The floor is in!

last weekend we worked very hard, the beams were levelled, and the floorpanles were installed.
I’m relieved that this is finished, It’s safe again to walk around there.

the broken ceiling has been replaced and the lighting fixtures have been installed again.

just need to finish it with plaster.

A drywall needs to be installed, two doors, and then the fun starts, decorating..
I should start looking around for inspiration..

The Design museum in Ghent is having a feature about Design versus Kitsch, and the blurry zone in between, Camp.

the chair in my previous post is featured there, as a design object. but some people will disagree, I’m not sure about it myself..

the term Kitch was used to distinguish between low quality, industrial produced, objects and the real, high quality, often hand made, design.
Mass production can provide cheap accessories for people that don’t care about quality, or good design. this apparently is still a great success…

Kitsch is about bright colours (a lot of them) gold thingies, flowers, preferably fake, fairy tale pictures etc.. garden gnomes! how could I forget..

When popart was starting to use everyday objects in art, the term Camp was born, Camp is Kitch , but with a twist to confuse people.

Phillipe Starck’s Gnome chairs anyone,

I would’t mind having one (ONE!) of these in the garden, preferably painted black, or maybe something contrasting, poison green, bright red.. and tucked away between plants sothat is it barely visible:)

more info can be found on the Design Museum website.

I should be saying that this is ugly, but for some reason I can’t..
why? maybe it is because this can be a fun DIY project?

Grandma might have something like this at the attic, but probably with gold feet..

replace the fabric, and go nuts with some leftover paint… could be very therapeutic..
And therapy might be required if this is in my living room for some time:)

the Chair is called Praust’s armchair, designed by Alessandro Mendini in ‘78

remember my post about the garden design competition at sfeer ‘07
well, It turns out that Someone in France was way ahead of the vertical garden submittted there.

Patrick Blanc specializes in dressing up walls using plants.
and he does a very good job too.
being a designer and a scientist, Patrick searched for species that trive in vertical and soil-less environments.
He manages to create balanced artworks using plants that bled in nicely in the walls and surrounding buildings.

come to think of it. I have this huge wall in my garden (from the next door bakery) that needs some dressing up..

His website is also nice to look at

to add to my already existing collection and I’m eagerly awaiting delivery

The Porsche 301 Chroma

a friend can get them very cheap, so that’s why i went for 4 at once plus the special sharpening stone.
a 24cm chef knife, a 20 cm kitchen knife, a 14 cm chef knife and a small universal all round knife
I can’t wait to start cutting vegetables and nice big steaks.
(good thing that I love cooking, otherwise this would have been a bad way to spend money..)

the existing collection consists of almost alle kitchen appliances made by Siemens.

the car is still a bit out of reach unfortunately…

there is this organisation in Belgium and the Netherlands called Living tomorrow. they are researching how we might be living inthe future.

I think this is a very cool initiative, not only are they looking to save energy, but they seem to be doing very well on the design aspects too.

I haven’t visited the place yet, but would like to do so… when the garden pavillion is finished.
(people who know me have heard me say that many, many times already..)

this is the building in Vilvoorde (Belgium)

looks nice, but they missed the ball on the Amsterdam version:

why are they trying so hard to revive concept architecture found primarily in 60’s Sci-fi movies??
in fact, the entrance can be used immediatly in a Star Trek episode (the original series that is..)

it looks ‘nice’ in it’s own way, but who want’s to live in that? Austin Powers, but not me..

look at this kitchen:

and then look at http://www.omodern.com/Eurobad/euro8.html
similarities?

the Belgian version has some nice features, the bathroom looks very cool, but again, they missed the point in the living room / kitchen, again this is clear sixties inspired stuff, but with modern materials, they use corian instead of fiberglass, but still sixties
(I don’t have any pictures, the gallery is swf, and my photo application is screwed..)
but you can check out the images on the Living tomorrow website

the kitchen they have installed is actually available today.. it is designed by Zaha Hadid who, by the way, have a very confusing website…

either way, I will never see myself cooking on something like this.

first post about the attic..

the plan is to transform the attic into Two childrens rooms and a good sized storage space.
but I’m not there yet, not even close..

old floor:

a woodworm infested structure with level differences of 4 cm… not good

new floor:

the same wood structure, beams reinforced with other beams (which are no longer visible unfortunately) to level out the differences and add strenght to the floor. I added insulation between the beams for soundproofing. much better…

but before you can replace the planks, you need to remove them resulting in only the beams being there to step on….
oooops:

this is the ceiling below the attic floor, and I stepped exactly between two beams. suprisingly the ceiling supported my weight long enough for me to get off it, but the damage is substantial.. and I just finished mounting the lighting fixtures…
as usual, bad luck never comes alone; in the same hour I cut a floor panel all wrong and had a wood splinter the size of New Mexico in my index finger.
maybe it would have been better to call it a day and go read a book or something..

So now I’m working n two project at once.. tha attic when my daughter is awake, the garden pavillion when she’s asleep… and every once a while I’m helping out friends wha are also doing some home improvement..