Posts with tag home style

When you're looking for affordable, stylish furniture for your home, apartment, dorm room -- wherever really -- IKEA is your store. They've managed to bring fun modern styles to all of us who can't afford to drop $5,000 on a designer kitchen table. But even if you're totally obsessed with the store's streamlined solutions for modern living, you wouldn't want to live there -- right?

Probably not, unless you're this guy. Mark Malkoff was having his apartment fumigated, which meant he needed to find a place to stay -- bummer. He's a comedian and filmmaker, and all his starving artist friends didn't have room in their tiny studio apartments for a guest. Instead of blowing money on a hotel, Mark had a novel idea -- why not just stay in one of those display apartments in the local IKEA?

Seems crazy, but for some reason, the store actually agreed to let Mark take up residence in their New York location. He lives on the shop floor, eats all his meals at the cafeteria (hooray, Swedish meatballs!), and showers in the back offices.

The best part is that if you'll be New York this week, you can actually visit Mark. He'll be at IKEA through January 12th (after which he'll be heading home to his apartment). Everyone else can check back on Mark's website for daily videos about what life is like instead the home style mega store.

"Let's make them pink! You know, for girls." Or at least that's what I imagine must have been the reasoning behind Pretty Useful Tools, a line of well-decorated, stylish household tools.

Pretty Useful Tools' Toolkit Rebecca comes with a combination hammer that houses four screwdrivers in the handle, a 6-in-1 screwdriver with flat and Phillips head tips of various sizes, and a set of slip joint pliers. Covered in a zesty, floral pattern, the very practical toolkit comes across as stylish and useful.

Something tells me you wouldn't be able to drive a 16-penny nail with the combination hammer, but then again, if you were buying the Toolkit Rebecca, you probably aren't the sort of person who would mind that limitation in the first place.

What would you do with a 7,000 square foot house? Who could possibly use all that space?

If you're Paris Hilton, you need it. You have to find someplace to house all your clothes.

The $5.9 million mansion comes complete with 5 bedrooms, 5 1/2 bathrooms, and a fitness room. However, Paris apparently gets enough exercise walking around her enormous castle, so she's converting the fitness room, so she's converting into a closet for her shoes.

I'm sure she'll take the study, or the library, or a couple of the bedrooms, and use those to house the rest of her wardrobe.

If you live anywhere with decent weather and enough hipsters per capita, you're undoubtedly familiar with the scooter as a fashionable form of transportation. Here in Austin, you can't leave the house without seeing some well-dressed 20-something buzzing along on their sleek-looking Vespa, and we even have lifestyle boutiques that sell designer clothes and "pre-1985 European mopeds" -- for the discerning connoisseur.

You may live someplace that's too cold to rely on a scooter as your main mode of transport, or you may think dropping $5,000 on a moped is stupid when you could just as easily buy a car -- but that doesn't mean you can't join in the fun.

Enter the Vespa Lamp. This stylish nod to 1960's mod (and contemporary hipster) fashion will let everyone know that you understand what's cool -- even if you opted for a used, 4-door Hyundai instead of that classic Lambretta all your friends are riding.

While it may make your house feel slightly like the Adams Family mansion, this doorknob is certainly a unique way to great your guests. I think you'd probably get one of two respones: either "How cool!" or "That's the creepiest freakin' thing I've ever seen!"

Personally, I think this is great, but I'd caution most people about attaching it to their front door. It'd work well in the modern home or condo -- but it'll stick out like a sore -- er -- thumb in the more tradditional suburban abode.

Of course, there is an added benefit. Especially for people who live alone, this gives you someone to come to...ish.

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for novel home decor. Some people collect yard gnomes or weird porcelain figurines, and I lust after kitchy, cute functional pieces that fit my modern design aesthetic.

Like this clothes hanger lamp, for instance. It's not going to change your world, or even revolutionize the way you hang your clothes. It can, however, make your bedroom just a little bit cooler.

For instance, I like to screw a small metal bar into one wall of the bedroom, that lets me hang my favorite shirts out in the open instead of tucked away in my closet. With the clothes hanger, I'd be able to highlight that design choice -- making it fun, instead of merely functional.

The only problem is that the lamps, at $249, aren't exactly within everyone's budget (including mine). But I can't imagine the concept would be that hard to replicate. Just make sure you're using low-watt bulbs. You wouldn't want your DIY design idea to turn your bedroom into a blazing inferno.

This chair looks like something you'd see in those too-cool-for-school clubs that cater to people who wish their lives were more like liquor commercials. Just looking at makes me want to give some girl a flirty look, whisper something sexy in her ear, then casually remove the glass of Captain Morgan from her hand and drink it with a wry grin.

Clubs like this are stupid, and, chances are, you'd look stupid if you put this chair in your house.

But it does have a very interesting feature that might just make it worthwhile. The chair actually changes colors as it interacts with people -- becoming a darker shade of red depending on the weight of whoever is sitting on it.

