Last week my travels brought me through San Jose airport where I was able to snap a picture of one of my favorite airport wall clocks (above left). The actual clock mechanism is completely flush with the wall, and the wall becomes the clock face. I was hoping to find an easy way to do a similar thing in our house when I stumbled across this wall clock at Arango. It’s the exact same idea, except I’m not sure the actual clock is flush to the wall (but I’m sure it could be) like the one in SJO. Best of all it has all the pieces I need to make it work and it’s only $30.
Real Wall Clock available at Arango’s for $30.

With the increasing pressure of the economic downturn, Ikea is doing their best to help you keep a couple extra dollars in your pockets. It seems like I have noticed an increase in sales and freebies that they have been offering lately, all of which could potentially save you some good loot. Their big kitchen sale starts this Saturday, and runs through Nov 11th. It includes 10% off for any kitchen purchase over $2,500 and up to 20% off if you bundle it with some appliances. If you’re not in the market for a kitchen you can at least stop by this weekend at Ikea Draper for a buy one get one free cinnamon bun or frozen yogurt (coupon included after the jump). Also free breakfasts are still available on Sunday mornings through the 26th of Oct.

Ikea Draper website.

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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 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.

I am loving this shelving idea I saw over at Apartment Therapy this morning. Apparently there were some similar shelves in a recent issue of Dwell Magazine. I’m a little behind in my Dwell reading, but grateful to have seen such a great idea. The shelf brackets are the legs from a IKEA FROSTA stool, and the shelves are oak planks. I would love to do the same thing, except use a nice birch plywood with an exposed edge for the shelves.
FROSTA stool available at Ikea for $12.

I love it when someone pushes the bounds of materials, using them for something that you wouldn’t typically think of. That’s exactly what Benjamin Hubert has done with his Heavy Lights. The range features several beautiful light fixtures with delicate 5mm thick walls. The concrete is stained a soft grey color and the visual effect is gorgeous. It makes what some think as a cold hard material look soft and inviting. While it doesn’t look like these are readily available for purchase you may be able to find a local concrete countertop guy that would be willing to give it a try, or you could try yourself. One thing I love about concrete is that it is very inexpensive.
Check out all of Benjamin Huberts work here.

Via 3rings.

Finally a use for those outdated yellowpages that they insist on dropping at your doorstep. The folks over at www.afroditi.com came up with this great simple idea. You take a bunch of pages from your yellow pages, twist them up, and stick them inside of the tube of your choice. You get a low dollar holder that can hold your business cards, photo’s whatever. The only part that they left out is where to source the metal collar….

Via Core77 and Treehugger.
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I haven’t done a lot of reupholstering over the years, but I have looked into it. One thing that always surprised me was just how expensive good fabric can be. Luckily Modern Fabrics is here to change that. By reclaiming fabric cuttings from factory floors they are able to accomplish two things. First they prevent all the usable fabric from just getting thrown away, and second they are able to resale beautiful fabrics at a fraction of the normal cost. With choices from Knoll, Maharam, Architex and many more you are sure to find some good stuff. I am now seriously thinking about getting some of this for the free couch I found a couple of weeks ago. I have seen prices as low as $15 a yard, which is a smoking good deal.

Check out more fabrics at Modern Fabric.

Here at Grassrootsmodern we are big fans of mid-century modern design and also big fans of Curbly. So you can imagine when the two come together we are all over it. Chris Job made a great how to video on making a mid-century modern style birdhouse. The video is great (watch it after the jump) and along with the article over at Curbly it’s got great instructions on how to make your own. He does use some slightly more advanced woodworking techniques (dado’s) but points out that they are not really necessary. This would be a great weekend project.
Check out the article over at Curbly.
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Being the cheepskate that I am, free is one of my favorite words, and almost nothing is better than free furniture. That’s why I was excited to run across this little ditty the other day as I was riding my bike home from work. It has obviously seen better days, but I’m really pretty fond of the overall shape of it. It almost has that mid century wingback chair look to it. Of course it is a little worse for the wear, and it probably needs a good reupholstering. I have thought about doing it myself, but realistically I may be better off just taking it somewhere. I have a little trick up my sleeve for inexpensive material to use. I plan on getting a used wool blanket from a local army surplus. The color options are orange, (shown rolled up on the couch) white, grey and of course army green. I am leaning towards the grey.
Anyone know a cheap place to get it reupholstered here in Salt Lake City?