The huge amount of baby equipment that people want you to buy is almost overwhelming. There are things that are nice to have and there are things that you really need. In an attempt to cover some of the basics we figure that we at least need a car seat to get the kid home, and a place for them to sleep when they get home. I am torn between making my own crib, or just getting one from Ikea, but in the interim we got a playard so our bases would be covered. We chose the Combi Sport Desert Sun. It offers all the basic playard goodies including changing table, bassinet, light/vibration, and awful music. The colors on it are quite nice, neutral with a touch of modern. The lines are relatively clean without too much frilly stuff, and the construction is solid. It came in the mail yesterday, and we practiced setting it all up and taking it all down. It looked simple enough, but I admit after 5 minutes of flailing I did have to break out the instructions.
Available from Amazon for $89.
I may have mentioned it before, but my wife and I have been looking for a duvet for a while now. We have been using a off white one that we got from Ikea before we were married, and it's starting to look a little blah. There are of course plenty of duvets out there that we love, just not a whole lot of affordable modern duvets. If you are faced with the same dilemma, check out the Circle in Square Duvet that is on clearance over at Room and Board. Not only is it pretty sweet, but it is only $49! Thats the best deal I think I have ever seen. They also have some sweet sheets on sale for $18 per sheet too.
Available from Room and Board for $49.
Via Shelterrific
Exclusively from CB2, these hand-blocked screen printed pillows have bright prints of poppy's and stripes. Printed on 100% easy-care cotton, and stuffed with a feather insert, these pillows not only look good, but are probably nice and squishy too. The covers are even removable and machine washable for when that inevitable accident happens. The best thing about them though, is the price. The 18" square pillow is only $25, which is a total steal compared to other modern accent pillows. It's good to see CB2 making a nice affordable modern pillow for the people.
Available at CB2 for $25.
Furni has been a long time favorite of ours here at Grassrootsmodern. Not only do they make some sweet looking stuff, but they also happen to be some of the nicest guys around. They have a couple of products new for 2007, my favorite of which is the Alba clock shown here. In classic Furni style, this functional alarm clock combines a clean acrylic white face, nice detail woodworking, and a retro red LED clock.
Available from Furni for $88.
Here is some more great mid-century modern love for all of you. This time it comes courtesy of an old favorite, Urban Outfitters. This simple side table has the look of a classic danish wenge piece of art, but at a price that won't break the bank. It doesn't appear that it is actually a solid wood piece, but laminated MDF stained chocolate. I would love to see it in person, but unfortunately it is available online only. The good thing is it is only $120 plus $15 shipping.
Available from Urban Outfitters for $120
Part of Todd Oldhams La-Z-Boy collection the Snap Coffee Table has a nice blend of Mid-Century flair and clean simple modernism. The Snap table has four storage cubbies in its walnut wrapped top, and is suspended on four nickel finished hairpin legs. This table used to be at Target for $359, but is now out of stock there, and it has shown up at Overstock.com for $149, which is a screaming good deal. I'm starting to think that if I am patient enough, I can find almost all my furniture at overstock.
Available from Overstock.com for $149.
No, these aren't the new iPod Shuffles, they are magnetic clips. Refrigerator clips to be more specific. They are basically just a high powered magnet, wrapped in silicone. The shape of the clip allows it to rock back when you push on the button area, similar to a normal refrigerator clip. The good part is that there are no moving parts to ever wear out. That, and these little guys are strong. They hold up to one pound each. I'm not sure just what one pound objects I would ever need to attach to my frige, but hey, you never know.
Available from Endo, 3 for $9.
I think that I have mentioned before that my wife and I are not going to find out the sex of our baby before it's born. I always thought that the hard part would just be not knowing if I would have a son or a daughter. I now know that the hardest part is shopping for the kid when you don't know if it's a boy or a girl. The big things like strollers, cribs, carseats aren't too hard, but infant clothes have been a nightmare. It seems that no one makes infant size clothes in any color but pink or blue, with the occasional white, yellow or green. What ever happened to the rest of the colors? Thankfully Speesees not only brings fashion to the newborn world, but they also manage to do it with organic cotton manufactured under fair trade practices and principles. The prices may be a little higher than your normal baby clothes, but you are getting so much more. The sweet Pumpkin "Seehors" onesie sells for $24.
