eco chicSeeing The Potential
To continue with the flea market theme from yesterday's post, I want to share with you a wonderful story I spotted (and loved) in Dwell magazine. Christiane Högner is a German furniture designer living in Brussels who, like me, thrives on finding things in flea markets and on the street to give them a new lease on life. Högner embodies the saying “someone's trash is someone else's treasure.” She's the queen of repurposing old and found objects and giving them unexpected uses. My favorite piece in her apartment is the All for One shelves (above) that is made of a metal frame and holds colorful old plastic crates —used to transport croissants and loaves of bread— as drawers. I love her way of thinking and her sense social responsibility. The metal frame of this storage piece is made in a workshop that employs mentally-challenged individuals.
Her genius creations are evident as soon as you enter her apartment, where Högner uses wine racks to hold her shoes. In her living room, you'll find a pair of blue collapsible metal kitchen stands she bought in a flea market and repurposed as coffee tables.
Högner believes the key to her lifestyle is being creative and seeing the potential in oldish stuff. She decorated her lovely bedroom using a couple of white chairs as night stands and orange lamps from her sister's childhood room. As for Dad's Pillows, she transformed a couple of old dress shirts into these fun accents for her divan. It's obvious the designer gets her inspiration from her everyday life and things she might stumble upon as she walks down the street. It's all about thinking out of the box and being inventive. I encourage you to read the whole story and see more of her innovative work here. Her philosophy is rather inspiring.
Images by Céline Clanet via Dwell
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