Hanging out with Bob

Designed by Hella Jongerius, who you might know from her work for Ikea (I still love her Ikea PS Jonsberg vases), Bob is the latest in outdoor furniture from Spanish firm Kettal. I totally dig the indoor/outdoor feel the collection has, and seriously, how handsome does it look in that architecturally stunning raw wood space - Who knew knotty pine could look so mod? I'm also loving the two-tone metal frames on all three pieces, as well as the two-tone grey upholstery and lovely crafty wound yarn detail that shows up on the armrests of the chair and on handles of the footstool and table (oh, and that cool looking lamp is an outdoor piece too). In Canada, check in with BonaVista LeisureScapes if you fancy kitting out your deck with a set.

 

PS I love you

The other day I overheard an interior designer say how much he hated Ikea, slagging it off as cheap and nasty, and I thought to myself how he'd completely missed the point. Their affordable design means that anyone and everyone can have access to cool gear, no matter what stage of life and how deep their pockets might be. I've gotta say, if you're too posh to have Ikea in your house, then you obviously far too posh for me, lol.

The new Ikea PS collection is finally in select stores across the country (hello Boucherville, Etobicoke, Edmonton and Coquitlam) and is definitely on the cool side. The line employed hot designers such as Hella Jongerius, and edgy all-woman Front Design group, to come up with a slew of fab stuff. In researching the stories behind each piece I stumbled across a bunch of Ikea PS videos that I thought would be sweet to share. The first gives an animated overview of the collection, the second (subtitled in French) digs deeper and follows Hella Jongerius to India where the Mikkel wall hangings are made - and how brilliant that each one is signed by the craftswoman that made it... Click here to check out the rest of the videos (be sure to watch them in HD).