Available from Speesees for $24.
It is hard to find affordable modern outdoor furniture. Most of the stuff is either way too expensive, or would never hold up to the elements. The Sophie Table isn't exactly advertised as an outdoor table, but with it's solid wood slat top, and cast aluminum base, I bet it would hold up as good as anything outside. Whether you want to use it inside or out, it's still a great deal at $169, especially with the free shipping.
Available from Mod Abode for $169.
Ralph, one of our faithful readers pointed out this great deal from Eurway. Above and to the left you see the Bantam Sofa from Design Within Reach for the not so reachable price of $1398. To the left you see the Vandyke Sofa from Eurway for a much more affordable $849. That is almost $550 dollars cheaper for basically the same couch. Having never seen either in person, who knows if the quality is exactly the same but it does raise an interesting question. Would you buy a knock off? Personally I would, and have. My arco lamp is a great example. But on some things I would want the original, like an Eames Lounger. Why, just silly I guess, but for some reason it just wouldn't be the same to sit in anything else. So, how about you?
Some time ago I did a little wright up on Voss water. I had come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth all the money for the water, but the bottle was worth every penny. Recently though we did have a comment that stated they felt the water was far superior to the others.Voss has recently ventured into the energy drink market, and is taking a typical Voss approach to it. It's all about the image. They were nice enough to send me a couple of samples of their new G Pure Energy Drink. Their press packaging was beautiful, I felt more like I was opening a box of perfume, not an energy drink. The bottles are quite a bit smaller than even the smallest Voss water bottle. The 200 ml bottle had a nice shape to it and fit in the hand nice. At $2.99 a bottle it's not really more expensive than any of the other energy drinks, you just get a little less. As far as taste, maybe my taste buds are not quite refined enough, but I think I prefer a Rockstar. Still, you just cant beat G for looks.
G Pure Energy Website.
I started tiling our bathroom last week. I set the floor tile on Wednesday night and grouted it on Friday. Let me just say for the record, that grout is a wonderful thing. It makes a not so hot tile job look pretty darn good. On Saturday I put up the rest of the dura rock (minus one side of the tub that I was still clamping and gluing) and started on the wall tile. My stepdad and father in law both stopped by Saturday night and helped with all the wall tile. It was a huge help too. I never could have gotten so much done without them. I ended up getting close to half the bathroom done, and we are getting very close to being able to shower. We can hardly wait!
We spent last weekend and a couple of nights this week getting everything ready to tile in the bathroom. Since we want to be able to get the whole floor wet without worrying about it getting funky under the tile we went ahead and covered the whole floor with a PVC membrane. It is a bit overkill, but at least we know it is done right. Next we had to get the slope correct so that the water goes toward the drains. I cut some thin strips of wood with the proper slope to help guide me as I put down the drypack. It ended up raising the floor almost 2" at the far side. The first time I did the dry pack I made it too dry, and I had to go back and redo it all a couple days later. I got it right eventually. We are going to spend the weekend tiling, and will have all the floors done, and hopefully a good deal of the walls too. My wife can't wait, it has been almost 8 months since I tore our old shower out. Did I ever mention how wonderful and patient she is?
The Gritt Chair with it's wide corduroy upholstery is definitely a kick back to the 60's mid century modern. It's generally pretty hard to pull off a good looking corduroy chair, but the Gritt Chair manages to do it well. It has nice clean geometric lines, and the sleek chrome base balances out the slightly frumpy top. Perhaps the best thing about the chair though is the price. At $169 for the chair and $69 for the ottoman, it's mid century style that you can afford.
Available from Eurway for $169.
