CasaSugar

The Card Shop: Boxed Historic Patterns Notecards

CasaSugar — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:00:56 -0700

Since most of my correspondence occurs via email, I want my notecards to be timeless and versatile. It's always nice to bring a smile to a friend's face with humor, but when I buy a box of notecards I want them to be appropriate for more than one person, and not to lose timeliness like the set you picked up at the Musée D'Orsay on your most recent trip to Paris might. B Designs Boxed Historic Patterns Notecards ($12 for six cards) fit the bill with their decorative floral and classic patterns with a contemporary color palette. With 13 choices like Hollyhock, Chains, and Mums letterpress printed on cream-colored recycled card stock, in a variety of colors,
you're bound to find a card that's right up your alley. And when you do, address it to CasaSugar: I can guarantee you it's right up my alley, too.

IKEA France Celebrates the 30th B-Day of the Billy Bookcase

CasaSugar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:08 -0700

It's been 30 years since IKEA designer Gillis Lundgren debuted the wildly popular Billy Bookcase ($89.99). The product is a classic, streamlined design that's been used to store everything from pantry items to novels, and has been personalized every which way in homes around the world. So to celebrate, IKEA France is running a promotion called Your Billy, where the bookcase's fans can send in photos of how they've DIY'd it to enter to win IKEA gift cards. The retailer has also released a limited-edition Billy collection printed with graffiti/doodle-style words, as well as a special anniversary book recounting the history of the bookcase, and some cute related products like "B" Bookends. IKEA US doesn't seem to be running the same promotion just yet, but the US is usually the last. So we'll stay tuned!

How-To: House Backyard Chickens in Style

CasaSugar — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:00:24 -0700

My friend Beth, who I've known since high school, recently started a blog to update her friends and family on her latest domestic adventure - raising backyard chickens. Since Beth never does anything halfway, she and her husband Craig built a chicken coop that is super cute and matches their 1922 Craftsman home.

She writes, "I paid my way through college 10 years ago raising and killing chickens and also had laying hens. I wanted to get another batch of layers, but was resigned because a) we have a teeny tiny backyard; and b) my husband isn't much of a farmer."

However, all was not lost. Beth notes, "This spring, I convinced the man who drank a case of Diet Mountain Dew each week when we met (he has thankfully kicked the habit since) to build raised beds and start an organic garden. I gave up on the idea of having chickens, but he took up the cause and was convinced we could fit a small coop next to the garden."

To find out more about Beth and Craig's chicken-raising adventure, and to see how well their chicken coop matches their home, read more.

"We bought our chicks on July 9th and went on Seattle Tilth's coop tour the following weekend," reports Beth. "Craig took lots of photos and took all the best ideas from the coops we saw for his own design. Some materials were recycled: he salvaged the window and built the window box out of scraps we had from this and other projects. The coop is painted to match our house, white trim and all. Craig thinks the finished product took about 100 hours to build. It's a little over the top, but that's my husband. (By the way, not only has he stopped drinking Mountain Dew, but he's off all high fructose corn syrup and is quite the label reader. Weird. Now he's all about organic veggies and can't wait for the hens to start laying.)"

I have total chicken coop envy now, and I'm also envious of Beth's hubby's building skills. What a great coop! You can keep up with Beth and Craig's chicken adventures on Beth's blog. In the meantime, check out the gallery to see images of the decoupaged interior of the coop, as well as the coop's perfect match to their Craftsman.

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Link Time!

CasaSugar — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:00:27 -0700

A Cape Town stylist has a knack for interiors.- Desire to Inspire
See how IKEA bathroom shelves were used as window boxes.- AT:LA
Learn to make an oilcloth picnic basket liner.- Craftzine
Prepare to salivate over these beauties from B&B Italia.- Design Milk
A light lunch for four is a feast for the eyes.- Eddie Ross
Tour this vintage industrial West Hollywood loft.- Remodelista
Check out a space-saving, tiered veggie garden in the works.- Peacock Feathers
Enjoy more Summer house inspiration.- Poppytalk

Steal of the Day: Crate & Barrel Sloane Leaning Desk

CasaSugar — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:00:00 -0700

Back in the days of my clunky Macintosh 128K, a light and slender desk like the Crate & Barrel Sloane Leaning Desk ($99, reduced from $199) would simply not fly. But, seeing as so many of us are equipped with oh-so petite MacBooks these days, it's an ideal desk for a home office - especially if you live in a studio. Granted, with only two fixed shelves, it offers little in the way of storage. But, isn't that what our external hard drives are for? I'd also like to give C&B a pat on the back for the renewable solid bamboo and bamboo veneer construction of this design. What do you think?

In the News: Gaetano Pesce Wins Design Prize

CasaSugar — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:00:19 -0800

New York's Fashion Institute of Technology is honoring diverse Italian designer, urban planner, teacher, and architect Gaetano Pesce with the 2009 Lawrence Israel Prize, recognizing his amazing depth and breadth of work.

To find out more about Pesce, and to see more of his work, read more.

