Design Archives - Page 9 of 17

Contractor’s Choice Ala NY Times

August 8, 2008 RH

The NY Times interviewed high end Manhattan contractor Stephen Fanuka. His average job is $350k and he has quite a few going at once.

He spoke about materials and their practical uses. I’m kind of liking this glossy ceiling, although I wouldn’t use it in my Victorian homes.

What’s hot right now? Glass, especially in bathrooms. But you’ll need a good installer because the glue shows through if not done properly. I installed some glass mosaic I nabbed from craigslist and lemme tell you, it was a bitch to do! He also mentions white milk glass laminate on walls. Ooh, that sounds suh-weet!

See more here.

And here.

DIY This Pricey Vanity

August 6, 2008 RH 2 Comments

You know what? I don’t even know the price of this Gruppo Atma bathroom furniture on Trendir. I can only assume it’s out of reach. I love it! But I’m one of those people who says “I can do that myself.”

Seems easy enough. Take a plain, boring (used) cabinet…even Ikea will do. Get some old frames. They may have to be new frames if you can’t find matching. Search antiques/salvage shops for legs. Paint the whole thing and bam! You’ve got yourself a fancy cabinet for a fraction of the cost. Best of all….you did it yourself.

And what do we think of this mirror vanity below, also from Trendir? I’m not sure about it.

Sports Equipment Furniture

August 1, 2008 RH

Bike Furniture

Ski Furniture

Skate Study House

Faux Wood Beams

July 30, 2008 RH 14 Comments

I usually don’t like faux wood, especially beams. But these don’t look too terrible. Plus, they do have real reclaimed wood beams, so let’s talk.

The first FAQ on Faux Wood Beams informs us that “Faux is a French word. It means false, artificial or simulated.” Were people actually asking them this? Plus, they have a voice over explaining everything. Makes me feel stoopid.

Anyway, the faux beams are made from polyurethane, not styrofoam. They are non toxic, no formaldehyde and the manufacturing plant keeps waste in check.

The reclaimed wood beams are the real deal, only they are hollowed out, so it’s purely decorative. And it’s much lighter than a solid wood beam too!

Paint Reviews and A Blue Living Room

July 28, 2008 RH 4 Comments

It’s finally happening. I’m painting my living room! At least one small corner of the living room where the hubby will install our kitchenette next week (or the following week, or the one after that). Thanks to all of you who helped with my color decision. Here’s how it’s turning out:

I went with blue walls and white wainscoting instead of my initial desire to have the reverse. Instead of a pale blue, I went with something more vibrant. I’m not the most subtle person in the world, so why should my walls be? I was inspired by a “House of the Day” on Brownstoner that I couldn’t get out of my mind. They painted nearly every room blue! But I could only find one photo left on the internet. When the husband walked in and saw the color he asked if we had a boy.

My living room. Not.

Originally, I really wanted to make the detail in the wainscoting pop with a glaze or a second color. After a few tests, I decided I liked a clean look better after all. I’m stripping 60 some odd years of paint off, but I still don’t have the patience for perfection and by adding a second color, I only accentuated the flaws. So wainscoting is the Behr Swiss Coffee from Home Depot. No patience to wait for color mixing either. Right off the shelf!

Here’s where I need more HELP. Ok, so the ceiling is going to be white. What color should I do the plaster molding? I don’t want all white, but when I tested other colors, I wasn’t grooving to any of them. I did the corbels in a darker blue, with some metallics, but I forgot to take a picture. Don’t know if I’m going to keep that anyway as I think I’d like to go with more of an accent color. Here’s some more info to help you help me: We have a red couch. Ok, what color?? I want glitz!

About the paint:

I went with “Midwest Spring” from Home Depot’s No VOC Fresh Aire Choice. The color looks much more intense on the wall than on the paint chip, but my motto is “Once I start, I’m not repainting.” The first coat looked very patchy and I thought “Oh crap, this is worse than Ralph Lauren paint.” But the second coat filled in nicely and I got away with 2 coats in that dark corner. I liked the paint, but not enough to spend the $10 extra per gallon to use it for everything. Sorry, Mother Nature, my pockets aren’t deep enough to save your ass on my own.

For the ceiling, I spent an extra $3 for the gimmicky “goes on pink, dries white” paint. First time I used that. It does what it says and it’s a cool idea for anyone who hates straining their neck to paint the ceiling as much as I do. Your neck will still hurt, but at least you won’t have to do five coats to cover the spots you missed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most productive weekend. Time spent thinking about it, prepping, buying paint and supplies: 3/4 of the weekend. Time spent actually painting: maybe an hour or two. And I wonder why I only got one corner done.

