I'll have the wheatgrass with a side of wheatgrass

Today's post is so random I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.  I wanted to tell you all about my fantasy dining experience in MIlan, but then I got all distracted by a crazy wall in the restaurant, and well, the rest is about to be history: Let's start with a make-believe dinner party at Home Made:

I bet you're thinking that between those tricky 2-D / 3-D wall lanterns and the big fluffy hanging lamp I can pack up my bags and call it a day; after posting such perfection, why bother showing anything else? Well, here's why:

The pig or the wall?  The pig or the wall?  Which to discuss, I feel so Sophie's choice.  Let's get the pig out of the way, I'm going to go wall crazy on you in a matter of minutes.  So, Pig.  Yes, that pig is pure hot pink perfection (and I don't even like pink!) I'm wondering if there's some pig shaped mold out in the world that was used to form this.  If so, where is it and can I borrow it for just, like, half and hour?  La sigh.

I'm so in love with the way that Home Made is so fancy but still seems completely laid back.  I love beauty but pretension makes me squirm (or kick and hit) so this place looks like a great landing spot.

Now, on to the amazing plant wall.  It's so dramatic and textured and colorful yet so simple... and attainable!  It reminds me of Patrick Blanc's vertical gardens, which I have been drooling over for some time, yet had NO idea how to wrap my green thumbs around such a huge knock-off task.  Regardez:

and just to make you cry:

I have visions, crystal clear visions of my dining room wall covered floor to ceiling in one of Patrick's walls but I have neither the funds to afford a personal commission (can you imagine?!) or the hydroponic skills to engineer such an installation.  My daydream always ends with a very real visualization of dirt covered floors and water damaged walls.  And a grossly high nursery bill.

The wall at Home Made seems so much more, well, home make-able:  1.Find someone who can identify plants and ask them what the heck those are. 2. get some white shelves. 3. get some white planters.  4. Arrange, enjoy.  Right?  Must be!

Just incase you're tempted by the grassy green walls but aren't quite ready to purchase 87 white planters, here are a couple of other options for bringing the dirt and worms in: 

Nomad Grass Lounger by Matt Gagnon

I really hate that picture (doesn't it feel so photoshopped?), but it's the best way to see the whole thing.  I like this one more:

I really love how home made this feels.  So many objects of my affection feel so produced.  You feel like you have to have your masters in industrial design and a friend of a friend at a manufacturing plant in Tokyo just to even think about ever creating your own.  This feels very real, and like something the hubby and I could make with a trip to home depot.  I actually think this could be really cute sitting in a yard.

One more grass goody:

Take Care Umbrella Stand

I love this idea, which also feels very make-able to me.  But it really bothers me that the grass in this photo is not perfectly green to the roots.  They are trying to sell this product, photoshop that bitch... but not as much as the photoshopping in the bench picture.  Gosh, I guess I'm not hard to please at all.

So, there you have it.  A wandering rambling tour of a bunch of grassy trendy foody stuff.  Wasn't this almost as fun as that time we ran through the grassy Labyrinth with Jennifer Connelly while David Bowie was trying to kidnap our half-brother?  Almost?

Repurpose, Redesign

Despite an entire Monday spent extolling the many virtues of cardboard furniture (although dingy brownness was not one of them), I am still in a recycling state of mind, possibly because all the trash floating down our street is making me sick. No more Church's Chicken cups, beer cans and gross dirty band aids in my yard, please! While I haven't found a use for old band aids yet (and I'm sure I never will), I have found a veritable cornucopia of cool items designed from repurposed materials.

Clockwise from top left: San Francisco Metro Map Bowl by Etsy seller picapicadesign, Recycled wool blanket purses by designer Tieneke Beunders at Ontwerpduo, Recycled aluminum pop top purse by Brazilian designers at Escama Studio, and Recycled packaging lights by Anke Weiss seen at Yanko Design.

