repurpose + reclaim

One Wild Slipcover for Three Chairs

Exploring images of La Maison Champs Elysees, a hotel in Paris’s right bank, we came across this wonderful linen slipcover that unites three upholstered chairs into a kind of sofa. Wonderful. How to do it?

Tables Tattood with Memories or Poems

An image spotted at the great Moon to Moon has us revisiting the idea of tattooing wood furniture: carving with words or images in the tradition of stealth carvings on park picnic tables, bars and old school desks.

Quick Home Fixes from a Cooled Out Chateau

When we are scrambling to pull their spaces together in preparation for big crowd of family and friends, we take a cue from the unexpectedly chill interiors of this 12th Century château in France…

Makeshift Tables and Chairs to Seat a Crowd

If you’re planning on hosting a crowd, now’s the time to figure out what tables you’ll serve everyone on, and where the guests will sit… Here’s our best mostly makeshift ideas.

Halloween Costume Inspiration from Artists + Designers

We spent a number of Halloween’s outfitting ourselves in improvised costumes, usually at the last minute, and LOVED suddenly taking on a whole other persona for one magic night. If you haven’t gotten your Halloween act together yet, and want some inspiration, here’s a compendium of forage-able ideas from artists and designers…Salvador Dali offers loads of…

Workspace: A Cheap Stylish File Cabinet Strategy

While planning the office portion of the Laboratory’s renovation, I had to be lean and efficient, having spent some serious money on a sliding wall to make it all disappear. I happily used a strategy that had served me (and about a million designers) for years: a desk made of pedestal file cabinets and a…

Powerful Teeny Gifts Wrapped in Found Scraps of… Magic

Our friend Virginia del Giudice recently sent us another of her wonderful teeny gifts: a little colorfully wrapped bonbon of some sort. Only an inch across, it is an example of the power that even small gift can have in making the recipient feel appreciated, considered, cared for. We wondered what was in the mysterious cloth wrapping…

Yoko Ono: Mend an Object and Your Heart

Every morning, we’ve been reading a page from Yoko Ono’s tiny book of instructions, Acorn. We have been moved by many of the “instructions” we’ve come across. We find this one, which advices a practice of mending, both physical and emotional, especially compelling.

Inexpensive Urban Shelters Solve a Housing Crisis

As apartments in urban areas become prohibitively expensive, young people in Oakland, California have been developing innovative, grassroots strategies to provide homes for themselves, and for homeless people in their communities. The New York Times recently article and slideshow samples new ways of thinking about “home”, “a social experiment in stripping down to the basics.”

How Trees Foster Well-Being, Indoors or Out

A new study provides further evidence of the beneficial effect of trees on well-being. Being among trees can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. British sculptor Max Lamb’s recent installation shows how powerful trees are INDOORS as well. Yoko Ono expands the view.

Clawfoot Tub Sofa to DIY or Buy

We’ve watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s many times and never noticed the very makeshift decor of Holly Golightly’s apartment: the crate coffee table…luggage storage bins…and…the wonderful clawfoot tub sofa. THAT set us on the hunt…

Clever Shipping Pallet Barbeque + Rotisserie Station

While we were researching Arlene Gottfried’s work, we stumbled on this photograph she took of a barbeque in a then-Puerto Rican neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. When we looked closely, we realized that shipping pallets had been cleverly employed, not only to help anchor the spit, but to provide seating for two kids hanging out while the…

1001 Pallet’s Trove of Ideas and Info

Over the years, we fed ours and reader’s passion for practical things made of shipping pallets, with examples of the very best, most stylish versions we could find of pallet beds, sofas, side tables, steps, even a version of Le Corbusier’s iconic club chair. Gradually, novel ideas for pallet began to drop off as the diy-universe reached a saturation point,…

A One-Year-Old’s Brilliant Improvisation

MANY improvisations are inspired by mistakes that accidentally afford a new view of something we take for granted. After Mira Keras‘ one-year-old knocked a chair over, she immediately saw the possibilities in the situation.

Copper Pipe Room Divider, Towel Rack, Furniture

Warsaw firm Mamastudio enlisted Polish architect Mateusz Baumiller to design the Autor Rooms in its new hotel to showcase furniture and artwork by Polish designers. The favorite big idea we got out of it: thick copper pipe to create rooms within rooms, like the sleep area at top. It’s a lovely way to define a big space, and…

How to Fix Your Computer (Love Means Helping You Do-It-Yourself)

When my 5-year-old-laptop bailed on me, I reacted like any strong independent woman with a brain and an alarm clock; I handed it off to my husband and said “This is broken, please fix it”. Seriously. Being the feminist my husband is, he said NO…….

A Cheap Chic Hardwood Floor Solution

When we saw this Parisian flat in Design Milk, we were intrigued more by the floors than by the slanted shelves built into each “space” of the sprawling apartment. Short lengths of hardwood flooring are almost always less expensive than longer lengths, but, when laid out in the traditional, end-to-end pattern often LOOK cheap and…

Instant Color: Paint Chip Walls

For some time now, we’ve been compiling a file of wall decorations made from paint chips, the colorful free material available at your local paint or home store. Placed on the wall with a little thought and creativity, paint chips can make a surprising burst of color graphic. Check this out:

A Floor Made of Stacked Ceramic Bowl and Tea Cup ‘Bricks’

In his installation at the Maruhiro Flagship store in Nagasaki prefecture, Japanese designer Yusuke Seki used 25,000 pieces of imperfect ‘Shinikiji’ ceramics as bricks, stacking them to create a platform/floor to support simple timber plinths that showcase the products on sale. Feeding into our serious “brick love“, we looked closer into how Seki transformed the pottery into…

Sol LeWitt’s Instruction for Wondrous Walls

One of our practices is to look at artist’s work carefully to see what ideas we can steal apply in/on our own lives/walls/spaces. We take the do-able kernel and make it our own. We’ve discovered that conceptual artist Sol LeWitt actually left instructions for making his work (which became the works themselves). Why not follow LeWitt’s instruction in our own space, we wondered, to make a wonderful wall?

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