The winner – to be announced at the Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles June 22-24 – will be given the opportunity to have their design manufactured and sold by Design Within Reach (DWR).

My wife grew up in an awesome atomic ranch home built in the late 1950′s.  I don’t think her parents ever had a real appreciation for the style – it was simply the right size for the right price in the right neighborhood when they bought it.  Over the years, they changed nearly all of the original finishes and fixtures.  This unique ceramic pendant lamp came out of the breakfast nook.  The blue globe had been broken in storage, but I was able to find all of the pieces and glue them back in.  After some paint, polishing and new wire to replace the yellowed original wiring, it looks nearly as good as new.  We have now given it a new home hanging in a sitting area adjacent to our kitchen.

 A combination of basic geometric shapes and the use of wood together with metal give this range of lamps a homely appearance, at the same time as a clearly defined personality. All of the movements of the fully rotating shade use arms and hinges, and its technical precision means that springs or counterweights are not necessary in order to maintain the selected position. Scantling is a term used to define the size to which a piece of wood or stone is measured and cut, derived from the name of an old unit of measurement. The interplay of the different elements used in its design gives this lamp an archetypal, almost graphic appearance.

We quickly made it our own as much as we could with simple things like paint, door hardware and lights, but as is typically the case, it took us longer than expected to get around to the major changes.  Finally, last year, we dove in – to the first floor at least.  We stripped all of the trim and most cabinetry, moved a couple of walls and created some larger openings.  I hit myself in the head HARD with a hammer in the process of demolition – something I would have previously thought not possible!  I spent the rest of the day working with a paper towel stuffed in my ear to hold back the bleeding.  One of my favorite parts of what we accomplished is our newly re-designed fireplace.

The existing fireplace was a beige brick mess.  My initial thought was just to stucco over it, but after a little playing around in SketchUp, I decided to get a little more radical with it.

Here are some progress photos:

And the finished product:

We are still trying to accessorize properly.  The Shag print my wife gave me for my birthday fits nicely and the vintage Eames shell chair I previously posted about now sits in place of the orange Ikea chair in these photos.  We have always had somewhat modern taste, but much more so now than when we were first married, so we have many previously purchased pieces and gifts from family that just don’t fit.  Some of it is getting weeded out over time, but some things, you just feel obligated to keep, so I don’t think we’ll ever be magazine photo shoot material, but that’s OK – we’re happy with it.

If you don’t have a built-in bar or room to add one, bar cabinets and carts can be a fun piece of furniture to shop for.  There is so much variety and, if you choose to go with a cart, it can be a very versatile piece for indoors or out.  Here are a few of our favorite solutions – some aren’t specifically intended as bar storage, but we think they could make a great choice:

Case Study Unit from Modernica

Industrial Metal TV Cart from West Elm

Circa Bar Cart from nova68

Kartell Gastone Cart from All Modern

B52 Bar Cart from Fusion Furniture

Barboy design by Panton from DWR

Line Wine Bar Cabinet from DWR

Ocean Club Parrot Cay Bar Cabinet from Tommy Bahama Home

Swig Bar Cabinet from CB2