Base on my trend study for this season ... I say that cabinets are totally IN....our kitchen that is.
We're just going with Ikea cabinets, but will finish the fronts with a mix of oak and birch plywood.
Amongst all the cabinets, we integrated an open nook to break up the space, but also just so I can display all my vintage glass jar collection to keep all my dry foods. Dylan drew that in just to see what it'd look like.
Testing our steel hanging bar!
Finally feel like we're getting around to do something fun & creative in the studio!
We'll be going up to Vancouver to be part of the Interior Design Show West (Sept 29th-Oct 3) along with JOIN. This will be L&G's first time showing some of our furniture pieces, but also it will be the first time for all of us to show in Vancouver! Very exciting...
I didn't realize how much I missed hand-making models with color pencils, chipboard, balsa wood, and all that. Totally felt like a kid again.
More to come, but here's a lil' sneak peak...
Some sample look books
A prototype of our new concept...can you guess what will be?
I know I really should be banned from going to anymore estate sales...and you can see why! I somehow came back with a whole box of these vintage building blocks with amazing colors & shapes.
Why did I get them?...I say, more like why NOT?!
Wooden blocks is probably one of my favorite things in the world.
It's simple, versatile, and just an amazing medium that allows anyone at any age to tap into their creative process.
Even now as an adult playing with the blocks, I find that they're extremely useful for our design process where we can play with it to quickly create mini models, explore forms, structures, and compositions.
It's just amazing how entertaining they are for the fact that they're just bunch of pieces of wood...yes, I'm very easily entertained.
Although, I have yet come up with an idea on what to make with them...
Something will come of this I'm sure...but until then I'm just gonna have a party playing with these building blocks!
As we got to the phase of putting up dry wall & mudding our kitchen, we soon started to question why we even started this whole kitchen renovation project in the first place!
No one ever warned us about how awful this whole process is! For only the size of our kitchen, it took us more than a week of hanging the walls, Dylan mudding the walls in the morning, and then me sanding the walls at late through the night (repeat 3 times)....and on top of that having all the joint compound dust suck all the moisture out of our body.
I only have pictures of the kitchen before it got bad...and before I went crazy.
Then it was just dust....EVERYWHERE.....
...and then it was just me swearing like a sailor and looking like Peg-Pen from Charlie Brown the whole rest of the time...
Totally stoked that our Superior Servers got some attention along with Be-YON-ce~ in the Fall issue of InStyle that weighs at least 5lb.
Although a little dissapointed that we didn't get a 8 page spread of us in fancy glam outfits nor an interview about my perspective on success, love & family like I thought we'd get...we're still pretty darn happy that our feature is at the back end of Beyonce! Hell yes.
Then us in Bon Appetit!
Just look at the juicy cover....Me huuuungry....
Then I spotted us in Small Magazine by accident! I'm totally excited when I saw this since I love looking at everything in there with their cute kids and cute photoshoots, clothes and everything! Something about things, people, and animals in smaller forms that simply makes them automatically cuter....except baby insects & reptiles....eew, gross.
I especially love the wooden poached egg!
Here's a recap of the JOIN at the NYIGF for the 3rd time!
This time with us being in the lobby outside of the Accent on Design area turned out to be a MUCH more pleasant of a space to be in...especially when the sun is out! Just look at how everything shines on the table!
Above: New server colors and cake servers from L&G, and colorful big Silicone ring by fruitsuper....and NO they're NOT eraser rings!
Here we got Chelsea H. from plainMADE getting a little sun tanning sesh at the Javits....
Photos above by Grain
New frame light colors from Iacoli & McAllister.
Also this time being next to AmDC made it 100 times more fun, too!
photo by Steph Mantis
Here are some highlights from AmDC's booth:
Bracelets made with mix marble cuts celebrating the colors & patterns of the various types of stone. By Chen Chen & Kai Tsien Williams.
Chika & I got to trade with Patrick Kim for one of his clever wooden tons and these lovely cutting boards with a simple rubber band at the end to keep it from slipping around. Clever AND thoughtful...
Beautiful & sleek glass vessels from Felicia Ferrone based out of Chicago.
Playful two-headed animal necklaces in various metals by Steph Mantis! (and yes... exclamation mark is required when referring to Steph!)
...and of course, we wouldn't feel complete at the NYIGF until we have some sort of birthday celebration! and this year is no exception...
Here's Chika with her doughnut birthday cake composed by me and Christa (of blkPINE bags). This is second time celebrating Chika's bday at the Javits and we went all out and made a doughnut tower with yummy doughnuts from Doughnut Plant....surrounded with coconut macaroons, strawberry Pocky sticks, and flower pom pom with napkins provided by the Javits.
Yes...I know...only a master mind & a true artist can create such master piece such as this. Christa and I took MAD pride in carefully piling the doughnuts up and sprucing it all up...and all the grease spots on the box only shows how much thought went into this...
Featured Work: Gem Necklace.
Featured Work: Superior Servers.
Featured Work: Superior Servers.
Caaoh Russia / Featured work: Cane & Able, Chalk Piggy Bank, Salt & Pepper Paws, Superior Servers, Superior Cake Servers, Daily Affirmation Mirror, and Gem Necklace.
