Showing posts with label trends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trends. Show all posts

10.13.2013

Purple/Blue Girl's Bedroom

My mom and I recently re-did my cousins Morgan's bedroom while she was on vacation!


She turned 10, and her room needed an update for her age.  She had lots of pink and purple in her room previously, and since she's a bit of a tom-boy we didn't want the color scheme to be too girly.

[before]

Our biggest surprise to her was the sliding barn door.  She already had a small door in the corner that goes to a small finished attic space used as a playroom that her dad built.  We thought it would be so cool to have a door that hides it like a secret passageway.



Morgan picked out her bedding, which had lots of black, gray, and purple tones.  We based the room off of that and added some sparkle here and there.

[before]


She requested that we paint some circles on the wall with different colors, so we made a wall that looks as if we splashed circles of different sizes across it!  





Some of the circles are mirrors attached with 3M stickies, and a few are zebra decals, and a couple are pizza pans used as magnet boards.

[before]


We made the sliding barn door out of a 30" flat hollow-core wood door from HomeDepot with a sliding door track attached to a painted 2x6.  She already had a guitar that we hung on a wall guitar display hanger.


The chandelier and mirror are from Hobby Lobby


The window treatment is hung higher, close to the ceiling, to make the window look larger, the ceiling look higher, and to act as a headboard.

[before]


[before]


We also got a plexiglass shelf from cb2.com for her books she reads before bed.


There are hooks on the wall by her door for her backpack and jackets.

[before]


[before]



Love you Morgie!


Check out her older sister's room we did 2 years ago HERE!

7.31.2012

Adler love!

I'm in love with Jonathan Adler's new colors for Kohler!


You have to check out the new collection.  It's perfect for a space that needs something unexpected or a pop of color and surprise for a fun space!


Colors include: Piccadilly Yellow, Greenwich Green, Palermo Blue, Annapolis Navy




Jonathan Adler is a mod, funky, talented designer that creates furniture, pottery, and more in home decor.  In case you're unfamiliar with him, check out his website to see more of his fun creations!





4.25.2012

Raised Garden Bed

My husband, Matt, has been wanting to build this raised garden bed for some time now.  He built a 3'x6' bed using cedar from Home Depot, screwed it together using galvanized metal/outdoor screws, and installed it in our backyard the other weekend!  It's sort of our "practice" version for our larger-scale plan to have an organic community garden at our church, Leawood Presbyterian, next year!



It's on a hill that gets the most sun in our yard, so he had to dig a trench to be able to make it level into the hill.  We also bought organic soil for our organic garden.  


He brought home two shipping palettes from work the other day for free to construct a compost bin [pictured below].  It's actually about half full right now. 


We have a small metal bin in our kitchen for all of our scraps- which has been great for less waste!  Plus you can use grass clippings, leaves, coffee grounds, and lint from your dryer!  Plus my mom has a copper compost bin to match her kitchen that she brings us when it's full.  We got ours at Bed Bath & Beyond.


There are a ton of shipping palette projects going on in home DIY blogs right now, here's a few of my favorites:   





Right now our garden is not full.  It only has cabbage and broccoli in it- since a friend from Matt's work gave them to him for free!  He just gave us some Radish and Leaf Lettuce seeds to add.  We are planning on planting tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and herbs like cilantro and basil.  Matt really wants corn although it gets so big- not sure yet.  We might end up putting our herbs in pots if we end up having too many veggies!


We also have a rain barrel that's connected to our downspout for reusing water to hydrate plants.  It is a converted old greek container for shipping olives that he bought on ebay two years ago!  Because it collects and filters water that is run-off from our roof we didn't think it would be good to use to water our food, but we will use it to water our non-edible plants around the garden.



Here's a tutorial to build a raised garden from This Old House.  It's much more intensive than what we did, but very informative.


The only thing I might want to add to our bed is a ledge for leaning/sitting when picking veggies like this one:


Here is Matt, smiling from ear-to-ear, after a long evening of work drinking a beer!  Don't worry- that Margarita is mine; can't hold a camera and a drink at the same time!


The broccoli and cabbage have already grown so much!
[That is cut ornamental grass from our front yard fountain grass that we trimmed before it started growing back green to use as "hay" on the new plants]



A work in progress...


11.28.2011

Product Design



Recent product designs I'm in love with: or if you need a GRAND Christmas gift idea!

The regulation size Pingtuated Equilibripong Table
by Axel Yberg:

I can't imagine how long it took to build this table.  It has exotic wood, a center glass-covered cut-out that is lit from beneath, and places to house your ping pong balls and paddles when not in use!



The ping pong table easily converts to a dining table by removing the 'net'.

Constructed from seven species of exotic wood in chop-block style, live edge slabs (black walnut, cherry, and holly) the table also includes reclaimed plumbing pipes and fittings, glass, mirror, steel, aircraft cable, and Edison reproduction light bulbs.

This is the most gorgeous game table I've ever seen!


The technology and possibilities of The Square intrigues me.
by Jack Dorsey
the-square-iphone

Independent business owners always have the issue of accepting credit cards. First you have to actually set-up a merchant account, than you have to purchase all of the scanning equipment. It’s almost not worth the trouble, despite the fact that no one uses cash these days.

The Square plugs right into the bottom of your iPhone and allows you to accept credit card payments on the go. Developed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, The Square plugs right into your iPhone jack and even offers photo verification.
It is essentially a small magnetic reader that plugs into the headphone jack of an iPhone.

When a credit card (or a debit card) is swiped through the reader, it reads the data and converts it into an audio signal. The microphone picks up the audio, sends it through the processors and then is routed to Square’s software application on the iPhone.

From there the encrypted data is transmitted using either Wi-Fi (for iPod Touch) or a 3G Internet connection to a backend severs which in turn communicate with the payment networks to complete the transactions. – Twitter creator Jack Dorsey

by Damian O'Sullivan, Arian Brekveld, & Chris Koens

Delftware master painters are combining their art with modern design in a new design label by Royal Delft called Blue D1653

I love the reinvention of an old art form, such as the Dutch Delft pottery from the 17th century, rejuvenated with modern design!  I remember old family members collecting these items from travels abroad; now it can be experienced in a new way!

by Samuel Wilkinson

An iPhone/iPad controlled flora terrarium promotes 'digital downtime' by finding an alternative use for smartphones encouraging users to consider a slower life.

by John VDN & Victor Santa Maria
0hidnrad202.jpg

By lifting the cap the user proportionally increases the volume.  The further the cap goes up the louder the sound gets.  To tune the radio you simply rotate the cap and receive feedback of tuning quality via the LED on the front.  It has quality sound [goes up to 80db] and remote technology that works with your smartphone to use for playing music, conference calls, skype, movies, and gaming.  You can seamlessly switch between multiple speakers if you have one in each room through your phone.

This product is the perfect example of how good design incorporates aesthetics with each of the given functions of a product by purely simplifying.  “Every now and then there’s a beautifully simple design that is so intuitive it beggars belief as to why no-one else had thought of it.” - Gadgetrynews.com


Due to the cost of getting the product ready for production, they need your help to fund it.  It will only be funded if at lease $125,000 is pledged by Wednesday Jan. 18, 5:03PM EST.  By pledging, you're basically pre-ordering your very own speaker.  Check out their kickstarter page for more info and to watch the video!