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We’ve all been told to never play with our food, but no one said anything about sitting or sleeping on it.
Estonian rapper Tommy Cash, in partnership with concept artist Gab Bois, has revealed what might be IKEA’s next popular product: a sofa that resembles a bunch of bread rolls. Given the Swedish-sounding name, LOAFA, it imagines an oversized version of the pastry, with the dinner rolls serving as seats and what looks like hotdog buns as arm- and back- rests.
Sure, it looks weird, but it also looks surprisingly comfy. While it will probably raise eyebrows when your parents come for a visit, it will surely be the life (loaf?) of the party when you have friends over.
Unfortunately, the product isn’t official… yet. The artists are still trying to get IKEA to take their work seriously after the company had issued a dare.
“So IKEA told me if we get 10,000 comments under this post they will release the ‘Loafa!’ Let’s show them that we need this for real,” said Cash.
As of writing, the Instagram post already has more than 12,000 comments. IKEA has yet to issue a statement.
The LOAFA isn’t Tommy Cash’s first conceptual work involving bread and home goods. Previously, he collaborated with Maison Margiela to create loafers that look, well, like a couple of bread loaves. If you look closely at the pics above, you’ll even see him wearing the “loaf-ers.”
Look at this! The biophilic hotel of dreams. I don’t think I could have imagined a more perfect hotel if I had tried. All of you who know my love of biophilic design will recognise that this is my idea of heaven. If my home could look like this I would never leave.
This is 1 Hotel in Toronto which was designed by leading New York architecture and design studio The Rockwell Group. It is Canada’s first mission-driven hotel that celebrates the beauty of Toronto’s natural environment. The concept for the hotel is to turn urbanism inside out by creating an oasis in the heart of the city. This inviting portal to the natural world is a new standard in sustainable luxury experiences.
“We have long admired 1 Hotels’ sustainable and eco-friendly ethos, and we are thrilled to have been given the opportunity to design the new 1 Hotel Toronto with a biophilic emphasis. Our vision for the hotel invites guests to celebrate Toronto’s ecology through materiality and locally-made artwork.”
David Rockwell, Founder, Rockwell Group
Lake Ontario and the passing of the seasons provided the inspiration for the material palette and muted colours that feature in this biophilic hotel. Clever use of reclaimed timber, native plants, board-formed concrete, and local marble all add to the biophilic credentials of 1 Hotel.
The stunning lobby area is a warm and welcoming space and the floor-to-ceiling windows create a seamless transition between the outdoors and the inside. The reclaimed Elmwood flooring and shelving have been sourced from a dismantled barn in Ontario. The 4.5 metre-high ceilings provide a feeling of spaciousness and the entrance to the hotel features a mix of granite and limestone boulders, maple trees, local plants, warm wood, and a trailing green canopy, all reminiscent of Canada’s natural landscape.
Other sustainable design details in this biophilic hotel include a living green wall, found objects, local stone and reclaimed furnishings from materials such as elmwood and teak root.
The check-in area where guests are welcomed by hotel staff features an impressive stone wall carved out of glacial activity along the Eramosa River. The wood-like striations of the wall provide a perfect backdrop to an art installation designed by Toronto-based artists Moss & Lam.
1 Hotel is not short of places to dine and drink as it boasts two restaurants and two bars. 1 Kitchen is located in a glass-walled conservatory-like space that is flooded with light and filled with greenery that is hung from the carved trusses of the vaulted ceiling.
Madera is the other restaurant on-site and is an organic Mexican restaurant. It has a much more elegant and grown-up feel to it although it does follow the design cues of the hotel. Sand-blasted textured wood, greenery, wooden dining chairs crafted by Benchmark, reclaimed live edge wood tabletops, artistic handmade vessels, and modern, vibrant lighting all enhance the feeling of being close to nature.
Harriet’s is an open concept rooftop sushi bar with sliding glass walls and a retractable roof. It has breathtaking city and lake views. The woven rope ceiling interspersed between wood beams, reclaimed Elmwood flooring and leather and lambskin accents recall Toronto’s flora and fauna.
One of my favourite areas of the hotel is the Garden pavilion which provides a private outdoor seating area partitioned from the outdoors with a graphic pergola-like structure that is again adorned with hanging greenery and flanked with wooden boxes full of fresh herbs.
The guest rooms at 1 Hotel are calming and serene spaces that act as relaxing sanctuaries. The light and airy rooms feature sliding barn wood doors that divide the bedroom from the bathroom. Behind the bed, a natural wood accent wall acts as a backdrop to the leather headboard.
Travelling may still be a little tricky at the moment, but once restrictions ease and things become more straightforward, how nice would it be to visit this beautiful Canadian biophilic hotel?
