Hostel situation

Why haven't you been posting
I'm in a hostel. I was trying to find accommodations while I'm over here.
That's been keeping you from posting?
Yes. Yes it has. But I'm probably moving in to the new place tomorrow
So you'll start posting then
Well, I'm not sure what the internet situation is going to be
So... you know nothing and there's no real timeframe for starting up again
Basically
So what DO you know?

Hows about some original new fresh content?

Someone was throwing away this perfectly good chair frame. So into the house it went.

The shape of things to come.

There. That's quite the improvement.

Check out that sweet sweet shape.

Even the back is pretty cool.

I'm considering this a work in progress still. The arms and legs are a bit worn, so restaining the whole thing is in the works... eventually. And is this a DIY? well no. I owe a huge debt of thanks to my aunt Rita, who sewed the cushions, and did a hundred other things to make it this improved.

In which I go shopping

Did I seriously get 5 Krenit bowls?

No. They're plastic bowls from husqvarna, and Krenit-ish. You can totally see the influence. Here's a closer look at the outer texture.

I'm pretty excited to get a chance to use them. They're almost too pretty to eat from.

Things were better when they were worse

Is it possible to have a crush on a piece of furniture?
Is it possible to have that weird celebrity crush on a weird piece of furniture?
For someone who claims to hate the 70s as much as I do, I have a serious furniture crush on lawn chairs. But not just any lawn chairs.
(Boston Bill)
The webbed-strap aluminium lawn chairs. The kind where the webbing disintegrated in the sun, so after about a decade their structural integrity was pretty questionable. The metal-armed ones would burn your hands if left out in the sun long enough, and the plastic always cracked on the plastic-armed ones.
I just... like them. I can't explain it. Maybe the photos can.

(Dreamijo)

(ixxidust)

(pixietart)

(Chocolate-Milk)
Alright readers, do you have any weird furniture crushes?

moo

I'm sorry for what I am about to show you.

Really, design student? You made a table shaped like a cow's udder? Why?
(A portion of the creators stated intent, respectfully stolen from Design milk, my go-to site for weird design stuff) "Udder Table depicts society’s dependency on milk while also celebrating the cow and her teats."
No it doesn't.

I consider it more a sculpture I would give to someone I did not like very much. I just not open minded enough to like milk-related things. I guess I'm lactose intolerant.

And now for something completely different: Another installment of 'People using chairs the wrong way'


Images stolen fromDesign Milk, and um Design Milk again

It's just not.

Vitra wants us to believe this is a chair.


It's not. I'm sorry. It's just.. not a chair. Where's all the chair-y bits?
Here's what gets me. Some eccentric guy probably carried one of these for decades. He'd pull his crazy belt-chair-seat-thing out in public, make himself comfortable, and people would think he looked like a complete fool.
Vitra has commercialized sitting on the ground.

Stolen from Design Milk

Why does the future have to be creepy?

Happy new laptop to me. It's fully working, I think. I have just enough computer knowledge to be a danger to myself and my files.

The future. Ray Bradbury had the visions of rooms where lights would automatically go on and off as people walked through their houses. The rooms with people would get the electricity, the empty ones get nothing. What an efficient, slick idea. This has not yet become reality for most people, but technology looks like it will fill the void. Yanko Design has released a motion detector for your electronics. Plug in your electronic devices into this, and set the timer. Enough time without movement and it shuts everything off.
The problem? just look at it.

Ohgodputitaway.
The future is going to be creepy. Actually, the room in that Bradbury story murders its occupants, so maybe this is easing us into that reality.

Image stolen from Cribcandy.

So refreshing

Sadly, the super awesome magical Dyson fan fund was exhausted by a rather expensive car repair. More pennies will be saved, however and I'll get one of my own eventually.
Right now, I'm in the process of a belated spring cleaning. My favorite part is the moment when I gather up all the things I no longer use, and recycle them/give them away/sell them. There's something liberating about not being tied down by things you don't need anymore.
How often do y'all go through this process? Are you constantly in the declutter mode or do you do it in one big event?

The road ahead

At least this time, I have an excuse for not posting recently. This blogger is now in Minnesota for the summer, having driven 2000 miles in 48 hours to get here.
A couple of things to look forward to:
Laptop version 1.0 is on its way out. Once I get the new one, I'm uploading a backlog of photos. Cool stuff abounds.
In just over a month, this blog will be going international. I'm studying abroad for a semester. Where? It's a secret... I'll let y'all know when I get there.

Okay, let's get to some actual content.
I sometimes I look at houses for sale because like to pretend I actually have money. This leads to unpleasant surprises.

Now that is an imposing entrance. This house could work, I said, throwing my imaginary pile of hundred dollar bills in the air.

