isasasa's Profile

Display Name:	isasasa
Member Since:	4/23/12

Latest Comments...

I second Annie-O; in London where I live if your plumber/electrician/"gas-man" is certified you are good to go, apart from the dumpster/skip, the price and parking of the thing is part of the deal with the company that rents it to you, they arrange it with the council. Mostly you pile things into big Ikea style bags about 4 times the size that then get craned out over the fence and taken away by volume/weight.

I'm doing kitchen and bathroom renos with help from Ikea + January sales + builders basics + best tradesmen that give me a good impression over a cup of tea's skills to make all of the above come together. Unless you are going for specific brands, most mid-range products are interchangeable and just matters of aesthetic opinion. Budget is ten grand for both, I have the annoying boon of currently being a student who can be around in the daytime, my partner works full time but has a way of putting across my very specific needs in a polite manner. Good cop/bad cop?

Have already done quite a bit of horrible cleaning/chipping of four layers of tile/wall paper/cement to be able to live in our place and get windows replaced....

Sorry to be turning this into a confessional, just think that even without going just the recycling/repainting route, so much should be able to be done over a weekend of blood, sweat and beers?

The Budget for Andi's Renovation Renovation Diary

2/20/13 7:51 PM

Most of Danish mid-century furniture was designed with the ethos of combining design, craft, functionality and affordability. Many of the great designers/architects also produced designs that they sold to the larger factories - which is why there is so much great unbranded stuff from that time! Finally, even those designs that where then and now produced more expensively, many were designed around "innovative" production methods (bentwood, etc.) chosen to ease and speed up their making, as well as allowing for exceptional new forms. The prices much of it is sold at today are OUTRAGEOUS.

Yet in Denmark it is still considered extremely gauche to have replicas....

I am willing to pay a lot for craft - a real Egg or Barcelona chair IS exceptional and can never be matched. Perhaps it is more a question of the profit margins v. price-point that something needs to be at to be considered good enough for the luxury market, which is more stable than others. We sell less, but we make more money?

PS. McDonald's got a lot of publicity for buying real Egg chairs for their UK restaurants:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/style/21iht-design24.1.7594146.html?_r=0
....then furnished all the rest with fakes/replicas. I leave in a "dodgy" area of London and got the fakes. Plastic Fantastic.....
http://the-egg-chair.com/mcdonalds-accused-of-stealing-arnes-work.

PPS. I would feel a bit funny about it - I wouldn't wear "fake" branded big-ticket fashion item, say a bag or shoes, even if I loved the design.....HMMM....

PPS. I AM very much in love with this though.....the original is around $ 4,000 I think....
http://www.bluesuntree.co.uk/site/living/sofas/finn-juhl-poet-sofa-2-seat-reproduction

SIGH. It's not easy, is it?

The Real Cost of Knock-Offs Dwell Magazine

9/28/12 5:12 AM