Years ago painters left behind some sanding sponges they used to achieve a perfect finish in the high gloss surfaces. Something made me pick one up to try sanding an ugly heating pipe coated in green enamel. The ease-of-transformation was a revelation. I’ve been using that perfect sponge ever since for all sorts of fixes and projects around my house.
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As my cooking gets simpler and simpler, I rely on easily-created hits of flavor to dazzle. A favorite of late is roasted lemons, which I often throw into the oven as I’m making the rest of the meal. They liven up ANYTHING. They are totally addictive.
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Recently, a doctor I know asked me the remarkable question “What is your medicine”. The answers have nothing to do with pills and are unique to each of us, surprising and powerful.
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This short video compiles some very surprising answers to On Being’s Krista Tippet’s favorite interview question. It evokes “a very fertile place in everybody’s imaginations, whatever their story is…full of questions and searching and softness.” It’s a wonderful question to ask ourselves…
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Le Cabanon, Le Corbusier’s odd, spare, modernist cabin in the South of France is like a cross between a hermit’s cabin and a boat with a great deal of style. It offers ideas to steal no matter what size home you have.
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A few days ago, Yoko Ono posted this remarkable message on her instagram, a perfect New Year’s wish. We’ve found some compelling images to go with it, and Ono’s spare, powerful recording of “Imagine”.
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Looking back at our post about the prints legendary artist Sister Corita Kent made around the theme of “the moment” in 1977, we thought “What wonderful greeting cards they would make”, now and all year.
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Every December in a village in northern Argentina, Jorge Gervasi and his son transform their modest family home into an elaborate display of blinking lights. This sweet, slightly Fellini-esque short film captures the hard work, missteps and dreams that go into it their remarkable Christmas monument.
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The recent post about Mister Rogers got me thinking about how to give gifts that “encourage wonder and reflection? Here are some gift books that do just that.
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In this short video clip, the remarkable Fred Rogers describes one of the most powerful gifts he was given in his life, and got us wondering how we can give, and encourage it ourselves?
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Always on the lookout for ways to transform my space and mood, I recently stumbled on a bargain of heady transformation: a $20 way to subtly evoke Nature indoors.
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Spotted on the instagram of designer Pamela Hovland, who masterminded Improvised Life’s first iteration ten years ago: her holiday wreath in an imaginative, uniquely festive application…
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At ten years old, Improvised Life’s architecture and organization needed a serious refresh. And so did I. The new site is designed to be easier and more fun to use, for you and for me. No doubt, the new look will be a bit disorienting for those used to its former look. Please give yourself time (and patience) to get acclimated…
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At the great Artist’s Prints and Multiples, we came across these inspired fridge magnets. We realized that making lists of “likes” can provide the same benefits as counting blessings AND work curiously like poetry…
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Artsy’s Alexxa Gotthardt combed through interviews with legendary abstract expressionist artist Lee Krasner for her insights into “how to be an artist”, with three essential lessons.
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Whenever we look at designer Paola Navone’s homes, we come away with a zillion ideas that we could actually do, without a ton of dough. Here are our favorite steal-able ideas.
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We know quite a few people who are making major life changes these days, living with the question of what to do next, waiting for the path to become clear. What’s the mindset to embrace in limbo: all questions, few clues, no answers?
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The past week or so, the same message arrived through a variety of sources: in an email sent by a friend, a poem stumbled on on instagram, a notice of a museum exhibition…
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Many of the design suggestions in Remodelista’s “Expert Advice…for Creating the Illusion of Space” are indeed effective. Not this one. So we figured out some solutions…
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“This is what thought looks like” begins Dennis Overbye’s article about Jessica Wynne’s remarkable photographs of mathematician’s blackboards, that reminded us of Steiner and Cy Twombly…
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