Ooh, it's well landscaped. Not strictly my style but it works well for the neighborhood.

The rest of the house is motivated seller beige, but hardwood floors throughout. I'm liking this more and more.



















I just choked on my imaginary beluga caviar.
What. The. Crap. Does the homeowner really like the renaissance fest?

I'm drowning in knockoff old world furniture. The last vanity had the ostentatious dial turned up to 11, this one might be a solid 6, but that still doesn't excuse touching the ostentatious dial. Only Gucci is allowed to touch that dial, and even they don't turn it up that far anymore.

I'm so glad I saved my imaginary 1.1 million.

Confession time

Hello fair readers, I have a secret to share.

I've started watching Glee.
I was inspired by Kurt Hummel's Dior gray bedroom in the most recent episode. I think I can make that color work in my own room.

Enough about me, let's go to some photos of the rooms that make me want to get some paint.

The joy of posters

I'm going to own real art someday. But as long as I live in substandard college housing where I can't nail anything into the wall, posters will have to do.
I'm currently in the 'cheap posters from that booth on move-in day' stage:

Chat Noir poster, with life imitating art. Yes, my wall is striped, but the colors are more saturated.
But I want to move on to bigger and better things.

























Hail Minnesota from Aesthetic Apparatus. In Minnesota Twins Red and White, so I can further pretend to care about sports. 25 dolla.
Aesthetic Apparatus also has some pretty sweet test prints, if grungy overspray mish-mash is your thing.

Eventual goal is to get an original Shag. Of course the one I really wanted to get sold out. It would have been $150. Curses.

The good and the weird

The good:
Pantone may be the standard when it comes to defining shades and hues, (and creating those little fan books) but there's a new player to the field: Colourlovers. Less definitive, but cheaper - free to join. And if there's one thing I like, it's not spending money.

Because I would rather not spend my money on an automated solar-powered lawn-mowing robot. I'm content using an old-school reel mower powered by my lunch and my father's reminders.
Not only is the robot mower expensive, it is also evil.

I don't know if a robot can feel jealousy, but this one can. It's just out of peripheral vision, waiting. Lurking. And you can't unplug it because it's powered BY THE SUN. It's as though we don't learn from every bad horror movie.

Image stolen with love from Design Milk

Haute design weirdness

I'm trying to remember the last time I saw a milkman, let alone a milkman who looks like the dutch boy paint mascot's creepy older brother.
This is a coatrack, inspired by seeds and those frustrating jigsaw puzzles where every freaking piece is EXACTLY THE SAME. Some mysteries remain. Does the coatrack hold milk? Does the photographer really like lactose? Where can I get those cool shoes?

Trash it

There is nothing more useless than a too-small trash can. When in doubt, go bigger.

Thank goodness its not 'Keep calm and carry on'

Retro To Go recently featured this vintage French poster. I'm unnerved.

I feel like if you're gonna put this poster up in your house, you're gonna have to choose between dogs or kids.

Mommy! Why can't I feed chocolate to the dog?
it's poison
But Little Red Riding Hood is!

And how are you supposed to respond to that? Children are far too young to understand the concept of 'justifiable homicide'.

The Mask

Photoshot Director (thinking out loud): Alright, our chair is smack dab in the middle of the uncanny valley. How can we make this thing more unsettling?
Assistant: Masked model.
Director: I like that. Let's develop it some more
Assistant: Nude masked model.
Director: I like your style, kid.














Image stolen from: TrendHunter
Chair design stolen from: Tool album cover.

If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start a series on these

Ridiculous product shots. That thin line between avant garde and "seriously WTF?" perhaps better known as "the Lady Gaga zone"

With this shot of the Play chair from DEDON and Stark, I feel like I'm watching a kids TV show, and The Silly Man thinks he's a chair.


Silly Man, you're not a chair. You may be stackable, and you may be partially orange, but you're not a chair.
Oh, what a silly, silly man you are. We can tell you're silly because they won't let you have shoelaces.

Today's image stolen from Design Milk.

The website Texts From Last Night lets me live vicariously through others' wanton debauchery. One text featured on the site read "I had a dream last night that I had sex with Abe Lincoln. I must stop watching the History Channel before I go to bed."

And then we get to this room, featured on Apartment Therapy.


This is what happened when Tim Burton had a show on the History Channel.

Macintosh blues

Much as I love macs, my baby had a little hiccup last night. Except when my baby hiccups, it's not cute and adorable and instead makes me want to run screaming in sheer unadulterated panic. Yes, I am bad at backing up my data.

The good news: I was able to get all the key data backed up after this little hiccup. So in that sense, I have learned nothing.
The bad news: I lost all my bookmarks in firefox. So my extensive list of design blogs I visit? gone.

