Nermo

I love the aesthetic of wood strips or chunks recomposed into solid furniture.Being made from castoffs bound for the landfill makes them that much more impressive. The style reminds me of the gorgeous cutting boards my father makes from the scraps of hardwood cabinetry projects.

• Prism Stool by Brave Space Design
• Green Sawn Furniture
• How To: Make a Reclaimed Wood Table and Bench
• Brent Comber Tables at Vancouver’s Salt Tasting Room

I’ve long been fascinated by transforming a discarded shipping container into a house.  Yeah, I was that daydreaming 8th-grader scribbling container dream home blueprints in my notebooks during class. Living in the Bay Area, the ports provide a surplus of containers, while housing prices rule out all other options, so if I ever want to own, I think this is my only hope.

Anyone have open land in SF they want to give me?

Prefab Friday from Inhabitat

Stylish Modern Homes from Shipping Containers from Re-Nest

2+ Weekend House from Arhitektura JureKotnik

Recycled-Container Chic from the New York Times

Home Sweet Repurposed Shipping Container from Poetic Home

Container House by Leger Wanaselja Architecture from Apartment Therapy

Bob Villa is kind of a d-bag, but he has a decent how-it’s-done overview page

Late Edit:  Bacon on one side (as below), and on the other, the Official Bacon Camp San Francisco logo that was just sent to me.

Not everyone can visualize the inner workings of my mind, so here are some variations to peruse.

a. horizontal, white, full back

b. diagonal, white, full

c. horizontal , white, full

d. diagonal, white, partial

e. silver, horizontal, full... OK, the chrome effect sucks, so just imagine the images above in silver.

I just raided Macy’s for a couple dress shirts to use as canvases for new silkscreen projects.

Maybe I will wear them, or maybe I will just sell them on Etsy.

Click any image to enlarge.

The first is a mustard yellow Hilfiger western-style with opalescent snaps . I want to go totally counter-western with the design and solicited suggestions on Twitter.  I was told to go with a ninja, geisha, kiwi, elephants, monkeys, giraffes, lions, aliens, rocket ships, and bacon .  I was also asked to lend someone a hot glue gun, cordless drill and a staple gun.

I like the ninja and the geisha, for taking my anti-western concept to heart, and I am considering something in the style of a Japanese woodblock print.  Looking musically as well as hemispherically, I’m thinking punk.  Maybe the anarchy circle-A in a western font and a gash held together by gold safety pins.  A co-worker reinforced the outer-space concept so I’m considering a Cosmonaut theme as well.

The second is a standard white Calvin Klein dress shirt, except for a strip of checkered embroidery that runs the length of the shirt to the right of the buttons.  I haven’t put any thought into this piece other than wanting to incorporate the embroidery.

So, what themes, images or other ideas do you suggest I print onto these two?

What I was reading when I should have been getting ready to teach:

Wall St. Journal article on the makers of St-Germain elderflower liqueur and Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur.

7×7 Q&A with SF’s Top Pastry Chefs (but where’s Jane Tseng?)

LA Times article on the Evolution of the Slow-Cooker.

Iannone Design: Eco-Friendly Modern Design has really eye-catching furniture that I was admiring.

Catching up on the NY Times, including this article on meat pies and working on the crossoword puzzle (I actually managed to kill the Sunday Times puzzle by mid-afternoon last week!)

New on my blogroll:

1. My Little Sister on Posterous.com

2. The Secret Life of a Female Gamer is Jaime’s new blog at nerdress.com.  I have little to no clue what she is saying, but I helped her set up the site.

3. Suddenly Free,  My friend Christopher’s take on unemployment amid the current economic conditions.

To do this week: San Francisco Pie Fight At The Powell Street Cable Car Turnaround

Bonus: Jamba Juice is offering fruit-topped oatmeal for a buck with this coupon through the end of March.

OK, time to teach.

Sorry folks, but upgrading to WordPress 2.7 was more involved than I expected, and I have work to do, so it will be a little while before I restore my photos and layout.  Happy March.

UPDATE (3/6):  Images are back up, and I’ll get to the visual elements of the theme eventually.

I got a number of requests for a report on (and video proof of) how well the Whisk-Drill works in the kitchen. It works remarkably well. Sorry about the bed-head.

As two of my favorite pastimes are cooking and designing furniture, you’d think I would have tried this sooner.

I just registered for thing-a-day 2009, the challenge to create one new “thing” every day for the month of February and post it on the site. The concept grew out of an assignment from a class taught by Ze Frank at NYU early in the millenium that was resurrected by some of the students in the class in 2007.  Neil just reminded me, so I can sign up on time for once.

I can’t quite tell what counts as a “thing” since the site is more or less down right now.  Anyone know the rules? So far, I am stock-piling ideas including food, sake, beer, infused booze, photos, videos, animation, book arts projects (I’m taking a class), silkscreen t-shirts, drawings, a crossword puzzle, furniture, picture frames, a party, a case for my new netbook (grey flannel maybe), a bacon-porn website, a shiny wood-veneer shell for my netbook, a coat rack, a bomb (just kidding), and trouble (does making trouble count?).

You can find my posts by clicking Quinn on the Participants page or just by clicking my linked name on this line.

What else should I make?

I’m finally building a front page for nermo.com and while I was at The Lab‘s annual Post-Postcard show Friday, I was reminded of the Home Fugu Chef Kit I designed for the show 2 years ago, and of the Mr. Yuck-inspired “tetrodotoxin poisoning” sticker for the chef’s guests to put on their foreheads before dining so paramedics would know how to treat them once found, and I painted a cute little picture of a pufferfish with a sumi-e brush for the sticker.  I need to clean it up, but here is the original sticker and a few site logo ideas:

Your thoughts?