Hasta La Ideas

I recently saw a touching story about a previously homeless family that found housing but lacked any home furnishings — until a local charity helped them out. (Click the link to see the short video, including before and after photos.)

Eight-year-old Daerye Neely and mom Dionna Neely walked into their new home in Detroit to find a wonderful surprise – a furnished home decorated for free by charity Humble Design after the co-founders heard about the Neelys’ story of hardship.

Since I’m always looking for good places for people to donate the gently used items they no longer want or need, I wanted to know more — so I started investigating.

Humble Design is “a non-profit helping families transitioning out of homeless shelters by providing furnishings and design services. We turn their empty house into a clean, dignified, and welcoming home.” And given that mission, it takes a wide range of donations: furniture, rugs, artwork, linens, towels, books, toys (excluding stuffed animals), TVs, dish sets, silverware, mugs, and more. Pick-up services are available for large furniture items, although only in certain areas — and there’s a wait list.

I’ve written about furniture banks before, and many of these accept more than just furniture. For example, see the listing for the Furniture Bank serving greater Toronto, Canada. Furniture banks, working with partner agencies, provide a great service for “the previously homeless, unemployed and working poor, battered women and children in retreat, immigrants, individuals with mental or physical disabilities, victims of a fire, robbery, and natural disasters, etc.” And these items are provided at little or no cost.

Organizations like Humble Design don’t identify as furniture banks, but they seem to provide somewhat comparable services. Other charities that seem similar to Humble Design include:

• Furnishing Hope, serving Tempe, Arizona and vicinity
• Furnishing Hope of Massachusetts
• Schenectady Home Furnishings in New York
• Shelter to Home program at Highlands United Church in Vancouver, British Columbia
• The Provision of Basic Need Items program at A Wider Circle, serving the Washington D.C. area

All of these organizations have specific wish lists and standard donation guidelines. None of them want items with stains, odors, rips, or any other major wear. Linens and towels should be washed before donating.

If you have household furnishings to donate — especially furniture, which many organizations don’t handle — furniture banks and organizations like Humble Design are good to keep in mind.

Post written by Jeri Dansky

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Micro-living is only getting bigger… as it does, so does the need for space-saving furniture. Perfect for puny entryways, the Kuklovod series rethinks the classic coatrack with a design language of reduced footprints or none at all! In pedestal, wire frame and pendant varieties, there’s one for every personal taste or spatial requirement! In particular, the wire frame options allows room for a pair or two of shoes to be placed underneath your scarf, jacket or even jewelry so they’re handy the next time you need them. Most interesting of the set, however, is the pendant version which dangles directly from the ceiling without constraints due to limited floor space. In a selection of vibrant color options, you can mix and match them to suit your own unique interior style!

Designer: Vladimir Pashkov

Click here to Buy Now

Click here to Buy Now

Never did I think that I’d one day write about soap design, but you have to marvel the fact that someone spotted the problem all of humanity struggled with, but didn’t bother solving. The slippery soap.

Soaps are probably too organic shaped for their good. Anyone who’s even used something as non-slippery as a phone can say that the bar shape isn’t hand-friendly. Candybar shaped stuff have an inherent tendency to slip out of your grip, so the Tetra Soap is everything but that. Designed to be as grippy and ergonomic as possible, the soap comes in the shape of a wave-breaker, giving you a great amount of surface area to work up a lather, while making sure the soap is easy to hold onto even (especially) when wet. The shape even comes with ‘legs’ that let you rest the soap on a soapdish naturally. What’s more, the wave-breaker shape allows the soap to remain ergonomic even as it erodes away, letting it be easy to hold and useful until the very last day. Plus is it just me, or does the eroded form of the soap look just as eye-catching as its original shape??

Designer: Tetra Soap