Born in 1939 in Spezia, Italy, Pesce studied at University of Venice Faculty of Architecture, and has been a resident of New York for nearly three decades. Pesce's work is marked by its handcrafted quality, and melds practical design ideas with high art, often using striking colors. He has worked with furniture manufacturers including Cassina, B&B Italia, Steelcase, and Vitra, and is well-known for his use of resin and urethane as materials for his furniture. As an architect, he has worked on projects including his own home in Bahia, Brazil, the Children’s House for Parc de la Villette, the Organic Building of Osaka, and the Gallery Mourmons in Belgium.

To see some examples of his commercially available work, check out the slides.

Source and Source

Designer Spotlight: Jason Miller

CasaSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:00:53 -0700

Having worked as a studio assistant for Jeff Koons, an art director at Ogilvy and a designer for Karim Rashid between '95 and '01, Jason Miller decided it was time to step up his game and start his own design studio in Brooklyn — and he wasn't getting ahead of himself. Miller has pinned solo exhibitions all over the map, from LA to Tokyo, and everywhere in between, and been applauded with prestigious awards like Bombay Sapphire's "Rising Star" award and Wallpaper's "Best Breakthrough Designer" award, and named a "Tastemaker" by Forbes for his quirky contemporary designs, be it furniture, interiors, or bus stops. If that weren't enough of a pat on the back, his work is in the Permanent Collection of New York's Museum of Arts and Design, and he's got clients like Areaware, Persol, Brookstone, Carlo Rossi, Kikkerland, and Idee at his beck and call.

If you can't place his name, I'll give you a nudge by reminding you of his Ceramic Antler Chandelier, which single-handedly started the hunting trend that The New York Times has so lovingly already pegged "over." A brief glance at his portfolio, marked by low-res photos used as background for projects with titles like "Whatever Flowerpots" and "Dusty Tables," and you'll probably think a: he has no design experience or b: he's got to be joking. Well, that latter is only true, and in truth, the joke's on you; his terracotta flowerpots are shaped, not made, of whatever (beer cans, plastic jugs), and his table doesn't suggest that a neglected furnishing is a design, but the dusty table is coated in a finish making it only appear so — real grime is optional. It's no wonder pubs like Dwell, Domino, Metropolitan Home, and House & Garden have been all over him like, well, dust on a table; he's miraculously made everyday dirt trendy.
Source

Steal of the Day: Pottery Barn Emerson Chair

CasaSugar — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0700

If you ever fell in lust with Hans Wegner's Wishbone Chair ($599) - a beloved design from 1949 that never ceases to be stylish - but couldn't afford its high price tag, your time is now. Pottery Barn has created a successful knock-off (sans a wishbone-shaped backrest) and lucky for you, it's on sale! The Pottery Barn Emerson Chair ($169-$199, reduced from $249-$289) claims to be inspired by "the look of classic Chippendale style," which is a big load of b.s. Even if Wegner's chair was "inspired by classical portraits of Danish merchants sitting in Ming chairs," I think Pottery Barn should own up and pay Wegner credit where credit is due - right? Still, this slight sequestering of information won't keep me from loving Pottery Barn's version; I'm a sucker for its slender, curved form, natural-fiber seat, and washed gray tone.

Designer Spotlight: Marjorie Skouras

CasaSugar — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:10:10 -0800

Marjorie Skouras has been a successful interior designer for seven years, but for 17 years before then, her vocation was the film business. She also graduated with a B.A. in Art History from U.C.L.A, and was trained as a fine arts photographer. Her designs, which she calls "fairly traditional, but almost always with a twist," often mix periods and style, and are distinguished by a generous use of color. In addition to her interior design work, Skouras has an expanding line of luxury home and lighting products. Her designs, which range from single rooms to 17,000 square foot houses, have been feature in many of my shelter magazine must-reads, including Elle Décor, House and Garden, House Beautiful, Domino, and soon Metropolitan Home. She was raised between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and currently lives in the Hollywood Hills with her daughter and their Dachshund, Georges Pompidou. Source

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Cool Idea: Ünal and Böler Salkim Book Hanger

CasaSugar — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:20:06 -0800

The conventional hook form and function of the Ünal & Böler Salkim Book Hanger (price unlisted) toys with the idea of using less material on book storage, making a bookshelf much lighter than the weight of the books themselves. Each Book Hanger hooks onto the others and a slight breeze can make the entire "bookshelf" sway, transforming what would otherwise be seen as heavy books into objects with an air of lightness. This design was awarded the MAK DesignShop Award by MAK Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art Vienna and was chosen for the DesignShop inventory during the Blickfang Wien '06 design exhibition. What do you think?

Nobody's Shelves By Gaetano Pesce - $240.00	Fish Design - lemon juice vase by gaetano pesce - $409.00
Nobody's Low Chair By Gaetano Pesce - $530.00	Nobody' S Sideboard By Gaetano Pesce - $14,000.00
Fish Design - amazonia vase by gaetano pesce - $409.00	Fish Design - spaghetti special xxl by gaetano pesce - $3,906.00
Nobody's Stackable Round Table By Gaetano Pesce - $590.00	Nobody's Armchair By Gaetano Pesce - $750.00
Bernini - 543 broadway #3 chair w/arms by gaetano pesce - $2,701.00	Fish Design - medium mirror by gaetano pesce - $595.00
Nobody's Table By Gaetano Pesce - $60.00	Fish Design - triple play tables by gaetano pesce - $725.00