After my husband and I threw down 600 bucks on a new couch we knew we had to do something about the cats. Since kitten pie was out of the question, we thought to invest in a scratching post that was so enticing, even the couch would no longer appeal. Unfortunately, when I went to the pet store, the sisal cat scratcher I’ve always wanted was priced at $70. Um, no. Sorry. Luckily, a few days later my husband came home with all the ingredients to make the ultimate sisal and carpet cat scratcher. Here’s how we did it.
Oh Flaming Lips, how do I love thee? I’ve probably seen them a half dozen times over the years. They never give less than 100% when they play live. The band is actually a cottage industry, employing longtime friends and family to help with lighting, rigging, confetti cannons, costumes and props. They always supply a massive dose of delight for their fans as Wayne Coyne, the singer, rolls through the crowd in a giant inflatable gerbil ball or pulls dozens of furry-costumed fans waving flashlights onto the stage.
It should come as no surprise that his house is just as awesome as his shows.
Courtesy of the New York Times
Wayne and his wife Michelle live in a huge brick compound in Oklahoma City that dates back to 1936. They bought the house, which is located in a down-at-heels neighborhood, in 1992 for $20,000. The Coynes have been spiffing up the joint for the past few years. They hired Oklahoma City’s Fitzsimmons Architects to help them with some interiors, but in typical Flaming Lips style, they hired local craftsmen to do most of the work. The hacked desk lamp chandelier is also a work of pure genius.
When we finished drywalling and painting in our kitchen, I noticed that there were two awkward, large hooks on the wall near the sink. No thank you, I thought as I grabbed a screwdriver and took them down.
As I dried some dishes a day later, I realized what the hooks were for—dishtowels. Hmmmm. I wanted to find a smaller, more interesting solution for hanging towels on the wall.
Garth and I have been on a creative reuse kick in the kitchen, we are trying to repurpose kitchen-related items in cleaver ways. Several weeks earlier I noticed that one of our favorite antique stores had a basket of old silver forks, spoons, and knives for a dollar a piece. Suddenly this seemed like the perfect (and thrifty) solution to my dishtowel dilemma.
I picked out a couple of spoons and a small spreading knife and got to work. I clamped the bowl of a spoon in our shop vise and cranked it until it was flat. Next, I clamped the arched neck of the spoon in the vise and squeezed it flat as well. Now that the entire spoon was flattened I used the vise to hold it tight while I slowly, carefully, bent the spoon handle backwards (this way when it was hung on the wall the decorative edge of the handle would face out). Finally, I used a wood/metal drill bit to drill three holes in the flattened bowl of the spoon.
Ta-da! I made a dishtowel hook that was ready to hang. I repeated this process for my other spoon and the spreading knife.
Making three hooks took me about fifteen minutes.
I took a look on Etsy (because turning old utensils into something else is no new idea) and found a seller out of Wisconsin making hooks and other exciting objects out of old cutlery for very reasonable prices. If you aren’t into trolling antique stores to find your own vintage utensils take a look at JJEvensenArt and support a crafter who is committed to repurposing!
A few years ago Victoria Smith started silkscreening reproductions of the British World War II era motivational poster “Keep Calm and Carry On” and selling them on Etsy. The prints became a huge hit and seemed to show up in every home I went to or looked at on interior design sites.
Since there’s nothing worse than a one-hit wonder, Victoria recently released a new poster, this time aimed at dog owners.
Her 11-by-14 inch prints are hand silkscreened in jet black ink with the saying “Please Let me be the Person My Dog Thinks I am.” Boy, how many times have I worried about this very sentiment when our pup was alive!
Dateline 1995: Thirteen-year-old me walks out of the local shopping mall novelty gift shop with an inflatable ottoman, in burgundy velour, only to take it home and find out there’s a hole in it. I convince my older sister to take me back a few days later, and the clerk, in super ’90s gold framed glasses, tells me “Sorry, we no longer carry those. They’re outta style.” So, I was pretty sure I’d never see any again…I mean, the lady at the mall said they weren’t cool, right?
Polish design firm Malafor showcased the “Blow Sofa” at IMM Cologne a few weeks ago. It’s made from 100% recycled paper bags, then attached with giant rubber bands to a collapsible metal frame. See more at bookofjoe.
From Oliver Gregoire, the Eclosion, below, features an adjustable backrest angle, depending on how inflated it is.
Our cats are indoor only. They have been since I rescued them off the streets of Brooklyn. With things like traffic, feline leukemia, and rat poisons it’s just too scary out there, even for street smart kitties. Every time I host an outdoor BBQ at my apartment I plaster the back door with signs warning partygoers what would happen to them if they let any of the cats out.
Perhaps the sign below would have been much more appropriate.
Sarah Fortman, an animal lover with radical cat tattoos, had this beauty made by the California-based Made for Glory Signs. Derek McDonald and Scott La Rock (how awesome of a last name is that?) will custom build and hand paint any sign you want.
Well hello there! I’m Sonia and I’m the newest recruit to ReadyMade’s gang of bloggers. I’m a self professed cat lady, but as you can see from the photo above, I do like me some doggies too. In December of ‘09 my best friend and I launched our own pet blog where we could wax on and on about pets. Through the countless hours of “research” I’ve done for Pawesome, I’ve come across quite a few creative and unique ways people live with and celebrate their pets. I’m hoping to share some of those projects and ideas here. If you have any pet projects you’d like to share you can email them to me and your creative juices just might get the spotlight on Inside, Out.
