Design Groupie Series 01: Rex Ray

In between house projects, I'll be posting the work of artists and designers I gush over. Past or present, they all make up my fantasy world.

01: REX RAY | rexray.com
I got this shot with my iPhone (taking notes for the wish list and blog) in a Jonathan Adler store in San Francisco in February. Instant obsession with his resin panel work. He also did graphic design for some of David Bowie's posters and the album, Hours. How cool is that???

Here are additional works from his site.
copyright rex ray 2006 all rights reserved

copyright rex ray 2006 all rights reservedcopyright rex ray 2006 all rights reserved


copyright rex ray 2006 all rights reserved

You break it, I fix it: Part II

So, a few months ago I wrote about the number of things that were broken in our place that I've been able to fix, thus improving our "QoL index." Allow me to toot my own horn and highlight a few of them (Because it's vaguely interesting. To me.):

1. The Refrigerator.
   
   I've never had an ice maker before, nor a filtered, ice water dispenser. The fridge we inherited has both but neither were working. Maybe it was because the water feed to the fridge was broken and nobody bothered to look. Or maybe it was the Ziploc bag full of rotted fish guts that had been jammed into the ice maker that nobody bothered to clean out (!).
   
   
   Regardless, all it took was a little time (to pull apart the ice maker, clean out each part and order those that were unsalvageable at minimal cost) and a little plumbing power (to pull out the fridge and install a new, flexible feed tube).
   
   Voila! Fresh, cold water and near-limitless ice cube action!
   
   
2. The Clothes Dryer.
   
   This one, I must admit, involved little on my part - just writing a check to the guy who came in and cleaned out the 8,000 pounds on lint that had clogged up the dryer's vent pipe.
   
   Duh.
   
   
3. The Jacuzzi Tub.
   
   This one really irked me - our master bathroom has a jacuzzi tub that didn't seem to work. Now, I'm not much of a "jacuzzi guy" but, as has been previously stated, just becuase I probably won't use something doesn't mean it's OK that it doesn't work. Because you never know when the urge may grab you to take a jacuzzi bath (!).
   
   Again: easy solution. The trip switch plug that the jacuzzi's motor is plugged into was faulty (wouldn't reset). A quick trip to the hardware store, five minutes of darkness as I turned off the circuit breaker and voila! A noisy (and, as a result, less-than-relaxing) jacuzzi!
   
   BTW, I can't help but to think of Eddie Murphy in "Trading Places" whenever I think of jacuzzi tubs...
   
   
4. Home Security System.
   
   This is my most recent triumph. We have one but it was deactivated and, even if we decide not to use it, I want to know that it works. First, it took a bunch of research to find documentation and programming instructions. Then I realized that one of our window sensors didn't work, so I had to track down that part. Then it took me ages to figure out why the thing insisted on beeping at random after being turned on - it was because it was looking for it's former connection to a monitoring service.
   
   Here's where it gets interesting: in order to re-program that connection you have to have the "programmer's code," which, of course, nobody knows, meaning that I have to sit down with a six-pack of beer and induce carpal tunnel syndrome by punching in 10,000 possible combinations 'til I get the right one.
   
   Well, wouldn't you know it - I picked a random starting point and managed to hit it in the first 400! So after a few hours of fiddling with programming (and freaking the dog out to no end with all of the beeping, burping and false alarms I incurred) I got the thing all set!
   

What's the point of all this? Not to toot my own horn but to re-iterate how odd it is that so many simply things were left to languish for so long by the former owners. I just don't get people sometimes...