Every January, I sit down with three of my girlfriends for a goal-setting session that’s going on its fourth annual iteration. We held our inaugural session in 2019 after attending a vision board workshop with a local creative entrepreneur — we took what we learned and molded it into our own tradition to develop goals across our personal lives, careers, and passions. We write down abstract visions and action steps. We discuss how we want to feel in our future. And, each quarter, we meet to discuss how we’ve progressed.
Last year, the goals among our group included buying a home, launching a rental property, getting into the dating world, and having a baby. While not everything was totally in our control, by Dec. 31, we’d put those goals into the world and all of us had achieved (or were on the way to achieving) them.
It’s incredible that we all saw success with our goals in 2021. That won’t happen every year. But by meeting four times a year to discuss progress and plans, it helps us celebrate the wins big and small and reroute as needed.
Here’s how we do it. Note: The first two sections are typically done only in January, and the last two are revisited quarterly.
20 Minutes to Brain-Dump Keywords Across Personal, Career, and Passion
Our first exercise is designed to brain-dump the keywords, concepts, and ideas that you want to bring into your life over the next year. These don’t need to be concrete goals yet. Split these into three categories: personal, career, and passion.
Under personal, you might write “save more, text a friend whenever I think of her, redecorate my apartment in a way that feels less Insta-inspired and more me.” Career could include “meet peers in my industry, ask for a raise.” You could jot down “paint more, pursue hobbies without monetization, focus on vulnerability” under passion.
Then, take just a minute or two to create a “no thank you” list where you’ll toss away all the things you want to leave behind, like toxic relationships, saying yes to everything, wasted time scrolling through Instagram, or too much alcohol.
10 Minutes to Write Down Your Holistic Vision
This is where things get abstract before they get back on track toward the actionable. Take 10 minutes to think deeply about what you want your life to look like in a year. Reflect on how you feel now and how you want that to change in the next 365 days — or whether you would be happy to bring in more of what you have in the current moment. If you do a word of the year, set that now.
Write down the feelings, emotions, landscapes, achievements, experiences, and people that surround you in your ideal future. Maybe you want to feel curious, loved, and at peace in a cottage in the country. Perhaps you want to feel settled, successful, and with your closest friends at a raucous party. These are in-the-clouds concepts. Once you’ve tackled one year, take a few more minutes to go even bigger. Write down how you want to feel in 10 years.
20 Minutes to Break Down Step One Into Specific Goals
Now it’s time to buckle down. Go through the items you wrote down in the first step and choose which you want to prioritize over the next year. Break those down into specific goals and steps.
If one of your personal goals is to walk more, your steps could look like “take two 20-minute walks a day. If an errand is within a one-mile radius, walk instead of rideshare.” If your career goal is to meet others in your industry, write down, “Once a month, reach out to someone I would like to know for a virtual coffee. Organize a once-a-quarter professional dinner with people I’d like to connect with.”
10 Minutes to Wrap Up With Immediate Action Items
With specific goals in mind, the last step is to look at which ones you want to tackle in this quarter and put immediate and short-term action items down on paper. Write down the moves you can make starting today and through the rest of the quarter.
Revisiting the “walk more” goal, your immediate action items could be “block twice-daily walks in my Outlook calendar” and “make sure my Apple Watch is synced,” and your short-term goal before the end of the quarter could be “hit 10K steps five days a week.” For the career networking goal, consider: “Write down a list of 12 people for the monthly coffee dates” or “join Bumble Bizz” in the immediate and “schedule the first professional dinner” in the short term.
Every three months, come back to your goals as a group. Look at which ones are still priorities in your life and how you can shift your actions to get closer to them. Set new immediate and short-term action items for new quarterly goals, and reassess as needed.
Remember this is a fluid process and you can adjust throughout the year. But the importance of coming back quarterly is to refocus and maintain sight of the bigger picture.
Olivia Harvey is a freelance writer and award-winning scriptwriter from outside Boston, Massachusetts. She’s a big fan of scented candles, getting dressed up, and the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley. You can make sure she’s doing okay via Instagram and/or Twitter.
Few pieces are as stylish (and timeless!) as a leather Chesterfield-style sofa. This structured, polished piece touts the trademark tufting, curved arms, and rich leather finish typically associated with the style, bringing a stately feel to any room. Leather not your thing? The silhouette also comes in a slew of velvet hues (like blush, olive, navy, and cream) too.
Four years after my partner and I purchased our first home, I started shopping around for refinance options. Motivated by the urge to drop private mortgage insurance and increase our property value, I was confident it was the smartest move.
At the time, our interest rate was at 3.9 percent. Even though I discovered the current rates weren’t much lower (3.75 percent), one of the mortgage brokers I reached out to suggested a cash-out refinance and was kind enough to explain the details.
