It’s no secret that the DIY approach is one of the best when it comes to trying to ad some style to your flat without breaking the bank. Unfortunately not all of us have the time or the resources to make all our furniture and decorations from scratch. That doesn’t mean that we can’t use the same creative spirit to combine some pre-made parts into an affordable creation of our own. People have been combining a variety of Ikea parts together for a long time to make original pieces. Now there is a website dedicated to it. Ikea hacker is updated frequently with all sorts of great DIY Ikea hacks to inspire you to get a little crazy with those flat packed boxes of goodies.

Via Apartment Therapy

This post comes to you via Shelterrific, a great little blog. It about a nice alternative to hanging your towels on a hook.

During our trip to Los Angeles last weekend, we stayed at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills. What could be more glam than a chic mid-Century modern hotel with a kidney-shaped pool? In addition to the Eames chairs and Nelson lamps sprinkled about our room, we also really dug this clever space-saving towel rack in the bathroom. We suspect that this is actually a magazine or newspaper rack fulfilling another task by sporting rolled up bath towels next to the shower stall. After a little surfing last night, we found a few mod racks online that could work well in this way. Check out this Rosendahl Wall Magazine Rack at themagazine.info, $150. A more minimalist style, The Gus Wall Mount Magazine Rack, $300, at artafax.com, could easily work for hanging towels. And for a bargain, either of these from boconcept.com for under $60, could be just dandy.

For those of you looking for a last minute gift for that special mother in your life, make sure you check out BLTD. Last week they picked some affordable treasures for moms that you won’t want to miss. They even broke it up into categories by price, under $25, under $50, under $100 and over $100 so there should be something for everyone’s budget.

A little bird told me that Josh Spear was re-launcing his website with a whole new look. Personally I just can’t wait to be able to have pics will my rss feeds finally. Congrats on the new site Josh, and keep up the good work.

My wife and I bought our home less than a year ago. While we were looking for something we were absolutely disgusted with the lack of decent affordable modern housing. Basically it doesn’t exist. We opted to buy a tiny home in a good neighborhood, and do a modern addition to it (more on that soon, plans are almost done). For those of you living in the Denver area, check out 5280mod.com Colorado based realtor focusing on modern housing. While everything might not be affordable, at least they will know where you are coming from.
The pics to the left are of a ufo home (I remember one of those in dwell) for $129, and another mod influenced MCM home for $210.

Also check out Shannon’s blog on livemodern.

I know, I know, you are already completely overwhelmed with the number of design blogs out there. I feel your pain. That said, if you just can’t get enough, run on over to tejay’s backsplash, the blog backside to a new design firm called lightcouture. Not a whole lot of news about lightcouture yet, but we look forward to seeing what they can do in the future. About the blog, well they had some nice stuff too. I really loved Kai Linke’s felt dahlia, but unfortunately have no idea where to get it, or if I could even afford it.

Here is a link I found via Cribcandy. The website is called Design Without Reach, and it does my heart good to see another poor modernist out there trying to make waves. I mostly liked the idea that there really are other people out there that are frustrated with all the unaffordable modern furnishings. The site features a few ideas that you can do on your own to make designer style furnishings for your home. Kind of like something that you would see in Ready Made. My personal favorite were the Eames Playing Cards. If I didn’t already own a set, I might even do it.
The whole thing is put up by Twart Design, which incidentally has some great stuff as well.

It’s hard to keep up with all the new blogs these days, and to be honest it gets pretty tiring trying to. Unless you find a blog that is aimed specifically at a small niche that is not covered in any other place the chances are you won’t really find anything new at yet another modern contemporary blog. We hope that GrassrootsModern can fill the modern and affordable niche, we’ll let you be the judge. If you are looking for modern baby stuff, well then, BabyGadget may be worth checking out. Modern design for the little guys has been a huge new market, but I have yet to find any blogs completely dedicated to the subject, until now. Baby Gadget is run by Jenna Park, a Popgadget veteran and toddler-chaser. Looks pretty promising to me, I even took the time to add it to my selection of RSS feeds.

Carina over at Mid-century Utah pointed out to me the other day that Laurie Smith of trading spaces has her own line of fabric. I don’t have a TV, but secretly I am a junkie for those design shows, and trading spaces does have its good moments. I am usually a little skeptical about any designer lines that come from those type of shows, but I have to admit that Laurie Smith does have a nice selection of fabrics. It looks like Hancock Fabrics is the exclusive carrier, and they are all 25% off right now. Looks like it is time to break out those sewing machines, and make something mod for the holidays. If you aren’t the best with a needle and thread, consider using the fabric to make some wall prints a lå the poppycotton wall hangings

It’s no secret that CB2 is one of the big hitters when it comes to sources for affordable modern furniture. I think its always interesting to find out the story behind the company, and aparently so does the crew over at Apartment Therapy. They recently sat down with Marta Calle, the Product Manager at CB2, and asked her a few questions. Check out the full 1/2 hour audio interview, or text highlights here.