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Stacked Books Inspiration (No Shelves, No Matter)

A photo I stumbled on on Instagram made me loosen up my fevered drive to create bookcases for my many books, some of which are in boxes. Stacked — loose — can be so beautiful…

Lotta Agaton’s Flat File Day Bed and Other Inspired File Beds

Stylist Lotta Agaton’s clever day be made out of flat files got us considering the very practical and chic possibilities for these sophisticated storage beds…

Clever Bookcases Made of Stacked Boxes

We love the idea of these NOT built-in bookshelves at a Swedish design store. They are composed of a series of volumes — rectangles and squares of various sizes — into which books are stacked. Then we figured out a way to make them.

Karl Lagerfeld’s Inspired Ideas

The legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld had an immense talent and sensibility. Our friend Susan Dworski sent us this picture of him at his extraordinarily messy desk, which as with other these other views of his home, provides unexpected inspiration and…permission

A Clever Solution to Low Bookshelves That Minimizes Visual Clutter

In a house-tour of a mid-century apartment in São Paulo we spotted a clever iteration of low bookshelves that too often look cluttered and domineering.

Tsundoku, The Wonder of Books Stacked High Around You

After years of enjoying the stacks of books piled by my sofa for the random discoveries they afford, I’ve discovered there is a word for them…

Disappear Visual Clutter with Uniform Cardboard Boxes a la Laura Handler + Andy Warhol)

If you have a lot of small items, projects or papers to store, and an eye that is pained by visual busyness, I recommend a strategy used by designer Laura Handler and Andy Warhol:

The Dirty Little Secret of Spare Minimalist Interiors

When Houzz featured our friend Laura Handler’s Harlem renovation on their site, we spotted the great secret to maintaining a spare, orderly space.

Sara Berman’s Closet: The Tenderness of Creating Your Own Life

A tiny yet extraordinary exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum is evidence that we “are free to change at any age”.

Vintage Rug Disguises the TV: Brilliant!

In a house tour of furniture dealer and interior designer Michael Bargo, we thought: “How nice to hang a really beautiful rug on the wall, in a mashup with beautiful objects from many eras”. Then we read the fine print.

Writing Reading Dreaming Room in a Closet (Ocean Vuong)

Reclusive poet Ocean Vuong discovered that a closet can make the perfect writing space. So we hunted down examples for a tiny room that can serve many unexpected purposes.

Great Ideas from a Ridiculously Minimalist Apartment

The Times T Magazine featured ANOTHER perfectly minimalist apartment with no sign of a human being in it. Still, we culled some good ideas from Danish designer Oliver Gustav’s very gray Copenhagen apartment.

Find: Red Steel Bookends (via FIT)

The bright red bookends we saw at FIT’s library totally transform the common bookend into something both graphic and stylish…and practical. We wondered if we could find them.

Plywood Niche Set In Sheetrock Wall

We love this very practical, very stylish idea from Oink Studio: a plywood-lined niche set in a in sheetrock wall. Baltic Birch’s stripey uniform plies make for a pleasing natural edge that gives a crisp furniture feel with an organic edge. Here’s what you need to know…

Add Some Imaginary Books to Your Library, Like Dickens

Like Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote short stories referencing imaginary books, Charles Dickens filled part of his study with fake books whose fantastical titles he invented. He had a bookbinder create imitation book-backs that he affixed to real books. The effect is rather dazzling.

Slotted Angle Iron Shelving, Bed, TV Stand, more

At London’s Southbank Centre, architecture studio Jonathan Tuckey Design created an archival space featuring a mid-century shelving system that echoed the building’s heritage. When we looked closely, we realized it is made of slotted angle iron, an inexpensive structuring material available at many hardware stores. We first realized its potential for creating modular furniture when we bought a second-hand copy of High-Tech, The Industrial…

A Brilliant Idea Found in a Second Hand Book

Whenever someone we know has a baby, we go on the hunt for our favorite kid’s book, the enduringly great, zennish, out-of-print, A Hole Is to Dig by Ruth Krauss with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. We buy used copies, doing our best to find clean ones, but we never really know what we’ll get. Recently, we found…

Clever Minimalist Pot and Utensil Hanging Systems

We spent a lot of time and thought devising a pot rack that would make our decades of pots easily accessible AND sleek-looking, rather than a weighty mass hanging above our kitchen island. So we were intrigued by two ideas found rummaging through Boffi‘s “Kitchenology“, pdfs of their latest offerings.

Bold, Sleek Painted Modular Crate Shelving

Nikki Tibbles is a famous British florist whose bold, crammed, often crazy-making 1890 five-story home has been featured on numerous design venues (and is available to rent as a location). Amidst all the STUFF and doneness, we found one idea we love: Stacked irregular boxes painted a bold yellow to make a wall of shelving. It is a sleek,…

Celebrate the Art of Clutter via Browning, Hao + Improvised Life

Having read and written a good deal about decluttering and letting go of stuff, we’ve witnessed something of a backlash in the media of late. Just as we were reading Dominique Browning’s recent Let’s Celebrate the Art of Clutter, we came across the work of Beijing-based Hong Hao who has been recording every item that comes into…

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