Check out this 9 Eyes project by Jon Rafman, where he "traveled" around the world with Google Street View in search of these amazing unintentional photo documented shots that captures the most fascinating scenes and moments. Some of which are amazingly beautiful, bizzare, horrific, random or just straight up funny going on...
Aaaaand...Don't think I'll be looking at real estate on these streets below anytime soon....
I'm forever facinated with Google Street View...and this guy.
I had the pleasure to meet Rena Tom when I went to Meg Mateo Ilasco's "Crafting A Meaningful Home Book" launch party at Rare Device last fall.
Rena is the co-owner of Rare Device and a multi-talented lady with a well-rounded set of skills and knowledge especially when it comes to being a creative entrepreneur.
Her blog, focusing on ways to strategize for creative retail business, is a place where I regularly check out to get helpful tips and honest perspectives from the buyers/retail store owners point of view.
We were honored when Rena asked us to be part of her Profile column on her blog where she regularly interviews creative designers/artists!
You can read the interview here!
Thanks Rena!
After 5 long grueling days of smiling, staring, smirking, standing, and more smiling at the NYIGF, I finally got some personal downtime right after the show ended.
and totally had myself the most perfect day....
First, I stopped at the closest Dean & Deluca and paid for an over priced iced latte and one of this amazing carrot cake doughnuts from doughnut planet and "wrote" a card to Dylan with one of these Utility Cards by Grain. Each card is filled with words all of sorts for every occasion possible. It's more than brilliant!
It took me a while but composed my own phrase "WAHZZ....UP....MY....BOY....FRIEND....I....MISS....YOU....WAY....TOO....MUCH....YEA..."
Then I walked through Highline checking out the new addition, which is even more amazing than before!
I sat one of the the lounge benches and ate one of these deliciously handmade peach elderberry popsicle.
Then I actually got to soak up some sun for at least couple of hours... and as shameful as this sounds (but I'm not longer ashamed) I starting hearing Sheryl Crow's "soak up the sun" in my head out of nowhere!
Normally I'd freak out if that song were to pop in my head at any other moments, but instead I kept my cool...and just embraced it.
I got to read a bit, stared at the clouds, did some people watching, and all the while still humming the song....it was so refreshing.
Then what made it EVEN more perfect is that I met up with Chika & Jesse and got to enjoy THE most perfect dish at Joseph Leonard with all the simple ingredients I love the most....
Just look at that perfect egg sitting perfectly on top of a cute little piece of brioche..next to a perfectly healthy bed of frisee salad topped with perfectly crisped bacon bits....
Can't say that I get to expereince a lot of days like this anymore, but whenever it happens...I just totally love every moment of it...even if Sheryl Crow comes into the picture.Can't say that I get to expereince a lot of days like this anymore, but whenever it happens...I just totally love every moment of it...even if Sheryl Crow comes into the picture.
We decided to put things into high gear 2 weeks ago on our kitchen. I cutoff nearly all contact with the outside world and started calling in those favors from friends we knew we needed to get the job done.
This was the day we've been waiting for since we started designing a steel frame with Nick from Piano Nobile...we're gonna see the frame in our space for the first time!
I was especially excited to wake up this morning and see Nick pull in with his AWESOME Fuso in our drive way with the frame pieces. Seeing the size of the Fuso, I wished we had bigger pieces to move just so we can see the crane in action, too!!
So remember from our previous post with our Google sketchup of our kitchen with a steel frame?...the frame will act as a load bearing structure between our kitchen and living room so we can open the space up and have an island!
so here are some photos of Dylan & Nick dry fitting the pieces in the space for the first time to see how it all looks and fits....nervous?? I AM!!
Ta-da! Instant framing, done!
It was as simple as lining up the pieces, screw in the bolts and voila! Totally exciting to see what it actually look like in our space!! I was hopping around like a 5 year old filled with excitement when they were doing all this.
Next on the list....we'll ride the Fuso and get the frame powder coated! Yesssss......
Wish we're in SF for this! Kiel from American Design Club is working with Rand + Statler in curating a pop up shop this coming Saturday, August 27th with bunch of designers we adore.
List of designers includes:
Kiel Mead, Silva/Bradshaw, Emily Rothschild, Fort Standard, Kai Williams + Chen Chen, Annie Lenon + Valerie Gnaedig, Lara Knutson, Jill Peterson, Studioooij, Iacoli & Mcallister, Steph Mantis, Pat Kim, Alexandra Snook, Chuck Routhier, Andie Olive, Mark McGinnis, Grain, R&L Goods, Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, Michael Cummings, Thomas Im, Marianne van Ooij, Evan Clabots, Seldon Yuan and Annika Jermyn.
If you're in the SF area, go check it out!
A more epic time than your typical tea time...
Santigold and Spankrock....having hella of a good time in Alexander Wang's T collection. Dang.
We're excited when we first read about this new shop in Portland called Woonwinkel (means Home Shop in Dutch) that opened in June.
What's even more exciting is that our Chalk Piggies, Gem Necklaces, Superior Servers, and Mega-Doily rugs of various size are at the store!
It's a beautifully curated shop with things I've only seen from the far and magical place of the Netherlands combined with some great designers we totally love such as, Studio Gorm, Iacoli & McAllister, Von Tundra, and Chen Chen.
....pretty much a dream store. Perhaps if I make myself look small enough I can be a squatter and live in that shop....