Color Scheme Dilemma

July 21, 2008 RH 14 Comments

As is. Cracked, caulked and caked with paint. We’ll be making radiator covers out of that fancy piece leaning against the wall.

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Ok, I need your help. Think of this as a poll and your vote will be counted by leaving a comment. Here’s the deal: I usually like dark, gothic looking rooms. I’ve done 3 of the 4 floors in our brownstone with darker walls and stained woodwork and I love it. But I’m bored with that already. I want to shift gears with our apartment. Not to mention that this is the garden level and doesn’t get a lot of light.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find once I started to strip the wainscoting. I uncovered oak with a base coat of brown so it’s nice and patchy and soaked into the wood. This being held together by caulk over the years. Some panels are broken in half and held together by plaster. Not surprising and definitely in line with what I found around the rest of the house. The question is, do I want to restore the wood or just paint it?

I’m thinking paint. Actually I’m beyond the thinking stage. I started to prime it. I’ll have to strip the 50+ years of paint off of all the wainscoting anyway because the details are lost. It kills me that I’m going to cover it up again, but it’s just too much work to have it look eh and make the room dark.

Which leads me to my poll. I’m thinking of a Hollywood Regency meets Victorian meets Art Nouveau look for this room. I’d like to have white walls to bounce light around and color for the wainscoting. I can be persuaded on this matter as I did prefer white wainscoting and colored walls on those internet color simulator things.

Any painted molding in the rest of the house is a deep (brick?) red. Too dark. And I’m sick of it.

Originally I thought yellow. Now I’m over that. It’s my least favorite color.

Now I’m onto a powder blue….like the Volkswagon Beetles. With maybe a gold or silver for the inlay.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Not fully cleaned yet in this photo, but you can see it’s going to be a job to get it to look good. We’re turning that server into a “kitchen sink with counter top”.

All primed and awaiting a color! So, what say you?

Green Furniture by Paul Mirocha

July 9, 2008 RH 1 Comment

I discovered Paul Mirocha on Green Your Decor. Oh, the pieces are lovely for sure! Paul uses salvaged and certified wood and finishes the hand made creations with low VOC coating. He designs furniture, light fixture and art. One problem. These funky, fabulous finds are way out of my budget. I guess that’s my problem, not his, huh?

Benches For Barack

July 8, 2008 RH 6 Comments

Two enterprising teens are raising funds for our next President by building and selling benches. Harry and Emma will be off to college in the fall, but they’re keeping busy this summer by filling orders for the Barack benches.

The benches are constructed in Harry’s Cobble Hill basment and cost $40. Obama’s campaign gets $15 from the sale and the rest goes into material costs.

They are made out of Douglas Fir wood. The standard size is 48 inches long, and 18 inches tall and comes in an earthy pistachio green color. They are waterproofed for outdoor use. Custom bench orders can be placed for an additional $15 and the teens are also taking orders for other custom carpentry projects such as trash bin enclosures, picnic tables and sheds.

Harry and Emma offer deliveries for a small fee, but pick ups are greatly appreciated.

Benches for Barack has already raised $700 for the Obama campaign in just 2 weeks. You know what I was doing when I was 18? I can’t even remember, but I’m sure it involved sitting on my ass complaining about Reagan.

Go to 232 Clinton St. (between Pacific and Amity) if you would like to check out the benches. You can reach Harry at 917-699-1754 or Emma at 201-709-5054.

Related: Brownstoner

Tiny House

July 8, 2008 RH 1 Comment

Aspiring writer Michael Janzen recently launched two new blogs about tiny houses. His philosophy is: Tiny Homes=Freedom. I like his thinking….

“In a nutshell, tiny houses give you back freedom in the form of time, money, and peace of mind. Why? How? Simply because they cost less to own, clean, heat, cool, etc. The less money you spend on your home the less you have to earn or the more you keep in the bank. The less time you spend cleaning and maintaining your house the more time you have to for the things you like to do.”

Tiny House Design is sort of a cross between two of my favorite sites rolled into one: Materialicious and Shedworking. It covers architecture and design of all homes great (as in wonderful) and small.

Tiny Free House is all about the tiny home Michael is building. He’s trying to get his hands on some spare building material, but wouldn’t ya know it? He is in California.

Anyway, I plan to follow his wisdom and foibles so I can be ready to build my own tiny house when the time comes to replace that dang garage.

Uses For Plywood, Part II: Walls

June 25, 2008 RH

The plywood counter top post I did yesterday got me thinking about how versatile plywood is. It’s no secret that I sometimes get lazy with my renovations midway through. I’ve often asked the hubby if we can just do something fun with plywood rather than sheet rock the walls. The answer is always no. But that doesn’t mean I can’t write about it.

