The Top 15 Products Dwell Readers Bought in August
Get the scoop on what’s been trending amongst your fellow design obsessives.
Get the scoop on what’s been trending amongst your fellow design obsessives.
The final month of summer vacation is always bittersweet, merging playful outdoor activities like backyard grilling, beach trips, and picnics in the park with preparations the excitement (and dread) of shopping for shiny new back to school supplies.
August saw our readership add the following to their carts: a Dwell-recommended beach read to enjoy a la playa; a cat tree that won’t clash with your decor; a lunch bag to make toting your midday salad less cumbersome; and even a midcentury-modern mailbox to amp up your home’s curb appeal. Scroll on to see what else your fellow Dwell readers were loving last month.
A book about living with others and liking it
Together by Design: The Art and Architecture of Communal Living
With a growing population comes a growing need for innovative, sustainable housing. Together by Design explores the architectural and social benefits of communal living and shared spaces. Whether it's families in a multigenerational home, millennials sharing rent, or older singles seeking companionship, cohousing and other types of intentional communities offer economic, social, and environmental advantages for all demographics. Collective housing alternatives originated in Denmark in the 1960s and gained popularity in the United States in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for today's inventive shared living alternatives. Featuring photography, renderings, and site and floor plans, this survey of more than fifteen contemporary projects explores communal living through architecture, public policy, design, lifestyle, culture, and environmental sustainability.
Some crisp new sheets
Nordstrom at Home Percale Sheet Set
Embrace minimalist style with this crisp cotton percale sheet set that includes a fitted sheet, flat sheet and two pillowcases.
A classic for a reason
Forty Five Supima Crew Tee
The t-shirt, perfected. The 45 RPM record changed music forever. It gave rise to a new class of creators and freethinking rebels, delivering one well-crafted hit at a time. Forty Five is rooted in this same spirit, homing in on the one thing they do best—classic, well-made tees built to be worn time and time again. Cut and pressed in Los Angeles’s Fashion District, their designs were workshopped over years to achieve the perfection of well-worn vintage t-shirts from the ‘60s and ‘70s. The Supima Crew Tee is as classic as it gets—familiar in look, but with a level of craftsmanship and thoughtfulness that allows you to wear it on its own with your favorite jeans.
The gift of... exfoliation!
Goshi
A body polishing, skin cleaning towel made in Japan. There’s a reason our best ideas come at us in the shower. While our thinking brain relaxes into an automatic task, those background thoughts can free-associate all over the place. But that automatic task is still important—getting you clean. Which is why this towel from Japan is so genius. With a weave of exfoliating and lathering threads plus its generous dimensions, the Goshi Towel cleans, sloughs away dead skin, and gets at all those hard-to-reach spots. At the end of a shower, your skin is softer and cleaner than ever before... without you even having to think about it.
The perfect grilling accessories for late-summer dining al fresco
Tovolo Prep & Serve Grill Trays, Set of 2
No more mix-ups. You just fired up the coals, and you’re about to sear a couple of steaks...only, how do you keep the raw juices off of the cooked meat? Lucky for you, these grill trays just swooped in. There’s one for prep work and one for serving (the different colors will tell you which is which). Each one has grooves, too, ready to catch any drippings. They nest one over the other, then zip through the dishwasher when they’re done—talk about convenient.
The easiest home upgrade
Design Within Reach Neutra Modern House Numbers
In 2001, renowned design studio House Industries partnered with the estate of late architect Richard Neutra – whose notable projects include the Kaufmann House (1947) in Palm Springs, the Lovell Health House (1929) in Los Angeles and the Kronish House (1955) in Beverly Hills, among others – to create a set of fonts based on the geometric letterforms Neutra specified for many of his residential houses and commercial buildings. The resulting font family, Neutraface, became an integral part of the new millennium’s typographic landscape. Rendered directly from the Neutraface outlines, precision-crafted Neutra House Numbers (1930s) bring a piece of the Neutra aesthetic to any residential or commercial space. Designed for visibility, these robust house numbers mount approximately 0.75" off the wall to cast subtle shadows. Each includes extensive installation instructions and a full-scale drilling template to eliminate any guesswork, and the mounting hardware is hidden when installed properly. Made in China.
