While some of us play our records, others play with them in a completely different way. After coming across dishes made from molded, reappropriated LPs on the Internet, Carol Furlan and her partner at Ideia & Companhia stopped at the used record store, picked up a bunch that were attracting dust and made ‘em into these neat wall pieces. The duo won’t cite any rhyme or reason to which shapes they put under the laser cutting knife, but they do say they could care less whether they’re slicing into a Barry Manilow Greatest Hits album or Chicago record — it’s the color of the vinyl label they care about. Contact them directly through their site if you’re interested in ordering one.

Germans aren’t typically known for their sense of humor or whimsy. While we’d like to imagine them standing around making funny faces and taking things lightly all day, we take greater pleasure in knowing that Nik Back and Alex Stamminger, the two industrial designers behind the 2008 Blickfang Design Prize-winning brand Maigrau, utilize their quality time efficiently churning out home design innovation. The Stuttgart based brand’s ‘Split’ presentation bowl is a laser cut aluminum work of art that’s capable of showing off favorite smallish things or being filled with fruit even with it’s “reduced geometrical form.” The rest of their pieces are none too shabby either. Each Maigrau product, lends an air of simplicity and sleekness to common household items, whether it be a lamp, wall installation, hanging hook, or bowl. Needless to say, we love it.

If Stanley Kubrick were to design a Murphy bed, this would be that furniture piece. This one comes to us from the good, surface area concerned Frenchies over at Décadrages. They recognized that one of the major problems of having a twin queen-sized mattress on your floor…is that you have a queen-sized mattress on your floor. The solution: BedUP, a retractable bed that saves about 12 square feet of space in your apartment. The bed is raised an lowered by hand on gliding elevators, and can be stopped at the desired height (so your ottoman won’t become a pancake). It also has the option of having a light element in the bottom, making it a functional part of your ceiling as well. Guess it’s time to finally chuck the racecar bed.

Via Freshome

We’ve been playing a little Peeping Tom lately; we’ve spent some time peering through the window of your brand new pad. While we certainly noticed your knack for interior design, rocking the sleekest, most well designed furniture money can buy; it seems that the loot you spent on seating left your wallet too empty to address the bare wall situation. Instead of pretending to be such a minimalist when it comes decoration, we think that empty area on your wall can do with a flurry of color. Perhaps you should consider grabbing some prints from the gifted graphic designers at Identity5. The Brooklyn-based company specializes in creating breathtakingly colorful and affordable prints “designed to complement the interiors in which you work play and live.” Each image is printed using museum quality ink and limited to one hundred prints. They are also available in three canvas sizes that are sure to light up any formerly bare space and add to your interior design prowess.

God bless Sweden: check out the organic magnificence that is the Plantwall by Swedish designers Green Fortune. Growing up on walls from Moscow to Tokyo, these living architectural installations are custom designed for each space they appear in. They’ve devised a drip irrigation system that keeps the wall fresh without spreading harmful moisture and fertilizer for the plants is built into the textiles the Plantwall is mounted on. It’s green genius. I want an entire house made out of this so that I can create my own personal indoor Eden…walls and all.

You know what’s freakin’ incredible? Sparkly lights. You know what’s even better? Getting to use them indoors without looking like a college student. Yep, decorating season is here, and unless you’re the type that pulls your holiday box out of storage the day after Thanksgiving, you’ve probably just recently put the finishing touches on your home sweet home. Or maybe not; maybe you’re the anti-decorating type, maybe sparkly lights hurt your eyes, and maybe your house smells more like hot dogs than pine trees. If that sounds like you, hey, no judgment, but we’re hoping some of our readers did get into it. Actually, we’re even hoping that some of you got extra creative this season and took advantage of things like LED lights (which look very manly compared to ordinary sparkly lights) or an ecologically friendly Christmas tree. Whether you turned your apartment into Bethlehem, hung a menorahs like chandeliers, or did something even we couldn’t think up, we want to hear about it. What was your best decorating find this season?

