I'm just excited I used 'proboscis' in a sentence!

Grab your passports, sauce guzzlers, and let's take an architectural field trip!  It is a long way away.  Bring extra sauce for hydration.

I really have no idea what 'sauce' is in this scenario.

Regardless, welcome to Ethiopia!   Specifically the Southwest corner.  Here's a map cuz if you're like me (a dumb American) you don't know where that is.  But we should because very nice buildings are happening there.

Here

I am died.  The Dorze people are known for their distinctive dwellings that are completely unique to them and pretty fuckawesome.  That is a technical term I pulled Arch Daily.

More great travel pics at Line Shape Color

They are also known for having the best weaving in Ethiopia so right now the Dorze are batting a thousand for the design team.  I'm not even on the field in regards to such complicated design activities so I'm waving my giant foam finger for them.

The buildings are made of basket-woven shell of bamboo and then finished with 'false banana' leaves.  Fake bananers be good for sumthin.

Here

Who doesn't love a process shot?!  I'm a little blown away by the amount of leaves that are involved.  Fortunately there aren't any windows to work around.

Here  Separate partitions for the animals, I believe.

The entire structure is surprisingly large measuring about 25-30 feet tall.  Based on my calculations that's about seven square miles of leaves.  The reason they are designed so tall is for more than just a great chandelier.  The walls sit directly on the ground and termites eat the building from the floor up.

You'd think this would create massive structural problems but in fact it just causes the homes to get shorter.  They start out so tall so they can shrink over decades.  That's right, they build in their own aging solution.  The homes get shorter and cuter over time.  It's like they're the Benjamin Buttons of architecture!

And they do last decades - sometimes up to 100 years.  If the termite problem does get overwhelming or they want a new view the entire building can even be moved with the help of some friendly neighbors and lots of rope.

Here I love the landscaping around the perimeter of the homes too. Perfection.

But damn, the termites seem friendlier in Africa, right?  I have to get termite treatments every eight years so my house doesn't cave in on itself and leave me in dust but in Africa you have decades.  DECADES.  Africa might have killer bees but we have asshole termites.

My favorite part about the structures is that they have a very anthropomorphic quality.  Once you see the face you can't UNsee it.

Here

The "eyes" are the air vents and also release the smoke from the cooking/heating fire.  The "nose" acts as the entrance vestibule and can be very large (like the very first picture) and then as the entire structure shrinks the nose gets smaller and they cut the doorway larger.  

I found out that the "face" does have an explanation that's not just related to function, however.  This region of Ethiopia used to have lots of elephants so the homes pay homage to them with their grey skin and large proboscis.  AND NOW I LOVE THEM EVEN MORE.  

Here

You can't UNsee it now either!  Look at its wittle head!  

I'm not sure if that little anecdote is true or something they just tell the white people taking pictures but I love so it's true.

And you better get in your elephant love now because I heard Tim Burton is going to be directing a new Dumbo so get ready for Johnny Depp to piss all over your childhood.  Childhood memories of hysterical sobbing over that movie but whatever.

After you finish writing an angry letter to Disney, I highly recommend you take a look at this video tour of a Dorze home for a more complete picture.  The guide shows his grandfather's 92-year-old home in case you thought I was lying about their ages.

However, I should admit I have weird feelings about getting a tour of a home currently inhabited by people.  People who are just outside the door...  Is it just me?

Now, I'm guilty of stopping in the road and taking a picture of someone's home and I'm blogging about the Dorze so maybe I shouldn't be the moral compass here.  But are these little tours just catering to rich tourists or maybe it's like some version of colonial Williamsburg except not colonial but CURRENT?  Or are the people that open up their homes to tourists the design bloggers of Ethiopia?  Maybe they WANT to show off their houses.  

I'm not saying I don't want to see them but I am aware that I saw pictures of the same two structures (three pictures up) over and over again.  I'm not sure I know the correct answer to these questions and maybe I should pull out my books on vernacular architecture more than once a decade.  *cough*  I was almost smart in college...

Regardless, I hope tourists are absolutely throwing money at them for every last bit of their beautiful weaving.

Now I feel kinda uncomfortable about the implications of vernacular architectural tourism so let's look at some more baby elephants until we are obliviously comfortable again!

Baby elephants welcome in my home anytime!

Peacock Pavilions: Looking Fine and Doing Good In Marrakesh.

