Recently at Style-Files, Danielle de Lange was mulling whether to buy the pricey ($1,000), chic or a Ikea’s cheap, rather clunky and traditional alternative, the Ektorp chair ($199), below. She inadvertently pointed out a great lesson in slip-cover assumptions: the usual, standard approach with piping or neat seams is NOT the only way to go. Paola Navone devised a…
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We were instantly smitten with this kitchen, for its spareness and simplicity (on the upper East side of Manhattan no less), but especially for the marble slab table with a rough, unfinished edge. Such a simple detail to leave undone, yet the effect is bold and surprising. It could be done with any stone surface.…
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The focus this picture from Remodelista is DIY: High-Style, Low-Cost Party Decor, but our eye went right to the checkerboard “painted” floor…NOT with the usual opaque paint, but with a wash of diluted black and white paint. It stains the wood so its character still shines through: a wonderful solution to jazzing up and inexpensive…
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On Ikea’s impossible-to-translate blog, Livet Hemma, we found this image of the two-toned fabrics European Ikeas are selling. We’re not crazy about the color scheme but love the idea: why not overlap vividly-colored tablecloths or large swathes of cotton or linen to make a color block table? Unhemmed ends are CHIC. Related posts: found: frosta/alvar…
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We’ve always loved Yves Klein‘s shirt printed with hand prints, foot prints and question marks: a mysteriously chic, primal cosmic design that makes us want to get some plain white shirts and paint whatever comes to mind. It would be like wearing a flag of a personal country. Mondoblogo reminded us of it. Related posts:…
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On the great blog Made by Joel, when we found a post that began: “I was drawing…just for fun.” We love to hear about people experimenting, with no particular destination in mind. In the end, he took one of the drawings and turned it into a little pillow for one of his kids. He also mentioned…
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(Video link here.) We love this installation at one of Issy Miyake’s stores: computer-controlled electric fans sending little gusts and sculpting an ethereal fabric. We wish we could translate the idea to home but think it’s beyond our reach. BUT we could take the idea of the etched-looking floor that we saw early on in…
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We had just been mulling how much we HATE the design of shower curtain rings, that make it so difficult to remove the shower curtain for washing. Then we thought: how nice it would be to have shower curtain rings with clips instead of closed loops, so we could just clip up a big swath…
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(Video link here.) …makes us wonder what it would be like if we all wore the occasional L.E.D-laced outfit…to become…moving light sculptures… via Kottke Related posts: string lights as everyday indoor lighting light reflective bike decals for safety and fun practice flying (via the uganda skateboard union) skateistan: skateboarding as antidote (to war, poverty, sadness…)…
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We’ve long been fans of unhemmed linen tableclothes, napkins, shower curtains – a rectangle of pure linen just ripped to leave a raw edge *. We hadn’t though of this swell embellishment: the yarn stitching accentuates the intentionality of NOT-HEMMED in a really beautiful and charming way.
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After reading our post about how to design your own textiles, our friend Andrea Raisfeld sent us this doodle by her daughter Maxie: “I thought it would make a great fabric design.” We’d love to find some fabric like this… Another great example of where your designs for on-demand textiles can come from. Related posts:…
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We love the way the internet can increase people’s ability to design and fabricate things that have traditionally been the realm of professional designers and manufacturers. Our newest favorite online resource/service is digital fabric printing. Over the past three or four years, a number of online textile printers have popped up, including Spoonflower, Karma Kraft, and…
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The other day, we stumbled on Dargelos, an online store with stylish, thoughtfully-designed products for bicycle riders (some are great for NON bikers as well). We originally went to the site to check out their Lighting Vest, a hand-netted safety vest made from a specially-developed reflective 3M material that will make you highly visible to…
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We spotted this charmingly painted wall of a Berber house in Ouno’s great post about the beautiful “broken” geometry of Berber rugs from the Beni Ourain region. We were intitially inspired by the idea of chalking or painting an image/pattern like this on the side of ANY building – a sort of mental d-i-y fantasy…
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We’re always on the lookout for inexpensive housewares that LOOK expensive and stylish. We think these cotton Vilmi Figur pillow covers from Ikea do just that. Throw pillows can be crazy amazingly expensive, so at $10 each (inserts $2.99 to $6.99), these are a bargain (and wash and wear to boot). There’s a jazzy contrasting…
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For some time now, we’ve struggled with the plastic bag problem. Not shopping bags – we’ve got that figured – we just carry a cute fold-up bag in our everyday bag. We’re talking plastic food bags. What is a really feasible bag for collecting messy things like bunches of grapes, piles of cherries or loose…
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MANY years ago, when we barely knew who Anni Albers was, we clipped a quote of hers from a magazine, and have had it on our fridge ever since. It is faded and yellowed, but resonates as strongly as ever: “Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to…
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After reading our post on painting fabric-covered furniture, Stacey Harwood sent us an email about her great “guest” chair. “I knew a white chair would not stay white for long in my NYC apartment so I bought some fabric markers and I invite our guests to sign it. I’m happy to say that it has…
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Since Valentine’s Day, we’ve gotten some wonderful emails of Valentine’s images and stories, so we thought we’d share a couple (and save the others for later). Maria Robledo made this improvised valentine for her husband, artist Holton Rower whose wondrous Pour Paintings we blogged last week. Since Holton uses clothes pins for his artwork made…
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We never knew studs in clothes could look quite so wonderful until we stumbled on this picture of London’s Carnaby Street in 1966, the center of mod at the time. (If you’re tempted, Studs and Spikes has all you’ll need to get going.) Here are The Kinks singing their 1966 hit, Dedicated Follower of Fashion. Photo…
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