Tifmurray

As we head into fall, barefoot and sandy, putting a rug down in the kitchen or under the dining table, is always a good idea, both to catch spills, and provide some cushion. A kilim instantly makes a white room warm. The rich colors and often graphic patterns pair well with modern decor; Frank Lloyd Wright championed the look. If you’re not convinced, have a look at these 12 spaces.

PLAZA Interior featured the home of Hanna Wessman, host of Extreme Home Makeover, who added a feminine kilim to her kitchen. The rose-toned hue plays nicely with the Danish modern wood dining chairs.

The black borders on this geometric kilim helps ground the white space, along with the black Wishbone and Eames dining chairs and spindly table.

As seen on IKEA’s blog Livet hemma, a glass table designed by Carl Öjerstamfrom lets the mismatched chairs and stripey, fringed kilim take center stage.

David Cafiero of Cafiero Select designed this kitchen, seen in Lonny. The blue/gray fronts of the cabinetry warm up the basic white forms, as does the Persian runner and wicker baskets.

Jessie Webster, photographer and blogger behind Sweet Thing, uses a Navajo-inspired antique kilim rug to add color underneath her Restoration Hardware dining table and ’40s-era bentwood chairs in her Silverlake, Los Angeles home, featured on Design Sponge.

Tom Dixon’s copper pendant is just the right touch for picking up the earthy tones of the kilim in this Melbourne, Australia dining space. The green tolix stools are an unexpected touch.

The family who lives in this home featured in Elle Interior Sweden owns vintage shop Dusty Deco in Stockholm. The somewhat formal kilim pulls together the room, with its mismatched chairs and retro Smeg fridge.

Designed by CPH Square, the expansive stainless steel kitchen in this loft is made immediately cozy with a kilim.

The blogger behind Hither & Tither shows off her kitchen, complete with rustic cabinetry, well-worn kilim, and mid-century modern classics.

This typical Copenhagen home with white floors and walls, finds strong contrast with black chairs and picture frames, along with a diamond-patterned kilim with black fringe.

Anne Maxwell Foster of design firm Tilton Fenwick opted for a kilim with a Southwestern style to cozy up her Brooklyn loft. We love how the blue/gray cabintry works with the same color stripe in the rug.

For more of this look, check out Montage: 30 Kitchen Kilims on StyleCarrot.

We’ve seen this design floating around the internets and we fell in love with it. Project designer and recent graduate from the Masters program at ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne in Switzerland, Qiyun Deng, designed Graft, a set of disposable tableware that looks like vegetables. The pieces are made from bioplastic PLA, a material that’s usually made from plants.

Each utensil and bowl is a reminder that these beautiful parts of nature that are full of texture and form can be utilized for another purpose – a celery stem works as the handle for a fork, petals from an artichoke become a spoon.

From the designer:

By waking both visual and haptic sensation it brings along a question: Will you throw them away easily?

The 25 contemporary artists featured in Art Made From Books (forthcoming from Chronicle Books) may use similar materials, but their work exhibits extraordin

Did you see this over at West Elm?  Stikwood is slated as the world's first peel and stick solid wood paneling.  When I first saw the ad, I assumed it was just faux wood wallpaper but it's not.  It's wood that is super-thin - .125" thick or .2" thick if it's the reclaimed wood options.  Here are the options as shown on the Stikwood site.


The possibilities for using Stikwood are pretty much endless. It's also made in the USA and slated as free VOCs too.  Wish I had known about it before our basement reno as mudding and sanding drywall sucks stinks!

Updating this ILB post from yesterday, John Russell has this expanded version of his story in today's Indianapolis Star. Some...

marimekko polttopallo necklace.

inspired by these vintage fashion magazines from vogue, seventeen, harper’s bazaar, etc. i went looking for some colorful summer baubles to compliment them. here’s some bold statement pieces that can make an average outfit turn wow.

viridian layer necklace via anthropologie.

Katie Diamond’s Mia ring via leif shop.

douglas fir bracelet from lightly.

Viridian Layer Necklace from anthropologie.

emily green’s color study necklace from leif.