For our Kingston “country” renovation, we chose to go with board and bat walls. We did actually do board and bat, but afterwards our neighbor came in to see it and asked why we didn’t just use plywood under the batten? D’oh! We totally could’ve gotten away with that since we were going with a pickled white anyway. It would’ve saved hours. Actually, days. So, plywood under horizontal or vertical strips of wood could work. Or even raised panels, as in raised panel wainscoting? Are your creative juices flowing yet?

If you really want to go the cheapest, fastest, easiest route, consider just slapping that plywood up there with some paint or stain. The photo above is Cafe Macchiato in Newburgh, NY. Although I didn’t ask, I’m under the impression they just did a quick stain job. To me, the end result looks like a faux leather technique. Whether it was intended or not, it doesn’t look half bad! Consider bright stains and washes such as reds or purples. Could look very cool!

The fact is, you can’t really do much to screw up plywood. If you don’t like it and want to change to sheet rock, it won’t get destroyed when you take it down. And you can always use it elsewhere for all of your building needs.

Thatched Roofs

June 19, 2008 RH

I see thatched roof cottages in Ireland all the time and always wonder why we don’t have more of them here. Is it a dying craft? Perhaps. But I did find one local guy who specializes in thatched roofs.

Master Thatcher Colin McGhee, from Essex, England started thatching at the age of 16. He’s been working in the US since 1991 and is based in Virginia (although his area code is 845).

European thatch dates back to the middle ages when the first villages were established. Here in the states, Native Americans were using thatch for generations before early settlers started to during the 60’s. 1560’s, that is.

Reed and straw are the two most common choices of thatching. Material has to be gathered, dried, bundled, and secured the roof in thick layers. It’s weather resistant, fire proof and easily repaired. The commonly used Norfolk reed has an R value of 40.

I’m not sure this is something I’d attempt myself on a house (maybe an outhouse or something) but there is a DIY section on McGhee’s site.

Hey, if a green roof dries out and dies, would it look like a thatched roof?

Brothers Dressler=Awesome

June 10, 2008 RH

Canadian twin woodworkers Jason and Lars Dressler specialize in repurposing salvaged material into original furniture. Lots of designers do that now, but some better than others. Brothers Dressler is pretty darn imaginative.

They seem to be kind of obsessed with wooden lasts, originally used by cobblers. They have created foot lamps and foot stools. Who’d have thunk the wooden foot would be such a useful object in furniture making? But I’m lovin’ it!

They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike. You can read more about the twins on Moco Loco.

Upcycled Lamps

June 10, 2008 RH

Last week we featured lamps made out of recycled plastic utensils. Here’s a lovely retro looking light fixture made from recycled everyday materials. Can you guess what it is?

THIS has an Etsy store and offers $100 off if you send your own recycled materials. The fixture above retails for $425.

Via Alternative Consumer

Recycled Plastic Lamps

June 6, 2008 RH 1 Comment

Instead of doing a write up on these über cool recycled lamps I saw on Inhabitat, I want to let you take a guess as to what they are made of. Don’t cheat! Go to Inhabitat only AFTER you think you’ve figured it out.

Here are some hints:

Well, you know it’s plastic from the post title.

We’ve all used them at some point in our lives.

It’s a completely wasteful item, yet sometimes, oh so necessary!

About 1 month from now, many Americans will be using them for one day.

A Splash of Color

May 16, 2008 RH 2 Comments

I no longer work on my house. All I do is refinish furniture now. Shame, that. Anyway, wanna see what I’ve been up to this week?

This bed has been sitting in my garage since winter (obviously). It just wasn’t doing it for me. It has nice lines, but it needed some umph.

Too much umph? Actually, I love it. But then I like bright, shiny things. Just like a little kid. The sanding was the easy part. The gods weren’t smiling on me when I was painting outdoors this week. Between the wind blowing the friggen pollen, the bugs and the rain, it took me forever to paint. I’m going to have to charge $20k for all the time I put in.

From lemons you make lemonade. I ripped this painting when I got frustrated packing the van one day. No, I didn’t do it purposely, but I was careless. Anyway, not wanting to throw anything out, I figured I could recycle it as a table. Am I a genius or what? Ok, so I haven’t actually done anything yet, other than place the painting on top of the base and snap a picture. I’ll put a wooden back on it for support and mounting purposes. Then I’m not sure if I’m gonna go with resin or tempered glass. I’ll figure it out last minute….like everything else I do.

reclaimedhome.com

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