All of us here are firm believers that decals aren’t just for advertising soft drinks on stock cars, they can also be used as decadent decorations for your home or office. That’s why back in July we informed you about the astonishing set of wall stickers by Tonky Designs, featuring engrossing images of everything from mundane objects to captivating creatures, as well as various other compelling designs. Well, nearly four months have passed and we’re pleased to announce the return of Tonky to our good graces; not just to plug the same old designs, but to trumpet some new and absorbing adhesive art. Tonky’s latest creations are based in barnyard and geared towards gadgets, respectively. Tonky’s Cow sticker and CamCorder (Exploded View) would be a welcome aesthetic addition to any personal space, whether in a frathouse or mansion.

We know you look back fondly on those high school days of zoning out to your trippy Pink Floyd black light poster in your bedroom, and while you may have outgrown that zoning out phase that doesn’t mean you’ve outgrown the need for having your wall illuminated with imagery. Jonas Samson has designed a high-tech, light-emitting wallpaper proving it “possible to use a two-dimensional flat surface as light source instead of a 3D object.” So not only can you toss that black light, maybe you should say goodbye to your desk lamp that you’re always knocking over as well. There’s a new light fixture in town, and it’s on your wall.

However, if you should feel like giving your new light emitting wallpaper a rest from its illumination duties, it retains its effectiveness as plain ol’ wallpaper. If your other wallpaper starts to get jealous and begins to light up you may just have poltergeists in your home at which point we’d recommend relocation to somewhere not built on an Indian burial ground.

I feel a special kinship to the team at Knú, the sustainable modern furniture company who launched this past September, not only because they were amongst the first of my discoveries after I started writing here, but because they are really decent people and don’t take the words “sustainable” and “recyclable” in vain. Case in point, the newest addition to their sleek lineup, the (tentatively named) Knú Aluminum Table #1. We’re the first ones with photos of it; what I can tell you is the following: aesthetically, there is a high-gloss cobalt-blue aluminum disk in the center post that sits flush with the top of the tube and hides the hardware, and while I’ve been assured the table itself is incredibly light, the base is incredibly strong and easily holds the weight of the glass. Environmentally, every last inch of it — the aluminum base, the glass top, the packaging — is 100% recyclable and is assembled and shipped from a carbon-neutral facility….in Michigan, of all places. Maybe Knú could give our nation’s auto manufacturers a tip or two in that realm.

In any case, if you’re itching for one, there’s a dozen available and you can email them directly; if you want to wait, it’ll be on their website soon. A couple more pics after the jump…

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Algae inspired decorations? Only from Vitra. Every time I walk through their West Village showroom, I lust after the decorative, snap-together pieces of their Algue — or Algae — system. It creates a beautiful combination of organic, natural lines that compliment the hard lines of the home perfectly. I’d always seen it used on a wall or wrapped around an interior column; it wasn’t until I came across Swiss design studio Fulguro’s design for Bar Nestle on Dezeen that I saw Vitra’s Algae in an outdoor setting.

The Algae provide a beautiful, delicate fence on their outdoor terrace, creating a dividing line without the visual impact of a wall or fence. Of course, if I’d ever bothered to click over to Vitra’s Site for the Algue system, I would have seen their picture of it in use outside as well. Regardless, the system works just as perfectly outside as it does mounted on a wall.

Porsche Design is certainly tapped into “what men want,” and its new collaboration with luxury kitchen designer Poggenpohl is a reminder that men like to spend time in the kitchen too (and what guy wouldn’t want to spend time in a kitchen like this?). The design is abundant with sleek and functional aluminum profiles and frames, glass, integrated lighting, and comes with your choice of driftwood or dark oak fronts to set off the other, more technical and steely materials. All of the doors incorporate innovative mechanisms that dispense with the need for handles — no more inadvertently tearing your drawers off while going for a midnight snack. And what would a “man’s” kitchen be without high tech audio-video integration that will stand up to that chicken wing sauce that you splash while hurrying back to the couch for the last play of the game? Look for this new (and tailored) kitchen concept at Poggenpohl studios around the world in spring 2008 and in the U.S. at the end of next summer; girlfriends and wives: fine…you can come too.