If you're feeling extra sweet this week - gave away the last piece of pizza, made awkward small talk with a nice stranger - it's because of the stars.  Today the moon moves into Aquarius for the next two months and this is supposed to be a time for humanitarian acts, so says New Age people.  The cosmos WANTS you to put a few extra bucks into the Starbucks tip jar.  Even when they aren't looking, George Costanza.

In conjunction (astrology humor!) with this cosmological occurrence, this seems like a good time to introduce you to the story of the most stylish humanitarian on this side of the galaxy: Peacock Pavilions and its owner/designer/mom Maryam Montague. 

You've probably put your eyeballs on said pavilion many a time and didn't even know it.  You've probably pinned it - I did - I didn't even know it.  Well, I'm about to learn you real good.

Maryam, caftan enthusiast/nice person/blog friend, and her architect husband, Chris Redecke, decided to settle their family on an olive grove in Marrakesh and build an eco-conscious boutique hotel and resort.  As you do.  

So together they designed and decorated Peacock Pavilions, a box waiting to be checked on every design blogger's bucket list for obvious reasons.

This is her office where she overlooks the olive grove.

My office has a drawer full of nothing but hand lotion and Claritin...

This place could give us lessons in curtains.

But it ain't all Elle Decor spreads and Lonny covers, Maryam travels Africa and the world fighting for human rights and democracy.  She has a standing date with Amal Clooney to talk about running nations and fashion.  I made up the last sentence but I bet it's true.

I let a jerk merge in front of me in traffic the other day so I GET what it's like to devote your life to helping the less fortunate.  I live my life with compassion.

I think I need to live my life in Morocco too.

And in case you were distracted by all the good deeds, don't forget the staircase:

But since I'm a one trick pony with exceptional taste, I can't help but be drawn to her bedroom which is full of winter whites (do they have winter in Morocco?).  I guess if you aren't feeling the bleak midwintery vibe of the last post here's something in warmer weather for you.

BRASS DOOR FRAME.

It also has some custom wall stencils which might be the only wall stencils I didn't know I even wanted until I saw it.  

I custom made a headboard recently out of a Goodwill reject, scrap fabric and staples so I too like to surround myself with luxury.

I think this proves the point that if you're gonna go monochromatic you have to have a lot of texture.  Preferably if it's a pillow with a mohawk but you do you.

Sequins are approved, as well.

A window seat also helps.  Pretty sure you can only drink creamy drinks in here: lattes, Frappuccinos, White Russians.  If you drank a red Gatorade (or the Moroccan equivalent) in here it would probably give you heartbearn. [MS sidebar: I misspelled heartburn and couldn't figure out why it was wrong for about three minutes but like it better this way so we all have to switch.]

I'm loving this grouping of lanterns.  I have one "Moroccan" lantern in this delightful egg (?) shape but now it just feels lonely.  I think I need a baker's dozen.  I'll have to get rid of my dining table but I think eating while laying on the floor is very 2015.  

If you want to bring a bit of real Morocco to your house and not have it look like the culturally-appropriated tchotchke hurricane as you might see on tv, check out her shop for all the best in properly-sourced goodies.

If you're going to gift yourself a Moroccan wedding blanket, a handira, this is the place to go.  Pillows and poufs galore too.  

here

Love the little bits of pattern with the pillows.  (This is similar to my pillow!).  I think what I like about this whole space so much is the mix of clean neutrals as a backdrop for lots of bright pattern.  You get the best of both worlds.

However, I'm rather obsessed with the BLACK wedding blankets lately:

here

I think (?) Maryam is the inventor of the black wedding blanket and if that was the only thing she did in life that would be enough.  But also human rights 'n stuff.

Mr. Beni Ourain is still solid in my book despite the controversy lately over its apparent trendiness.  I don't think you can really call something trendy that has existed centuries before we were even born, can you?

Of course next week I'll be like "Ugh BOOKS. I'm so over this Gutenberg press hipster bullshit."

here

I'd never seen one that with this color of gold before - such a nice variation.  Could work in bleak midwinter or if you're feeling more jazzy.

here

So much jazz.

The shop also features tons of cute wall hooks designed by Maryam herself.

here

It's like a cross between a hamsa and a peacock!  Because PEACOCK!  You're too much, M.  I'm not being an ass, I'm just excited because I didn't see the peacock until about one minute before writing this and I love a secret pun in silver.

Maryam, bored with her life doing nothing, has also founded Project Soar - an organization for underprivileged girls and women near Peacock Pavilions.  A portion of all proceeds from the shop benefit the program so buy as many protective peacock hands as you want (+1 for me).  

