repurpose
photo: peggy markel
Our intrepid friend Peggy Markel just arrived in India to prepare to lead one of her amazing culinary adventures, Tasting Royal Rajasthan. She sent us this amazing picture of an ironing board computer table and the story behind it:
“We’re staying with a new friend, Rajiv Jani, friend of a friend. It is his rig, was already here. I knew you would love it. I thought to call it ‘permanent press’. Here’s how it came about:
Rajiv lived in Atlanta for 10 years and had all of his stuff shipped back to Delhi. He set up the ironing board in a spare room for his ironing. But he found out that he could have his shirts ironed for 2 rupees each. (1/2 a penny.) 25 shirts? $1.00.
He was looking for a place to set up his home computer and set a few things down on the ironing board until he found the right place. His electronics started growing there as that was where the internet connection was and the wiring was getting too complicated to move.To buy a new table from Ikea would cost $150. Then you need a chair. read more…
02.02.12 |
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in elements, inside, people, repurpose, road warrior, sightings, strategies, travel, why not? |
photo: sally schneider
At dinner parties these days, everybody seems to be drinking lots of water, in addition to or instead of wine. Rather than plunking a pitcher of water on the table that will undoubtedly need several refills, we’ve found another solution. We decant filtered water into great-looking wine bottles whose labels we’ve soaked off. We keep 4 or 5 of them in the fridge to have chilled water readily available. They look great on the table, and seem to make non-wine drinking guests feel like they are included in the pouring of something special.
During an ordinary day, we find them a simple, useful pleasure: chilled water to pour from a lovely vessel.
Once you start really looking at wine bottles, you’ll notice all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors, some more beautiful than others. We go for the most austerely sculptural we can find. read more…
01.23.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, entertaining, housewares, reclaim, repurpose, strategies |
photo: herbert matter, courtesy of the calder foundation
Of all the brilliant artists we feature on ‘the improvised life’, Alexander Calder holds a special place in our hearts. In addition to his monumental artworks and legendary mobiles, he was a prolific creator of household objects for everyday use. If he or his wife Louisa or a friend needed something utilitarian, he would devise a solution on the spot, with whatever was at hand.
The trove of his improvisations is vast and inspiring; each invites rethinking of common objects we often take for granted: tin cans, pie tins, wire, bits of scrap wood. His creations were not only useful, but visually stunning.
Here is the artist telling how he created a barbeque grill out of an iron garden chair after his son-in-law Jean Davidson invited a horde of people over for a party: read more…
12.07.11 |
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in d-i-y, elements, housewares, inside, kitchen, materials, outside, paths + processes, people, reclaim, repurpose, why not? |
On a recent Selby visit, we spotted this fabric-draped sofa in the wonderful home of Hitoshi Uchida-san – owner of J’Antiques Tokyo (check out the full story). The beauty of it is that the sofa is covered with a really big swath of fabric that can bunch and drape luxuriously. The fabric is wide enough to go from the floor in front of the sofa, over the seat, up the back and hang over by a couple of feet – not something the usual 54-inch width of fabric can do. But where do you find affordable fabric like this? read more…
11.30.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, furniture, inside, repurpose, resources, soft, solutions |
photo: arctic plank
We never cease to be amazed at the uses people have come up for shipping pallets. Their boxy form naturally allows for building block type constructions of all kinds. DE-constructed, they afford an unpredictable variety of rustic, often beat-up woods, in roughly 2 or 3-foot lengths. The chicest application we’ve seen lately are these floors made by Arctic Plank.
Arctic Plank “upcycles” the salvaged wood boards, though doesn’t say exactly what that process entails. It looks to us like they sand, stain and finish the boards to create a unique patina. To deal with the short lengths of wood, they smartly cut the planks to make in zigzag, herringbone or parquet patterns. These look much more finished than aligning boards vertically, which makes for a rag-tag look that has a completely different kind of charm. Arctic Plank‘s floors got us thinking about just what the possibilities for shipping pallet floors might be… read more…
11.03.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, floors, free + flea, hard, how-to, inside, repurpose, resources |
Spotted at Core 77: a floor-mounted Book Rail from the 1930′s. It’s an odd and beautiful thing that we never heard of before. It would make a perfect low-down display for objets or a moderne altar. Wonder where to get one or something like it… The one, above, is from Factory 20, a trove of vintage object in Sterling Virginia. It kind of reminds us of rough, low African stools that you can find on Ebay or at flea markets.
