best woodpile ever?

Another one via Ouno Design, this is a work by Alastair Heseltine, a sculptor from British Columbia ... suddenly we're not that impressed with our firewood pile ...

Probably wouldn't be able to bring ourselves to burn any of it though.  Wonder if he's planning an upright version?

public seating

a couple of park benches in Mexico City we saw on Ouno Design's blog ... fun!

nice.

modern love

No big news, just a gorgeous house we saw in Bendigo ... can't understand why people are demolishing mid-century beauties to build hollow rehashes of the same design principles.  This place has it all (at least what we could see from the street) - crazy-paved walls and verandahs, floor-to-ceiling glass panels, cantilevered skillion roof-line ... too cool.

It's a pretty simple formula, but we'd take this over some new-build metricon shack any day!  C'mon people, buy 'em, save 'em, love 'em!

dining chair revival

We have had this set of 60's Danish dining chairs hanging 'round for months now, just waiting for some love ...

 The seats were originally done in woven rattan, but all 4 were pretty badly broken, and re-caning is a bit beyond us despite our enthusiasm for restoring and reviving.

So stripped them all last week, and gave the frames a good sanding and re-oiling while we podered our alternatives ...

We found a supplier of nice narrow seat-belt webbing, and couldn't resist giving it a try ...

And what do you know?  They look amazing (in our opinion, anyway), AND they're really nice to sit on, too.

Now it's just the fun of answering the "What are you planning to do to finish those chairs?" questions ...
Thankfully, once people sit on them the 'get it' ... so the chairs are in the shop and waiting for a new home.  In the words of Murdock from the A-Team, "I just love it when a plan comes together!"

bring it on ...

Cold nights are the best ... we've been cleaning up a few fallen trees and we are ready!

tagging with a purpose ...

On a sentimental note, we used to travel to China a lot for work (past life), and were just remembering the predominant graf style over there.  We'll spare you the full onslaught of our collection of phone number photos for now - here's a typical example from a favorite overpass in Humen, Dongguan Provence.

 
Guess the priority over there was more than just getting everyone to remember your 'street name' ... they want you to know their number too!  Possibly the eastern equivalent of RSVP, or maybe just the 'budget billboard'. 

paste ups

Love a good paste-up ... way more fun than a half-assed tag.  This set on Mitchell St in Northcote are nice ...

Referring to the great boobs that were sadly removed from this wall a few months back ...

... and we couldn't go past an old school classic piece ...

... among the gumtrees

As much as we are born and bred city folk and love Northcote dearly, it's the weekly visits to the country estate that keep us sane - no sirens, no tram noise, and lots more nature.  We have had this vintage fire-guard for years, reminding us of where we'd like to be.

We feel like our farm is getting close to being just as cute ...

... or maybe it's just an excuse to keep collecting furniture - that extra loungeroom that we need so our spare chairs and sofas have somewhere to hang out ...

If it wasn't such a long drive I think we'd go back there every night ... there is nothing like that peace and quiet! 

Aside from the crazy birdlife of course. 

Stay tuned for a full tour of the farm in future posts ...

vans ...

Ever since getting my first kombi van back in '93, I wouldn't seriously consider driving any other type of vehicle ... nice high ride and great carrying capacity ... and road trips are way more fun in a van.

But can you beat those Californian vans for proper '70's cool?
Check out 'Vans and the places where they were.' for some really nice pics.

just wow ...

Nobody can deny that there's an art to good storage, but Swedish artist Michael Johansson has made it ART.  We saw a few of his pieces featured on 'What's blogging my view' (Janne, a Norwegian blogger with a GREAT eye), and had to follow up.

Johansson combines collecting and curating and colour-coding and compacting so well ...

For those of us with a nasty habit of accumulating more than we can accommodate, his work is pretty inspiring, and the mix of scales is cool too.

Sadly, though we share some of his principles in filling our garage with our finds, the lack of open space around our stacks means we're not quite at exhibition levels yet.  Great stuff though!