What is a cash-out refinance?
A cash-out refinance is a type of refinancing agreement that lets you tap into the equity of your home. You take out a new loan for an established amount that is greater than what you currently owe. The difference is paid to you in cash and financed through the new mortgage.
It’s generally only available for those who owe significantly less on their home than it’s worth, and it can be a great way to secure funds for big expenses. Unlike a home equity line of credit, this is not a second mortgage. The new mortgage replaces the old one, and the lump sum is given to you when you close on the new loan.
I opted for a $15,000 cash-out refinance to renovate my home.
We decided on a modest cash payout. With our knack for DIY projects, some trusted connections in the home improvement industry, and plenty of time to shop around, we were able to stretch this amount pretty far.
Our first order of business was new flooring. We needed to replace the laminate downstairs with luxury vinyl and put new tile in the bathrooms. We also decided to remove the carpet from the staircase, freshen the wood on the steps with a new layer of stain and varnish, and put new carpeting in one bedroom. The rest of the carpet had been replaced when we first purchased the home, but our modest budget wouldn’t allow for a full flooring refresh at that time.
We shopped around and ultimately found a local company that gave us a great price if we paid in cash.
Kitchen Countertops — $2,100
This was handled by another local business in our area. We shopped at their warehouse for the right style granite to fit our humble, galley-style kitchen and bar space. This price included materials and labor.
The kitchen contractors had to rip up our backsplash for the countertop installation, so that left us looking in need of a replacement. We purchased the tile, mortar, and grout ($200) at Floor & Decor, and while we were there, we met another contractor who offered to handle the installation for $400.
Once the major interior elements were done, we moved to the exterior of the home. Landscapers carved out a nice hydrangea bed out front and completely revamped the backyard with fresh sod, new steps, and stone pavers.
Miscellaneous Updates — $1,500
Minor updates can still make a major impact. With the big stuff out of the way, here’s how we spent the rest:
A cash-out refinance helped us further invest in our most cherished space. Since we weren’t in a rush, we took our time and spread these updates out over the course of the year. In the end, we were able to make straightforward renovations that contribute to the overall value of our home.
Chantel Wakefield is a content writer and copy editor who enjoys writing about all things home and leisure. She lives in Metro Atlanta and spends her free time buried in a library book or sipping wine at a local tasting.
Super soft monochrome decor melts over these two luxe modern home interiors, creating mellow tranquillity. Each of these home interiors are furnished with made-to-measure cabinetry that fits flush and builds a look of luxe. Elegant metallic accents lift the warm, creamy backdrop of these home designs, adding rich lustre that polishes room layouts with a sense of quality. Large modern lighting installations are used to sculpt shape and create unique styling, often acting as the main focal point for the space. From oversized and unusual pendant light designs, to eye-catching modern floor lamps, and contemporary wall sconces, there’s inspiration here to set your interior aglow.
Shades of milky white smooth over our first soft monochrome decor scheme, creating a peaceful minimalist living space. The light, tonal arrangement lets the eye and the mind rest, whilst textural elements ensure that the design does not fall flat.
LED strips are situated around the perimeter of the whote room, where they create a glow from the ceiling line and floor seam.
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At night, the slices of fresh white LED illumination can switch into dark mode, burning an atmospheric flame orange.
A modern sofa design cosily embraces the edge of the open plan lounge area, pulling snugly around the edge of a solid stone rustic coffee table.
The woven living room rug adds a deeply inviting textural appeal. The chunky rug works to define the outline of the sitting area, clearly distinguishing it from the neighbouring kitchen and dining space.
Flat-fronted, handle-free white kitchen cabinets fade quietly into the back of the room. A beautiful beige stone backsplash cuts through the centre of the kitchen run, where it’s lit by the warm radiance of undercabinet lights.
A unique modern floor lamp echoes the golden glow of light at the opposite side of the living room. Its light dances magically across a stunning metallic feature wall.
The reflective golden panels crown a linear fireplace, where open flames flicker brightly across a floating stone hearth.
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Stone panels behind the modern fireplace are fluted in texture for further contemporary flair.
The vertical lines of texture in the fireplace are complemented by wood slatted screens at the large windows of the living room.
A female figurine adds a decorative touch to the top of a stack of coffee table books. An incense burner fills the room with soothing scents.
The wood slatted window shutters gently diffuse the daylight that washes through the expanse of floor to ceiling glass.
Sunlight and flame from the fire reflect upon the playful curves of a champagne gold Balloon dog by Jeff Koons.
The balloon dog statue fetches a moment of fun character to the sophisticated living room plan, and cheerfully rounds out a small reading area by the window.
A papasan chair extends an irresistible invitation to come sit, with its deeply cushioned curved seat and plush upholstery.