Dig this one-legged one we spotted on Ebay; it’s really a head rest but… what a thing to arrange things on…in perfect balance!! read more…
10.20.11 |
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in elements, furniture, inside, repurpose, resources |
Our friend Linnae recently introduced us to Pat Ludwig, a “self-taught quilter” who blogs all of her projects so you can see the full process of making a quilt start-to-finish. Patwig’s quilts are made exclusively from old fabric scraps, including khaki and denim pants, childhood dresses, curtains, neckties, bedsheets, and even seat cushions.
Her two most recent quilts are particularly interesting. They started out as 35+ button-down men’s shirts, given to Ludwig by a woman whose husband had passed away years before. She wanted her grandchildren to have a piece of the grandfather they had never met and commissioned Patwig to turn his shirts into the Nine Patch and Log Cabin quilts.
We love everything about this, from repurposing old materials into fantastic and functional art projects, to the very idea of a memory quilt. Quilts and blankets are attached to so many comforting and visceral childhood memories; having one made of materials that remind you of family or friends strikes us as a powerful way to remain connected to someone’s presence (even in their absence).
read more…
09.27.11 |
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in apparel, d-i-y, family + friends, identity, materials, paths + processes, projects + play, repurpose, soft |
photo: j. canosa
When Style-Files recently posted about furniture maker and interior designer Katrin Arens, we couldn’t help seeing a shipping pallet in her rustic dish rack. Or vice versa…
…h-m-m-m…take a slat or two away, or pull the whole thing apart to build with the slats you like…it’s a simple configuration…
…there appears to be no end to what a shipping pallet can be.
Related posts: painted shipping pallet coffee table
led-illuminated shipping pallet bed
d-i-y shipping pallet vertical garden
d-i-y shipping pallet wine rack + flat storage
the scoop on safe shipping pallets (shipping pallets 101)
09.22.11 |
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in d-i-y, elements, hard, housewares, inside, inspiration, materials, reclaim, repurpose |
photo: rikkianne van kirk
Our post on artist Holton Rower‘s gorgeous d-i-y leather cabinet pulls has been one of our most popular in recent months, and continues to make its way around the internet. But until yesterday, we hadn’t seen someone take the idea and make it their own. Rikkianne Van Kirk’s post on Re-Nest gives a step-by-step of the drawer pulls she made for an old desk, using an old leather belt that she cut into strips…the perfect material: strong, good-looking and recycled…
read more…
09.21.11 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, furniture, how-to, inside, materials, repurpose, solutions |
Harriet Bell alerted us to this beautiful candy wrapper chair and the story of how she found it…one thing leading to another in the course of a few minutes:
Our friend Peter Davis just returned from San Miguel de Allende; knowing that I love handbags made from Mexican candy wrappers, he brought me three! One candy wrapper in the bags looked weird, so we started poking around the web to identify it. And we found this amazing candy wrapper chair.Thought you’d get an improvised kick out of it.
The gorgeous chair designed by Mexican designer Emiliano Godoy takes a very old and simple idea – weaving candy wrappers (which we remember doing as kids) into a strong “textile”, and EXPANDS it, literally. The large size squares and monochrome palette gives it a definite chic. We found a step-by-step how-to here, and a video (below). We’re imagining scaling up the method to larger sheets of whatever cool paper-like material we find (magazines, high-end paper shopping bags…?…It might even be done with leather or some of the out-there synthetic materials you can find at fabric and art stores these days. You can drap and stitch it…Think of the possibilities for using this strong geometric weaving as furniture covering (of an ordinary wooden Ikea chair, perhaps), rug, tablecloth, satchel, room screen!!!!???
read more…
09.15.11 |
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in cheap + great, furniture, housewares, how-to, inside, materials, repurpose, resources |
Ellen Silverman
Our friend Ellen Silverman traveled twice to Cuba in the past year, and came back with some amazing photographs of daily life there, in particular the kitchens of families she met. They are invariably improvised, deeply makeshift spaces, reflecting extremely limited resources coupled with extraordinary resourcefulness and spirit. Ellen’s images tell the story. read more…
06.24.11 |
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in eating, inside, kitchen, repurpose, sightings, travel |
