tierra. y. luna.

The Tierra Y Luna is (are?) a pair of round rugs woven to look like the Earth and the Moon. The Earth is a hefty 98.5" in diameter and the Moon is 47.25". Not quite to scale, I imagine. Made of virgin wool if you're wondering.

nerdishly. cool.
Part of me thinks the rugs are terrifically cool and part of me thinks they're terrifically nerdy. If they weren't priced sky high (get it? heh.) I imagine a lot of NASA folks would be getting these for their birthdays. As is I'm picturing this as something you might only come across in Paul Allen's personal observatory. At $2,354.80 for the Earth and $707.60 for the Moon he could afford a lot of them.

malibu.

A cool Swedish company named Traspecialen makes a colorful line of retro-styled furniture called the Malibu. Now, there's a lot of retro out there, but what I love about this line is that the pieces come in odd sizes and configurations, and the colors include blue and orange (looks like a fluorescent green was recently discontinued...sigh).

reasonable.
The few pieces of Malibu I've seen in person seem reasonably well constructed for the price, along the lines of the higher end stuff at IKEA. The price for the storage cabinets pictured was in the $400-$600 range. Not too bad. In fact, I was hoping to get a few pieces myself, except...

malibu. where. are. you?
The only thing I don't like about the Malibu is that I haven't been able to find any for sale in the NY/NJ/PA area. If you know an online or offline store that carries the Malibu line, please let me know. (I e-mailed the company directly about where to find US dealers but so far...nothing.)

ghost. candelabra.

The Ghost Candelabra is a charming update to...you guessed it, the candelabra. It's made of lucite panels etched with a line drawing of a candelabra, and the candles perch in the four included glass-cup inserts. Supposedly when the candles are lit, their flickering light lends a ghostly look to the whole thing. And when you're not using it, it folds flat for storage. It's not only brilliant, it proves that modern design, candelabras, and ghosts can all work together.

within. reach.
And since I took a shot at Design Within Reach earlier for their outrageously priced Oskar light, it's only fair to note that they have a great sale price on the Ghost Candelabra at the moment...just $39.95 (of course they normally sell it for $75). Cheapest I found it otherwise was $50.