Balcony desk is the best!

Finally! A desk on which I can work AND garden. The wine holder ain’t a bad idea either.

Gardens n stuff

 

While some of us require a complete desk setup with multiple monitors for work, there are many of you out there who need nothing more than a small space to put a laptop. For those of you, this balcony railing mounted Balkonzept desk is a match made in heaven.

 

Designed by product innovator Michael Hilgers, the Balkonzept is extremely lightweight and versatile – making it perfect for outdoor workstations or just extra shelving in a small space. The desk is constructed from a durable recyclable plastic that has more than enough room for a laptop and other essentials, and even comes with a built in planter to really drive home the outdoor feeling. [via Inthralld]

 

This really could be the way to enjoy working and get some much needed Vitamin D that we all seem to be deficient of these days!

Unfortunately, they are only available…

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Steam punk felines

While I am no steam punk fan this cat pipe might be welcomed into our home.

Infographictastic!

Alright. From now on I want all my info in graphic form. That sound you just heard was all my graphic designer friends swearing under their collective breath.

I found this cool infographic today about colour. It covers a lot of ground and will be helpful when thinking about the use of colour in decorating and while I am at work.

I think we have to re-paint the kitchen now. Damn.

Courtesy of NowSourcing, Inc

Just give me the light

I didn’t realize just how dark my home office was until this past weekend when I replaced the missing two lightbulbs from the overhead lamp.

Now I get more done, I’m not squinting and I haven’t stubbed my toe once since I shed some light on the situation. Oh and adding the light also highlighted the need to dust in a big way so I am no longer literally sitting in my own squalor so that’s a plus.

That got me thinking about lighting. Out at the schoolhouse, we’ve got huge windows and tons of light to live by. When the sun goes down we rely on several antique globe lights called, not by coincidence, schoolhouse lights. Smaller task lamps fill in the dark corners and I’ve never had any problems. Well there is this one ceramic rhinoceros lamp that someone gave my grandmother one year but might go in a future post about dealing with horrific gifts from friends and neighbours.

The Lighting Design Lab in Washington states that according to an American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) study 68 per cent of employees complain about the light in their offices.

They have some really interesting research on the website, though most of it deals in industrial lighting.

Lighting Design Lab

I also checked out the website of the US-based National Lighting Bureau. Who knew there was such a thing? Anyway this group claims good lighting can increase retail sales, improve productivity and provide better safety and security for workers. That’s a lot of work for a few lightbulbs.

So that’s the home office but what about the rest of the house?

In this 2010 article in the Telegraph, Nina Campbell says lighting in the home builds ambience. It needs to be thought about before your design your room and should consider the tasks that get done in any given room so that the appropriate type of light is used. That nice table lamp might look great but if you start wearing your camping headlamp in order to read a book, that pretty lamp probably isn’t up to the job at hand.

Interior design: Nina Campbell’s lighting tips

Well my three bulb overhead light/fan in the office doesn’t build much ambience but when adjusted to the right heights provides a bright, clear light with no glare. It also really highlights my A-Team shadow box on the wall above my desk but I will talk about that in a future post about combining the extremely tacky items of your childhood into chic designer items.

So I guess my office is in good shape here in the condo but the living room will come next. I’m tired of wearing that headlamp.