We’ve covered plenty of tiny houses before, but this one would probably take the cake.
Luckily, it’s not actually meant to live in! It’s an art installation in San Francisco by artists Jenny Chapman and Mark A. Reigelman II. We wonder how many passer-by stop and wonder if they’re seeing things–”A cabin on a building? What on earth??”
Winter Is Coming: How To Weatherize Your Home
Re-Nest
“Now is the time to weatherize your home before the heat is blasting in (and probably escaping out of) your home. Did you know that the amount of heat escaping through cracks in the average house is equivalent to having an open window year round? Inadequate insulation and air leakage are the leading causes of energy waste in homes. Cut down on the chilly drafts, reduce your heating bills, and slash your overall home energy use this winter with the following tips.”
Game Over: LED Lightblubs Win
Old House Web
“An LED is so energy efficient that it will use only $33 in energy over it’s life. The incandescent wastes so much energy in the form of heat that it does not deserve to be called a light bulb, but rather a heater that comes with an incidental light source. It will cost $176 dollars on your energy bill – and that is at current energy rates.”
15 Cool Childrens Room Decor Ideas From Vertbaudet
Digs Digs
“French company Vertbaudet produces awesome products for kids and their rooms. … These rooms feature company’s furniture and elements of decor but you can use their ideas and products of other companies if you want to. Enjoy these 15 children’s room and make your child proud of his or her room.”
3D Wall Art for your Home
Houzz.com
“Walls come alive with 3-D art. Turn a wall into a show; make a statement. Whether it is made of plastic, plaster, clay, wood, metal, or any medium including paper, I am seeing more and more interesting wall art. Take a look at these and get inspired to turn a wall into an expression of your personal style!”
Every home has one, but so few do anything interesting with it. We’re talking about your mailbox. It can present so many opportunities to display some unique style. Sometimes that style truly fits the character of the home, and sometimes it turns out to be a bit tacky, but it’s always fun to see unique ways a homeowner can show off his or her personal bits of flair.
Here are some photos we found of interesting, better-than-your-average mailboxes. Maybe you’ll find some inspiration in here for what you might be able to do to jazz up this otherwise mundane exterior feature.
The easiest way to add some character to your mailbox, as seen in this first photo, is with a nice little paint job. Or maybe it’s wallpaper-style stick-on design; it’s hard to tell. Either way, it sure is nicer to look at than plain black. [photo]
On the completely other end of the spectrum, you could find an object that otherwise has no business being a mailbox — like, say, a V8 engine — and turning into something that adds a personal touch to your home’s exterior and certainly fit into the category of “unique.” [photo]
If a mighty engine block isn’t your thing, how about having a little fun and making your mailbox look like something a little more friendly — like a cute little animal? This cow mailbox could use a fresh coat of paint, and maybe a crab isn’t all that friendly or cute, but they both definitely display some unique character. [photo 1 and 2]
On a slightly more traditional front, mail slots — as opposed to mailboxes — present an opportunity for nice personalization. The roaring lion below is certainly more original than your typical mail slot, and the permanent built-in mail slot (though clearly not on a residence) could be a great way to add some true character to a home. [photo 1 and 2]
Of course, if you prefer something more traditional that adds distinct character without getting too out-there (say, the V8 engine or the bright blue crab isn’t exactly your thing), a flea market or Craigslist might be a good place to find a lovely old free-standing letter box like this one. [photo]
Looking for a way to jazz up your kitchen without doing a whole remodel? How about replacing your countertops? Calfinder had a post about some great new countertops out there and we fell in love! They look like works of art and are a true focal point in any kitchen. We especially love this ThinkGlass countertop in Turquoise Ice–it’s cool, modern and lovely.
Check out Calfinder to see the rest and start dreaming of your own kitchen art!
If Santa is coming to your house this Christmas, you might want to make sure he has the traditional mode of entry — a fireplace. To make sure Kris Kringle is impressed enough to leave some real goodies, you will want to make sure the fireplace is safe, clean and, of course, stylish.
To go beyond the traditional hearth, Charles and Hudson profiled these fireplaces. This floating fireplace from Focus-Creation has a Space Age elegance and would be a great option for when you don’t want to take up wall space to install a fireplace.
If you really can’t decide what angle you want to sit at to face the fire, the TURN fireplace by Schweiger & Viererbl might be your answer! It rotates 360 degrees and has a neat place to store kindling.
Via Freshome, we discovered the work of artist Elena Colombo. Her firescapes are awe-inspiring and truly imaginative. We especially like these riffs on classic fireplaces.
Enjoy the beauty and warmth of the winter months, and don’t be afraid to expand your design horizons!
Our blogging friends at Home Design Find recently published some helpful tips for the collector in all of us. From the article:
…anyone with a collection of just about anything comes to realize at some point that things can get out of hand. Collections, after a while, can come to feel like clutter. And that’s a real downer.
What steps can you take to organize and highlight your collection rather than have it sit around and collect dust in one big jumble?
Here are a few paraphrased tips from Home Design Find:
That’s just a taste. For more detail and more tips, be sure to check out their article.