Check out this quick and super-fun video of our friend Undoboy installing his Blik Dreamland wall graphic. He shot the whole thing over 2 hours and then sped it up into hyper speed for our 1 minute viewing pleasure. I’m totally loving the rainbow poop graphics, and now think I might have to do the walls in the bathroom of our new office with them. Too funny. Head on over to Blik to grab your own. Undoboy does it again!

Blik, the I.D. award-winning line of wall decals, has once again teamed up with Threadless in order to produce a steady stream of awesomely sticky art. You may remember the cheery result of their first collaboration, a one-time competition that placed Letter’s 7.00 among Blik’s other designs, but this time around the battle will be bigger and longer lasting. Each month, the team at Blik will be posting a selection of their favorite Threadless t-shirts, then leaving it up to visitors to select which designs will be turned into one of Blik’s surface graphics. The chosen tees will then be transformed into self-adhesive wallscapes, ready to slap on windows, ceilings, and pretty much any other flat area you can find. My favorite thing about the stickies from Blik is that, unlike vinyl, they are all easily removable, meaning I can leave them up or switch them up as much as I choose — a nice detail for when it comes time to abort ship.

There are currently nine Threadless-begat designs available, and I like almost all of them (and almost as much as I like the rest of the stuff Blik offers), so take a look, then be a champ and cast your vote for the next round.

A little over a week ago, JS introduced you to Ptry, one of Mimoco’s latest Mimobots. Now that we’ve got three to hand out, we need to hurry up and get rid of them (or I will rip them out of their packaging myself; vicious beasts shouldn’t be caged up like that). So for today’s TSF, we’re going to hold a little competition. The deal is, Heather moved into a new apartment (with a backyard! And a walk-in closet!) this past week, and — being that it is *slightly* roomier than her last perch — she’s got some space to fill. Okay, she basically has a bed and nothing else. However, she’s also got two sites to edit/freelance pitches to write/hearts to break, and with such a tight schedule, she needs help from some design-savvy friends. We know a lot of our readers fit that bill, so we thought this could be a great opportunity to hand out some free Mimobots, discover some new stuff, and give Heather a quasi-internets-homecoming of sorts (except she’ll have to pay for everything. Unless, of course, you’re feeling generous. BWHAHAHA).

For a chance to win one of three Ptry mimobots, leave us a comment advising Heather of three things her apartment should not be without. Everything’s fair game; feel free to recommend furniture, appliances, puggle/hamster hybrid housepets, your favorite online sources for household goods; anything goes, as long as it fits into 1000 square feet. Points go out for function, creativity, affordibility and pretty much anything else we want, so leave us a comment (include your email, please!) before Monday, and we’ll see who’s worthy of some monster-protected storage space.

Heather has written about decals here before; oh, has she ever. Loyal Josh Spear readers will remember her fawning over such creative cures for the blank wall as Blik and Dvider. I bet she was the kind of girl that elementary school teachers love — a devotee of the sticker economy.

If I’m right, then the decals over at Tonky wall stickers should keep Heather happy, quiet and attentive in class for at least a week. Tonky’s may have less patterns on display than Blik, but it’s got a bunch of other good stuff, like “creatures,” rocks, skulls, and even a kids section — my personal favorite is the Dodo Skeleton. And everything on the Tonky site is available in several different colors, making it a virtual certainty that you’ll find something to suit your space. My advice it to get there before Heather does, otherwise she’ll buy Tonky up and only let you have one of her stickers if your group is the first to quiet down after recess.