Friday, April 17, 2015

Dispatches from Japan: Day Five By: Grace Bonney

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It’s been such a pleasure having Ayumi Horie join us all week with photographs from her trip to Japan during Cherry Blossom season. If the gorgeous trees and strands of origami weren’t enough, all of these photos of tiny deer in Nara Park are making me want to pack up and leave right now. Today Ayumi is sharing one last set of photos from us, including a breathtaking shot of Kasuga Taisha in Nara Park, above. That sort of peace and quiet is the best way to start the day. Thank you so much to Ayumi for sharing her trip with us all week. You can check out more of Ayumi’s photos right here on her Instagram feed and check out her “Pots in Action” feed here, too. xo, grace


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Images above, top to bottom: A tiny deer and ice cream cones in Nara Park, Cherry blossoms at Itokutenman-gū, Kinpusen-ji in Yoshinoyama and Double torii gates at Fushimi Inari in Kyoto.




















via Design*Sponge http://ift.tt/1CTqhAX From Grace Bonney

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Dispatches from Japan: Day 4 By: Grace Bonney

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After three days of Ayumi Horie‘s breathtaking photos from Japan, I’m convinced that I need to start a little savings fund to eventually travel there one day. Between the tiny deer and blooming cherry trees, it looks like heaven. Today Ayumi is sharing more photos from her trip, including these beautiful Meoto Iwa, or the “married couple” rocks (below) on the coast of Japan. xo, grace


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Image above and top: Painters painting the bright pink blooms of cherry blossom trees; trees lit by lanterns below in Ueno Park in Tokyo.




















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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

DIY Faux Bed Frame By: Grace Bonney

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When Julia and I moved into our new (but very old) home, we knew that a good deal of our decorating projects would be DIY-based. With a mortgage and plenty of repairs on our hands, buying a ton of brand new furniture just wasn’t going to happen. So over the past four months we’ve ripped out old tiles, created benches from old countertops, floating bedside tables from leftover scrap wood and headboards from inexpensive plywood. And, in a stroke of DIY genius, Julia came up with a cheap-and-easy DIY bed frame idea that not only looks great, but is infinitely customizable (and easy on your wallet). So today I’m sharing the how-to for anyone who wants to neaten up their low-lying mattress without spending a fortune. xo, grace



DIY Faux Bed Frame


This project is designed to hide either a boxspring or mattress that’s resting directly on the floor. We prefer to keep our bed low to the ground, but didn’t want to have the mattress sides exposed. The wood gives the bed a nice clean look without a lot of work. This frame is 3-sided, allowing you to push it flush with the wall (or up against molding) without creating a gap between the mattress and the head of the bed.


Materials:

-3 pieces of wood cut to size (you’ll choose the sizes based on the equation below). We used regular pre-cut pine lumber from Lowes.

-4 L brackets

-8 wood screws

-Screwdriver (an electric screwdriver makes this much faster)

-Pen or pencil


Steps:


1. In order to choose the right size wood, you’ll need to measure your mattress and/or boxspring.


-HEIGHT: Determine how much of the boxspring and/or mattress you’d like to cover. This will be how tall each of your 3 pieces of wood needs to be. We chose to cover just the boxspring on the ground, which perfectly fit a 9″ piece of pine.


-SIDE LENGTHS: Determine the length of your 2 side pieces by measuring the distance from the wall behind your bed to the end of the mattress (by your feet) PLUS 2 inches. These two inches will give you a little bit of wiggle room in case you need to tuck in bedding. (If you do not plan on tucking in any bedding, add only 1 inch to the length). Example: We have a king-sized bed that measures 80 inches long. We added 2 inches to allow the wood to be flush with the wall and have room for the bedding to tuck in slightly. So our 2 side pieces measured 82″ long by 9″ tall.


-FOOT LENGTH: Determine the length of the piece of wood that will form the front/foot of your frame, measure the width of the mattress, PLUS the thickness of your two side lengths of wood. For example, our mattress was 76 inches wide and our boards were 1 inch thick. So the foot board needed to be 78″ long by 9″ tall.


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2. OPTIONAL: If you want to paint, stain or customize your wood, do that now before you construct the bed frame. It will be much easier.


3. Once your wood is ready to use, lay the 2 long side pieces in place on either side of the bed and lay the foot piece in place at the foot of the bed. The goal is to construct it roughly in-place and slide it into place.


3. Using your L brackets on the INSIDE corners of where the side pieces meet the foot piece, mark the screw holes with a pen or pencil. If you have an electric drill you can pre-drill these holes to make them easier to screw in. Or you can just start by screwing them in, leaning into the drill to secure them.


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4. Attach 2 L brackets for both front corners of the bed. Because there is no back/head piece for the frame, it will still move around a bit — don’t be alarmed. That flexibility will allow you to move the frame easily to clean around the bed, but it won’t snap or break.


5. Once you’ve attached the L brackets, slide the frame into place!


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*I pulled our covers to the right here so you can see how the board goes all the way back to the wall.




















via Design*Sponge http://ift.tt/1EGRag7 From Grace Bonney

Dispatches from Japan: Day Three By: Grace Bonney

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All week, potter Ayumi Horie has been sharing photos from her trip to Japan during cherry blossom season. We’ve already gotten a glimpse at the beautiful trees, sleeping deer and origami cranes, and today Ayumi is showing us more of Hanami season, when the entire nation is glued to news about where and when plum, cherry, apricot and peach blossoms are budding and falling. In the picture below, the moon pokes through a vast canopy of pink and white flowers and above you can see a detail of one of the vivid hana-momo, or peppermint peach trees (in the Waseda neighborhood of Tokyo). Thanks, Ayumi! xo, grace


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via Design*Sponge http://ift.tt/1DiGD8w From Grace Bonney

TV Box Box (Wall-hugging TV equipment cabinet) By: IH guest

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My hack is an Ikea wall cabinet that I modified to hold a small TV cable / satellite box. It mounts below a wall-mounted TV, keeping everything neat and tight to the wall. The equipment box faces up, while an angled mirror lets you (and your remote control) see the front of the box.


(I want to say I used a “Besta” cabinet, but I don’t see a match on the Ikea web site; the specific model I used may be discontinued. However anyone could certainly do this with any other shallow wall cabinet.)


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1. Before assembling the cabinet, I cut out a large area of the back panel to expose the outlets and jacks to the inside of the cabinet.


2. I built a small wood stand to support the satellite box upright while leaving room for cords. I used 90-degree adaptors to minimize cord height.


3. I threw out the included hinge hardware and used standard hardware-store hinges, plus a catch and a chain, to make the door mount lower than usual, leaving a ~3″ gap at the top. The door also opens down instead of up.


4. I needed the glass shelf to be higher than the pre-drilled holes allowed, so I drilled new holes to support the shelf at the exact height I needed.


5. I cut and glued together several small bits of thin MDF board to hold the mirror in place at a 45-degree angle, and spray-painted the wood black. The mirror was purchased and custom cut at the local hardware store. I super-glued the mirror to the wood supports. The mirror assembly simply slides in and rests on top of the gas shelf.


By Rich Brome


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