"Istanbul - B & E" by Orçun Esin. (See also: portfolio)

1. DIY Wooden Bead Trivets // A Merry Mishap

It’s Friday! Hooray! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend ahead of you. If a little DIY project (or a bigger one) is calling your name, these three tutorials just might be the ticket! I’m seriously eyeing the amazing DIY Wooden Bead Trivets, but I just found out yesterday that my Mom, youngest sister, and brother will be flying into town for a visit on Saturday, so I’ll be bookmarking that gem for another weekend! Hope your next few days are fab. xo Ez

2. DIY Photo Clipboards // Love Grows Wild

3. DIY Mounted Shelving Unit // Almost Makes Perfect

Want more?! You can find my past DIY to Try roundups HERE and more great DIY projects in the Creature Comforts’ DIY Gallery!

The post DIY to Try: Three Wooden Home Decor Projects appeared first on Creature Comforts.

Government lawyers say the Abu Ghraib escapes highlight the need to protect procedural information.

This Mallorcan paradise should be mine (a girl can dream, can’t she?) but since it’s not, I thought I’d share. Stephen Nickel of ecoDESIGNfinca designed this country villa for himself and his wife after many frustrating delays with local architects and high construction costs. His solution was prefabricated buildings he found on the internet and had shipped over from Germany, and looking at the house, you’d never know its components were prefab.

The H-shaped villa wraps around a beautiful interior courtyard with a pool and plenty of patio space for lounging or dining.

The one-story house consists of four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a master bedroom with a dressing room and en suite, a spa with sauna, an entrance hall with a piano, and a modern kitchen and living room.

The long narrow windows in the entrance space bring in plenty of light and give subtle peeks to the pool outside.

Features of the house include: underfloor heating, insulated exterior walls, double glazed windows, and a home ventilation system and heat pump to keep the perfect temperature all year long.

The shape of the house allows for plenty of views to the pool in the courtyard, courtesy of floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors.

Images courtesy of ecoDESIGNfinca.

halb/halb designed the #180 mirror that has a unique feature: it’s bent. The angle that bisects the circular mirror is actually functional as it allows you to see a different perspective of your room or of what’s in front of it.

It can be suspended in three positions to rotate the front angle accordingly. Depending on the angle, you’ll see totally different things.

Buy it here.

Artist Karin Waskiewicz has patience. First, she pours layers and layers and layers of paint on top of one another. Then, she lets them dry. After that, a totally new process begins as she carves, sands and cuts away layers to reveal the layers below. Topographic-like forms and craters begin to emerge, creating a landscape of colorful pockets like those only seen in dreams.

There is so much detail here that it boggles my mind. As I look at each piece, all I want to do is get up close and personal, and spend time appreciating each individual layer and each deconstruction.

The process of these paintings really appeals to me, too. Karin may know what colors of paint she has used for a particular painting, but the process of unveiling those colors and layers through the act of destruction is a unique aspect of what she does. What’s even more interesting is that she really has no way of knowing how each work will resolve, making it a game of surprise.

i was taking a look at weekday carnival as i am wont to do and noticed she’s painted her living room walls the palest shade of lovely pink. riikka kantinkoski’s beautiful blog is written in finnish, so i’m not positive of what she’s saying, but i believe she’s saying they’ve painted their home so many times, it’s perhaps time to move on to a new challenge. wow, do i ever know that feeling. i think i painted the rooms in my last house so many times, the rooms were starting to get smaller. the rest of her home is lovely, as well with all it’s smart-looking black & white — i could definitely be happy living in her pretty home, couldn’t you?

• all photos by weekday carnival.

My favorite recipe for sticky buns is by Lisa Yockelson.  I cut it out of the Washington Post food section 17 years ago and still have the clipping.  It is a yeasted dough which takes time, but is totally worth the effort, in fact the article was called “In pursuit of the sticky bun”.  For me, no sticky bun was worth the effort if not that one, until I saw this week’s recipe for upside-down sticky pecan muffins by recipe developer, Yvonne Rupert.  There may only be one thing I like more than perfect sticky buns, and that’s a one bowl recipe.  In fact, Yvonne was able to woo me, and edge her muffin recipe next to my favorite sticky bun recipe with three simple words– One Bowl Baking, which also happens to be the title of her next cookbook coming out in September. Yvonne’s recipe has all the same elements as the perfect sticky bun, but without the steps a yeasted dough takes.  Also, the baking time is very short, so even in the summer heat, you should be able to stand about 30 minutes at the coolest time of the day for this great reward!  -Kristina

