Modern Holiday Giveaways

Everyone is having a holiday giveaway - from Ellen to your corner independently owned lingerie store (don't ask how I know). But my favorite holiday giveaway is from the family of websites - Apartment Therapy - Re-Nest - The Kitchn - ohdeedoh - and last but not least unplgged. There is still a week of giveaways and I think you should sign up or at least get ideas for gifts for your favorite compact living - environmentalist - foodie - design minded parent - techie geek. Go here for the deets. You do have to give them your email but I've never receieved any email or promos I didn't ask for. Once your logged in for one that password and user names will work for all 5 of them. Pictures above are from a couple of nice one from the past couple of days. The boxes are from the Container store! The plates are from Bob's Your Uncle. And my fave the pillow is from Kevin O'Brien Studio. How is it that a single pillow can be more expensive then a set of plates and nice storage? Honestly the prices of stylish pillows are ridiculous especially when they're ridiculously easy to sew. Or you could try to win one by logging in to the Apartment Therapy peeps! It was there that I learned you can throw your plastic shower curtain in the clothes washing machine and it would get clean! Sweet! It kept ours out of the landfill for another long while! Happy Friday. Cheers to a wonderful weekend.

Bring Recycling Home Tour: Part 2

Here is the 3rd home from the home tour that I visited and it also happens to be the most interesting architecturally-speaking.  The back story is that it was built in part by students from the University of Oregon's School of Architecture. For the initial builders, the students, it was an experiment in passive solar. I guess since then the current owners have continued to developed the homes natural inclination. The water from the roof enters into a dry stream-bed that helps to keep plants watered in the ground and on the roof (see round mirror by second story window lets you see status of living roof). Much of the garden art is recycled. These pictures simply don't do the place justice. All in all the Bring Recycling House Tour seemed to be a big success. Is was a scorching, sweat-running-down-your-back kind-of-day and all the houses had a steady stream of visitors. It's great to see a homes tour that's not all about ladies in big hats and gloves, and lunch in the garden.  Yay for Bring Recycling! Read more about my visits there here and here. 

Decision Time: Flor Tiles as Runner

Okay peeps - I've had it with our runners - that's right we have 2 to be annoyed with. We've had them for 3 years now. We got them a target when we just had moved back to Oregon after life in Phoenix. We didn't have a bunch of money but Mr. Monkey moved us into this little dump of a place that hard horrendous carpet - complete with stains even after 2 stints of professional carpet "cleaning" - oh yeah they were gross. The best we could do was cover them up. I proceeded to buy a rug and these two runners. They've done their job. It's time to move on. 

I've been admiring Flor for awhile now - through the catalog, online, and in Modern, a nice home furnishings store here in Eugene. The cool thing about going to Modern and not online is that I can actually touch and feel the tiles and check them out from the store. So I went on Saturday to check out a few of the tiles and here they are. We narrowed it down to 4 first. Pictured to the right. And then narrowed it down even more.

 It's funny though the one I'm leaning towards the most is the very first one I picked in the store - I guess I just knew. At first though when I showed them Mr. Monkey - the one I first thought was right he first thought was wrong. Uh oh. Once he saw them laid down on the floor he was fine with the final two. So that's them at the top of the post - the final two. Feel free to express an opinion. Even if you're opinion is "paint those ugly walls." Here's a link to a picture of the living room and the office to get an idea of the color scheme of the house and how it will all fit together. Cheers!

Seattle Times: Hip Hyatt Hotel

Well Friday evening Mr. Monkey and I headed up to Seattle, WA to visit our good friend Music Monkey. We were there to see Music Monkey sing in the Seattle Men's Chorus with none other than the Unsinkable Debbie Reynolds! She exhibited a spunkiness for a 30 year old let alone her actual age 77! She's quite the inspiration. Once in Seattle I surprised Mr. Monkey and we stayed at a hotel instead of Music Monkey's apartment.  We stayed at the Hyatt at Olive 8 (Olive and 8th Ave.). I was first attracted to the Hotel during my Trip Advisor search by their Grand Opening special - stay 2 nights, get the 2nd night half off. My attention was also caught by their clearly modern design and the promise that this may be the first hotel in Seattle that receives LEED certification. I was not disappointed by the rooms. Although a touch small (typical of big cities I guess) they had some space savers that I've never seen in a hotel room.

 Next to the bar is a bench that I wish I had taken a picture of. The bench is built in, firm, but covered in a green shiny fabric - it's better than I'm describing. Three other major space savers are 1) sliding doors for the closet and the bathroom, 2) a sliding surface that slide out from under the dry bar, and 3) bed side tables that are attached to the wall, are floating and so can have bags and bed pillows placed under them. 

Other great details  - check out this electronic board! I was pretty in love with it even though I didn't even get to use it. We had my laptop but not the cords to hook it up - I suspect that we could have played a movie from my laptop on the T.V. Also in regards to electricity the only way to engage the lights in the room was to place the key card in a slot next to the door when you entered the room. This way folks can't leave the lights on unless they leave their key card in the slot in the room. It also helps scatterbrains like me to know always where the key is! Love it! We also checked out the bar Urbane - you'll have to check out Hyatt's webpage to view a pic - super sleek white and silver  - and the spa where we went for a swim in the saline pool and jacuzzi. We were disappointed that the steams rooms weren't open. Anyway this was the first time Mr. Monkey has been to a swanky hotel like this and while he's not super impressed by fancy money environments he did like the green edge to everything. Apart from a B & B on the Oregon Coast called Ocean Haven it was the first hotel we've stayed at to have recycling in the rooms. Hopefully good modern and green design will move beyond trendy to common practice. Be modern, live well.