Fun fact: if you stay at the pavilion you get to ride on a peacock in a great race throughout the vast olive grove.  Just kidding, if you stay you can volunteer for Project Soar which is pretty cool.  I'm on board for dedicating my 2015 and beyond to women, yes?

My grandmother has a stray peacock that has started coming to her door to visit everyday this winter.  She lives in Texas if that helps explain it...?  Regardless, she named him Fred so if I want to race a peacock I'll try the family bird.

Familial bird-racing aside, I'm writing this overt love letter to the PP and MM because I truly believe we're seeing the real thing.  In the often shady world of internet life it's really refreshing and inspirational to find a person and cause that is not just talking the talk but walking the walk and doing it with boss style.

Make sure to check out Maryam's blog, My Marrakesh, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Or you can do more than read this here blog post and buy her book, Marrakesh by Design, or even donate directly to Project Soar.

If nothing else I recommend you follow her on Instagram for lots of pictures of the party life at Peacock Pavilions but mostly for this:

And this:

And this:

All photos are from Elle Decor, Lonny or Maryam's site/Instagram/book

More like Kitteh Pavilions, amirite?

How do cats meow in Arabic?  Like, they 'meow' in good old American, 'miao' in Italian, 'mrow' in comics...  These are things I think about when I travel.

I have yet to see a picture of a peacock AT Peacock Pavilons but maybe they have to keep them separate from the cats... Probably smart.  I don't think Fred and Charlemagne would be friends.

I received no compensation for this post but I'd take a Moroccan cat if they were handing them out...

Wanna Vanta? It's blacker than hell and stronger than death...

This is your year, Wednesday, because SCIENZE did a thing.

Thanks to a Smarty McCalculuspants in jolly old England a new super black has been invented.  It's blacker than black.  It's called Vantablack and it does not fuck around.  

Vantablack is the darkest material ever produced absorbing all light except for .035%.  Charcoal absorbs all but 4% and my heart absorbs all but 2.3% if that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.  Basically, Vantablack is a stealer of light.  Probably souls too.  It's a Dementor.

here

It is also grown on tinfoil.  Dawww... that's kinda cute.  Would really add something exciting to my indoor container plants and seems like a natural fit with my BLACK THUMB.  

Puns.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is how the robot Dementor army is born...

Vanta is actually an acronym for Vertically Aligned NanoTube Array which is what happens when carbon nanotubes are 'grown' on foil using Satan's magic.  I interpreted this as a jizzillion tiny black holes woven into a fabric that you can buy off the bolt at Hancock's Fabrics soon right?  

This is gonna take my ninja game to a whole new level, y'all!

I'm a little obsessed because it's basically a fabric so dark it limits your perception to two dimensions.  Name a chintz that has that kind of power, I DARE YOU!

Okay maybe a toile but that's really a technicality...

And what better way to celebrate a scientific breakthrough than with contemporary art?  Art's resident void-lover Anish Kapoor has expressed an interest to work with this new fancy material.  I think this seems like a natural fit considering:

Oracle

here

Untitled A

here

Void, 1989

Descent into Limbo B, 1992

Hole much?  

If you're like me then the first you thought of (besides a beautiful Nightmare of Infinite Wednesday Addams Ninjas) is that Vantablack would be perfect for Acme Portable Holes made famous by criminal masterminds like Roger Rabbit and Wile E. Coyote.

here

And that's exactly what artist Tom Estes created in 2012 when he made his 'Portable Black Hole' using the darkest carbon nanotube material ever created at THAT time.

Honestly, I thought those tourists were a different art installation they are so perfect.

It absorbed .045% of all light. 

That poor scientist is like the guy on Price is Right whose bid becomes worthless after the asshole next to him bids $1 more.

No Showcase Showdown for you, sir.

I've heard nothing about what Kapoor is going to do but one million dollars says it's a hole and people will call it spiritual and a brilliant commentary on the future or it's "intended as a reminder of the multiple, idiosyncratic pockets of forgotten histories; of absence and the unseen and unrepresented; multiple conflicting realities that exist side by side with official or recorded 'histories.'"  Oh wait that's what someone said about Tom Estes' hole.

They shoulda just left it at a fun hybrid of science and toons because I feel like that might be more accurate in this case.

Interestingly enough, another artist is working with the 'blacker than black' concept. Frederick de Wilde is working with NASA on some different carbon nanotube technology.  No word on his percentages yet...

"Klein's first artwork was drawing in the blue sky, my dream is to draw in deep space."