Yvonne Ruperti appeared on the Emmy-nominated cooking show America’s Test Kitchen for three seasons and was a recipe developer and writer for Cook’s Illustrated magazine. She writes for the blog, Serious Eats, and is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Easy Artisan Bread and the forthcoming One Bowl Baking (Running Press), available in September.  She currently splits her time between Singapore, where she is tasting and experimenting with local ingredients, and New York City. Follow her on Twitter @yvonneruperti.

See Yvonne’s recipe after the jump!

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yesterday i took a drive over to the post-World War II suburban neighborhood of westlake, just south of san francisco in daly city. the homes are so quaint and kitschy, i couldn’t help but to stop and take some shots of these little row houses. they’re all painted in pastel tones, with sculpted shrubbery and spotless streets. Developed by builder Henry Doelger, Westlake is notable for its monostylistic architecture, created by designers to encompass nearly every building in the development. For this reason, Westlake has become an icon for architectural blandness, exemplified by its endless rows of boxy houses, which were the inspiration for Malvina Reynolds’ folk song Little Boxes (made popular in weeds), an anti-conformity anthem in the 1960s. have a look, and have a very happy weekend!

It has been such a gloomy day in Portland. The overcast skies and very un-summery weather has helped put me in a grumpy state of mind. So to all those feeling down or moody, here are ten images to bring on a little cheer.

Sources (from top to bottom): OLDTIMEFRIEND, Attack of the Cute, Matte Stephens, Kyle Johnson, Sinyaka Minemura, Suzanne, The Paris Print Shop, The Chive, Kirstie Edmunds, and One Kings Lane.

I’m kind of obsessing over this bed from DWR. Not only is it beautiful and modern but it also looks inviting. Between the upholstery and the built-in oak nightstands, what more could you need for a perfect night’s sleep? You can also get it without the built-in side tables.

Designed by Jeffrey Bernett, Nicholas Dodziuk and Piotr Woronkowicz, the bed comes in tons of fabric options, too. Plus, you can add on some underbed storage. Looks like they’ve thought of everything.

BUY \\\ DWR

The Rogers House in London is on sale for the first time since it was built in 1968, available through the UK’s modern real estate agency, The Modern House. Since then, it’s been lovingly owned and maintained by the Rogers family.

Located on a garden plot opposite Wimbledon Common, it feels secluded and private but is only a short walk from the center of the village. Yes, tennis fans, it’s that Wimbledon!

Designed by the architects Richard and Su Rogers, it’s an important and celebrated house of the 20th century that any modern design lover would be ecstatic to visit, let alone live in. Its design is rooted in the classic Modern style established by Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra, but its construction is vastly different. It’s one of very few British houses that could stand in comparison with the finest twentieth-century houses in America and mainland Europe.

It’s gorgeous clean lines don’t prepare you for the eye-popping excitement and colors within. If someone tells you that modern design is cold, then show them this house!

Merrillville-based NiSource Inc. (NYSE: NI) is reporting second quarter net income of $72.1 million, compared to $68.3 million during the same period the previous year. The company says it intends to file gas operations modernization plans later this year, which will include potential expansion in northern Indiana.

A simple shelf becomes a show stopper with a circle of color behind it. Paint the shelf in the same color for a designer touch to a hardware store shelf. Part of its charm is its imperfection, so just go at it!

A green plant in a solid pot — what better place to slap a jolt of color? This is such an easy, simple pot update, but it carries an impressive punch.

Would this not be the coolest outdoor party station? A beautiful bar built on an old weathered door. With the galvanized bucket for bottles below, a few shelves for drink and glass storage, and a built-in bottle-opener, this alone is reason to host a summer party.

i love these dreamy looking lifeguard towers by photographer Léo Caillard. they’re such happy little beach shacks in his miami houses photographic series, i just had to share. i wish it were a beach day here! for the whole beautiful series, visit Léo Caillard.

