Whatever you’re doing for Valentine’s Day, it can’t possibly top this man’s hobby. Joe, a Canadian, is digging out his basement. It’s been taking a while because he’s using only tiny, scale model earthmoving equipment. At the link, you can see a large number of photos and videos that he’s posted over the years.

Link -via Dave Barry

Natalie Sampson’s table isn’t just pretty; it’s practical too. It folds into a small space and can be stuck wherever there’s loose soil.

Link -via Dude Craft | Sampson’s Website

The main disadvantage to getting up in the morning is compelling your body to move from a horizontal position to a vertical position. This experience has been vastly overrated and is avoided by all right-thinking people. Here’s a breakthrough design by the home design firm Dornbracht that reduces, but not eliminates, this problem. The next necessary development is a machine that moves you from the bed to the shower (and then back to bed) without any personal effort. What do you think? Would you like to use a horizontal shower?

Content warning: nudity at both links.

Link -via Gizmodo | Photo: Dornbracht

A good guitarist can set you on fire. So can a good spice. But when a guitar becomes unserviceable for music, it’s time to find another use. That’s what Asaf Tz’rtkof did, turning his into a spice rack.

Link (Google Translate) -via Make

Find illumination in a good book. The craft studio Typewriter Boneyard turns old books into desk lamps, often using old fashioned light bulb designs.

Link -via My Modern Met | Previously: The Book Lamp

Oscar Nuñez’s comic book-inspired bookshelves are a great place to keep your manga. They’re made of fiberboard covered with walnut veneer. This is the larger, forty-inch long model for extended dialogue scenes.

Link -via Comics Alliance | Photo: Freshome

(YouTube Link)

If watching Return Of The Jedi left you with a longing for a life in the trees, a yearning for an Ewokian lifestyle that just won’t go away, then you’ll want to visit Oregon, where builder of dream houses Michael Garnier runs his Out ‘n’ About Treehouse Treesort.

The Ewok village inspired bed-and-breakfast is best described as “woodsy”, with nine treehouses connected by bridges and staircases and the ultra fun sounding zipline option, for getting around in a heroic hurry.

Enjoy the video tour, and see how treehouses can be an unusual yet fun vacation option.

Link  –via DesignTAXI

If you can’t stop hitting the snooze button in the morning, then you might want to look in to getting one of these water powered alarm clocks, which was created by Austrian design studio Vera Wiedermann to help wake up chronic snoozers.

The water clock uses a drip system to count down the time until the hammer is released and a loud chime sounds, and the only way to get some more time in the sack is to fill it up with water all over again.

So, unless you figure out how to refill this sucker while sleepwalking, it should get you up and going better than anything with a snooze button. And it’s nice looking too, made out of glass, copper and cord, so it won’t clash with your style or reset itself when the power goes out.

Link

One, two, three, four; Pick up a mop and clean the floor;
five, six, seven, eight; house cleaning and exercise are the perfect mate!

Here's the solution to those pressed for time (and clean clothes), Aerobic House Cleaning by Steve Markovich:

If house cleaning were an Olympic sport, Stevie Markovich would be in the running for a medal.

Without resorting to gym fees or spandex, the 57-year-old Mr. Markovich has kept himself fit for the past 16 years by using the "aerobic house cleaning" exercises he devised.

He does squats while washing windows. He performs lunges and hip twists while using the vacuum cleaner, "the most versatile exercise machine" he knows.

Link - via Oddity Central

Remember this trick the next time you drop something out of a window and don’t want to walk all the way downstairs to retrieve it. It helps if your vacuum cleaner is lightweight. Link -via John Walkenbach

You’ve probably seen the ad for this underground missile base in New York state that’s been on the market for some time. Now you have a chance to take a virtual tour! Scout from Scouting New York went to the site and the owners were gracious enough to let him look around and take plenty of pictures. There’s a nice house on top, and part of the underground has been renovated for use as a modern living area. Then there are parts that recall the facility’s original use during the Cold War. Link -via the Presurfer

Laurent Craste has a serious problem with porcelain, and his knowledge of ceramics allows him to put a hurting on delicate pieces without letting them fall to pieces.

