Browsing through my image files, I came across photos I’d collected of matte black door hardware, which I contemplated using in the Laboratory. The first time I saw it used was in a friend’s just-renovated Brooklyn brownstone: black hinges add a surprising graphic element, as does the rosette of the crystal doorknob. Beautiful. Although I only used black hardware in one detail of the Laboratory, I learned its biggest lesson and caveat.
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The big glass picture window door looks great at first, affording an expansive view of the garden. But think of the arc of that door as it opens — a good 5 feet at least! You couldn’t have any furniture or planters in the way, because a door needs unobstructed space to open. The door then dictates…
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Our new favorite blog Moon to Moon has a swell house tour of the lightly renovated 450 square foot apartment of architect Lukáš Kordík of GutGut architects. The major takeaway for us, aside from the pleasingly UNconstructed feel of the space, is Kordík’s use of laminate. First there’s the stylish turquoise kitchen cabinet with oven and storage built in;…
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Furniture and product shows like the upcoming ICFF teach some useful and unexpected lessons in buying products for your home.
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This kitchen is so stylish and inviting, we’re wondering if it’s in process and unfinished OR if it’s purposely as is. We’ve cooked in many a kitchen outfitted this way, with great pleasure, in part due to the constraints it imposes.
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This compendium of sculptural, geometric fireplaces and stove hoods make us wonder why stay with plain old rectangles. The key is in figuring out how these odds hoods (or any hoods) will draw.
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We’ve long been fans of “broken geometries”, the purposeful leaving of design elements unfinished, uneven, or even broken, to create a visual surprise. Recently Remodelista did a roundup of some fine examples.
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When Brothers Rehan and Josh Nana wanted a “camp” to stay in when they went hunting on their family’s three-hundred acre farmland in Missouri the decided to convert an old grain silo that was already on the property into a novel, and charming, shelter.
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Plywood is an endlessly useful, accessible, great-looking material for making, that has been inspired legions of artists, architects and designers. The glues used to make modern plywood often contains formaldehyde, so we’re passing on this great primer on healthy plywoods.
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Our great lesson in renovating the Laboratory was how expensive minimalist design can be, and why. When you forego moldings around doors, you actually make for more work and expense, not less. Recently, we came across a stylish house that uses moldings freely while achieving a clean, modern aesthetic. Here’s how.
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This teeny video of Austrian Artist Klemens Torggler clever ‘Evolution Door,’ has been flying around the internet. It sets the common concept of a door — opening via hinges or running on a track —literally on end. The Evolution is a rotating geometric flip-panel door system that opens up with momentum and looks like origami. Torggler’s re-envisioning of the door is NOT just a design exercise, but a truly original solution…
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We got a lot of ideas taking a little photo tour of the versatile 66-square-foot artist’s studio Anaan Stern and Shany Tal, with its many kinds of clever storage: folding bed, shelving, drawers of all sizes…But what we liked best are the wooden pegs inserted into sliding doors to hold works of art or open books, to make an ever-changeable private gallery.
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We’ve known a number of people who have built small rooms within an existing space, but we have never seen one quite so appealing as this plywood cube. Bookshelves and storage along one side afford some sound proofing. And painted sliding doors make for an appealing wall in the main room.
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This installation by American artist Scott Carter is making us view walls as sculpture. Carter cuts out shapes from walls and formed them into furniture, like some living, human-sized puzzle. But we can’t stop mulling the idea of cutting out shapes from plywood, to give interest to walls or partitions.
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Holton Rower designed a iron-clad magnetic wall painted to look like the adjacent walls. It allows Holton and his family to easily display and remove artwork, photographs, notes —anything that can be held up with magnets — as they wish. Here’s how he did it.
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Although we enjoyed the virtual tour of this upscale renovation of an abandoned water tower in Belgium, there was only one idea we took away to use: a lucky cat’s lair with a charming entranceway.
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Part of the artfulness of envisioning a space is knowing when to keep rough and aged areas and let them be themselves, a subject we’ve written about before. Here, patched brick walls painted white, and a rough concrete floor are a lovely backdrop of elemental REAL that works well for modern furniture. After demolishing of…
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Remodelista’s new Manual for the Considered Home is chock full of practical info and stories reminiscent of the early Remodelista. One favorite: The Reinvented Rental Kitchen.
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This fab tiny house is a great example of the creative, very improvisational process of making something live in the world, and the essential principles involved (with a tour).
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We were thrilled when Remodelista contacted us about using images we’d posted some time ago of an essential design trick we’d used throughout the Laboratory’s renovation: replacing the squat 6’6″ doors with tall, eight-footers. Their strong vertical lines make our lowish 8’2″ ceilings look higher. Check out our images on Remodelista. In the meantime, here are…
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