Wood grain flooring is laid with seams matching, adhering to a tiled effect.
The lounge area is separated from the back wall of kitchen units by a luxurious kitchen island that doubles as a dining bar. Three chic modern kitchen bar stools line up along the stone countertop, which wraps the edges of the unit in a waterfall effect. A fluted panel clads the front of the kitchen island, in mirror image to the fireplace at the other side of the room.
Two huge, unique kitchen pendant lights are suspended above the dining island at slightly different lengths. The effect is sculptural and mesmerising by its scale.
White kitchen appliances, accessories and fixtures meld cleanly into the light kitchen installation.
The second of our soft monochrome interior designs has a creamy concrete backdrop, subtly lit with warm white perimeter lights. A piece of 3D relief artwork depicts fashionable arch motifs behind a colour coordinated L-shaped modern sofa. A racetrack-shaped coffee table and a modern floor lamp visually weight the light decor scheme with matt black anchors.
A curvaceous sofa table wraps the back of the sofa, where its mirrored top reflects daylight from the patio doors. Black wood effect units are built-in around the TV and fireplace to create a bespoke focal wall.
A chic living room chair completes the stylish lounge furniture arrangement. A light grey area rug softens the seamless grey microcement floor.
Black window blinds complement the darker accents in the room. A floor to ceiling picture window interrupts the white rendered wall with an uplifting glimpse of the green garden and its plantlife.
A fabulous contemporary dining room chandelier sketches a fiery line of undulating light above the modern black dining set.
A 3D relief polyptych makes an intriguing background for the formal dining area, whilst its light colourway prevents it from challenging the statement chandelier.
Upholstered modern dining chairs are comfortable enough to extend dinner into drinks and talking long into the evening.
The kitchen is a light wood design with glossy black integrated appliances.
A white marble dining table is integrated into the kitchen island.
A wine storage unit is tagged onto the end of the kitchen run, conveniently positioned to serve the dining spot.
Champagne gold and white dining chairs crisply accompany the sleek dining table.
White marble countertops match the dining table to create a smooth cohesive finish across the entire kitchen diner space.
The luxurious kitchen design boasts two sink units, one by the oven and one in the kitchen island beside the hob.
A winding staircase ascends through the house. Solid wood effect balustrades edge the climb, whereas glass balustrades open up the landings to the light.
A double height window towers all the way to the top of the void.
Linear wall lights illuminate the journey to the top of the staircase. A modern chandelier tumbles from the ceiling above, like great straps of gold.
The flooring upstairs is oak plank, which warms the cool cream bedroom palette.
Wood effect panels stripe an effective headboard wall treatment. A modern wall sconce provides reading light on one side of the bed, whilst an unusual bedroom pendant light shines down on the opposite bedside table.
A designer swivel chair cuts an interesting silhouette at the home workspace in the bedroom.
Curved walls sweep into the bedroom entryway, creating a grand entrance.
The second bedroom inside the home is smaller. This time, a floating desk is set up alongside the upholstered bed.
Two overlapping desk units are set against a headboard wall panel to engineer one linked entity.
Panel boards create an area of decorative shading by the foot of the bed, mirroring the headboard panel.
A luxurious dressing room is lined with made-to-measure wardrobes.
Gold hardware and golden frames add a high-quality flourish to the built-in units.
The single bedroom is a mesh between a guest room and a kids room, to suit all ages. Cutesy kids’ wall decor is swapped out in favour of elegant wall sconces.
A trundle bed pulls out from underneath the single bed to accommodate another sleeper. See more inspiration for kids’ beds.
A small platform marks a change in function of space into a kids play gym.
Set at a perpendicular angle to the bed, a fluted cabinet forms a short room divider.
On the opposite wall to the kids’ bed, a floating dressing table/desk protrudes from a wall of wardrobes. Here, a decorative vase gives the bedroom a more mature appearance.
The bathroom is encased in swathes of stunning white marble. A gold racetrack-shaped bathroom mirror descends in front.
A wall mounted modern vanity unit leaves the floor clear, which expands the sense of space in the room.
The spacious shower enclosure is trimmed with gold framework that matches a gold shower head and valves. A black toiletries shelf runs across the back wall of the shower area, cutting a stark outline against the white marble wall.
A grey accent wall smooths across the cistern concealment chamber.
A narrow shelf holds cosmetics and soaps above the basins.
The large tiles continue across the floor of the shower area, and repeat along the wet wall.
A semi pedestal sink carries a bold column-like design that stops short of the floor.
A backlit marble backsplash creates mood lighting in the powder room.
In the home entryway, a wall of fitted storage cabinets floats a few inches above the floor, leaving a convenient nook in which to tuck shoes.