Warped and imaginative, he has come up with some great ways to bend porcelain to his will, and I wondered “how did he do that without cracking it?” many times as I checked out his site. Take a look for yourself, and see if you have any pity for porcelain.

Link  –via Beautiful Decay

Australian designer David Giametta’s 1968 Vespa scooter was beyond restoration, but not beyond repurposing. He modded the back end into a hip laptop desk.

Link -via Walyou (warning: auto-sound)

P.S. Giametta took the front end of the scooter and turned it into a lounge chair.

Steve Wheen, a guerrilla gardener, uses plants and miniatures to create sanctuaries of tranquility in broken urban places. Specifically, he alters potholes in east London. His website has many photos of his work. The best are his pictures of people reacting to seeing these tiny green spaces.

Link -via My Modern Met | Previously: When Potholes Become Art

These awesome looking stools were made by suspending giant magnets above a mixture of iron ore and molten plastic, in order to allow the hybrid substance to naturally “grow” into organic shapes and textures.

Created by Dutch designer Jolan van der Wiel, they look like just the thing to spruce up your cave when you’re expecting company, or the best birthday present ever for the mineralogist in your life.

Link

Company’s coming! Quick, hide the Harlequin romance novels, the .40 caliber cartridges and the pile of Allen wrenches!* Stuff them in this table designed by Naoki Hirakoso and Takmitsu Kitahara. There’s plenty of room because the whole thing is made of secret compartments.

Link -via Colossal | Photo: Takumi Ota

*Neatorama staff meeting. You had to be there.

If your blind date ends suddenly, then you might as well leave anyway. Marleen Jansen’s table just expedites the process.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Designer’s Website

Yes, they may be first world problems, but there should be no guilt in finding an easier way to do everyday tasks. Storing wrapping paper against the ceiling is one way to declutter. See the other 25 ideas at The Daily Buzz. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Flickr user Frank Farm)

This Facebook themed shower curtain isn’t creepy because of the graphics or text printed on it, but rather because it assumes you’ll have people spying on you while you take a shower!

And, while it may be meant for couples or roommates comfortable with sharing their shower time with others, I’m sure even in those situations it would get old quickly, prompting them to wonder “where did you put the plain old shower curtain I used to know and love?”

Link  –via Geekosystem

We’ve all been in a situation when a bathroom experience would only be enhanced if there were realistic representations of supervillains trying to break through the wall and kill us. Probably daily. So rileyreplicas, a forum user at The PF, made one for a friend’s husband. The site is currently down, so I can make no guarantee about what you’ll find at the link. But you can also visit Geekologie to see more pictures. That’s a good idea, because this one photo doesn’t do justice to the extensive modifications to the entire bathroom.

Link -via Geekologie

This classy, if a tad expensive ($4,500!) sink doesn’t come with fish, but it does offer a habitat for them. There’s a light in the back as well as access ports on the top. The producer recommends that you get a professional plumber to install it.

Link -via My Modern Met

Traveling all the way from Wayne Manor to the Gotham City Police Department headquarters takes the wind out of a crimefighter. Sit down and rest a bit before taking on the next case. Instructables user Orvis has just what an aging Dark Knight needs.

Link

How would an architect design houses from fairy tales? Let's find out: Fairy tale author and editor Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer collaborated to take a look at houses and structures from fairy tales, as seen through the lens of architecture.

Take Rapunzel's tower, for instance, as it's designed by Guy Norden and Associates:

What are the key elements of your architectural design and how is it sited?

As structural engineers we were instantly drawn to the “tower that stood in a forest and had neither a door nor a stairway, but only a tiny little window at the very top” featured in the Brothers Grimm version of “Rapunzel,” and we looked to our previous design for the Seven Stems Broadcast Tower for inspiration. We were able to meet the Grimms’ strict design requirements by employing a slender tower design of vertical cylindrical stems that are joined by intermittent outrigger beams with a reinforced space at the very top for Rapunzel’s long captivity.

