Keep track of your belongings… Hon, where's my string of old-timey buoys? Oh wait, I found them. Hey, lobsters and limes for dinner AGAIN???
In a similar spirit to Unhappy Hipsters, the tumblr blog Catalog Living is making the rounds today and it is the perfect fit for a Friday. The creation of Molly Erdman, a Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and comedian, Catalog Living is "a look into the exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs."
Molly pulls perfectly-styled images from popular catalogs (think Pottery Barn and West Elm) and adds a humorous caption to pull it all together.
Some of our favorites at the Apartment Therapy office:
- • Keep track of your belongings… Hon, where’s my string of old-timey buoys? Oh wait, I found them. Hey, lobsters and limes for dinner AGAIN???
• Time to stock up… Oh dear, our Q-Tip decanter is almost 1/5th depleted.
• Everything in its place… Hi Nancy, it's Elaine. I'm going to be a little late for lunch. I can't find my hat or my back-up hat.
For more laughs, see all the entries at Catalog Living.
Via: Tips, tweets, emails and Young House Love
Apartment Therapy's Sofa Shopping Guide
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Stanley Console by ...
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Ha! These are hilarious.
Hm, I actually like the giant Q-tip decanter.
love it!
Hahaha, love it!
Seriously? AT's deleting user comments now?
Censoring is stupid.
Another commenter and myself noted that AT has been using similar articles as seen on Young House Love and Design*Sponge recently.
Thanks for sharing - her site is a riot! Love the 'figs under the table' dig. Lol.
Aimsly et al: And? There's only so much relevant/timely/interesting design fodder out there. Like publications will inevitably publish like content. Who cares?
Anyway, the hat/back-up hat post cracked me up. Catalogs are creepy.
I love AT, but I've been looking for different kinds of design blogs to read and this one is GOLD!! Also the Unhappy Hipsters blog. I'd love to see more posts like this about other great sites :)
Aimsly,
Yes, we do (rarely!, but now and then) delete comments that do not fit within our comment policy (readable at the link at the bottom of the page).
The comments deleted on this thread were complaints by you and another reader about the fact you had noticed that Apartment Therapy had posted content that you had originally seen elsewhere. Yes, we do that sometimes, if we feel the content will be enjoyed by our readers, who may NOT have seen it before. If we find the topic on another blog we give them a via credit. If someone has seen it before, they can simply skip the Apartment Therapy post.
We didn't feel that the complaints were adding value or staying on topic for the "Catalog Living" thread, which are requirements that are important parts of our comment policy.
I don't feel my comments made on the "LOL: Catalog Living" post on 06-25-2010 broke any of the "comment policy" rules outlined on the website. I made an observation that Apartment Therapy has been increasingly posting similar content to that of other design blogs, as the same content was posted on another site earlier today. I was, in fact, being honest, was not mean, it was on topic as I was discussing the post itself, and I find that giving comments and criticism is what helps sites such as AT grow, thereby adding value.
Had I been maliciously attacking AT or the particular writer, I can understand moderation and removal of comments. While Apartment Therapy and other readers may disagree with commenters' views, it in no way entitles them to censor people and their opinions if it is of no ill intent. Observations, opinions and open discussion are things I would assume AT would promote, not discourage. Your readers deserve better.
This is the only design blog I read and it's already more than I can keep up with. Plagiarism issues aside, I'm happy to have a single source referencing worthwhile things that may also be referenced by others.
That said, pointing out that I could have found certain information elsewhere is boring, but it's not offensive.
Wow... wish I had a funny caption for a recent catalog photo where they are trying to sell curtains with a bloody crying child in the photo. Really. Look:
http://lapsushumanus.blogspot.com/2010/03/worst-catalog-photo-ever.html
Pazzaglia, I was assuming that you were using "bloody" in the British sense of the word but... you weren't.
I'm addicted to AT and it's also the only blog i read.
This post made my day!
I agree that AT has seemed derivative lately. I mean seriously, how often do we see before-after shots from Design Sponge? While these posts are credited in SMALL text at the bottom, their sources aren't emphasized anywhere in the posts themselves, which seems dishonest and lazy.
Just want to note that I've also seen it happen that readers submit photos of their homes to both AT and other sites like Design Sponge. So in a case like that, yes, we do see content twice, but it's not due to one website taking another website's content.
One last comment: blog=weblog=log of things found around the web.
OMG I'm still laughing at the Clipping Tree post. And the hat/back-up hat.
She does need an editor - some of the posts were just a little too cumbersome to be really hilarious. But when it's on, its ON.
oooh how i love this! It reminds me of my own life. I help merchandise a retail furniture store and the items my superior chooses to fill gaps with just astounds me sometimes. . .