The Home Crowd

Shelves that can be disassembled, and reassembled as….. your coffin?  Not sure I’m liking where this is going, but definitely for those who despise their next-of-kin enough to frustrate their mourning with a fun IKEA-ish coffin assembly (unsure if multi-tool allen wrench is included).  Yeah, I know it’s some artsy exposition or something, but geez.

Their synopsis:

Shelves for Life was a self-initiated project by the designer to further explore ideas of built-in sentimentality within our possessions. The aim is to make stronger emotional relationships with our belongings and encourage life-long use.
The shelves are CNC cut in oak veneered plywood to the customer’s measurements. They are intended to be used throughout life as storage for personal belongings. On death, the shelves are dismantled and rebuilt as a coffin. Shelves for Life was launched at the British Library during the Travelling Apothecary Show and simultaneously at Liberties as part of Design UK, during London Design Week, September 2006. The project was subsequently featured in the international press.
The project is currently in production.

Oh yeah, one other thing learned from the construction photo, if you’re gonna die, die thin…

Shelves for life – Link

Spotted at Jalopnik,

How sweet is this?  A stock car, go-kart race track right in your front yard!

Looks like they live out in the middle of nowhere, which is exactly the location of “making your own fun”

But…why?

• When pouring the driveway, purchased far too much concrete..
• Knew your riding mower was fast, but without lap times, who’d believe ya?
• Proving ground that your guests actually are too intoxicated to drive after late night parties.

Or, perhaps, just a big fan of racing.  Just goes to show that if you have a big enough property, and the determination, you too can have your own race track.  However, if you plan on racing heavy machinery, you may want to bank the corners somewhat, or suffer the consequences.

More pics at Jalopnik – Link

Credit Crisis, Housing Bubble (and bust), Economic downturn, potential “mild” depression.  All terms floated around during this very certain recession.  Unfortunately, it’s harder to understand the financial storm that brought us here, than the “ideas” spouting from the talking heads of how the economy will dig itself out of this hole.

Graphic Artist Jonathan Jarvis has created this animation explaining the run up to our current disaster, and it’s definitely worth a few minutes of viewing as the turn-by-turn animation is somehow easier to grasp than plain diagrams (shown previously here) or article snippets from the news outlets.

(Not pictured: animation of how we get out of this mess)

also, see more about this project here at it’s website, Crisisofcredit.com

Bassett Furniture begins a very lengthy giveaway promotion today.  Lasting from September 4th, 2008 to December 18th, 2008, they’ll be giving away one custom sofa each day in honor of their 106th anniversary. 

Kinda fun, it’s kinda like the “build you car” portion of any carmaker’s website.  Except here you may actually have the option of getting your sofa in “hunter’s orange” whereas Hummer can’t understand why outdoorsmen may actually find this useful.

Bassett Furniture is a leader in home furnishings, providing design solutions with custom designed furniture, stylish accessories and complimentary in-home design service. The company’s custom upholstery capabilities gives customers an unmatched variety of design options including 750+ fabrics, arms, backs, pillows and bases.  With a user-friendly website and a well-trained staff, custom designing Bassett upholstery is simple, enjoyable, a great value, and best of all, delivered within a remarkable 30 days.

The interactive custom upholstery tool online at BassettFurniture.com, allows the winner to get creative and build their dream sofa from scratch.  Choosing from small to extra large, the first choice is the scale of the sofa.  Custom design your selection with extensive choices, including 10 options for arms, five choices for the back and six choices for the leg.  Customers also choose from more than 750 fabrics, along with design features such as constrasting welting, pillow fringe, monogramming and wood leg finishes.

The custom design can be created both online and in-store, allowing you to see every step and design detail as you build your custom sofa.  Change the fabrics as many times as you like, change the arm shape or change the accent pillows to create your perfect look to fit your lifestyle.  Then, submit your design online for your chance to win.

Also, the room planner is a fun tool.  It’s flash based and let’s you lay out a room fairly quickly…

Bassett Room Planner

But tinker with it, and good luck to you… Hope ya win a nice new sofa!

Link to Bassett Furniture

HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for today’s homeless. The organization builds and renovates multi-unit homes for America’s temporarily homeless while they rebuild their lives.

Annually, the fundraiser known as “Project Playhouse” benefits HomeAid Orange County (CA) comes together in the open air of fashion island and culminates in the auction of the playhouses at the conclusion of their exhibition.  And these aren’t your run-of-the-mill dolled up sheds you might be imagining…

Hampton Harmony (above) by Shea Homes was featured at last year’s event.  The assortment of playhouses are typically funded by homebuilders and product vendors.  Volunteer firms also provide architectural, interior design, and landscape design services, as well as countless hours volunteered towards the labor of creating these miniature McMansions.

High design? For a playhouse you say?  You may swap out with the kids after you see how well these pads are outfitted.  It’s not unusual to see playhouses very fine interior spaces, decked out with granite countertops and plasma televisions.  And they won’t take up much of your backyard space as each playhouse is designed to fit in a 10′X10′ space.  However, if you’re planning on diving into this mini-housing auction, make sure to bring your checkbook as many playhouses of years past have gone for upwards of $50,000.  Still not a bad deal considering the cost of housing per square foot.

The Sketch Pad (above) by William Lyon homes was also featured at 2007′s Project playhouse event.

The playhouse village will be on display near the Atrium Lawn at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California from September 6 to October 11, 2008. Visitors have an opportunity to view the pint-size creations on display by purchasing a ticket at the playhouse village. While at the village, visitors can purchase tickets to enter an opportunity drawing to win one of the playhouses on display (all remaining playhouses will be available for auction on October 11, 2008). Funds raised, including raffle and auction proceeds, support HomeAid Orange County’s mission of building dignified housing where homeless families and individuals can rebuild their lives.

The opening day, September 6th, however, is the best chance to get a good peek inside the playhouse village.  For a donation of $20, you can tour all the playhouses, inside and out.  This is a great deal, due to the playhouses shutting their doors for the remainder of the exhibition.  You can still tour the playhouse village for a $5 donation, but the only way of seeing inside is through their teeny teeny windows.  Be sure to check this event out if you’re in the area.  All the money raised goes to a great cause, and if you enter the raffle, you may just end up winning one of these playhouses.  Which will likely only be expensive as you dress up your actual home in order to not be shown up by the kid’s playhouse in the backyard.

Link to HomeAid

Link to Project Playhouse

From Popular Mechanics -

In an effort of historic preservation, the home of founding father Alexander Hamilton was moved from it’s original Harlem location to a nearby city park to await restoration.  The difficult part was that it was blocked in by surrounding buildings.  So they lifted the home up 40 feet, and up and over the buildings it went onto its (much lower) home moving transports.

Wow, what a great effort of preservation…  As we all know, Hamilton sports the bust on the 10 dollar bill, and was shot to death by vice president Aaron Burr in a duel resolving smarmy colonial trash talk, as opposed to being shot during a hunting excursion, as is common practice today.

These supports though, while strong, might just be very tempting to those who enjoy games of chance…

The full article here at Popular Mechanics, with a great diagram and much better explanation.