View more at Design Observer: Link | More in the series: Baba Yaga and Jack and the Beanstalk

[YouTube Clip]

Money doesn't grow on trees, but that doesn't stop a group of renegade agriculturists from turning public trees into a provider for bountiful harvest by grafting fruit-bearing branches.

Meet the Guerilla Grafters:

What makes them guerrillas is the fact that this grafting is illegal. As the group’s Tara Hui explains, “people think of fruit trees as kind of a nuisance.” That’s both because of the mess they might create in the form of rotten fruit and the vermin they might attract in the form of rats. Depending on the species you’re using, grafting might also run afoul of patent law. The Guerrilla Grafters address the first two problems by making sure each grafted tree has a “steward” who can monitor and take care of it.

Andrew Price wrote the article on Fast Company: Link

Embrace and live out your dreams. Yes, you, too, can live in a Batcave. All it takes is a bit of creative thinking. Sure, The Atomic Lounge no longer sells these fan blades, but some plywood and a jigsaw, you can make some of your own.

Link -via Uber Review

But as Lena was about to gather the last of the carrots from the family vegetable patch last October, she pulled out a carrot that had something attached to it.

As the carrot was so small, she was about to throw it away when she realized what it was that appeared to be “growing” around the finger-sized vegetable.

“Our daughter Anna was at home at the time and she heard an almighty scream from the garden,” Ola Påhlsson told The Local, recalling the day of the miraculous find.

Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: The Local

Robot Tea Infuser - $9.95

Do you like your tea with a dash of retro technology? Check out this cute Robot Tea Infuser from the NeatoShop! The stainless steel tea infuser comes with its own drip tray, so you can keep your table neat and tidy. Its adjustable arms let the infuser fit any size tea cups or mugs.

Link | See more neat Coffee & Tea stuff from our Shop

Got someone who lives and breathes Facebook? Well, now you can help 'em sleep on Facebook, too!

Behold the Facebook bed by Tomislav Zvonaric of DevianTom. It's only a concept, but I know you're all liking it, am I right or am I right?

Flickr user Lady Oracle calls this “The most rockin’ fence in E-Town.” That’s Edmonton, Canada, I think. And this house is roomier than the house with the ukulele fence.

Link -via Offbeat Home

Eric Johnson’s urban garden is so small that it lacks a single blade of grass. So he has to get creative to make the most of it. One change that he made was to embed glass marbles into his privacy fence. It’s really simple: just drill holes into the wood and push the marbles in! Think of the creative patterns that one could make, like constellations or rainbows.

Link -via Offbeat Home

This psychedelic habitat looks like a great place to *ahem* sit around with friends and laugh at stuff. Part of the Nautilus House in Mexico City, a conceptual abode that’s shaped like a giant shell, it looks perfect for entertaining and terrible for getting any kind of serious work done.

Take a mini tour of this tripped out pad, including the original concept art that inspired the architecture, at the link below.

Link –via BuzzFeed

This idea by Flickr user psychojunglerat has so much potential! Earlier incarnations could be an audio cassette rack made from 8-track tapes or a disc record rack made out of wax cylinders.

Link -via Offbeat Home

No, not there, there! Some bibliophiles are really specific about how they arrange their treasures. Jane Dandy, a furniture maker in San Francisco, can make them one-of-a-kind bookcases to fit individual collections, and no others.

Etsy Shop -via Colossal

The picNYC Table, designed by the Dutch firm Haiko Cornelissen Architecten, lets people in densely-packed urban areas experience nature without leaving home. That’s real grass, so owners have to tend to it like a garden. Ants are not included.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Photo: Haiko Cornelissen Architecten

Stefan Kanetis’s mother loved her life as a dancer, but paid a price for it when she was in her later years. The wear and tear on her body made it difficult for her to get around. Her doctor suggested swimming, but getting in and out of a pool would be very difficult. So Mr. Kanetis invented a pool with a floor that raised and lowered. The end result was this amazing pool that is perfect for your inner James Bond villain.

Link -via Super Punch

These charming paintings by Christopher Stott are full of nostalgia and the love of vintage design.

