Name: Sonia Zjawinski and Bruce McMoran
Location: Pacific Grove, CA
As a freelance writer I spend a lot of time at home. While I love, love, love being able to roll out of bed and "commute" to my office a few feet shuffles away, I learned early on that the key to being productive is creating a space just for work. I love the option of taking my laptop to the kitchen or the living room couch to work, but I've found that I get a lot more done if I have a dedicated space for my 9 to 5.
While we personally like to keep our geeky tendencies hidden within the home, we appreciate the ingenuity it takes to create a nerdified piece of furniture. The coffee table tends to be the easiest way to show off your allegiance, whether its for gaming, computer processors, or LEDs. Below, we take a look at the most impressive executions.
Due to the high amount of gadgets we review, we often have to scoot our desk to snake wires and cables to their appropriate places. All that wiggling around has done a number on our floors. Our Ikea Melltorp desk isn't super heavy, but at 26 lbs. it ain't super light either. Add all the home office necessities sitting atop, along with a few unnecessary items, I'd say this bad boy is stepping in at closer to 50 lbs. So, how can you protect your floors from the inevitable scratches that can happen?
Despite the numerous apps on our computer that help us compile to do lists and then remind us to actually tackle our to do list, our god damn to do list never seems to budge! It seems the 20 other windows we have filling our desktop overshadows our various stickies and Google cal reminders. It seems, that for this here brain, we need something a bit more physical to keep us on track. We've always been fans of plastering the border of our external monitor with Post-It notes, which is why Poketo's version of the age old sticky has us reaching for our wallet.
Product: Wallhogs Vinyl Decal
Price: prices start at $13
Rating: Strong Recommend*
In our final look at large scale digital photo printing services, we take a look at Wallhogs. The company's main line of business involves taking your pictures and turning them into vinyl decals that can be stuck onto almost any surface. What makes them unique is that you can specify what parts of your image you want in the decal and what you want cut out. And while vinyl decals seem a tad lowbrow for those of you who take interior design seriously, there is a way to use the material while avoiding dorm room appeal.
Product: Wizard Prints
Price: Varies by order
Rating: Strong Recommend*
In part 3 of our in depth look at some of the printing services rounded up in the New York Times, we take a look at Wizard Prints. The online company can output supersized images onto a variety of materials. Basically, if you can think of it, they can do it. That includes floor adhesives, textured fabrics, as well as canvases and traditional prints on textured fine art paper. For our roundup we had Wizard Prints create three prints for us -- a wall mural, canvas, and glossy print. All three floored us when we unpacked them. Here's a breakdown of each.
If there's one place we constantly use our iPad it's in the kitchen. Having the world wide web of recipes at your fingertips without having to bring over a laptop to the counter is why we've gained so many pounds. But if there's one thing that will ruin any meal, it's spilling flour, oil, or other ingredients on the iPad's touchscreen. There are plenty of ways to prop up your iPad with a stand or dock, but for those with wall space, the best way to protect your iPad while still having it at eye level is with the new Wallee.
We were skeptical. Furniture, made from cardboard? Right. Then we saw Freefold's shelving system and we were pretty impressed with the aesthetics. Add that it can hold a crazy amount of stuff without crumbling and you've got something we're very intrigued by.
Benita Larsson of the blog, Chez Larsson, is an organizing genius. Take a look inside her home office and you'll be filled with inspirational ways to tackle the clutter in your home without making it look like a Stapes commercial. She recently posted about how she and her family keep track of all the manuals, installation discs, and warranties for all the gadgets in their home and we're inspired to take that idea and implement it in our own home!
We've gotten quite spoiled thanks to Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, and the various networks who now offer their content online. Being able to watch something without having to wait for a disc is the bee's knees, which is why we're so excited about Amazon's new Disc+ On Demand service.
Product: Collage Wall
Price: $50 and up
Rating: Recommend*
We tested six different services for our New York Times piece on ways to show off digital images. Yesterday we showed our results from Canvas Pop, and today we look at what you can do with Collage Wall. The service helps you create a mounted, you guessed it, collage out of your own digital photos.
As we continue to work on our new space here on the central California coast, we've noticed an obsession with hiding modern gadgets, such as our internet radio tucked behind a framed photo, while proudly displaying old stuff, like a vintage SLR and a pair of old school binoculars on the mantle. We aren't the only ones.
Product: Canvas Pop
Price: $30-$419 depending on size and finishes
Rating: Strong Recommend *
As Gregory mentioned last week, we had the great honor of testing out a few digital photo services for the New York Times. Since all the news that's fit to print couldn't accommodate results from each of the services we tested I thought we'd share some of the amazing prints with you. We're hoping it'll provide a realistic look at what your everyday person can make. In this first installment, we take a look at Canvas Pop.
Acoustic paneling tends to be relatively basic from a design standpoint. Rarely, do we find visually arresting pieces that combat noise complaints. The standard fare includes tiles covered in bland fabric or egg crate-style gray foam. If money is no object though, you can hire textile designer Anne Kyyrö Quinn to solve your sound issues.
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