I love that the mood of a party could be constantly shifting based on who's sitting or standing. However, the obvious drawback is that most people would be too nervous to use the chair, for fear that it'd turn dark red and draw attention to their weight -- so make sure you have confident friends before buying a few for your funky modern pad.

For the hipster parents among you, working hard to raise your self-aware yet self-assured, eco-conscious, TV-free vegetarian child in an environment filled with ironic onesies, good design and old Pixies albums, here's some lights you might like.

Contemporary Heaven has tons of cute little critters to illuminate Apple, Oak, Shiloh or Ezra's room, including Ruby the Caterpillar Pendant Light (pictured at right), and, my personal favorite, the Sky Ceiling Light.

They're not exactly inexpensive, and I have a feeling your kid won't care one way or the other, but at least it's not Dora the Explorer, or something fashioned after those hideous little Bratz dolls.

You know those fancy-shmancy hotels where everything is so sophisticated that they even took time to style the toilet paper?

It may seem like a total waste of time ('cause seriously, does anything think about visual aesthetics when they're wiping their butt?), but if you're the sort of person who likes a really classy bathroom, now you too can achieve the delicately crafted designs of origami toilet paper.

You can learn the standard triangle, the pleat, or even -- for the advanced origami artists among you -- the pleated-tuck.

In the event that you try this at home, please take photos and send us the link. I'd love to see how yours turn out.

[via Neatorama]

There's a whole new batch of college freshman heading off to school this fall who are leaving home for the first time, and trying to make it on their own. While most dorm-dwellers won't have room for furniture and other household staples, chances are they'll have access to a kitchen, which means they'll need stuff to cook and eat with.

And while they could buy every single piece individually (or inherit an old set from mom and dad), it'd be far easier just to pick up a Kitchen in a Box.

This is a good idea for multiple reasons. First of all, it means not having to be embarrassed or creeped out by the stains and stale bits of ancient, impossible-to-wash off food attached to the rents' old stuff, and secondly, this is way easier to move than assorted bits of kitchen stuff that weren't designed to fit together into one box.

The safest bet appears to be the Chefmate Kitchen in a Box First Apartment Starter Set, which is full of everything any college student would ever need and only costs $29.99. IKEA also makes a set, which is probably nicer in quality, but also costs $89.99 -- and no self-respecting freshman is going to care about the quality of his or her cookware.

Despite our best attempts at living in a sleek, minimalist home, my girlfriend and I have finally accepted that we live amongst an obnoxious pile of clutter. It's become so bad, that we're about to purge a bunch of our stuff -- even, I'm embarrassed to admit, our books. Not only do they look sloppy crammed into our bookshelf, but they take up a ton of space.

But all that was before I spotted this Invisible Shelving System.

While this may look impossible, the books are actually supported by a row of small, clear plastic prongs -- creating the illusion that they're suspended in mid-air. This way you can have easy access to your favorite paperbacks, without letting big, clunky shelving kill your design aesthetic.

Genius.

[via Damn I Like That]

Usually I'm not a fan of kitschy, gimmicky home decor items -- mostly because they're expensive, and they'll undoubtedly go out of style in about 15 minutes.

However, there are always exceptions.

Take this "Personal Moon," for instance. It's nothing fancy -- just a giant light box in the shape of a moon -- but, especially if you live someplace with an open floor-plan that's otherwise uncluttered, the Personal Moon could be a very romantic, and very dramatic addition to your home.

I imagine it'd feel like having a little piece of a fairy tale, right in your room. How cool is that?

At first, the idea of a table embedded with hundreds of glowing lights sounds tacky -- like bright, blinking Christmas decorations, a lamp shaped like a body part, or any other gimmicky piece of modern furniture.

But if the photos are any indication, this LED table seems surprisingly tasteful.

And the best part is that it's interactive. When there's nothing on the table, the lights dimly twinkle, but they become brighter when they sense motion. So, when you move your arm over the table, the lights underneath that arm become brighter (like in the photo).

This might seem a little out of place if you're design aesthetic is based on the "rustic" look, but if you're a fan of the modern home, the table could be an incredibly cute touch.

The only drawback is the price. At $2,800, those twinkling lights would have to be really worth it.

My girlfriend and I have just started the process of buying a house. We've never done this before, so there's lots of odd, new and slightly scary things to consider -- namely, what am I going to do with a yard?

I'm no green thumb. In fact, I can barely mow a lawn without causing permanent damage to something. My plan is to make up for these shortcomings by picking out some awesome garden furniture -- like this bench + planter from 5.5 Designers.

So much of the outdoor furniture I see is either cheap-looking, covered in flower patters, or "rustic," so it's nice to see something sturdy, sleek and elegant. Plus, it serves a dual-purpose, which I love!

Now I'll just have to find somebody to keep the plants alive.