Our friends at MoCo Loco recently featured a new product design from Karim Rashid. Obviously, we’re big fans of his work, but we also appreciate his cool modern aesthetic.
His recent work for Gorenje resulted in some fun space-age appliances that manage to appear warm and welcoming. Rashid managed to incorporate his signature curvy lines into these appliances…no easy task. This stovetop may look like it has a pencil sketch on it, but it’s really burners.
The hood and wall oven have gently flowing angles and fun splashes of color.
These appliances would be a great way to make a kitchen truly unique! To learn more about Karim Rashid, please visit his Web site.
Some simple steps can help you keep your walls in good shape while positioning your artwork for its best showing. A post over at Learn to Draw and Paint offers some useful tips to consider the next time you’re hanging a picture.
A sampling of the advice:
Art has the ability to transform spaces. Lonely rooms can instantly become habitable with the addition of a great piece. Art also has a way of transforming the moods of the owners of those spaces.
That said, art should be selected carefully, and proper research should be done prior to purchase. This post will provide a few of our favorite sites for buying art and will hopefully put a few homeowners on the path to making a deserted wall feel important again.
Artaissance is an online art reproduction gallery that helps visitors customize artwork to fit their home decorating needs. Its collection spans the art scene — from traditional landscapes to hip, contemporary abstracts — with a continuously updated portfolio full of artists who “offer a unique voice in the art world.” It can put you in touch with a local retailer and offers a try-before-you-buy sample program and a 30-day return policy. There’s also a blog that covers all things related to art in the home and has feature posts that put the spotlight on up-and-coming designers and artists.
Imagekind is a community for creating, buying and selling high-end framed artwork. Visitors can choose from more than 50,000 unique and independent artists of all disciplines, including traditional and digital photographers, painters, digital artists, and illustrators who sell their artwork on the site. A pretty innovative feature allows you to create your own high-end of work based on your own personal digital images.
Art April is a site for finding art that is “easy to use and easy to afford.” It reminds us that prints can be a cost-efficient answer to your lack-of-artwork problems at times. It offers posters, art prints, limited editions, original paintings and photographs with customized frames. Categories include Abstract Landscapes and Abstract Still Life to Advertising Art, Vintage Films and Americana.
So those are three sites that should be of help, but consider this interesting dilemma, addressed on the blog Art Bylt: Should the art fit the room or the room fit the art?
There are people out there who buy a piece of art that they love and then find a place to put it, but the author here points out that arriving at home and finding that the piece of art just doesn’t fit with any room’s surroundings is a very common issue. Therefore, it is suggested to go into buying art with some basic parameters. Consider the size and color. The post points out that for any particular space, art that is too large can overwhelm but art that is too small can get lost and look out of proportion. And the bolder the art, the more room it needs to breathe.
Image courtesy of Artaissance and artist Julie Gross
Today’s post is a contribution from Erin Casey, co-owner of Rudy Art Glass of York, Penn., which fabricates decorative, architectural glass for both commercial and residential installations. Rudy Art Glass markets its high-end glass products to architects and designers worldwide. Recent large-scale projects include the Detroit Metro Airport renovation and the Atlantis Dubai.
While clear tempered glass-topped tables are assuredly not new, the demand for specialty products in this space has increased significantly. Innovation in both decorative glass products and table bases now gives consumers almost unlimited choice in selecting unique glass tables for their own homes.
One of the most extraordinary applications for glass tabletops that I’ve seen lately is the pairing of decorative glass with salvaged metal bases. Over the past few months, we have fabricated several decorative glass tabletops for another York-based company called Salvaging Creativity. The two young entrepreneurs who started this business create all of their architectural and decorative products (table bases, railings, signage, etc) using salvaged materials.
In a world of increasing awareness and demand for all things green, Salvaging Creativity’s products allow homeowners to choose pieces for their home which are environmentally friendly and functional while still aesthetically-pleasing. Combining their eye for design, engineering expertise, and desire to run an environmentally responsible venture, the owners of Salvaging Creativity have created a product line that is both unusual and relevant in today’s marketplace.
The coffee table pictured here pairs a Rudy Art Glass top from our Clear Organic Texture product line (salvaged from a scrap offcut generated during a recently fabricated project) with a Salvaging Creativity table base. The glass was shape cut and polished to fit perfectly with the base, which was fabricated using piecewise welded construction with a mixture of machine parts made of mild and hardened steel, cast iron and bronze.
The base shelf was salvaged from a large, long-abandoned coal pier in Philadelphia where it previously held entire railroad coal cars as they were rolled upside down to unload their cargo. The worm gear main shaft was part of a 1934 Otis Elevator recovered from the historic American Brewery building in Baltimore, which sat abandoned for more than 35 years prior to the building’s recent renovation (which features products from Marvin Windows and Doors to replicate the original windows and doors). The other shafts and gears are scrap Caterpillar forklift parts.
For more information about Salvaging Creativity, please visit www.salvagingcreativity.com. To see additional examples of decorative glass tabletops (including another product on which we partnered with Salvaging Creativity), please visit our Portfolio section.
