Love pillows? Oh boy! Er, unless they’re the most definitely NSFW Japanese love pillows. The love pillows below are not those, however, and are perfectly appropriate for workplace viewing so long as blog browsing isn’t the sort of thing likely to get you sacked. Enjoy!

$24 at Nesta

At Maison de Vacances

£29 at Lush Designs

I found this one here, but I don’t have any clue where it came from originally.

And these pretty pillows came from Living, Etc.

With what seems like a string of blah winters days behind me and who knows how many more blah winter days ahead — since hereabouts, winter can last well into May — I need a little cheering up. Yellow interiors put a smile on my face because they’re like the little bit of sun I can see when I can’t really see the sun. Here’s hoping these awesome yellow interiors, furniture, and accessories give you a lift, too.

Images via: House and Home; Risulinna; Moline; Benita; Supershoppertoo; Jerry Force

The first comes from Mod Podge Rocks:

Amy took a fairly boring end table and spruced it up with a little paint, some scrapbooking paper, and of course, her signature Mod Podge. Directions can be found here for those who have their own boring end tables in need of upcycling.

The second comes from Moneywise Moms:

Gina posted a dresser re-do how-to that looks slightly more advanced than the one above, but seems straightforward enough for the dedicated crafter. I think both are awesome, and super inspiring to people like me who want to spruce up their furniture but are always putting it off.

South London interdisciplinary designer Margarita Lorenzo is my new favorite human being, and it’s all because of her pillows. What’s not to like? Handmade throw pillows that use sustainable fabrics, feature kitschy vintage patterns, and are hand sewn so each is unique are her signature product.

Aren’t they just too adorable? They’re also a wee bit expensive, but those are the prices you tend to see when you’re looking for goods not made in some big, honkin’ factory. Find them at Chocolate Creative, Lorenzo’s shop, or see more on her Flickr page or in her blog.

…or as I prefer to think of them, boys boys boys! All right, not really, but many people see these terms and what comes to mind is men of varying statures as the modern individual is seldom schooled in furniture jargon. To combat ignorance and making shopping that much easier, here’s a guide to tallboys, highboys, and lowboys. I’m thinking perhaps that it will be the first of many posts clearing up misconceptions where furniture and decor are concerned.

A highboy is a tall double chest of drawers marked by a wider base of two levels of drawers and an upper section consisting of three narrower stacks of drawers topped by a series of even small drawers. Known as a best-on-stand or a chest-on-chest, the highboy’s name is derived from a corruption of the French bois (“wood”).

A tallboy is similarly marked by a wider base of a double chest of drawers but is topped with a wardrobe. Highboys are frequently mislabeled at tallboys, which is a shame because it makes these beautiful storage pieces more difficult to find. Tallboys cab be further differentiated by the fact that they may have five, six, or even seven long drawers with only two short ones.

And a lowboy is a small table with one drawer or two rows of drawers, named so as to differentiate it from its loftier cousins, the tallboys and the highboys. Just picture the bottom half of a highboy or tallboy, and you have yourself a right and proper lowboy.

(Photo via 1, 2, 3)

A block of apartments in Chartres, France — a lovely, lovely place — might have looked like any other, were it not for four months of what must have been strenuous painting.

Aren’t they fun? Various areas are done in differing styles so you get a little taste of everything. I sadly don’t know anything about these apartments other than their locale, but more pics can’t be seen here.

Looking for an apartment that’s a little different and have a spare $25 million laying about? Then you’re in luck, because the most expensive apartment in Brooklyn may still be on the market! The apartment was created by David Walentas, father of Dumbo, in an old but rather nice industrial building that he converted into offices and later, into condos. Renamed the ClockTower building, for obvious reasons.

Those being the four gigantic clock faces that adorn the tower, which coincidentally is where the most expensive apartment in Brooklyn is located. That’s right, in addition to a whopping 3,000-square-foot main floor and a 2,300-square-foot second floor, you get a 988-square-foot open loft, high ceilings, and amazing views from 14-foot windows that overlook the Brooklyn Bridge and New York Harbor.

Oh, and you get the joy of always knowing the correct time, so long as you’re good with reading clocks backward!

Note that I do not have a free $25 million laying about, but I’ll happily move into the most expensive apartment in Brooklyn if anyone might be so kind as to donate the fundage. Heck, I think those clocks are so cool that I wouldn’t even mind if they went tick-tick-tick, and that’s saying a lot since I’m rather obsessive about ambient noise.

Note, too, that the buyer of the apartment need not worry about the nightmare of having four terribly big clocks each showing a different time. According to Walentas, the four clocks are electronically synchronized to show exactly the same time. That time being, of course, not rich o’clock, but rather poor o’clock.

With The Beard gone this past week, I finally experienced the horrors of having a walk that desperately needed shoveling and a baby that refused to sleep. Karma must have been on my side, however, because when I finally gave up and decided to leave the baby in her crib (much to everyone’s dismay) a pair of burly teenagers came to the door offering up shovel services in return for a check made out to CASH. Oh, how grateful I was!

To honor all those chilly teens who walk the streets with shovels looking for a little spending money, here are two lovely photos of snow swept houses taken by my friend Qousqous. Perhaps if we all think of how picturesque our homes look when blanketed with snow, the chore of shoveling won’t seem so terrible?

Cute, no? The snow effect works particularly well on cottages and old fashioned rectangular houses with lots of pretty trim around the windows, but no matter what sort of house you have snow can make it look a little cleaner and a little more photogenic… at least until the white stuff gets all slushy and gross.

I did have one question for all my readers who live in snowy climes: Are teenagers with shovels a relatively rare occurrence these days? The pair that saved my tush the other day are the first I’ve seen since moving to the great white north. Mostly we just see construction workers with nothing better to do than roll around with snowblowers overcharging for a driveway blowout.