Posts from — December 2009

In a recent article posted on TheStar, Valerie Choi, the Art Director of ID Benchmark Sdn. Bhd., speaks about her predictions for upcoming trends in 2010.

Ageless Curve – she predicts that vintage baroque will be big in 2010, with emphasis on monochrome wallpapers with bold baroque designs. I personally like the baroque patterns and am seeing more and more bold choices in modern homes which incorporate these designs. The thing I’d highlight here is how easy it is to get carried away and overdo it without realising. As Valerie points out, first decide on the wall. She goes on to add that you can add in pendant lights as accents to the bring out the bold curves of your newly decorated wall

Mother Earth – as green living becomes a more pronounced concept in many new homes, living in harmony with nature or natural elements will be the in thing in 2010. A great way to achieve this simply is to use earthly colours for your walls, leverage on natural or recycle elements as decor to your home e.g. a wooden log. My thoughts are aligned with Valerie’s on this theme because I get a lot of people asking me for advice on how they can make their homes more green. My first answer to them is to make use of two of nature’s free and abundant resources – wind and light. Go for as much natural lighting and utilize wind to create a breezy environment. Not only are you saving mother earth, you’re also saving dollars and cents in the process.

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Who doesn’t like a nice smelling home? After cars and bathrooms, the next place many look to aromatize is their living spaces. Often we find homes with essential oils burning in the background, releasing the tender smells of ylang ylang or the relaxing odor of lavender amongst the myriad fragrances available in the market today.

Metafora Home Ambience fragrances are somewhat unique in that the aroma oil permeates from a jar through rattan reeds. These rattan reeds contain channels within the reed itself to produce a capillary effect that in layman terms, sucks up the oil and diffuses it into the air at the tip of the reed

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Holding a Christmas party? If beer’s part of the drinks inventory, here’s an idea – Chinese designers created a 1000-bottle Christmas tree from full Heineken bottles at Nanjing Road, Shanghai. Read more about the tree here via inhabitat.

Now I’m pretty sure you won’t be holding a party and providing 1000 bottles of beer (but if you do, may I know why I haven’t received an invitation?), you can always scale it down to create a small tree from the bottles available. In fact, if you want to scale up the tree, pad the bottom rows with empty bottles – most people won’t want to pick from the bottom row anyway. Just don’t be a smart alec and stack them on top of each other. The idea is to create a tiered frame and line the bottles around it so that you don’t have the guest who isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed pull the wrong bottle and have the ‘tree’ come crashing down. I’m not sure how it feels like to be mopping up spilled  beer but I can only assume it must be painful.

I’m sticking to my traditional plastic Christmas tree this year. We’ve had to cordon it off somewhat because Ryan keeps crawling towards it trying to pull down ornaments at arm’s length. This is definitely a concept I’ll pursue the next time I hold a year end party!

On this note, the How family (myself, YinLeng and baby Ryan) would like to wish all of you a…

VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Ever felt a little uneasy whilst travelling because you do not have the creature comforts of home with you at the airports/train stations? Erik De Nijs of Niuwe Heren decided to take a look at this problem and came up with a bizarre yet somewhat inspired design – the Suited Case.

His suitcase combo of two large and two smaller suitcases allows the four luggage articles to be combined to form a rather ecclectic sofa. Now what could this possibly mean for consumers?

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Useful art. That’s what Noto Fusai’s art on canvas really is. Essentially, what you get when you purchase this piece is a canvas print of an urban view from the park, along with a fully functional clock that tells the current time! Depending on how you look at it – you’re either buying a clock and getting the print or buying the print and getting the art – this is form-meets-function in the most basic yet beautiful form.

A clever little decoration for the home, no doubt.

Found on the ever interesting gnr8

Imagesource: gnr8

Seen in many modern homes and office spaces, the Barcelona Chair is indeed an ageless icon in the world of product design. Created by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe of the Bauhaus movement, this chair was first introduced to the world at the Ibero-American Exposition in 1929 which was held in Barcelona.

Like Verner Panton’s iconic Panton Chair, the Barcelona Chair has withstood the test of time and impresses as a futuristic design to many who are unaware of its origins. Like any iconic product design, it has not evolved to become a better product – it already is one.

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Parents often always make their children’s room bright and cheery. The most common items that would do the trick are brightly painted walls, kiddy motif curtains, colourful furniture and cartoon bedspreads. This does the trick during the day but we all know many children who have trouble going to sleep at night without the lights turned on.

Instead of boring adult lamps, why not find a fun novelty lamp to complement your children’s bedroom? I’ve found some pretty affordable and nice looking ones at The Light Shop. I’m almost certain your children would be amused with these cute little animal shaped lamps. Head on over to The Light Shop for more.

Imagesource: thelightshop

If you’re looking for the latest in contemporary furniture and home furnishings and without much financial constraints, then Gudang Damansara has to be your very first stop. Located in the newly refurbished Bangsar Shopping Centre, this ‘warehouse’ stores a myriad of wonderful modern contemporary furniture, ornaments and accents.

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Here’s the latest new thing in the weird and wonderful world of home interior decorating, for the New York City fan, or the guy who never really leaves the subway: ornamental replica NYC Subway signs.

all images source: underground-signs.com

Do you find yourself reminiscing over your time spent at Stella Place, or Drive-Rego Park? Maybe 18 Street is especially dear to your heart. If you visited New York, and in your heart never really left, let these signs serve as tender reminders of your fun and fantastic time spent in the Big Apple.

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Anthony Leyland is the genius behind the Manifold 2, a coffee table bent and shaped from a 1m square powder coated sheet metal. Being a mathematician and a designer at the same time has its quirky pros I must say because he’s come up with some very clever designs with this unique design

Here are just a few of the possibilities of table designs he’s created:

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