7.30.2009

Bring Recycling Home Tour: Part 1

The Bring Recycling Home Tour was last weekend and it was the best home tour I've ever been on. I've mentioned Bring Recycling here before. They are a great non-profit where you can get slightly used items for your home construction and garden needs. We made our patio set out of items from Bring for a total of $50 bucks. WE love it still - almost 2 years later and use it every day. Anyway this home tour highlighted homes and home owners who have gone to great lengths to reuse items creatively and with the idea of reducing their impact on the planet. All these pictures come from one home that curbside looks totally normal! But from the inside it is amazing - I mean just check out this b-u-tiful wood stove hearth. So much of the walls were earthen made. The counter tops and sinks were poured in place concrete. Even the house was painted with recycled paint! Who knew! This day happened to be about 100 degrees outside but in this home with no recycling the house was cool even though there were nice sun lights throughout. Enjoy the pictures! There's one more house coming up that had more to show off architecturally and artistically. 


7.12.2009

Russel Wright Exhibit SFO






I guess Apartment Therapy already beat me to it but just in case you didn't know  . . . there is a great Russel Wright exhibit in the SFO United terminal(SFO website with exhibit pictures). Here are some pictures that I took while passing through several weeks ago. I gotta say thanks to the SFO art in the airport curator. They are doing a great job. In the past I blogged about another mid-century toy installment they did - all were on the subject of space, space travel, nuclear science - it was all very atomic. Click here for that post. Back to the Wright exhibit - I'm not sure I need a guide to easier living but I think I'd love to come across this book some day. I leave you with one of my favorite quotes the exhibit has on display. "The new hostess is one is one who can stay within the limits of her home budget, hours, and energy and still give her guests a good time." Cheers.

7.03.2009

Little Pleasures: 1960's Flatware Ecko Eterna


Oh Happy Day! Mr. Monkey and I had been noticing that none of our spoons and forks and knives matched. We would have guests over and do our best to find the "nicest" spoons without rough edges and oddly bent handles. After years of living together in college and then through grad school with a variety of roommates it's safe to say we had a mismatched set. Now sometimes mismatched sets can be quite nice. In our case the effect was not a positive quirky one - it was just kinda dumpy.
After subscribing to Sunset for a short while I had glimpses of what I wanted. In a few food pictures flatware with wooden handles and silver tops were off to the side and never ever was there a photo caption to say where this flatware came from. These two pictures are from Sunset and offer examples of what I would see and covet. I went around to several stores in town everything from Target to Modern but I had yet to venture over the my favorite Oak Street Vintage. We were having a potluck on Saturday and I just thought I can't keep having people eat with our crappy silverware. I didn't have a bunch of time so I thought I'll just give it a try and head over to Oak St. I did my first loop of the store heading straight back to the kitchen room and found a sweet little serving set - 4 pieces that I picked up right away for $14 bucks I thought these were perfect. They were labeled as "Bamboo Lane" Wooden Handled Hostess Set. But sadly there was no silverware in sight. I did my second loop (there's so much to see - it's like a good book, you always see something new) and was about to check out when I told one of the owners what I was looking for. Cora said, "oh the drawer must have been closed" and she walked me back to the kitchen room again opened a little drawer and sure enough there it was. Imagine the white light shining from the drawer and the angels singing in harmony "AHHHHHH". What was even better was the price! $35.oo dollars for 10 place settings and 2 extra spoons. Perfection! After a bit of internet sleuthing I've learned that the flatware is indeed from the 1960's made by the Ecko company. The pieces are light in your hand and apparently made of teak.  The point is that I love eating with these pieces. They bring joy to my every meal. A so sometimes it's life's little things - good design bringing function and beauty together. Mr. Monkey doesn't like not putting them in the dishwasher but I love them so much that I've been stepping up to the plate, or the sink as it were and washing more dishes so Mr. Monkey doesn't feel burdened by my need for pretty things about. Small price to pay.