apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

When we hear Blu Dot, we instantly think slick desks and slick chairs. Now we can add slick gadget charging accessories to that list. While we have showcased some nice DIY solutions to charging your phones, iPod, cameras and whatever else you rely on for your day to day activities, it's hard to beat a nice walnut box with a white felt top as a drop off point to juice up your gear.

Salt and pepper shakers have a bit of a following here at Apartment Therapy. You've got the traditional wood pepper mills, some quirky animal inspired ones and for good measure a roundup of more modern vessels of meal time flavor. What's missing from this list though is the unplggd version. Salt and Pepper disguised as D cell batteries of course.

Do not adjust your monitor. That was my first instinct. Well, that and taking off my glasses to rub my eyes. It seems that the pixel, those tiny square building blocks of images, can bring us wallpaper, funny eye masks and now a low tech to high tech back to low tech transformation of jewelry.

For whatever reason, it seems that recycled objects seem to make their way into some sort of lampshade. Case in point, cassette tapes, spray cans, and even chiquita bananas.(Not the actual bananas, but the cartons.) So what's next in line in the recycled material lampshade department? Toothpicks.

The stealth living room PC. We don't know what's cooler, the fact that you have your home theater PC and associated equipment hidden away in a sleek package or what looks to be a motorized access door. The idea of hiding your tech in furniture is not a new one. We have seen home theater PC's crammed into Ikea footstools and even good looking PC's that have a reasonable chance of fitting into your living room. But is a stealth computer/ drink holder worth $4350? We actually first wrote about this in 2008, but with the price at $6100 back then, it makes $4350 look like a bargain.

Oh my. As pet lovers here at unplggd we would definitely argue the latter, but French entrepreneur Romain Jerry would disagree. Rather than deal with the dirt and grime that comes with taking your dog outside with your own two hands, why not automate the entire process? I mean, it works for cars and clothes, why not your pet right?

Here's a question for all of you in unplggd land. We have seen people repurpose old laptops into kitchen computers before. While the typical email checking, casual web surfing and even playing back your music library are typical justifications for letting your laptop infiltrate your kitchen, our laptop is only ever in the kitchen for one thing, pulling up a recipe when we are putting together a meal. Since space tends to be an issue for most, having a dedicated kitchen computer just doesn't seem to make sense, but what do you make of a dedicated device for meal prep in the kitchen that measures 7.8 x 5.4 x 3.2 inches?

Now we don't live in a part of town that warrants a fake security camera or even better, a security camera disguised as an owl. We do however, live in a part of town that would warrant a bird feeder. So does that mean this makes sense?

I have had a Roomba for a little while, and as far as I can tell, it does a pretty good job of cleaning up. Sure, some people have Roomba's so that they can turn them into a real life Pac Man or a ride for their kittens, but me, I just want a clean floor. Is it really covering the entire floor?

When you think boxed set, what pops into your head? A shrink wrapped box containing the entire season of Three's Company? Rap Traxx 1,2 and 3? What about a beautifully crafted bamboo USB stick housing 10 albums and photographs in a matching bamboo box? Yes, that's more like it. With physical discs going the way of the dodo, Brussels based Martiensgohome has defined the boxed set of the future.....and we like it.

While the blue LED's are not quite our style, without the blue light, this glass and speaker combo from Kenwood could be a nice visually unobtrusive source of sound on a desk or bookshelf. Definitely taking a more minimalist styling than the bling of the Harmon Kardon GLA-55, these could keep you from having to resort to hiding speakers in real books. Close up pic after the jump...

We can all use a little inspiration, or in the case of keeping a clean desktop, a little motivation knowing that there are some really nice examples out there and your messy desk doesn't have to be so. What about your virtual desktop? Does it also reflect your physical space? Or maybe it is more of a canvas for expression. Well mine tends to be a mess so it is nice to have come across this collection of desktop images from all over the world.

While this before and after update over at Apartment Therapy LA met with some pretty mixed reactions, it did have one very unplggd worthy element worth pointing out....the TV mount. While it seems like the layout of this space didn't really warrant the need for this type of TV mounting solution, we have a friend that is moving into a new place with a dilemma that this kind of set up would solve.

Now this is what I would call the unplggd equivalent to the modern classics alphabet poster and Ohdeedoh's nursery friendly embroidered alphabet and DIY alphabet poster. 6 months and a lot of patience have resulted in Aussie Rhett Ashwood being able to put together the entire alphabet by searching Google Maps for land formations and buildings resembling letters. Click through to see the rest of the alphabet....