While I am a big fan of stark white, I also love it when there is a little color thrown in the mix. These white bone china storage jars seem to get it just about right. Each Cammeo jar is held together with a colorful elastic band that ads a healthy splash of color to the white container. Designed by Louise Campbell for Kahler, I am having a hard time finding anyone stateside that carries them. Anyone know of something similar available in the states?

Available (I think) from Kahler.

This beautiful stroller was designed in the 50’s by Giordani. It’s an absolute work of art as far as I am concerned. They sure don’t make them like they used to.

Found at Factory20.com

Thanks Minervao!

Rick sent me an email yesterday asking for some help, and unfortunately I had no idea where to begin. I thought I would put it out to the group to see if someone has any good ideas. He write;

I have some Thonet bent plywood chairs that need to have the back support piece repaired/replaced (the glue joints have ’sprung’ loose and you can’t lean back anymore). any ideas? I’ll pay to have it done well.
Rick, New Orleans

Does anyone know if you can repair that piece, or maybe even buy a new back support?

I have a friend here in Salt Lake City that has the same vision of modern that I do. He thinks that the prices being charged for the majority of stuff are way overpriced. Where we differ is that he actually has the skills and the resources to do something about it. He recently started playing around with making some contemporary doors. In an effort to avoid just copying someone else style, he has been playing around with mounting a 1″ piece of glass perpendicular to the door surface. I took a look at this door last week, and it looks amazing. The one in this photo is actually an interior door, but they also had an exterior door in the works. While talking about exterior doors, we both wondered. What do most people feel is affordable for a modern exterior door? Give us some feedback in the poll below. Also what do you think of the door? Hate it? Love it? Come on we can take it.

For more info about the door, check out modfab.utahmodern.org.

The Le Klint Pendant 172 is a classic modern design, and it’s on sale at Y Lighting for almost $100 off it’s normal price. Here’s the description from Y Lighting;

These hand-folded sculptural pendant shades were designed by architect Poul Christiansen between 1969 and 1978 and have been in continuous production by the Danish company Le Klint. The material is a color-stabilized white PVC which is completely washable and anti-static. Le Klint pendants are enjoying renewed popularity along with other design icons of the 1960’s. All pendants include 5 feet of white cord.

Available from Y Lighting for $282.

With one week to go we are getting some great entries, like this one from Texas. Larry was able to pull off a very nice look for under $8k including appliances. I especially like the double sided upper cabs.

I bought a circa 1955 Mid Century Modern house in 2006, and the kitchen needed replacement. I used my carpenter to demolish the old kitchen, and got the kitchen cabinets from Ikea. Appliances are from Sears. The double-sided upper cabinets are a custom installation of standard Ikea cabinetry.

Approx price $8,000

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This entry hits close to home, about a mile away at most. Tristen and his family have been going through a very similar remodel as ours, only their house is cooler, he’s got mad design skills, and their done. Yes I’m a little jealous. They did a great job on the kitchen and the whole house. Check out their blog for more info.

Our kitchen remodel was just a portion of an entire house renovation. The existing kitchen felt tiny and cramped. It was also completely dated. We had the whole house dry-walled, and I put down new Brazilian Koa flooring throughout, so those costs are not included in the approximate cost. I reframed an existing wall so that there is a long pass-thru into the living room. The cabinets, counter top, sink and faucet, and stove backsplash are all Ikea. To gain more space in the kitchen I moved the bar cabinets where the sink is out 6-8″ which makes a significant difference. We kept the stove and sink in the same locations to save the money re-plumbing and re-wiring would have cost us. We originally wanted to do a tile backsplash, but couldn’t find a tile we liked at an affordable price.We ended up using stainless end panels from a different style of Ikea cabinets. Instead of using corner cabinets in the kitchen, we turned the “corner” cabinets so that they face into the dining room and living room and provide storage for those rooms. We used energy star appliances and low-VOC paint to finish out the space.

Approx price $5,000 + appliances

Keep reading for more great pics.
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I have to admit that in the past I have been less than optimistic about modern prefab houses. Very few of them end up being priced at less than $200 a square foot. To me $100 a square foot is the magic number to try and hit before you can really claim it’s “affordable”. The 100k house is proving that it can be done with fairly typical building practices and a little creativity. So where does that leave prefab? Well not everyone has given up on it like I have, and the NY Times had an interesting article about a prefab modern home built in the Los Angeles area for $125 a square foot. The home shows some obvious influence from the Eames Case Study home and shows that using prefab techniques to achieve an affordable modern home might still be a possibility.
NY Times Article “Prefab, High-Concept and Green”

Via TreeHugger
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Wallpaper has been trying to claw it’s way into modern interiors for a while now. I have had to strip too much wallpaper off of old walls to be a fan of the stuff, but I have to admit that lately it’s starting to look a little sweeter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to go hog wild and start wallpapering all my walls, but I do think that there are some good ones out there that could be appropriate in certain situations. For example the Graham and Brown wallpaper shown here is a vinyl that can be used over old paneling, cinderblocks, cracked walls, and it’s completely paintable. Best of all it comes in around $1.80 a square foot. Maybe I’ve had it wrong all along. Maybe instead of stripping all that wallpaper off I should have just been covering it with more…. If you can’t beat them join them right?

Available from Design Public for $30 a roll.

Some of you locals may remember Modern Materials Design. They were a local modern shelter store that started out by the Green Ant, and later moved down the road towards The Light Spot. More recently they closed up their doors, and went online only. For a while the online store wasn’t the best, but they just recently relaunched and it’s looking pretty sweet. They have some especially good deals on modern pillows, starting at $20 for 17″ x 17″. When I was at the Las Vegas Furniture Fair, they had some really sweet large fiberglass planters, so keep your eyes out for those too.

Available from Modern Materials Design