art design family fiber art home work in progress

Cheering Up the Bathroom

Painting in the new house continues.  A couple of weekends ago, we decided to erase the gray in the small first-floor bathroom, which is just a half-bath. You could call it a powder room if anyone used powder in there, but we don’t. There’s white wainscoting in the bathroom and a white cabinet, which we quite liked. We wanted to cheer up the bathroom, so we picked a bright yellow. Because the bathroom is so…

Continue reading

art design family home projects work in progress

Designing Around an Iceberg

Hubby and I put the (almost) finishing touches on the dining room yesterday. All the walls were gray, gray, gray, and the floor was a darker gray. We wanted to carry our blue theme from the living room into the dining room without making it matchy-matchy. When we were searching for a house, we knew we needed a couple of large walls, one for a giant mid-century room divider and one for a giant iceberg.…

Continue reading

design observations product packaging

Your Child WILL Defeat This Lock

It’s been a while since I’ve found product packaging that strikes me as strange or curious enough to share, but I recently ran across something that fits the bill. A child safety lock, the type that is plastic and loops over a couple of cupboard knobs to keep them held shut, contained packaging language that made me question why anyone would buy the product. The text on the back of the package, reproduced in the…

Continue reading

design family home projects work in progress

New Home Office

Work continues apace in our new-to-us home, which was built in the 1960s. One of my first orders of business was to set up a home office. We have four bedrooms in the house. I chose the one I wanted as an office and then promptly set up a temporary office in the bedroom across the hall. I had work to do before moving into my room of choice. The day we moved in, Hubby…

Continue reading

challenge design observations technology

Engineered for Babies

Recently, I have had occasion to take care of a young child. Having raised three children, you’d think this would be easy for me. For the most part it is. I can weather the constant shifting of emotions and change in activities by using the art of distraction like a pro. I can swiftly change a diaper or an outfit as though I’m wrangling an eel (which I kind of am!). But, navigating baby gear…

Continue reading