Design

As we have matured, our feelings for Ikea have matured as well. Things we used to love, seem a little shoddy to us now, while other things seem like great new discoveries.One of the discoveries over the past few years has been Ikea’s bedding department. We find the staples in this department are excellent in quality and super low in price. While we used to go to the Company Store or LL Bean store for down duvets, we now go to Ikea.

(We put this together in November of 2004. While we still like it, we’re putting a new one together this weekend. If you have any suggestions, add them in the comment string below & tune in Monday.

We have all flipped through the Room and Board Catalogue and thought, “gosh, these couches are so much sleeker than the ones at Pottery Barn, but what the heck do they feel like?” Well, your wish is our command. While visiting Room & Board in SoHo last month, we tried out all of the couches for comfort. If we didn’t like the shape we didn’t bother to sit. OUR TOP COMFORT PICKS: The Mercer- Shown above. Like it. Comfy.

Please go to our new link for BDDW.Designed and manufactured with imagination and precision in Brooklyn, BDDW is one of the few which matches the hard angles of modern design with an innate understanding of natural elements. Whether it is a table, a carpet, or one of the original paintings in the store, every piece is grand and understated at the same time. Chairs starting at $850, 6′ tables starting at $3800 and queen beds around $4,000 – $6000.

(We can’t remember out who sent this in, but it just HAS to be blogged. Thanks, whoever you are!)Installing new kitchen or bathroom cabinets? Using IKEA, but don’t want to put up with all the headache? Traemand MIGHT be able to make all of this easier. We have no recommendation as of yet, but they offer a remarkable service that promises to make it EASY.

As anyone who’s seen Unzipped knows, Isaac Mizrahi is a colorful person- and his bath collection for Target is no different. Bursting with bold colors like hot pink, flame orange and electric yellow, Mizrahi’s bath series is as over the top and dramatic as the man who designed it. Mizrahi’s bath designs for Target are heaven to someone like me who just can’t get enough of colors that knock you out with a one-two punch of BRIGHT and BOLD.

> Hardware orgasm. If you are renovating or improving and the sight of a beautifullly organized and widely varied hardware catalog sends shivers down your spine, we recommend Lee Valley’s Hardware Catalog. We just got ours. The 2004-5 catalog if 213 pages long and filled with endless hardware from knobs and handles to locks and catches to mounting hardware for rolling kitchen drawers to heavy duty shelf hangars for lumber. Bookmark this resource.

Early adopters only. One of our questions last week was about finding really nice stationery to give as a gift or with which to write personal notes with feeling, style and non-electric fallout. Of course, someone had to write in and turn us on to something completely different.Iomoi.com is a regular online stationery store that does very nice monogrammed and designed paper and card stock, but they are also a – hold on here – an email stationary store as well.

Wow factor. We were getting ready to do our Top 10 adjustable shelving list and thinking that Vitsoe would be at the top, when we got a call from a friend who just joined Atlas Industries. He directed us to pics of their AS4 shelving system and we were floored. How come we haven’t seen this before?Combining the strength and thin lines of steel with the warmth and texture of wood, the AS4 shelving is the perfect solution to a modern apartment without going all hi-tech and industrial.

Fess up. Ever wondered how much worse it could get? Ever thought that you were messy and everyone else wasn’t? Meet the Squalor Survivors website, a painful site with a hopeful message, hosted by Pigpen:I’m Pigpen and I used to live in squalor. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to hide the true state of my house – clutter and mess – from people. Finally, I realized I had a real problem. I worked to change how I thought about, and kept, my house.