somewhat temperamental when confronted with those of us who wander into the kitchen half asleep. Espresso makers, on the other hand, are utterly grand… especially the simple stove top sort. I can’t live without mine, which I suppose makes it one of those things deserving of their countertop footprint. In fact, when my family gave me a fancy plug-in espresso maker with a milk foamer and timer, I gave it to the Goodwill without ever having used it.

Though I have offered up a variety of different sorts of espresso makers above (click for info, as always) I’d steer anyone looking for last-minute gift ideas to the model in the upper left hand corner. Of course, you could always do what I did and source a well-loved second-hand espresso maker straight from Italy.

Yesterday we got to peek inside Betsy Johnson’s NYC pad. Today it’s time to have a gander inside Saddam Hussein’s mega yacht, the Qaddisat Saddam. This $34 million boat, which now goes by the less disturbing moniker Ocean Breeze, can now be yours! Let’s have a look…

Saddam Hussein’s mega yacht comes equipped with bulletproof glass, a full medical clinic, prayer rooms, weapons storage, gold fixtures, marble, fountains, and more. It also comes equipped with decor straight out of the hotel decorators’ handbook.

Again, this is pretty much the set-up I would have envisioned for Saddam Hussein’s mega yacht if someone had asked me to guess at Saddam’s taste in interiors.

via Radar Online

A hearty thanks to The Manolo for letting me know that Betsey Johnson’s New York apartment was recently estate of the day over at Luxist. Had he not shared this link, I never would have had a chance to see into this Pepto Bismol world that is currently on the market for a cool $3.6 mil.

This is pretty much what I’d imagine Betsy Johnson’s living spaces looking like if you asked me to take a best guess at describing her digs.