• all photographs by Léo Caillard.

it’s always a treat to have wifi on the plane and be able to wander around on the internet without distractions. i remember i used to have hundreds of bookmarks and was constantly digging through them for sparks & ideas. these days i find myself less and less looking for inspiration on the internet. but i have to admit, it was pretty awesome going back to some of the sites i used to visit so frequently (and finding new ones) and just doing a random inspiration post like the good ole days. here’s a couple of lovely things i found up in the air…

PS. i am in chicago till sunday. if you are in the area i’d love for you to stop by our gap event tonight to shop, hear some music, and hang out. rsvp here!

talk about some cool walls. the work of ernst caramelle. making me want to pick up a paint brush.

rana begum makin’ paper look goooood.

perfect color combinations. jello molds by arnout van albada, found here.

abstract inspiration by thierry feuz

how to make a wire wrapped word. HELLO.

handmade cards from essimar’s etsy shop…

what an unbelievable space, right? had to double take on the gal sitting up there.

have a wonderful day, everyone. -bri 

As with fashion, interior design tends to go in trends. Some things are classic and ever-lasting (I’m thinking herringbone floors, beautiful moldings, linen anything, etc), and others are more trendy. I have definitely been known to embrace the trends – whether it’s a pattern like chevron or ikat, colour trends like the recent mint and coral obsession (love!), or lighting trends like industrial pendants. I think with trends you just want to make sure it’s something you do genuinely love, and to keep it in check on budget so that if you end up replacing it a few years down the road, you’re not regretting your decisions.

One trend I have happily jumped on board recently? Triangles. Have you noticed that they are like the new polka dot and are popping up everywhere? From artwork, to wall treatments, to fabrics, to nail art.

These black and white beauties from Simply Grove from are a graphic statement…

 

via Simply Grove

This gold version from Bovee Bird, with that pink sign, totally had me at hello (or bonne nuit.. !).

Via Bovee Bird

 This triangle pattern in a rectangle is a cool twist on the application that I spotted on Dot + Bo.

 Via Dot + Bo

This canvas idea from Third Floor Design Studio makes an easy DIY art project that you could totally customize with your fave colours.

Via Third Floor Design Studio

And this wall from Mandi at Vintage Revivals has a tribal vibe that I’m totally digging. I love that the stamp effect makes it sort of imperfectly perfect.

Via Vintage Revivals

What do you guys think of the triangle trend? Love it? Hate it? 

Everywhere we turn these days there are things that need updating. Some just for aesthetic reasons. Some for functional. Some for both.

Enter our old timey, first floor thermostat in our office. We figured with our new furnace system it’d be a good time to update this to something more energy efficient.

We made the swap to a programmable thermostat in our first house, so this time around the tech geek in me begged Sherry to let us take this upgrade a step further – especially since so many of you have commented about loving your Nest. To my surprise, she agreed. And that’s how I found myself holding one of these babies.

But let me back up for a second. Nest is a “learning thermostat” that keeps a record of your habits (when you turn the heat or AC up, when you’re home or away, etc) and creates and adjusts a schedule for you. Meaning it can be even more intuitive than a typical programmable thermostat – and therefor can save you more money. It can even sense when you’re home (and turn itself down if you’re not). It was designed by people who helped make the iPhone, so it has a bunch of other cool features I’ll get into later. I’ve wanted one since they came out in 2010, but they’ve been priced fairly high. But with the recent release of their 2nd generation thermostat, prices on the 1st generation dropped…

In fact they dropped so much that I had trouble finding them. I finally found some across town at a Lowe’s about 30 minutes away. So I ran over there with a change of address coupon that we received after we moved.

We decided to buy two Nests since we have two systems (one upstairs and one downstairs). So with the reduced sale price, the additional $25 off from my coupon, and the 5% discount that I got for using my Lowe’s credit card (which the cashier was happy to give me despite it not working initially with the coupon) it took our price per unit down to $158. Still a lot for a thermostat, but considering the new ones are $249 it was a we-saved-$180-on-two-of-them victory. And the fact that our downstairs furnace was replaced by our home warranty helped us rationalize spending $300 after we saved around $5,000 on the new furnace.

