Gear Culture showed some love today for Holden Designs’ Pet Feeder.

Pets are people too! {If you’re a pet owner, you understand} Just because they can’t eat at the table doesn’t mean they have to eat off of the floor.

Thanks Gear Culture!

I am still laughing about this $28,000,000 house that FreshHome just tweeted about on twitter. It is SO gaudy and hilarious (though I sure would not mind having that view!). Linking to the full post made my day:

It reminds me of this quote:

“Isn’t my house classic? The columns date back to 1972!” – Cher, Clueless

That sofa – I recently read this book called Some Girls: My Life in a Harem – it was about one of those ladies who went over to Brunei to “entertain” the sultan. I imagine this sofa would be perfect in the harem ladies’ quarters. By the way, it was really well written, I appreciated the author’s total honesty. However, I’d now like to redeem my reading choices by letting you know I’m currently reading Freedom.

Arg, as you can see, this was not the most organized Wednesday and I’m running about 12 hours behind schedule! It was an odyssey of breaking a drafting table thing, buying a new one, setting it up, getting distracted with projects, grocery shopping, and then trying to fit all of the tall stuff in my fridge. Which leads me to today’s topic – squeezing every inch of space out of that puppy.

O.K. seriously, does anyone besides Jeff Lewis have a fridge that is this organized?

Sometimes it’s the little things. Let me say I have an old energy and spatially inefficient fridge and I know I should get a new one but I really want a red or yellow Big Chill Fridge and I’ll never have the money so there you have it. I mean, buying a whole bunch of shoes or going on a trip is just so much more exciting than buying a major appliance. Anyway, whether you’ve got some fancy-dancy duel door Ferrari of a fridge or a rusty old icebox, you’re probably wasting space.

Take a good look at your refrigerator and figure out why everything is so crammed. I’m not saying you have to clean the whole sucker out (though that’s a good project that should take under an hour and give you a huge feeling of satisfaction). We’re just going to do a quick assessment. The other day I longed to be able to put some bevvies in the door, and could not find a spare inch. It was because the door was jam-packed with lord knows what kind of condiments I just assumed I still needed. I had about a millimeter of disgusting sugar free syrup. I had five year old mustard. I had BBQ sauce and fancy Dijon mustard my friend Chrissy asked me to stow for her about two years ago when the tree fell on her kitchen and her fridge was unplugged. Natural disasters aside, I think two years equals abandonment. I had soy sauce that was five years old. I dumped out everything, rinsed out the containers for recycling, and had enough door space to store all my sodas, some Pinot Grigio, the new condiments I actually use and some left over.

We were so excited to see that one of our favorite designers, Christiane Lemieux, the founder of DwellStudio, is coming out with her first book!

The book does not come out until next year, but Christiane gives us a teaser on what it will cover:

The philosphy of the book is that to me the most truly inspiring homes are the result of the home-owner themselves designing and organically creating their own interior worlds – sometimes over years. This book is an ode to personal style.  It’s about how interiors reflect each home owner’s personality, character, humor and wit.

I seriously don’t think I can wait until next year. Christiane, can you hook a sister up with an advance copy?!?!?!

Yesterday I was reading about The Zip Car 30 Day Low-Car Diet. This, in addition to being a brilliant marketing ploy, is a great idea. Participants from around the U.S. agree to give up their personal vehicles for thirty days. In exchange, they are given a year’s worth of Zip Car use for free. I remember the then-Dean of the Architecture School at UVA, William McDonough, describing a shared car transportation plan for a sustainable town he was working on over ten years ago, and I remember cynically thinking that such a thing would only work on a commune. I’m glad Zip Car has proved me wrong. You can follow the participants here.  Last year, 61% of the participants realized they were ready to give up their personal cars and stick with bikes, public transportation, and the occasional Zip rental.

Could you do it? If you sat down, looked at the cost of your car payments, maintenance, insurance and gasoline and realized it cost you about 20% of your income would it sway you at all? Do you have any sort of ample public transportation and/or good bike trails? I don’t use my car much, but honestly, it’s to ingrained in me to have one that I don’t know if I could give it up. I remember this same conversation going for Campbell Scott whenever he tried to sell his idea of the Supertrain in the movie Singles. The response was always “people love their cars.” When the temperature drops below 80, I do tend to walk on a lot of my errands, but it sure is tough not to hop in the car when it’s 100 degrees or when the weather is bad!