New for 2012!

That's Jean serving up a fresh tray of 2012 goodness.  With the holidays behind us and the NYIGF looming just ahead, it was right back to the drawing board for us in January.  We were hankering to cook up something new.

As you may have picked up in past posts about our kitchen...we've been really obsessed with the combination of copper and brass with woods and leather.  We've always been suckers for nostalgia and I think these materials really strike a reminenscent chord on a different...more fundamental level.  To that end, it only felt appropriate to pair these warm, welcoming materials with minimalist, elemental forms that celebrate the integrity of the materials without any frivolous details.  The resulting collection is a bit of a departure aesthetically from our past products, but a direction we're really excited about!     

Without further adieu (follow links for more details or to purchase)...

Segment Necklace:  An adjustable abstract arrangement of shapes and materials.

Perimeter Tray:  A solid wood base framed with powdercoated aluminum coupled with a carrara marble cheeseboard insert.

Cylinder Shakers:  Copper, Brass, and Aluminum Salt and Pepper Shakers are designed to age and patina with use.

L&G at NYIGF Jan 29-Feb 2

We can't believe it's that time again! 2011 year ended and now L&G is TOTALLY pumped for 2012 and ready to share some brand new works!

L&G will be showing an exciting brand new line of table top items & jewelry along with JOIN and eight other Northwest based studios.

So come visit us at Accent of Design at the Jacob K. Javits Center, Level 3. We'll also be right next to other talented young designers from American Design Club and A+ Young Designers.

It's gonna be a par-tay! woot woot!

Black Friday: 25% off on L&G items!

It's BlkFriday! and we gots some sales goin' up in here!
We're offering 25% off of $50+ total purchase starting now till NOV 28th sunday (ends 11:59pm PST) 1st. ENTER PROMO CODE: BLACKFRIDAY25
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

Kitchen end in sight

We're nearing the finish line with our kitchen and it's starting to feel real nice.

Today we finally got the sink plumbed up and working...no more trucking dirty dishes to the basement to be cleaned in the laundry sink.

We also received our whitened birch cabinet fronts back from the finisher today...they look great!

We're days from presentable overall shots and more details so stay tuned!

Instant Framing

This was the day we've been waiting for since we started designing a steel frame with Nick from Piano Nobile...we're gonna see the frame in our space for the first time!

I was especially excited to wake up this morning and see Nick pull in with his AWESOME Fuso in our drive way with the frame pieces. Seeing the size of the Fuso, I wished we had bigger pieces to move just so we can see the crane in action, too!!

So remember from our previous post with our Google sketchup of our kitchen with a steel frame?...the frame will act as a load bearing structure between our kitchen and living room so we can open the space up and have an island!

so here are some photos of Dylan & Nick dry fitting the pieces in the space for the first time to see how it all looks and fits....nervous?? I AM!!

Ta-da! Instant framing, done!

It was as simple as lining up the pieces, screw in the bolts and voila!  Totally exciting to see what it actually look like in our space!! I was hopping around like a 5 year old filled with excitement when they were doing all this.

Next on the list....we'll ride the Fuso and get the frame powder coated! Yesssss......

A little progress & serenity in our space...

As we mentioned few weeks before...we've been doing some re-hauling & re-organizing of our space for ourselves and for L&G studio...
Slowly but surely we're making some progress and have moved our bedroom into what was previously our office (or more like our storage)...
It's a smaller space, but I've been loving the idea to downsize our bedroom....keeping it minimal, airy, and peaceful....We painted our room with stock white paint...to replace the previously dingy dirty off white paint....and just changing that, the room felt instantly bigger, brighter and 100 times better!
We kept one side of the wall with the chalk wall from when we painted it for the office....since it'll still be useful for those occasional late night brainstorming sessions we do....plus I didn't' have the heart to erase the adorable messages & drawings by our friends' kids from Japan during the time they stayed with us!!
Then Dylan boxed in the window with soft toned pine boards with a added function as a shallow shelf....so we can incorporate some hanging plants & more plants!... LOVE!!
Then a little added color & pattern from a Ikea area rug for some warmth.Still got few more to add to the space...but overall we're gonna have it pretty paired down...with wood shelving made with cinder blocks and then have ropes & hanging rods to hang my accessories. I like the concept of "organized chaos" and love seeing selective pieces of clothes hung & displayed like that...it makes me appreciate what I have and gets me excited about wearing it...like the my new B&W sweater hanging on the mirror . A recent score at one of the vintage shops by Nationale & Stand Up Comedy in Portland.
This is a rare exception when I wished the whether is slightly colder so I can wear that more often! I've been practically living in it with it being so comfortable to wear!

still work in progress...can't wait to get it done!


Collected Magazine

This new online lifestyle magazine, Collected, launched this May founded by Krista Schrock and Jessica Comingore.

I love all their well-curated hand picked items. Pretty much.... I just want everything on these pages.



I'd Like To Tap That: Modern Dream House

I love LOVE every part of this modern house by Linea Studio based in the UK.
There isn't a corner in the house that I don't love....even the dusts in the corner and the smudges on the window....

So, to warn you, there's gonna be a lot of me going "I like this...I like that...and OH-EM-GEEE... I LUV it!" repeatedly through out this post....

To start....
Check... THIS...out!! Look at this staircase with shelves on the side!! SCREAM!
and look at all the cute things on it! (still screaming!)
...SO want open shelves like that for our kitchen so I can display our housewares collection too...

