If you’ve been following my tweet’s you’ll know that I have been traveling for the last couple of days. Yesterday in a long lull of boredom, I took on the challenge of finding something that I would actually buy from the Skymall catalogue. I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across the Skuut bike. It is a simple wooden bicycle with no pedals to get in the way. A perfect first bike for a little kid. I hear rumor that my son has been rocking the tricycle this last week while I’ve been gone, maybe he’ll be skuuting too before long.

Available from Skymall or direct from Skuut for $89.

Adam Price is at it again, with another art inspired 337 Project aimed at bring the community together. This time he is working in conjunction with the Neighborhood House, a non-profit organization that provides child daycare and and adult day services to the Salt Lake Community. This installation includes art from several Utah artist on some large garage doors next to the Neighborhood house. The Urban Gallery will be unveiled this Friday as part of “A Night of Art on the West Side” tour which also includes other art installations in the valley.

337 PROJECT’S URBAN GALLERY @ Neighborhood House, 1050 W. 500 South, Friday Oct. 3, 6 p.m.

337 Project Website

Neighborhood House Website

SL Weekly article

I’ve always loved the all aluminum Emeco chairs, but the $400 price per chair has always kept them in the distance. I ran into these, um interpretations, (read: knock off) called the “Style Oceanic” over at Stack Chair Depot for $112. At that price, I can almost imagine myself getting one. Made completely of aluminum they are quite bomb proof, they won’t rust or tarnish, they are super sturdy, and if you ever wanted to get rid of them they would be pretty much 100% recyclable. Man, the Navy really was on to something when they had these made.
Available from Stack Chair Depot for $112.

Last week was the start of West Coast Green, a yearly conference on green building design and construction. There were lots of big names there like David Suzuki, Sarah Susanka, and Al Gore. Perhaps one of the most significant things to happen this year was the showing of the SG Blocks container house. Constructed of used Shipping containers, the house was erected on sight in just four hours and 47 minutes. In following with the theme of the conference, the home was thoroughly green throughout with FSC certified woods, solar panels etc. Besides the amazing rate at which the home was built, I was amazed at the stated per square foot price of $150, which includes “all the bells and whistles”. If that number is true, then this shipping container home is truly an amazing combination of aesthetics and affordability. I would love to see if the interior is as well designed as the exterior.

Via Inhabitat

SG Blocks website

Designed by the Lawrence Group

I have been vowing for over a year now to get up a decent links section to all the other wonderful blogs that are out there. I’m finally determined to get it done, so if you have a blog that our readers would be interested in, contact me and let me know and I’ll add it to my links. I’m especially interested in starting a SLC blog list, so even if you have sent me a link in the past, do me a favor and resend it.

Thanks!

A couple months ago I posted some beautiful salvaged cardboard lights from Graypants. These City Honeycomb Hanging lights share many of the same design cues, even if the core material is plastic instead of cardboard. By by layering the corrugated plastic in alternating patterns, these pendants form a beautiful honeycomb detail that help give these lights their unique look. The lights are available in three different sizes, and start out at a fairly reasonable $85.

Available from Tonichome from $85 - $135.

It’s been just over two years since I updated the look of the website here at Grasrootsmodern, and in those two years we have seen an incredible amount of growth thanks to you. So much grown in fact that we were starting to look like a fat man in a little jacket here. Our sidebars suffered the most with a lot of navigation and other content being pushed down way to far by advertisements. So we loosened our belt and added an extra column just for our sponsors, after all they make it possible to pay some of the hosting bills. Being the cheapskate that I am, I did all the coding myself, instead of paying someone so if you see something funny please let me know. Also if there are any improvements/features that you would like to see, speak up! Hopefully you all like the new look.

I love the old retro freestanding fireplaces. My grandparents have one in their A frame cabin up in the mountains of Colorado, and I have fond memory’s of sitting around it listening to the fire crackle. I figured that they were either gone with the 70’s or too expensive or hard to source, but the fine folks over at shelterrific have proven me wrong. Malm fireplaces continues to make a variety of funky freestanding wood burning and gas fireplaces. Prices are surprisingly affordable starting at around $1,000 and going up from there. They have a few different models, with only a few shown here, and are available in a variety of colors. They even do custom designs if you have something special in mind.

Available from Malm Fireplaces starting at $1000.

I lived in Brasil for a couple of years, and everywhere I went I would see these stainless steel drinking glasses. No one could ever remember where they got them, because it had been so long since they had bought them. It took me a year and a half of searching before I finally stumbled across some at a hardware store for $0.25 each. I bought a dozen of them. I have been using them ever since and still love them, although the quality of them isn’t the best and some of them are starting to show some rust stains. The other day at Ikea in the bath section I again stumbled across the SEMVIK tumbler which is almost identical to the ones I bought in Brasil. The price is a little higher at $2 each, but for a cup that will last a lifetime, it’s worth it. I bought 4 and plan on buying a couple more next visit.

Available at Ikea for $2.

I have had a couple of people as me about how I was able to wire up our industrial outdoor lighting so that it comes on automatically at night and goes off in the morning. At first we thought about making it motion activated like our old one, but the reality is that we would probably prefer to have a porch light on all night regardless of any motion in the area. We were able to find a cheap photocell that activates the light fixture in low light conditions. The trick was finding one that would fit nicely in the waterproof junction box that came with our light. The one we settled on is pictured above, and was available at our local hardware store for around $8. They are commonly used for outdoor pole lights. I was able to find it online at farm-home.com, but I am sure there are other places that have it as well. To attach it to the fixture you simply unscrew one of the access holes in the junction box (we used the top one) and insert the photocell. It has a rubber foam gasket to keep it water tight. The only two downsides to the $8 trick is that photocell usually only last around 5 years, and they can only control incandescent lights.