With muted hues and a soft light, they’re easily mistaken for photographs at a glance, and Christopher shows remarkable skill for imitating real-world reflections, from chrome to painted metal to the edge of a plastic book sleeve.

You can admire the rest of these masterfully crafted paintings at the link below.

Link –via Flavorwire

Dropping a cement filled mannequin on a perforated metal trapezoid is a really strange way of creating a chair, and it looks as you would expect it would-crumpled and uncomfortable. But hey, you can’t blame designer Ezri Tarazi for trying to come up with something new in the world of furniture design. If only he could find a more practical use for a cement-filled mannequin, say as a wrecking ball or to weigh down a snitch when he drops them in the ocean.

Link –via DesignTAXI

The thirteenth - and most difficult - labor of Hercules may just be supportin' your bottom ... Behold Soft Hercules, a stool featuring the bust of Hercules cast from foam rubber by Fashion Architecture Taste: Link - via Notcot

This beautiful luxury home in New York’s Adirondack State Park has an awesome secret-it’s built on top of a former launch control center, and has an additional 2300 square feet of space which lies safely underground.

And now this cabin/bunker can be yours for a mere $1.75 million! Maybe Bruce Wayne is looking for a vacation home, complete with pre-constructed BatCave? You can see more pics of this survivalist dream house at the link below.

Link

Russian industrial designer Tembolat Gugkeav has some quirky furniture designs, such as this piece entitled Tectonic Bookcase. It’s perfect for people who keep messy desks.

Link -via Dornob

Model builder msmuse101 and her father threw their skills together and produced this awesome TARDIS dvd shelving unit, which looks so good they should mass produce them and sell them in stores.

The only problem with this TARDIS? It’s way smaller inside than it looks on the outside, like it was made in an alternate reality.

Link –via GeeksAreSexy

This awesomely geeky AT-ST treehouse is simple, no-frills fun for a child that’s more content using their imagination all day rather than being plugged in to a tv or video game console all day. Combine this with some sweet kiddy cosplay sessions and you’ve got a little piece of Endor in your backyard.

Link –via Geekosystem

The Pin Pres is a storage system that lets a child change the positions of sliding pins to create custom shelving arrangements. My kids could have hours of fun with this. And when no one is looking, I could, too!

Link -via My Modern Met | Design Studio’s Website

The Philips company introduces lights that run without electricity or solar power. Instead, they harness the bioluminescence of bacteria. You have to feed them fuel, namely methane and compost. The lights developed so far aren’t bright enough to read by, but they may have other uses, like illuminating dark roads and exit signs. Link -via Buzzfeed

In a delightfully stylish blend of old tech and new, Devin Ward has discovered the charm and simplicity of repurposing vintage radios for use as IPod docks. So if you wanna swank up your pad, without sacrificing the convenience of having many gigabytes of music at your fingertips, then these retro styled beauties might be just the thing.

Link –via DesignTAXI

This Octopus Table by artist Isaac Krauss is made out of bronze and pure awesomeness. Isaac and his collaborator Alex Friend put 1,500 hours and about $5,000 to build the 8-armed table.

Laughing Squid has more pics: Link | Alex Friend's web page about the build process

For a discreet and understated way of expressing class, put Charly Molinelli’s coffee table in your parlor. It looks better than a crushed ’86 Buick Regal in a cardboard box, but only slightly.

Link -via Born Rich

Want to take your pillow fights to the next level? These pillow weapons were designed with you in mind! Guaranteed to cause less bodily harm than a real scimitar, or lightsaber for that matter, they will make you fee like you’re armed with a real weapon when the pillows start flying. Now go forth and plush the heck out of each other!

Link

Got an extra bicycle? Turn it into a sink stand! That’s what artist Benjamin Bullins did. His whole house is filled with old gear recycled for new uses.

Link -via Craft

This kooky yet innovative clock features a masked figure that contorts into the shape of numbers throughout the day, so your clock face becomes a miniature stage for interpretive dancers.

Called the Hone Hone clock, it is mesmerizing to watch, and will bring a sense of life to your boring old clock. Now, you’ll want to watch the seconds tick by all day!

Link –via Geekosystem