Now this art scientist describes his work as being heavily influenced by the work of Kazimir Malevich (no idea) and his invention of Suprematism - the "supremacy of pure artistic feeling" - as well as Russian mystic-mathematician-philosophers (is there any other kind of mystic-mathematician-philosophers?), the idea of "going beyond zero," Stanley Kubrick, Yves Klein's blue, Anish Kappor (hey hey!) and a lot of other really smart talk on contemporary (nano) art.  There's no mention of a robot Dementor army in embryo form but the whole article is worth a read.

He says he views his "nano engineered macroscopic art pieces as spaces of refusal, but also as spaces of imagination."  Despite the next sentence being something about us living in a media-saturated environment (ugh. gag me with a spoon, I hear that shit every day) I'm feeling some things about this way more than that "pockets of forgotten histories" jackoff noise.

Spaces of refusal... I mean, gotdamn!

I don't know maybe sometimes black holes can change the perception of space and time or maybe sometimes they are cartoons or sometimes they are just delicious cups of strong coffee and all equally important depending on what time of day it is and how much of the latter I've had to drink.

Or maybe it's all the same and I'm an uncultured swine but irregardless let's get ready for a Large Hadron Collider wallpaper collection coming soon!

Fun factoid: when I visited Germany last January for a design conference several speakers talked about the emergence of 'darkness' as an upcoming trend.  (Think big global movement not 'barf, chevrons.')  More than just the color black they described it as an engineered 'tension' which sounds delightfully ominous and maybe why I'm so obsessed by this material.  

Also, the NYT reported that Donald Kaufman announced black as the color of the month for November (oh we're doing colors of the month now?) so maybe it's starting...!  

I find trend forecasting to be incredibly fascinating so this might be absolute bullshit to you and that's okay.   But next time you see a neo-goth-warrior-princess-from-the-future editorial in Korean Vogue or have a good cup of black coffee maybe it'll make you pause...

...and think about watching Roger Rabbit because that shit was good please RIP Bob Hoskins.

Dryer sheets and staples are my new best friends.

I hope you've all been busy knocking out your summer bucket list like I have.  It's been a beauty fest every night, I got some swim time in, got my dirty chai IV drip started and have been stalking Neil deGrasse Tyson.  I've also been building shit the saucy way.  

That way is with no clear direction or skills or hope for a good result...

Things are coming along nicely in that bedroom of mine that I've been talking about for 93849384938493 months now.  This week I upholstered a headboard and all of Pinterest creamed their panties in unison.

After shopping around it seemed like the best deal I could get would be about $200 for a headboard and that's one of those microfiber hellbeds of shame so no thanks, internet shopping.  I have staple gun and an inflated sense of my own ability so I got this.

First up, real fabric.  Guess what? It's beige!  Just a nice simple nubby gold/grey weave I got for about $35.  Nothing fancy.  Although I DID find some hand-stitched wool crewel remnant that was on sale so I was FORCED to buy it as well.  No idea where it's going yet but I feel better giving it a good home. 

THIS is why I'm broke.

Crewel fabric was originally $130 a yard and I got it for $50 so... *high five*

I noticed that my headboard fabric is surprisingly similar to the fabric I covered my couch in a long time ago...  It's just beige everywhere!  

It's like a very bland - YET ELEGANT - spa around here.

Now that the important part was covered (upholstery humor!) I needed to figure out the bones.  My plan was to buy a cheap flat headboard and use it as a frame to screw in my desired shape and height.  Well, lemme school ya that finding such a thing is a lot harder than I initially thought.  

Headboards are everywhere when you don't need them and when you do it's nothing but brass cages of doom and $75 pieces of shit.  But I finally found one for $10.  SOLD!  Then I tried to put it in my car and it was about six inches too tall and no way to get it home. 

They told me by the time I would be able to get a truck it would probably be stolen outside so it was now or never. I then asked to return it and they said nope.  Well, poop buckets.  These people are running our charities, y'all.  I guess my $10 was a donation to their cause.

But THEN I found one at another thrift store for $5.  Suck it, asshole charity!  Or suck it, me, since I didn't think to put it in my car before I paid for it...

That's $15, countless hours of my time and gallons of gas and tears all for this baby.  But at least we could get busy!  As soon as I borrowed a staple gun and watched Orange Is the New Black and mowed the grass and played 2048 for 17 hours.

