Had a great time talking shop with one of my favorite comedians, Adam Carolla. At left, looking momentarily serious, is his co-host, Ray Oldhafer.

Confession: I am a comedy nerd. I’ve been watching Saturday Night Live faithfully for decades, along with many other comedies, from stand-up to movies to sketch comedy to sitcoms. I’m also obviously a woodworking nerd. So when I learned that one of my favorite angry comedians, Adam Carolla, had a podcast about home-improvement, called Ace on the House, I started listening right away.

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Honda Uni-Cub personal mobility device

Take the “personal mobility device” called the Uni-Cub developed by Honda for example. The thi

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I’ve been absent from these pages for a while, and here’s why: we just moved 2,000 miles from Seattle to Chicago! What a change – the biggest part of which, at the moment, is our living space. We went from 880 square feet in a 1940s cottage to 2,000+ in a giant 1800s-era two-story house. (Lest you think we suddenly came into some money, we’re renting.) When I first saw the house, the previous tenants were using the dining room as a living room.

I just chalked that up to their age – guys in their 20s don’t tend to value décor, in my experience. But now that

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The opening night benefit for Housing Works annual Design on a Dime fundraiser is always a super fun event that I look forward to each year. All the major players in the New York design community are there and its a great opportunity to catch up with one another and have a little fun while shopping for a great cause! Heres a little recap of the night captured through the lens of my iPhone and my favorite app Instagram!

One of my first stops was HGTV designer Genevieve Gorders booth for Valspar which was one of the events sponsors.

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There has been a certain amount of comment on the outfits for the British Olympic teams, designed by Stella McCartney. It’s the Union flag, as suggested on the athletes’ tops, that is seen as strange. There is no red in it. It looks, some think, like a plastic flag from a former jubilee that has languished in the sun on some piece of waste ground until all the bold colour has bleached out of it. Such responses may be too literal, for Miss McCartney has supplied bright red on socks or running shoes or collars.

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Japanese carpentry tools fresh out of the box after a trip half way around the world and after years of being unused. 

The Back Story

What I know about these tools and how they came into my care is not completely clear to me, largely do to my limited Japanese. I think they were first destined to come to me in the summer of 2010 when My aikido teacher, Tanaka Tadamitsu, his traveling companions and some other friends were sitting in an airport resturant waiting for their flight back to Japan.

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B-BOOO

The stone like base is quite weighty and gives the lamp stability. It has a joint running through the middle as it is made from two parts.

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When I saw this pink chair on ABC home site I thought it will look so nice as a dining chair with an oak or white dining table but also it can be nice addition as a chair in a home office.

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Scale insect spread

Wendy Hall is wondering whether the nasty brown oval scale insects on her sunberry plant (a fruit bush in the Solanum family, a relative newcomer) are likely to also attack a nearby climbing hydrangea or much-loved old rosemary bush. The answer is probably not. When I last looked there were 16 different kinds of scale insects (see inset, below), each preferring to invade a different plant or family of plants. There is one, for example (Pulvinaria hydrangeae) that only attacks hydrangeas.

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A federal judge upheld new rules designed to protect West Coast salmon and steelhead from three widely used farm pesticides.
Pesticide manufacturers sought to overturn a 2008 decision by the
National Marine Fisheries Service that limited where three
organophosphate pesticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion
could be sprayed in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California.
Among other restrictions, NMFS opinion requires the Environmental
Protection Agency to prohibit ground application of chemicals within 500
feet of salmon habitat and aerial application within 1,000 feet.
The manufacturers, including Dow AgroSciences, said the buffers are too
large and inflexible, and questioned the scientific basis for concluding
that the pesticides harm to fish.

A hat tip to Jeff L.

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Theres a youthful exuberance hitting the high-end decor market: Designers are putting slides in rooms. And not just for kids: This luxury NY real estate ad featured a swanky apartment with a twisty slide that is more bachelor pad than play room. The Novogratz, always an inspiration when it comes to whimsical home decor for families, created this vibrant rainbow staircase with slide.

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Love Messenger

Using Love Messenger you can express your emotions without interrupting each other’s life and listen to the sweet talk whenever you have time. The d

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One of the trends for Spring that Im totally loving is the abundance of soft, candy colored pastel hues. It was all over the Spring Fashion Week runways and I cant wait to rock my pastels now that the weather is getting warmer. When it comes to your home, consider infusing some of these soft shades into your decor.

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Mother’s Day table centre arrangement

Equipment

7 stems of myrtle

30 widow iris (Ian harvests these by simply pulling the stem from the bulb and then breaks off the long, straggly leaf to half its length)

Here at BUILD, we’re big proponents of being generalists and gaining hands-on experience wherever we can get it. It’s been a theme we’ve returned to time and again and have recently found another inspiration for doing so. The fine folks at Taliesin West offered to host us for a couple of days and we jumped at the opportunity.  We were given a warm introduction by Aris, a member of Taliesen’s faculty, and stayed on campus in the former home of Frank Lloyd Wright’s daughter. 

Our taste of the unique communal lifestyle at Taliesen involved delicious meals prepared by Chef Safari and students, fantastic conversation, and free rein to roam the grounds, which also happen to be one of the last nature preserves in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. We were honored to share in the community, which demonstrates the best aspects of cooperative living. It was truly a h

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