I remember the big ones, but I'm going to use this as an opportunity, readers. That's right, when I got a huge lemon, I'm making some hip, designer lemonade. What are your favorite design blogs? With y'alls help, this list will be bigger, better and time-wastinger!

Stools: like standing for lazy people

This MEC stool comes courtesy of Design Milk. No word as to whether the possibly dead woman comes with the stool.
The abstract states "The brief? To provide support based on various frequently adopted natural postures and objectify the concept as a mechanical extension of the human body."
If 'passed out under furniture, naked' is a frequently adopted posture for you, rehab might be a better option. Unless this furniture is designed with Amy Winehouse in mind.
Also, for those who don't speak postmodern, "objectify the concept as a mechanical extension of the human body" means "you can sit on this."

So so cool.

I was going to start this post with the words "I'm a fan..." but after realizing how truly horrible that pun would be, I decided against it. But I like fans, especially the old metal ones that'll chop your finger off if you try and tempt fate. Seeing as I currently have 3 cats in my room, I'm going to pass on that option.
and then there's this:

Yes that is a Dyson fan. The kind that may in fact use actual magic to work. At Target. For $299.
Half of me scoffs at the idea of a three hundred dollar fan. The half of me that is still five thinks its one of the coolest things ever. The five year old me is now saving up its allowance.


Dyson fan, you will be mine.

Photo stolen with love from Rob Cockerham's Twitter

Safety first!

The joy of living in los angeles is that one has to have metal security screens on the windows. Are they ugly? You betcha. It's bad wrought-iron-styled stuff, where they decided to add in little heart shapes and curlicues so it wouldn't look so depressing - an act which somehow makes the screen more depressing. Mine looks like this:

Le sigh...
But they don't have to be that ugly.



Thanks to ApartmentTherapy for the images, and to Italy, for really getting it.

Yes.

Thanks Eric!

The un-kitcheny kitchen

I regard these un-kitcheny kitchens the same way I think of Martha Stewart: with a mix of admiration and loathing hatred. The feeling of jealousy when something is so perfect that anything you do will never be as good. It's the sort of suspicion that it's too perfect, and you hope like crazy that there's some sort of deep secret. Like that this is their fake kitchen, and their real kitchen is hidden in some dark, disgusting corner of the house.
Image (and resulting feelings of inadequacy) courtesy of Apartment Therapy

ooh, artsy

I have a nasty habit of culling the material for this blog from a couple sources: Apartment Therapy and Desire To Inspire are two that provide most of the material here. Until I get a photo of the changes I've made to my room, here is something completely off the wall.
Erwin Olaf is a photographer based out of Amsterdam, whose photos struck me. I have fallen in love with the interiors he creates and styles for his shoots. Though his work often has a photo-shoot-ish feel, there's a lot here that grabbed me, especially the way that these first two photos have a strong narrative quality to them - like I've stumbled into the room and have interrupted something.


The furniture is what I want soooooo badly.



























Erwin Olaf(it's art, so there's the occasional nude project. Not sure if your workplace is cool with the naked human body if it's in an artsy context.)

We have in fact entered the future

Popular Mechanics and Popular Science have placed loads of their back issues on Google Books. I loved those magazines for their outlandish depictions of what the future was going to look like. We still don't have a flying car, or kitchens that cook for you

but we do have this projector from David Riesenberg:

Holy mother of cheese it is equal parts beautiful and mildly terrifying. It's a projector. It looks like it came from the prisoner or some other 1960s version of the future. It looks like it knows all your secrets. It looks like it could hover. Finally, we have achieved the future that the past wanted us to have.

The problem is, I don't need to own a TV. And this is something I've been thinking about a lot. I do everything on my laptop. Will I be weird if my first house doesn't have a TV in it at all? I feel like if you have a TV you have to have a space organized around that one thing. That's kind of a waste of space, which could be organized to highlight architectural features or to facilitate conversation.
Think you could live without a TV? What would you do differently in your home?

Thanks, Design Milk!

sofa, so (not) good.

Moving away from modern, some are bringing back 70s style because despite all its flaws, it has a homey feeling. We were never perfect people, so why aim for a perfect home? We did the best with what we could, we made things ourselves, and life was still good.

Patterned sofas may be making a comeback. As with any trend, there is a way to do it badly. Yes, different patterns in the same color scheme work together. These patterns are working towards something a bit more sinister. Granted, I have seen worse, but this is (to steal a phrase that YoungHouseLove turned me on to)wayyy to 'matchy-matchy'.

Suddenly, you don't have just a blue and white room. You have the blue and white room. Friends will speak of it in the same tone reserved for exes that we wish we did not have to see again. You don't want that.