A recurring theme from this years’ International Contemporary Furniture Fair was the use of classic metals such as copper.  From lighting fixtures to tables and accessories to tableware, these modern and trendy pieces are an homage to yesteryear.  They provide a clean, sharp look for any home or office and are made to last longer than the often disposable furniture of the modern age.  

Grace Bonney from Design Sponge reacted buoyantly to what she saw at ICFF:

As much as I’ve loved ICFF’s trends so far this year (Green, Geometrics and Brass & Copper), I will always consider copper my first love. Classic metallics like this will never go out of style, but copper really had a moment this year and, fingers crossed, seems to be tipping over into the rose gold world, too. That rosier, pinker point of view is so...

It takes quite an imagination to see corrugated cardboard and envision a glowing lamp, but that is exactly what Italian designer Linda Rose did with this beautiful, upcycled piece.

Appearing on the electronic pages of Upcycle That, Rose's Cube Cardboard Lamp makes for both a phenomenal craft experience and a conversation starter.  The 'how did you do that's will undoubtedly flow if you put one of these simple yet precise lamps together for your home.  To boot, the instructions provided seem easier to follow than you might expect.  

Up first?  Cutting the cardboard, of course.

Catch the rest of the workflow on Upcycle That…

Beckie of Infarrantly Creative has shared a how-to for a remarkable #DIY children's Lego table. Recreating this project might be tricky as she doesn't start with an easily attainable piece of flat-pack furniture. Rather, she found a "skanky" old 1980’s smoke glass inset table with rounded corners to modify, so tackling this project would require some modification.

Replacing the table's glass insets with Lego boards is what made this project tick.  The before (below) and after (above) pics are testimonial enough.

Her process…

Cut the 1/2” MDF to cover the inside of the table.  I chose 1/2” because I needed that size for the insets to be flush with the table.  You want to create a lip so that the MDF insets will sit flush with the bottom ridge of the table when you put them in from the top of the...

Bunny droppings.  How many of us have them?

Ok, so maybe the Whodini reference is a bit obscure for Monday morning.  Nonetheless, this incredibly cute IKEA hack allows you to turn an IKEA Besta shelf into a rabbit hutch that isn't just a poop-filled cage.

Efficient and stylish, this hutch is also a cost-saver.  A quality home for your bunny can run you upwards of $500.  By spending $200 on this shelf, MDF board, and some mesh wire, Evelien Lulofs' hutch fits the high-end bill without you incurring a high-end, um, bill.

This is not to say it's a cinch and Lifehacker, from whom we lifted the link, admits the original instructions fall a bit flat.  But sometimes YOU JUST HAVE TO DO WHAT IT TAKES FOR YOUR BUNNY:

Evelien’s instructions aren’t particularly detailed, especially if you’re a woodwork newbie (in fact, your bunny...

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of designer Ray Eames, Vitra is releasing a new series of "hang-it-all" coat racks.  Eames' original design, which used nine multi-colored balls on which to hang it all, is given a touch of gradient color by Vitra.  It's a remodernization of a classic touch of modernism.

Below are three of the racks created by Vitra and a guide to achieve similar color effects using PANYL.  If you want to hang some stuff above or near your customized Expedit, Malm, Billy or Besta this is the guide for you.  As always, you can sample PANYL finishes in 5-packs through PANYL.com.

A similar effect to Vitra's "Green" selection can be achieved by getting creative with our Robins Egg, Emerald, Citron, and Clay. 

Indirectly though awesomely taking the concept of the IKEA hack to a new level, robotics researchers at MIT have programmed a Kuka YouBot to assemble IKEA furniture.  This isn't a hack of an IKEA piece per se, it's a hack of how to assemble an IKEA piece.  

One can only assume that a creative computer type will get their hands on IkeaBot -- as this particular YouBot has been dubbed -- hack it, and program it to create new designs out of different IKEA goods. HackBot.

Via Core77:

The KUKA YouBot Omni-Directional Mobile Platform with Arm is a small, arm-on-a-skateboard type of robot that can perform simple tasks. Recently Ross Knepper, a robotics researcher at MIT, and his team hacked up a couple of them to assemble store-bought IKEA furniture. While it was primarily an exercise, versus designing a commercially-viable...

Interior designer Elizabeth Holmes has no qualms about using IKEA furniture in her work, especially if she can customize the famously flat-packed items.  In a recent post for her blog, On Design, Holmes explains her design philosophy before describing how she turned an IKEA storage shelf into a playful dresser.

I never turn my nose up at the thought of an Ikea furniture piece residing in a room I’ve decorated, so long as every other piece of furniture in the room isn’t from Ikea. A space is much more interesting and much less like a furniture showroom when its contents are sourced from different places, giving it an eclectic and lived in feel. And when it comes to Ikea furnishings, I’ve been known to add a few embellishments to create exactly the wanted look. Case and point: this Expedit shelf goes from bathroom storage to...

When we showed the world our IKEA Expedit + iTunes stereo hack last year we were pretty proud of ourselves.  But now that we've seen Brooklyn designer Jeremy Pickett's take on a hacked soundsystem (in person) we realize we should have PANYL'd our egos instead of a storage unit 'cause they're going to need some serious, architectural grade protection.

Pickett's project is, as they say, "how it's done.”  The Morkt Samfunn is a throwback to the entertainment consoles of the 40’s and 50’s.  Thanks to some creative wiring, though, this unit sounds anything but dusted off.  Using high quality vacuum tubes and laying out a 5w power amp to cut down on cross-interference, the creative design provides excellent sound quality.  To boot, the exterior elevates the unit to interior design centerpiece status.  This is an impressive project on every level of its...