As for the installation, I’ll admit it had me a little worried. I’d heard that it’s not compatible with all HVAC systems (and our upstairs unit is pretty old) and generally I worried about breaking this expensive little thermom-o-robot in the process.

I started downstairs. The first step was removing the old unit, which was pretty straight forward. First I pulled off the face. Then (with the power turned off at the breaker!) I unscrewed the inner plate so I could reveal all the wiring behind it. Nest kind of thought of everything, so they even included a small screwdriver that made this easier. (PS: Nest isn’t paying me to gush – they don’t even know we bought these – I’m just kind of in love with this thing).

Here’s the inside of our unit. It looks kind of like you’re about to defuse a bomb. But following the installation instructions eliminated just about any fear that this project was going to blow up in my face.

In addition to a handy installation video, they have this cool “Compatibility Check” online that helps guide you through how your wiring works (or doesn’t work) with Nest. Admittedly, I probably should’ve done this before I took so much trouble to buy the darn things…

But good news. We were compatible. And not only that, the instructions included a personalized guide for how I should connect my wires to the Nest unit. Seriously. If only all instruction manuals were this easy.

Also filed under “thought of everything:” the paper manual that came in the box included these wire labels so you wouldn’t risk confusing which red wire went where once everything was removed from the old unit. I didn’t use them since mine were so straight forward, but this still earned points in my tech-nerd handbook.

I detached all of my wires and then removed the last bit of the old unit from the wall.

Then I just slid the Nest base back in its place.

I was also crazy for the fact that there was a tiny little level built into the base so you could be sure it was hanging straight on your wall. Genius.

Then, based on my personalized wiring guide, I just popped my wires back in place using the little tabs. Super easy.

For the grand finale, I snapped the face into place and…

…turned the power back on. There were a few set-up steps to get Nest going, like telling it what type of heating we had and connecting it to our wi-fi. This was perhaps my only gripe with the whole thing – entering in a long alphanumeric password was a bit tedious. #firstworldproblems

The wi-fi is cool because it allows me to access our thermostats from my phone. Nest always touts this as a feature to use when you’re traveling so I didn’t think I’d find much use for it. But on the first night I found myself turning the AC up from bed because it was too hot in our bedroom. Yup. Felt like I was sleeping in my fancypants.

It says it takes a couple of weeks to learn your schedule, so we’ve yet to experience the beauty of that. But I’m especially grateful to have it in this house because we’re already finding that temperatures fluctuate a lot in here thanks to the intense afternoon sun we get. Hope you catch on quick, Nest-dog.

Oh, and part of me worried I’d regret not spending the extra dough to the 2nd generation version, but besides working with more HVAC systems (which isn’t an issue for us, luckily) the differences are apparently mostly cosmetic. The newer version is a little slimmer, doesn’t have the small grill at the bottom, and has a shinier side so it better reflects your wall color. Those all sound like nice-to-haves, but not worth the extra $180. So personally I’m glad we got the units we did. Perhaps I’ll bite my tongue when they release the 3rd generation that babysits your kids and folds your laundry too.

Oh, and before I end this lovefest (lovenest?) I have to share one more anecdote about installing it upstairs, where we had a less ancient thermostat already in place on the wall. I expected it to be the easier install, but when I went through the compatibility check I got this alert. Ruh roh. .

But I followed instructions and in like five minutes I was already getting off of the phone with a Nest representative who had looked at the photo I emailed and described how I should hook up my wires. Brilliant.

So I think overall it took me less than an hour to install both units – which is a miracle for any project where I’m also stopping to take blog photos. I couldn’t be happier.

Well, I could be a smidge happier I guess. Apparently a lot of localities offer rebates to reward Nest owners for making an energy efficient choice (Nest has a list of them here). Our area isn’t doing that yet, so after a few phone calls to our electric company and gas company I struck out at getting any sort of money back. Oh well, at least I’ll get a tiny write off for donating our old units to Habitat for Humanity (along with actually saving money by heating/cooling the house more efficiently).

Anyone else out there have a Nest? Got any tips for me? Or has anyone else made a tech-y upgrade lately? Wait, maybe forget that last question. Sherry probably doesn’t want you guys giving me any more ideas…