I am obsessed with maps (look for a future post devoted solely to their geographical goodness), so I adore the bowls by Picapica, and all the purse are very cute, wearable, and environmentally friendly. Yay trashless yard! The lamp made from recycled packaging is also a nifty idea, and it just goes to show that with a simple light kit (sold at Hope Depot or Ikea), many objects can be reborn as lighted sculptures. Par example, regardez Francois Legault's amazing spoon chandeliers at Unik:

I'm relieved that he used spoons instead of forks. I am not sure how I would feel about a million pointed tines aiming at my eyes as I gazed up at their splendor.

Meanwhile, Tineke Beunders over at at Ontwerpduo is busy building more pieces out of materials that make you wonder why anyone ever discarded them in the first place.

The chair (which, in real life, I am quite sure is NOT as large as the cupboard), is strung like Danish rope cord but with old telephone wires. Being one of the landlineless legions, I had forgotten telephone wire even existed, but then I remembered waaay back to my awesome clear Swatch phone and its colorful guts. It's a very surprising use of materials, I think. And the cupboard made of old metal file boxes really belongs in my house. I want it and its filthy industrial patina so, so badly.

If you're looking for something a little more classic, something that screams less "Hey, I am recycled!" and more "Hey, I cost a sh*tload of money!" then look no further than the Phillipe Starck designed Kong chair, modeled after the ubiquitous Ghost chair, but this time cast and welded with 88% recycled aluminum:

I've got to say that those are some sexy chairs. Unlike the other pieces I featured today (all of which I am still in love with), the Starck chair bears no mark of its original incarnation as a thousand common cans. It must have cost a small fortune just to get the base materials into a finished state, so I'm sure the $2000 price tag is somewhat justified.

Maybe they'll get recycled one step further and show up on Craigslist. Knock a zero off and those babies are mine.

Won't You Take Me To Shantytown?

People, I am tired. It was a boozy week (+ end) full of birthdays, house parties and the death of our beloved cat, Poop Log (RIP, little buddy, and yes, that really was his name). So maybe I'm still a little delirious, or maybe cardboard furniture is kind of... awesome. Sure it's cheap and tacky, but recycling is good, right? And occasionally it can be very modern material-centric, like Frank Gehry's quintessential cardboard chair:

Or cardboard can go for baroque like Giles Miller's wardrobe and grandfather clock over at UK-based Farm Designs. Check out the cute mustache handles:

Miller also produces seating that belies its humble origins:

The one on the right looks kind of painful, like sitting on the flying buttresses of a Spanish cathedral, but lefty has potential. He reminds me of the Togo sofas from Ligne Roset but comes a little closer to fitting into my furniture budget (which has recently been restricted to about $100 for a sofa off Craigslist). At $1500 it's still a pricey piece, especially considering that it's made of material usually functioning as wrapping paper for whatever it is you're actually buying.

Of course, the craft conscious legions have realized that cardboard is a great material for DIYers. The corrugated form is super strong, but it's still easy to cut with -- what else? -- a box cutter. The good folks at Designboom have several projects that you can do yourself:

And taking it 500 steps further are the Cartonnistes over at Instructables:

That desk does not look even remotely like cardboard and I love the idea that anyone could make furniture cheaply! Cardboard is so very democratic. Usually I'm all about wood, but have you ever tried to make anything out of wood? It's hard. Really hard. Plus I need all ten digits to type.

If you don't feel capable of starting from scratch, you can always order cardboard Legos from Bloxes and build yourself an entire Hooverville:

Is it just me or do those people seriously need to get to work??? Or maybe I'm just jealous that no job of mine has ever allowed me to to build a giant cardboard giraffe.

Really, though, all of my cardboard dreams will probably amount to little more than this:

Sitting on the street, drinking a beer while chilling on my sweet cardboard chair, hopefully without an orange bar over my eyes.

Eat your heart out, Claes Oldenbourg.