Maria Robledo sent this image of one of the first plums her plum tree yielded. What might seem like a blemish could be seen as something else althogether: the perfection (and magic) of imperfection. Thanks Maria! Related posts: brilliant graffiti: ‘you are (not) perfect’ ‘seeing’ is a practice (look what’s hidden in plain sight) ‘the…
Read Morehome ideas from the selby: cool fireplace decal + more
Since Todd Selby hit the big time, he’s been so busy photographing the rich and famous that the images at The Selby have yielded far less useable ideas than they used to, when his subjects were seriously original, eccentric, and..’er..REAL. So we were happy to spot these two usable and oddly charming ideas in his…
Read Morelife lessons from an exploding egg + roz chast
This morning while engrossed in redesigning ‘improvised life’, I forgot about the eggs I was boiling on the stove. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a gunshot in the kitchen. When I explored, I discovered firm little pellets of egg yolk scatter-shot across the kitchen. Once the water had boiled away in the little copper…
Read Morecement, not tiles, in the bath…and elsewhere
There is no getting away for my thing for cement. Fantasies of making things out of it abound in ‘improvised life’s archives and for years Working with Cement was in the stack of books on my bedside table. When I was renovating what was to become ‘improvised life’s Laboratory, I contemplated surrounding the tub in…
Read Morecool designs to paint on buildings, walls, more
In the small country of Burkina Faso near the border to Ghana, it is common for dwellings to be painted with intricate patterns using colored mud and chalk. The patterns tells stories of the community’s culture. We are amazed at how modern these rustic wall paintings are, and imagine how beautiful they would be adorning…
Read Morevirtual traveler: ‘a day in india’
A Day in India from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo. (Video link here.) Seeing this wonderful day in India makes us see our own day here a bit differently. (There’s a lot of seriously wonderful-looking food…
Read Moreessential disaster (and life) resource: neighbors + friends
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, we followed the New York Time’s blog Storm Aftermath: Live Updates and hit upon an amazing post called “Finding Good Neighbors in Wake of Disaster” by Marcus Yam. Because it had no hyperlink, we excerpted much of it below. The gist: neighbors are one of the best resources you can have,…
Read Moreinside-out painted shelves and drawers
We’ve been amassing quite a collection of pictures of stacked boxes and crates being used as shelving. And lately, they’ve included crates and boxes that are painted on the inside, outsides left their natural shelves. This simple embellishment presents the colors as a sort of surprise, that lends a lot of charm to the plain box…
Read Moreglossy white tile wall as erasable white board
We love the glossy white wall tiles used as white board at Bar & Co. a bistro-style bar in Helsinki, a great idea for a kitchen wall. We’re suddenly viewing our oversized rectangular bathroom tiles in a new way: message boards (with the possibility for leaving little wash-off-able notes in a normally scriptless room).
Read Moresighting: home hotel’s crochet-bombed tree (argentina)
Holton Rower sent us this photo from his travels in Argentina. In the courtyard of Home Hotel in Buenos Aires he found a suprisingly crocheted tree. (Those crochet bombers are everywhere…) post-valentine’s message (be a chalk graffiti guerilla!) the magic of guerilla poetry (become a poetry bomber) guerilla florist bella meyer: “flowers as natural art…
Read Morehouse tour: laura handler’s montana log cabin
Intrigued by a brief mention on her website of her renovated log cabin in Montana, we wrote designer Laura Handler to ask if we could see some pictures of the place. We not only got pictures with charming, haiku-like notations, but the wonderful story behind the cabin: Fourteen years ago, my mother died and left…
Read Mored-i-y glass and mirror ‘whiteboards’ (write right on ’em)
After we posted about clear white board paint, which would allow you to write/and erase any wood or painted surface, Diary of a Tomato alerted us to the very cool alt-whiteboards spotted at Noma Foodlab, an ambitious restaurant and food “experimentarium” in Copenhagen. In the huge high-design loft space, big slabs of glass are afixed to the walls to display…
Read Moreclear ideapaint for ‘whiteboard’ surfaces ANYWHERE
Some time ago we wrote about IdeaPaint, special paint that can turn any surface into a dry erase “white board”. You can write all your brilliant ideas on it with markers, then wipe them off when you don’t need them anymore. Now the IdeaPaint people have come out with a great variation on the theme:…
Read Morenina’s tool bucket: essentials for doing-it-yourself
Nina Saltman, ‘the improvised life’s construction and building consultant, is really good with her hands, and even better with extensions of her hands—namely, tools. Nina was one of the first women in the country to wear a hardhat. She’s worked her way up from apprentice carpenter to general manager of massive construction projects (see About).…
Read Moreimprovisation is a guerilla action
In our hunt for material that resonates with ‘the improvised life’, we have decidedly subversive leanings. We love people who SEE the accepted order differently and put their mark on it, like this great, simple way designer Sebastrian Errazuriz transformed ordinary traffic lines into $$ signs, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. If…
Read Morebook giveaway: fridge pickles via ‘hip girls guide’…
Soon summer will be here, bringing with it a crop of cucumbers (and countless other vegetables) just waiting to be pickled. But for those who are intimidated by the process of water-bath canning for shelf storage (or who just want a crunchy fresh pickle!) there is an easy solution: spices, water, vinegar, salt, and two…
Read Moresan francisco graffiti turns the sidewalk into a fish pond
Another shift of view from Maria Robledo: a fish pond illusion graffiti spotted in San Francisco. The graffiti there is very different than the often cryptic signage we follow in New York. It’s still reverberates with sweet 60’s-ish light:
Read Moremore writing on the walls (indoors)
Some time ago, Desire to Inspire ran a post called Room Porn. It wasn’t our idea of room porn (which we’re very into, but for a totally different sensibility) EXCEPT for the scrawled writing across the top of the room; it segues with our strange lust/love of signs. It’s do-able by mere mortals and holds lots of…
Read Moregeometrically painted walls and doors
Last week Mondoblogo posted two photos taken at Art Basel of wonderful geometrically-painted walls with doors (they are part of the blog’s illuminating challenge to identify what is actual “art” and what is not). The top is “Final Cut” by artist Ernst Caramelle. The second “a random door”… We’re putting them in our file of…
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