Slowly, slowly Garth and I have been re-doing our kitchen. When we moved in, I vowed to first rid the house of wallpaper and get all of the walls painted before getting into too much decoration. This is easier said than done. Painting the walls in a room suddenly makes everything else that should/could be done that much more obvious. It is like buying a new dress and realizing you probably need new shoes to go with it and possibly a belt and purse as well. This is the case with the kitchen. With the wall newly drywalled and painted, I wanted to see more change happen fast. We would like to change most things about our kitchen, but working within our budget means we can really only change things that we can do ourselves.
One of the fastest ways to change the feeling of a space is with fabric, which is why new window treatments seemed like the perfect solution to really change the mood in our kitchen.
Read on for a step-by-step Roman shades how-to, with process shots.
I confess to not having set foot in a neighborhood furniture store for most of my adult life. From the outside, they look pretty scary, with their rows of overstuffed couches and expensive mattresses. I wasn’t that interested because thrift stores and Craigslist yielded so many amazing finds.
All of this is pretty ironic since I grew up on a farm outside of a town dominated by one of Nebraska’s largest furniture stores, Ernie’s in Ceresco. The children of Ceresco always looked forward to a visit to Ernie’s since they always offered free popcorn and soda (plus mattresses to bounce on and plenty of secret hiding places). I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Ernie’s.
When we moved to Humboldt County, California, the amazing thrift store furniture dried up. Craigslist here is a fraction of what we were used to in Atlanta and Orange County. When we started looking for a couch after we moved into our new house, we quickly realized that we were going to have to broaden our search.
For kicks, we went into a couple of local furniture stores to see if there might be some neglected mid-century modern furniture, or at least something with “clean lines”.
After five months in our new house, we finally had our housewarming. Our main goal when we moved in was to have all of our major construction projects finished by early February so we could be set up for the high point of our annual social calendar….THE SUPERFONDUPERBOWL.
You’ve probably never heard of the SuperFonduperBowl, but if you’ve experienced one, you won’t be able to imagine your life pre-fondue. I started the SuperFonduperBowl with my pal Henry in Atlanta nine long years ago. We were trying to figure out what the most incongruous party we could have for the SuperBowl would be. After a few minutes of thinking, we decided on a fondue party…
But not just any party…we dreamed up THE SUPERFONDUPERBOWL. The Superbowl of Fondue. We decided on cheese fondue for the first half of the game, then chocolate for the second half. Even though we came up with it as a goof, it became apparent after the first SuperFonduperBowl that fondue is actually perfect for a SuperBowl party.
It seems like I’ve always got lots of different circles of friends, and a fondue party is a perfect way to bring everybody together. Everybody bonds over bubbling pots of cheese and chocolate. What could be better? By the end of the party, everybody has come together, regardless of their allegiances on the field.
Over the last few years, home gardening, food production, and permaculture have rightfully gained the respect they deserve. And whether it’s a fad or not, home-grown produce is delicious, less expensive, and permits a smaller carbon footprint. But for those of use without the ability to dig up yards, build raised beds, or even employ window boxes, home food production can be a challenge, if not impossible. And though there are all sorts of indoor options, there aren’t too many that integrate well into one’s home decor.
Until now…
Enter the Urb Garden: It’s a vertical home gardening solution (space-saving) that employs a cubby hole approach (geometric and modern) to grow green, leafing produce (delicious), and incorporates an integrated worm farm (awesome).
“Designer Xavier Calluaud illustrates the Urb Garden’s simple step-by-step process. Scraps of food are deposited into the worm farm, creating nutritious fertilizer. Water is added and the liquid fertilizer is delivered to the plants via a drip system. The water drains down the tank and then is pumped back up to be used with the next batch of fertilizer. As the plants grow, modular bins are easily removed for harvesting and re-potting.”
Chris Gardner lives and makes things (music, art, furniture, dinner, messes) in Columbus, Ohio. He contributes to the home-design community Curbly, and also runs ManMade, a DIY and handmade site for the postmodern male. Contact Chris | Read posts by Chris
Garth Johnson and Claire Joyce are a pair of artists who are renovating and decorating their first home, a 1905 Victorian in Eureka, California. They would like to share the joys and frustrations of home-ownerhsip, and to hear about the same from you. See Claire's art here, and get more of Garth on his blog, Extreme Craft. Claire and Garth's home-owning adventures to date are collected at Keeping Up With the Johnsons, also on ReadyMade. Contact Garth | Contact Claire Read posts by Garth | Read posts by Claire
Sonia Zjawinski is the co-founder of the pet site Pawesome. She's been obsessed with animals ever since she could grab hold of her parents' first cat, Pimpek. When she's not wrangling cats or training dogs she's writing for Unpluggd, Wired, the New York Times, and ReadyMade. Contact Sonia | Read posts by Sonia
Megan Jeyifo is a twenty-something married who loves black coffee, chaotic thrift stores, picking up new crafts and putting them down after 25% mastery has occurred, repurposing castoffs, the back porch, her dog, the Midwest and letters on real pages. She writes the blog Urban Casita and lives in the great city of Chicago. Contact Megan | Read posts by Megan
After my husband and I threw down 600 bucks on a new couch we knew we had to do something about the cats. Since kitten pie was out of the question, we thought to invest in a scratching post that was so enticing, even the couch would no longer appeal. Unfortunately, when I went to the pet store, the sisal cat scratcher I’ve always wanted was priced at $70. Um, no. Sorry. Luckily, a few days later my husband came home with all the ingredients to make the ultimate sisal and carpet cat scratcher. Here’s how we did it.
After five months in our new house, we finally had our housewarming. Our main goal when we moved in was to have all of our major construction projects finished by early February so we could be set up for the high point of our annual social calendar….THE SUPERFONDUPERBOWL.
Enter the 
