30 June 2008

Choo Choo Charlie envy

Here's one for the books and an interesting housing option I never considered. I came upon the story on Dwell Magazine's website this morning and it has my wheels turning to say the least. An artist in Oregon had a Pullman car renovated and in leaving it on the tracks rather than decommissioning it, it's not real estate; it's considered to be "rolling stock." Ergo no real estate taxes. The car's really well done --it's an attractive living space. It plugs into an auxiliary power source the way a boat at a marina does and it uses an incinerator toilet so it doesn't need to be hooked up to a sewer line. It costs the current owner $150 to keep it parked in a rail yard and that's it. Bravo clever artist guy in Portland for a brilliant execution of a sustainable housing idea. Check it out:



28 June 2008

I love this furniture!

What's a man to do when he has Suessian visions of what life and furniture should look like but still has a life to lead? I mean, I have stuff to store and books to shelve and unmentionables to put away. Over the years, my love of camp and cartoon have been repeatedly slammed against the stone wall of reality and I've abandoned a lot of my ideas about wild colors for their own sake and fun furniture that was cool to have even though it didn't function very well. Along the way too, I've developed a much keener appreciation for fine things that are built well and that will last. I want the things I buy for myself to be fun and clever and at the same time I want to buy things I never need to replace. Oh what to do and where to go?

Well, enter Gallery Dust. Gallery Dust is the Valpariso, Indiana-based brainchild off furniture makers Vincent and Jessie Leman. They take traditional, American, wood furniture and twist and turn it into their beautiful and dare I say whimsical creations. I love this stuff, really. Bravo Vincent and Jessie, thanks for making beautifully clever and cleverly beautiful furniture.


27 June 2008

And then a light went off...


Meet the Geobulb. The Geobulb is an LED light that is intended to replace a 60 watt incandescent bulb. The current wave of compact fluorescent bulbs are but a stop along the way to a world illuminated by LEDs. LED stands for light-emitting diode. An LED is a super-efficient method of light generation that features no breakable parts like the tungsten filament in a standard incandescent bulb. What's more, there's no mercury in it, unlike compact fluorescent bulbs. This lowly bulb produces the equivalent light of a 60 watt incandescent bulb (800 lumens) while using only 8 watts of electricity. Pretty cool. What's even cooler is that it's available in three color temperatures: cool daylight, warm white and soft white. Although the price on these things is just starting to drop (this Geobulb will set you back $120 and that's if you can find one), their long life puts even a CFL to shame. The expected lifetime of this Geobulb is 30,000 hours. What that means in the real world is that if your turned this thing on for 12 hours a day every day, you could continue to do so for the next seven years before you'd need to start thinking about replacing it. The Geobulb is available through C. Crane.

26 June 2008

Modern, prehistoric chic

This is an ammonite, an extinct marine cephalopod. The last of the ammonites went extinct some 65 million years ago, at the close of the Cretaceous Period.




And this is an ammonite-shaped concrete sink by HiTech Design from Germany. If it's possible to fall in love with a bathroom sink, I think I have.

25 June 2008

The USPS discovers mid-century classics


On June 17th, 2008; the US Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps honoring the designs of Charles and Ray Eames. Charles and Ray Eames were a husband and wife team who pretty much defined mid-century American furniture design. The Eames' designs (as well as their collaborative work with the likes of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, among others) also marked the first step toward a "Democratization" of design. That kind of democratization could have only happened in the US. The Eameses epitomized the idea that exquisitely designed furniture needn't be reserved for the very wealthy. Further, everybody deserves to live in a well thought out, fully functional and beautiful environment. In a lot of ways, Charles and Ray were the beginning of the path that lead us to Target. Well, Target's better impulses at any rate. The Eameses work in materials such as fiberglass and plywood were gorgeously designed and mass produced by Herman Miller. Many of their designs remain in production and knock offs of their work are legion. I think I need to buy some stamps. Online.