How to build a Japanese-style heated floor desk
I’m all about floor-furniture like the kotatsu, a 14th-century invention used in many Japanese homes all winter. It’s like the floor-oriented table often associated with Japanese homes, but with the added convenience of a heater and blanket. Sometimes I have daydreams about how awesome it would be to have one of these suckers. SO WARM. So cozy. None of the crampy discomfort of a western-style desk!
I’ve got a little floor-desk of my own going on, and this IKEA hack came just in time for me to play with.
A pink room in Russia on January 1 and a hot pot of stewing bison meat in this week’s reader photos
Start your week with our collection of interesting articles on the web and photos from our readers. This week: a couple images of wild and foraged food and a link to detailed photos from inside a house based on Up! In these Clicky Links you’ll find lots of sites to waste a little time on.
Click through, too, to find our links on submitting YOUR stuff to Offbeat Home!
Three ideas from traditional Japanese homes to simplify your house
Japanophile or no, you’ve gotta love learning about the way other people live — or used to live! — around the world.
Think how different your house must be from the house of a culture much older than yours…
Your next vacation is to China’s World of Warcraft theme park
Gamers, start saving now: China has opened a completely unauthorized Starcraft and World of Warcraft-ripping theme park, and we have the photos. Photos of night elf ladies and Protoss roller coasters.
A Japanese house built especially for cats — and cat ladies
Cat shelves are nothing new — whether folks build little window ledges or whole series of perches along the wall, it’s been done. What I HAVEN’T seen, though, is this: Dornob’s feature on a Japanese house designed as much for kitties as for humans.