Here at Architectural Classics we know there is more than one way to skin a cat.

No, don’t send your cats here! Definitely not! All I mean is that there is more than one way to make your home a testament to what has gone before … and while period hardware is an endlessly beautiful way to do that, you can also do it with nothing more than a bit of creativity and your neighbour’s garbage bin. You can take that literally if you really want …!

Another website that knows the value of junk and imagination is the site of the month, Recyclamps.com. Here you’ll find awesome recycled junk like windows put on legs with LED lighting underneath – creating a very cool glowing snail trail effect on a glass table. Great for kids, yet not great for kids at the same time!

There is an old washing machine barrel that has been made into a light fixture, creating mood lighting with spots of light all over the room. Or the light fixture made of flexible insulation cable, which looks like an alien cocoon of some description and seems to throw a beautiful grey light – it would be awesome in minimalist black and white rooms. Some of them are a little more junky than others – the lead light under a grater throws light patterns, sure – but prepare to be as underwhelmed as I was! As a friend of a friend says though, you have to slay the dragons to get to the princess :-)

There are also some Ikea baskets hung over lead lighting to make outdoor lamps. Not waterproof obviously, so undercover only! But the wicker is a great effect outdoors, with all of the trees and lattice of the garden.

One of the more impressive pieces is the felt stars plant, where half a plant pot has been stuck to the wall, with Christmas lighting extending from it, taped to the wall with a felt star covering each of the lights. So imaginative … you can tell your friends that you thought of it first, and just hope that you aren’t discovered!

And whether or not the ideas work (and believe me, there are plenty of very cool ideas that come up beautifully), one thing the site does without fail is make you look at all of the cr*p on your garage floor a lot differently! Not to mention making you want to go straight out to Ikea and wander around for hours. Just let there be light…

This wrought iron ornament is on a Parisian door … you can almost tell by looking at it, can’t you! The symmetry and the symbolism of the patterns, the ornate curling ends and the flower design in the middle all echo those ringlet-ed towering hairstyles on French ladies back in the last couple of centuries.
As a side note – the photographer says to look at the close view to see how dirty Paris is. I think that this is only furthering the stereotype that all French people are dirty, so don’t recommend it … and besides that, I don’t want to discover that the ornament is not quite as dirty as some areas of my own house!

Photo credits: Parisian door by Claude Covo-Farchi

Toilet Door poetry ranges from the eclectic, to the obscure, to the insane, the beautiful, and the hilarious. A warning before you read this blog post though, much of it also contains, frankly, toilet language! All nicely asterisked out, but if colourful language offends you, you may want to skip to the next post.

All of these messages will presumably one day be clues to civilisations that come after us as to what our life was like. They will puzzle and pore over obscure graffiti like:
“The Candle is burning and the wax ain’t happy”
and
“Check yourself b4 you wr-wr-wr-wreck yourself!”
Both of which were on toilet doors in the Foundry, in Old St … although it does not mention which country, unfortunately!

Perhaps the most mundane and oft-repeated poem (at least in my home country, Australia), found on toilet doors is this one:
Here I sit,
Broken hearted,
Tried to ****,
But only farted. (more…)

Just another beautiful example of traditional design in door hardware… I love how the verdigris patination that is collecting in the valleys is almost a royal blue in this example, and the grace that the handle falls away towards the earth with. You can see that extra screws have been added, to help keep the handle at a useable angle – the extra-droopy design must put a fair bit of strain on the fixture.

Photo credits: Brass door handle by sprocket1313

We take offense to this (probably unauthorized) inclusion in the Wikipedia entry on doorknobs:

This is unedited, except for the bolding and highlighting so that you (blog post reader) notice it.

With all of Wikipedia’s posting rules, I am very surprised that this is still there – and that it made it in to begin with! I am a little amazed that it was put in to begin with. After all, even if you are ‘sad’ enough to like doorknobs, wouldn’t someone who graffiti’s a Wikipedia page with such an inane comment be even sadder?

I actually thought I was quite a happy person … until I discovered that I am sad!!!

One last thing, to the graffiti artist – you’ve got a fat bum and a funny face and I can see your knickers and I’m telling my Mummy on you, nerny nerny ner ner!!!

PS. The graffiti was gone three days after we noticed it.