My wife and I have this talent. We can walk into any store looking for something, and inevitably the thing we fall in love with is always the most expensive. Unfortunately for us, car seats are no different. We made a couple of choices up front. We plan on using a sling, so we didn't really want or need a car seat that was easy to tote around. Being cheap, I like the idea of not having to buy multiple car seats as the kid grows. This lead us to wanting a conversion car seat. Britax generally receives top reviews for all their conversion seats, and when we saw the print on the Britax Marathon Couture Soho, we were sold. Of course it was the most expensive print from the most expensive manufacture of conversion seats. The $299 price was hard to swallow, but throwing down a bunch of cash for our babies safety is pretty easy for me to justify. plus I still had some birthday money left (Thanks Lucia).
The next challenge was finding a store that actually had it in. After literally hours of searching online and countless stores that were sold out, Albee Baby came through for us. You couldn't order online, but you could call in to order. I placed my order first thing this morning, and was told that it was amazing that they actually had it in stock.
More info on the Britax Marathon here.
Available from Albee Baby for $299
Its hard enough to make a chair that looks good all by itself, throw in the challenge of looking good, and being able to stack on top of each other for storage and it gets even harder. The Lela chair not only does it well, but it also throws in a couple technical extras. Take for example the fact that it is the first stackable chair to fulfill the requirements of German fire-safety norm B1, and it can hold up to the weather outdoors. All technical parts aside, I just think it looks good.
Available exclusively from Topdeq for $159.
Over the weekend we finally got all the wall tiles for our bathroom. We had really wanted to go with something like the Ann Sacks Avalon. I absolutely love the skinny rectangular shape. Unfortunately with 200 square feet of tile, the $8 price per square foot doesn't work out to be a small number. We still wanted something similar to that shape, and were able to find the next best thing at Home Depot. They had Dal Tile 3 x 6 white subway tiles on clearance for $1.60 a square foot. We had to go to two different stores to find enough tiles, but it was very affordable. We plan on putting them up using a column pattern (one directly above the other) instead of the more typical brick pattern used with subway tiles. We also got all the sand and concrete we need to float the floor before we can tile, and the plastic membrane that goes down as a first layer. There is a good website here that explains the process.
I got this email the other day from Crate and Barrel, and I thought that I would share it with everyone. They have some great pricing on what they call "Restaurant Dining". That translates to a bunch of nice simple white dishes in interesting shapes for a great price. For example a set of twelve appetizer dishes for $19, nice big restaurant bowls a set of four only $29. Those prices are almost as good as Ikea. Almost.
Available from Crate and Barrel $2 - $29.
If you are looking to spend a little more, make sure you check out the Staxx collection (shown to the right) with their super thick rims and clean lines. Pricing is a little higher, but I did see a 16-Piece Set: four each of dinner plate, salad plate, large bowl, mug open stock for only $45.
Here are some handy little goodies from PKOH NYC. First is the Earbud Clip, a handy way to keep your headphones from getting tangled when you are not using them. I have about 4 pairs of iPod headphones, and it seems like they are constantly getting tangled whenever I try and wrap them up nicely. PKOH sells a 4 pack of clips for $10. The next one is great for those who travel a lot. The silicone travel bottles hold 2 ounces of liquid, just under the allowed 3 ounces. As long as they are in a clear zip lock bag, you are ready to fly. A multicolor 2 pack is $20.
Available from PKOH NYC for $10 - $20.
The huge amount of baby equipment that people want you to buy is almost overwhelming. There are things that are nice to have and there are things that you really need. In an attempt to cover some of the basics we figure that we at least need a car seat to get the kid home, and a place for them to sleep when they get home. I am torn between making my own crib, or just getting one from Ikea, but in the interim we got a playard so our bases would be covered. We chose the Combi Sport Desert Sun. It offers all the basic playard goodies including changing table, bassinet, light/vibration, and awful music. The colors on it are quite nice, neutral with a touch of modern. The lines are relatively clean without too much frilly stuff, and the construction is solid. It came in the mail yesterday, and we practiced setting it all up and taking it all down. It looked simple enough, but I admit after 5 minutes of flailing I did have to break out the instructions.