Man....I really would also love a nice open kitchen like that....or to have room for a dinning table instead of sitting on the floor by our coffee table while my feet fall asleep during our dinner...
One thing though...I personally think it might just be a little TOO open. I mean just looking at how much empty space they have on the floor there!
Now...if it was US living there, we'd totally want to take advantage of that empty "wasted" floor space and turn it into a L&G packing & shiping area or something totally awesome like that...
boy...do I like those chairs....
Love the lights, love the floor, love the Finel heart bowl with the plant in it.
I also like the cleverly integrated landing unit and shelves.
Hello...metal flat drawers , giant working desk table with classy chairs, and that whole set of Domus magazines....I like you guys, too.
Clean, simple & nice looking bathroom..I like the simple towel holder pole...oh yes I do.
How fun was that?!
I can do this all day and look at all the photos of this place over & over again....and fantasize about me living there in that house...even as a particle of dust in the corner... 

No rest for the Wary

I know some of these images and Wary Meyer's work has already made it's way around the blogosphere, but I just have to do a bit of reiterating here.

I love the way their spaces feel like the interiors of all the great '70s interior design books - an inspiration of theirs - the warmth, the patterns and textures, the mix-match of styles, old with new, etc. Just when we're starting to reach for the white paint threatening to turn our living room into a clean austere shrine of scandavian influence...Wary's got me thinkin' what if we did a 360 and busted out some wallpaper and pop art prints and went all Rhoda Morgenstein up in the joint?

I'm not really sure if we have the interior decor cojones to do either full-on, but it sure is reassuring that we can be inspired by either. We'll meet somewhere in the middle...as soon as we can figure out how to not make the living room our shipping room.

Check out Wary's blog too to see a sampling of the stuff they find inspiring (they're also one hell of a thrifty duo).

Thrifty Find...Vintage Tapistry Rug

Our latest thrift find....a cool handmade rug of unknown origin...
We found this in a thrift store outside of LA for only $6!

The real color was supposed to be dark indigo...but sun faded to this purple, which I LOVE even more!!
It makes me happy to see all these lovely colors & patterns every time I get home or leave the house.

Wish I knew more about it....Does anyone have any insight about what type of rug this is?


MORE at UCU!

I'm also SUPER excited to have some terrarium ornaments & kits at UCU this weekend.
We did this for our Brite Terrarium Wonderland Workshop couple weeks ago, and figure this is also a good opportunity to share what we created!
These will be available at our L&G booth with ornaments already made, and also the kits for the DIY peeps out there.The workshop was a collaboration between our friend Nicholas Nyland where he did the lovely illustrations and I designed the kits!

Each kit comes with:
Instruction, ornament ball, ribbon, soil, activated charcoal, various moss types, and a surprise white animal figurine.
Once I started making them, I just couldn't stop!! It was like putting together a miniature world...or more like a miniature WONDERLAND...
The great things about these ornaments is that you can keep them up beyond the holiday season especially for someone like me who never get around to do much holiday stuff! Who really has time to put up lights in & outside of the house, decorate trees, go gift shopping, wrap the gifts, send out Christmas cards, AND bake holiday treats?...oh I guess that's most people, huh?

With the little time I have to do the fun holiday activities that most people gets to do...my little terrarium ornament is a nice little added festivity in our boxes-stacked-and-shipping supplies filled house!

L&G on Seattle Homes & Lifestyles Magazine

Oops, forgot to share this! Our servers got featured in October issue of Seattle Homes & Lifestyle Magazine along with our friends from Piano Nobile, Chadhaus, and LiT!!

Print Magazine Shall Not Die

This is another exciting project by Meg Mateo Ilasco. Meg & Anh-Minh Le recently launched their quarterly print magazine, Anthology Magazine . It's just loveliness all around! They're only doing a small run of them now, and the last I've heard, they're about to sell out!!

I'm so glad to see actual print magazines coming out versus more web magazines. There's just nothing that compares to actually having the magazines in the hands to flip through the pages.
They even went all out and created this lovely stop motion video making a statement that print is not dead!! I love the cardboard typewriter, which Meg made herself!


I really don't know how she manages to do all this and come out with 2 books (Crafting a Meaningful Home & Creative Inc.) at the same time!!
Gawwwd....can anyone be any more productive?? 

I'd like to tap that: Roof Top Pyramid on top of a building

Ok. Never would I even think to consider the top of an office building as a possible place to live and raise kids....let alone the pyramid that's on top of Seattle's Smith Tower building that's been recently shown in the New York Times!!! Screw looking at houses that's meant for living....that's just way too lame and predictable!
I want a house where I get to take elevators that goes up 40+ floors that probably goes straight to the place, have all walls coming in at an angle versus just boring straight walls, and a view that's even better than what the public civilians gets to see from the observation deck only at the 35th floor. But the reality is that I should just give up and accept the fact that I will not end up living anywhere close to a place like this in my life time or next...especially I'm pretty sure that my next life I'm probably just gonna be a fruit fly...And I won't even be able to fly that high to sneak in there and pretend...
Yeah, you know something is not right, when the thought of your entire life doesn't even compare to these kids' life in the first 3 years of after being born....and the best part is...they won't even remember a darn thing in those years.....Man...what a realization....
But on a brighter note...I'm lucky enough to say that I live in the same city as these people! Just awesome.

I'd LIke to Tap That: Eclectically Modern Living Space

Amazing space via Office for Word and Image (OWI)....oh so wonderfully eclectic, airy and dynamic. I love the visual impact of the dark & minimal one-walled-kitchen.... The mix dining chairs collection reminds us a little like ours... looks like we're off to a good start....