This simple, stylish hanging shelf is made of only 3 elements: a (painted) board, suede or leather lacing, wall hooks. It reminded us of other cool iterations —some more complex, some simpler — of the hanging shelf.
Read Morecopy this: fab bertoia hanging shelf
One of the most inspiring ideas we found recently in a photo of scuptor and designer Harry Bertoia‘s living room [See the clarification in Comments from Bertoia’s daughter Celia] is not the famous wire mesh chairs he designed for Knoll in the ’50’s, but this simple hanging shelf. It’s made with cord strung through a piece of wood…
Read Morehanging shelf = art + practicality
We stumbled on this wonderful hanging shelf on You Have Been Here Sometime, but when we went back to look it was gone! It’s from an exhibition by Ian McDonald called Wearing. In our minds it’s art = a shelf = art = a shelf = wonderful to look at = practical = odd =art…
Read MoreThis Cool Art Shelf Headboard Is Really a Plywood Box in Disguise
We’ve been collecting examples of shelf headboards that double as picture/object displays to inspire the one we are designing in our head. Looking closely we realize they are really only a plywood box…
Read MoreA Clever Split Two-Tone Shelf w Still Life
In one of the images on the feature 1st Dibs did about interior designer Suzanne Shaker recently, we spotted this clever long shelf made of two different materials, which makes for an unexpectedly interesting shelf unto itself, whether or not it holds objects or art. It was designed by Rogers Marvel Architects for a row of modern townhouses built in…
Read MoreCool DIY Hanging Shelves, from The Selby to Bertoia
The hanging shelf rigged from a board hung by rope we spotted on The Selby recently reminded us of hanging shelf iterations from two great artists.
Read MoreCool D-I-Y Rope and Stacked Block Shelves
We’ve long admired this wonderful stacked block shelf we clipped years ago. It is made of scrap wood (salvaged from a lumbar yards garbage bin) that was bored, threaded and secured with thick rope, and hung from hooks anchored in the wall. Then we wondered: What if you didn’t bother with the rope part and…
Read Morelookbook for our next project: bookshelves + murphy bed
A year or so after moving into the Harlem Laboratory, we’re finally mulling building bookshelves and horizontal Murphy bed (called wall beds these days)…like a berth in the living room. We’ve had that forelorn space hidden behind folding screens FOR A YEAR, waiting until we could wrap our head around designing it (at bottom, with…
Read Morehousegifts to buy or d-i-y
As is our nature, we started to deconstruct this strangely beautiful fly swatter, thinking it could easily be made with a piece of hardwood and a bit of leather. Then we thought: why bother? It only costs $12.80 + $5 shipping at Kaufman Mercantile. We figure it would make a great, slightly odd, original and…
Read Morefab orange-frame mirror, inspired by a work of art
Today, not for the first time, we mistook an artwork for a household object – a mirror actually. We saw this work by Winston Roeth at YouHaveBeenHereSometime right after seeing some images of mirrors and our brain said: “Wow, what a great deeply-orange painted mirror! Why don’t we make one of those?!!” Then we scrolled down…
Read Moregiving subtle color life to shelves
Lately, we’ve stumbled on some cool ways to bring color to shelves. We saw BM’s Junior line of furniture and thought: why don’t we just paint the backs of our shelves in color blocks to wake them up a bit? And then we saw the reverse in action: just the edges painted a color…
Read MoreIndoor, Portable and Fur-Covered Stoops
Having grown up as outdoor brownstone stoop sitters, we were intrigued by the possibilities for INDOOR stoops, and for portable stoops you can place outdoors if you don’t happen to have a real one to hang out on.
Read MoreFree DIY Lighting How-tos from Designer Lindsey Adleman
Over the years, lighting designer par excellence Lindsey Adelman has posted free diy lighting instructions on her website, where she also sells her beautiful, pricey creations. A generous act indeed; Linssey reveals the tools and techniques to many of her designs. Her simple, liberating words: Make your own light. Experimenting with off-the-shelf parts is how Lindsey…
Read Morehow to to store extra chairs + stools, on walls + shelves
Stumbling on this wonderful image of sculptural black-painted chairs on a wall of the La Gran Francia Hotel in Granada, Nicaragua got us thinking about ways to store un-folding chairs. This assemblage is a more playful, freeform take on the Shaker-esque practice of hanging uniform chairs on hooks (below). Then, moving too fast as we scanned…
Read Morefor sale: fab mid-century modern folding desk (nyc)
For many years, I’ve enjoyed this amazingly-designed mid-century folding desk. The desk unit looks like a normal small wardrobe but when you open it, closed cabinet swings open on both sides to reveal pull-out desk. It has many any moveable shelves, a large drawer with pencil/pen holder, large slide out shelf and a even a moveable…
Read Morethe art of temporary shelter
Here is the challenge: Build a structure that is… …temporary …has at least two and a half walls …is big enough to contain a table …has a roof made of shade-making organic materials through which one can see the stars… … What would you build? These are some of the Talmudic constraints that twelve design…
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