Because some students in Le Havre, France are living the stacked life in sweet housing designed by Cattani Architects. Named Cité a Docks, it is made up of 100 dorm suites created using old shipping containers. Each studio has a bed and study area, bathroom, kitchen, and free Wifi.

The architect Cattani said of the thoughts that accompanied her work: “How do I prevent students, prospective tenants, they feel put in the box? Compelling needs have arisen. Necessary to conceive of a lightweight, transparent, and certainly not solid. Hence the idea of independent living, to avoid the stacking effect.”

Stacked shipping containers translate into furnished dorm suits that are about 24 square square meters, and every unit has a large glass wall that lets in a lot of natural light (not to mention a water view). The first floor is raised off the ground, allowing for both privacy and bike storage, and to minimize the boxed feeling one might get, the shipping containers are staggered and separated from one another by sound-proofing of rubber and concrete.

I love the idea of shipping containers as student housing – I mean, these units are a lot bigger than the dorm rooms I had back in the day, and add to that the luxury of a kitchen, a private bath, a balcony, and a great view? I’m sold!

Images via Cattini Architects

In keeping with yesterday’s tufted furniture theme, may I present Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair and stool? Originally created to furnish his German Pavilion at the 1929 International Exhibition in Barcelona, these beautiful leather and chrome pieces are as gorgeous now as they were bakc in the day.

Apparently, Mies van der Rohe designed the chair to serve as seating for the king and queen of Spain, while the stool was intended to accommodate their attendants. But non-royals coveted them from the get go. The Barcelona chair and stool are still produced to Mies van der Rohe’s original specs, and can be found at Design Within Reach (though I wouldn’t say they’re within *my* reach at $4,523 for the basic chair, just the chair).

Want to know more? Check out Fifty Chairs that Changed the World by Design Museum, which takes a close look at some of the most influential chair design from the past and the present.

Tufted furniture is undeniably awesome – a few well-placed tufts can turn what would be a blah headboard or bench or couch into something really visually appealing. A wee bit harder to vacuum? Well, sure, but not all that much more difficult to keep clean. The bad news is that tufting can come at a premium – the good news is that I found a great tutorial at Apartment Therapy that will have you diamond tufting in no time at all. Until you get the hang of it, though, here’s some sweet tufted inspiration to stimulate your aesthetic appetite!

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Once upon a time, my favorite holiday decorations might have looked something like these:

No kidding, a white Christmas tree and a light-up doily wreath, along with a whole lot of gold fruit and pink balls. When I was a pre-teen, I was just that Long Island.

Nowadays, though, my favorite favorite favorite Christmas decorations are those at other people’s houses, preferably behind baby gates or otherwise inaccessible to small children. Of course, if someone wanted to come to my house in advance of Christmas, set everything up, and then return around new years to set all the Christmas decorations up, I wouldn’t say no. Even if it meant a pink tree.

Think you can’t take your living situation to the bare minimum because you’re X or you’ve got Y or it would never work out because of Z? Maybe you’re right, but two stories I read recently suggested that you might just be wrong.

In the first, a couple abandons their condo (along with many elements of their modern lifestyle) to build a home in rural Iowa entirely without debt. With $7,000 and the help of friends and family, Hap and Lin Mullenneaux built a tiny cob house along with an open shed, summer kitchen, and a straw bale house. For water, they collect and filter rain. For heat, they use a small wood stove. And to power a laptop, modem, light, and fan, they have a wee photovoltaic system. Simple stuff, except when consider that they designer and manufactured everything themselves after taking a workshop!

In the second, two adults and two kids aaaand two cats lived for six years in a itty-itty camper and tiny tepee to save money and use fewer resources. It was much less luxurious than cob house living, with outdoor showers, water hauled from springs, human waste composting, and freezing winters. But you know what? They survived and enjoyed themselves, and while they’re in a house now, they seem to miss scaled down living as they practiced it.

There’s a song that says “love grows best in little houses” and my guess is that both families profiled above would be inclined to agree. I might agree, too, so long as you let me append the statement with something like “when the kids are grown up and there are no teenagers around.”

Your entryway – if you have one – sets the tone for your home. We have two points of entry, the front door that enters directly into the living room and the side door that dumps you into the kitchen via something we switch between calling a mudroom, a foyer, and an entryway. The front door is a lost cause, since there’s no room for, well, anything and coats and shoes get stuffed into the closet. The side door area is a bit more spacious but our mudroomfoyerentryway is tiny, so no cute benches or coat racks.

This post is for all of you out there who either have a real entryway or just dream of having one – like me! Why should a simply entryway get so much priority when it comes to decorating? Consider that it’s the first and last place anyone visiting your home will so. And while you may not sit and relax in it, you do spend a lot of time there, donning shoes, finding the right coat, and getting ready for your day. It can be a very important and useful space if you let it. How about adding: A mirror to give yourself one last look over before heading out to your meeting? A bench to make taking off muddy boots easier? Bins for shoes? Hooks for purses, backpacks, and coats in the wintertime? A bowl on a table for your keys and other pocket sundries?

Basically, think not of how you’re using your entryway, but how you’d LIKE to be using your entryway, and then decorate and accessorize accordingly.* Here’s some sweet inspiration:

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*Good advice no matter what room you’re improving, actually.

About a gazillion years ago, the lovely Gina sent me a link to a photo spread in the L.A. Times about David Hrobowski and his RiffStick Furniture. But while Hrobowski’s solo MorYork Gallery exhibit has come and gone, I think the idea is evergreen. Or as evergreen as popsicle sticks can be. Because, you see, that is Hrobowski’s chosen medium: the humble popsicle stick.

My guess is that very few among us can’t look back to childhood and to the creation of a popsicle stick picture frame or dream catcher. Maybe even a little house or a trivet. But my guess is that nothing we made came even close to the somethings that Hrobowski makes.

I don’t know about you, but my afternoons at summer camp were not spent making Shoji screens… coffee tables… chairs that can support the weight of a man. Amazingly, though, Hrobowski made his first popsicle stick lamp when he was only 9, even if he abandoned the medium for a few decades thereafter before returning to it.

Doesn’t seeing this sort of thing make you ask yourself what you could do with a little hot glue and some time?