Category Archives: curbside shopping

curbside shopping design in sit[u] re-appropriation space making

What to do with 935 wood samples.

September 28, 2012 – 4:35 pm

What to do with 935 wood samples from The Uncarved Block on Vimeo.

About a year ago, we helped our friends at Relative Space with some back room clean-up.  Relative Space specializes in engineered wood flooring and is guided by the principles of sustainability & design.  Naturally, when we heard they were purging out-dated wood samples it occurred to us that it would be a prime opportunity for preemptive recycling.  We took everything…. and Relative Space was left with the comforting feeling in knowing that the wood would be repurposed.

Out of the thousands of little wood samples acquired, we took 935 of them and cladded the wall behind our bed.

Voila!

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curbside shopping design furniture gadgi objects

Gadgi (gah-jee) Mirror

November 28, 2011 – 12:36 am

Our good friend Clint, of Sunview Consulting, had us make this giant custom mirror for him.

The wood was salvaged from renovations he had done in his loft space.

It stands 7 feet high and 4.5 feet wide – there is not another mirror like it.

We kept the wood as is, perfectly imperfect.

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curbside shopping design objects projects from scrap re-appropriation sigego

Sigego Window

November 24, 2011 – 1:30 am

Biking down Brunswick Avenue this past summer, I noticed a house renovating their windows.  Their old ones were beautifully aged and wooden.  I wasn’t sure what we’d do with them but I insisted Craig come meet me immediately with the car and we took as many as we could.

One day, playing around with black paint, I decided to paint one side of the window and see if we could potentially turn it into a “sigego” surface.  It worked & looked great.

After forgetting our plan to revive the rest of the windows, Tiffany of Miracle Thieves asked if we could make them a sandwich board, giving us perfect opportunity to use and showcase our trash treasures.

We made these for them today.  Now passer-by-ers can stay in the know of what’s going on at their ever evolving space.  Go to Miracle Thieves and see our sandwich board in action.  Or ask us to make you a window sigego board and we’ll make you one with love.

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curbside shopping process project beginnings Workshop Playdates

Wenge

November 20, 2011 – 9:59 am

We get really excited when Relative Space purges because it means we get to experiment with beautiful engineered wood samples.

We have boxes and boxes and boxes of 2×3 samples in a rainbow of wood finishes and thought it could be cool to lay them all out and make a table top.  Here’s our first attempt with the wenge samples.  The grains of wenge are so varying and graphic, I could stare at this table all day.

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curbside shopping design lighting objects re-appropriation

silaw lights

August 21, 2011 – 10:21 pm

Made out of discarded fuse boxes.   Feel free to discard things our way!  We like saving things from hitting the landfills.

See more here.

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curbside shopping inspiration project beginnings

FOUND: Black Walnut

August 14, 2011 – 10:41 pm

On our bike route home we found huge chunks of beautiful wood in someone’s front lawn.  We later discovered they were black walnut.

They were so pretty we found it hard to believe that anyone would merely discard them.  I knocked on the front door in hopes to ask the homeowner whether or not the wood was up for grabs.  No answer.  Determined to find out, I left them a note in their mailbox.

The following day, I got a call from Aaron of Toronto Tree Removal (i.e. the homeowner).  He had recently cut down the black walnut and was going to sell it to a mill until his client went chainsaw-happy on it.  Now “worthless”, he said we could have whatever we could grab!

He forewarned us that this was a “godfather”-like exchange and would call on a return favour in the future.

Thanks Aaron!  We’re looking forward to more godfather-like exchanges, especially if it means material for making.

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curbside shopping design lighting objects project beginnings

Pendant Light for Miracle Thieves. The Process.

August 5, 2011 – 9:40 am

We were asked by the lovelies of Miracle Thieves to make a pendant light for their space.  Stumped on which one of our many light ideas to create, we searched for inspiration and found it in the dumpster.

Original surface.

On our bikes we stumbled upon an under-reno-house with a bin filled with old wooden floor joists.  After a moment of hesitation and a debate about termites, we returned with our car, strapped as many beams onto our roof rack as possible and headed straight to our makeshift workshop in my mom’s garage.

Craig was happy to have an excuse to buy a new toy.  Can’t get into the business of reclaimed wood without a proper planar, right?

Check out our process shots.

Finished product soon to come.

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curbside shopping lighting re-appropriation

Trash to Treasure

July 21, 2011 – 10:27 pm

The other day I got off work and noticed a number of these wooden candle lanterns on the curb waiting for their ride to the landfill.  So I took them… of course.

Our bedroom has boring track lighting above the bed and to my luck, the wooden lanterns happened to sandwich perfectly between the lighting case and the track.

I gold-leafed the inside rim of the lanterns, which made them look like intentional lighting treatments as opposed to discarded lanterns.

Et voila:

Someone’s trash turned out to be just what our bedroom needed.

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