Fun fact: the genius previous owner of the headboard glued what appears to be fabric softener sheets to the bottom of the legs.  Not only does this protect your floors and makes moving the thing a piece of cake it also just smells really damn nice.  I'm doing it to all my furniture now!

The other supporting characters in this production are:

1. 1/2 inch plywood cut to my desired size free of charge thanks Home Depot.

2. Two-inch thick foam.  It comes in rolls at the craft store.

3. Batting.  Cut the yardage you want at a fabric store.  I splurged for the $6 a yard kind but they do have $3 a yard but you'll want to splurge.

4. Spray paint to cover the legs.

Look I done did a thing!  Legs spray-painted and screwed into the wood to the frame.  We're really rocking and rolling!  

Important thing: you gotta ask yourself some tough questions about how tall you want your headboard.  You gotta know yourself.  Learn yourself.  Sleep with yourself.  Or just totally fucking guess.  I picked a number that was just at the top of where a person's head would touch when sitting on my bed and the average height of some Pottery Barn beds.  That dimension was 56 inches.

What I didn't want was it to end up looking like one of West Elm's headboards...

This proportion sets my teeth on fire.  Maybe you have gigantism of the torso and your top half keeps growing but your legs are stunted nubs.  Maybe you like wearing tall hats when you read at night.  Maybe you just don't give a fuck and love it anyway.  Godspeed, my tall-torso'd friend.

Wanna know something crazy?  That West Elm headboard is 56" tall.  DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND?!?!?  DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT THIS RANT??!?!?

Anyway, back to me and some power tools.  I couldn't figure out how to create a smooth surface between where I screwed in the plywood on the back and the front of the headboard.  So I cut up some Styrofoam and made a big gigantic mess in my living room and destroyed my favorite crafting ground protector to make this:

And then I realized I should TURN IT AROUND, YOU BRAINLESS FENCEPOST!  Jesus Christ on a croissant.

Welcome to my world where I only use 10% of my brain about 27% of the time.  

Of course then I had to take the entire thing back outside and spray the back side of the legs because I didn't have the forethought to paint the entire thing the first time.  

Welcome to my world where I'm 127% lazy 100% of the time.

So now that we have the logistics worked out I was ready to soften this fucker up.  It'd already fallen on me once so my already-slow brain needed the extra padding.

I laid the batting on the floor and cut the foam to the shape I needed and laid the headboard on top.  Remember, I'm doing this alone so I only have so many hands.

I would recommend cutting the padding about half and inch bigger than the actual shape it's covering just to make the edges smoother because the foam will squish.  I would probably use a spray adhesive to stick the foam to the wood but I just let gravity work its magic.  Also, I don't want to carry this thing outside anymore.

So now we're here!  And there is STILL styrofoam all over the floor even though I've vacuumed.

And then I remembered I hadn't washed the fabric.  Sigh...  this is why it takes me so long to finish anything. 

Fast forward a day later and shit's on and poppin.  Technically on and staplin.

I wish I had a trick or tip for this part but I don't.  Just make sure the weave is fairly straight then work your way down.  It's way less sexy than it sounds.  Partially because you have a high-powered staple gun in your hands and that doesn't even sound like fun kinky.  

I just did a pseudo hospital corner up top to have as small a crease as possible.  You do you.

But on the bottom things got trickier.  

I was tired and my head hurt from the headboard falling on me again so when I had to wrap the fabric around the legs it soooorta looks like I stapled fabric around a dirty diaper but you can't see it from the front so just deal with it.  

And this is my patented ModernSauce technique.  I call it the DOUBLE RAINBOW of staples followed by the duct tape edge.  The DOUBLE RAINBOW of Staples (TM) actually seems like it would be less stress on the fabric but I'm not a fabric scientist.

Here's the final result! 

Big and beige and flat!  Just what I also dreamed of!  I had to insert some extra pieces of foam if you're wondering why the bottom edge looks weird - I needed a bigger size foam piece but it'll be covered by the mattress anyway.  My spirit can only take so many trips to Hobby Lobby before the Dementors come.

I'm so tired of this being in my living room that I really couldn't get any more/better pictures.  But at least you have process so my work is done for now.  More pictures in situ later.

Even though I complained through the entire process, now that I know how to do it I would totally do it again and recommend it to anyone else too.  The sum of everything was about $110.  I would not recommend skimping on the foam or batting but I bet you could cut corners elsewhere and/or buy cheaper fabric.  

But you can do this!  I believe in you.

I just do not believe in oversized headboards.

I believe in you and proportion and staples and taking the cheap way out.