The best possible way to hold onto the dregs of summer
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan's travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.
A short for whatever September throws your way
Flint and Tinder Dobby Chore Short
Heritage-inspired chore shorts made with dobby workwear fabric. Flint and Tinder is tapped into the vast archives of heritage menswear, and when they feel inspired to craft something new, they know exactly what kind of vintage silhouettes and fabrics to turn to. The Dobby Chore Short is modeled after traditional French workwear from the 1940s, built with a durable and textured linen fabric with the same refined style as a pair of chinos but with a lot more personality. As versatile as they are unique, you can easily step it up with a breezy buttondown and a pair of loafers or keep it simple with a t-shirt and sneakers—whatever the day's activities call for.
A chic brown paper bag alternative
Calpak Insulated Lunch Bag
Everything you need—and so much more. Our Insulated Lunch Bag keeps all your essentials fresh for quick lunch breaks from work or picnics with friends. This reusable waterproof lunch bag features a wipeable interior for easy cleanliness multiple pockets inside and out for maximum organization. Pack it full, pull the drawstring shut, and you’re out the door.
Something nice for Mr. Fluffybottom to climb
Frisco 72-in Large Base Faux Fur Cat Tree & Condo
The Frisco 72-inch Large Base Cat Tree is the ultimate all-in-one spot for your kitty to do all the things she loves, from lounging to leaping to honing her expert hunting skills. Frisky cats can jump from perch to perch and climb to the top of the lookout tower. Carefully placed dangling toys give Kitty the thrill of the hunt as she bats them around till her heart’s content. With ten enticing scratching posts, several cats can claw at once, so it’s great for multi-cat households. When it’s time for a catnap, two private kitty apartments provide quiet spots to curl up for snoozing. The faux fleece fabric covering makes naptime comfy, plus it’s great for face rubbing and nuzzling.
Five Two Down-to-Earth Compost Bin
Give your food scraps new life with help from our compost bin. The backstory: We found out 83% of our community who don’t compost would like to start. So we set out to create a bin that would make taking the next step toward sustainability easy. Over 350 comments from our community helped us design a bin that’s got their wish list covered: It keeps odors masked, sits pretty on the countertop, and holds days (and we mean days) of scraps. And in the spirit of slashing your trash, when your bin reaches the end of its life, it’s 100% recyclable. But first, come on, get scrappy and turn that garbage into gold—adding compost to the soil will help leafy-green gardens thrive, not to mention make you feel super stinkin’ good about making a difference. Check out our composting guide for tips and tricks that’ll help you hit the ground running.
It's a new classic
Tools: The Ultimate Guide
A must-have compendium for anyone looking to learn about the fascinating world of over 500 essential tools. This is the book for answering all your tool questions, gaining knowledge before hiring a professional, or simply flipping through just for the joy of learning something new about the objects that shape our world. This expansive guide catalogs more than 500 tools for measuring, cutting, fastening, and shaping—from hammers and saws to wrenches, welders, and drawknives. Throughout these illustrated pages, you'll learn how to care for each tool so it can last a lifetime, as well as learn intriguing tidbits and fascinating histories of each object along the way. TONS OF INFORMATION: This chunky book is filled with detailed information about a wide variety of tools you'd find in a home improvement store; it will earn a spot in your garage, shed, workshop, or studio. EASY TO USE: Learn how to avoid wasting countless hours on head-scratching home repairs, wonky backyard builds, and failed garage tinkering.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for melamine!
Crate & Barrel x Shinola Mackinac Melamine Dinnerware and Serveware
Showers of speckles animate our Mackinac melamine collection, giving the durable material the look of covetable terrazzo. Ideal for worry-free outdoor dining, the dishes stand up to everyday dining and cleaning in the dishwasher. Set a dramatic table with the cream-flecked black dinnerware and serveware in our exclusive Shinola Mackinac collection, or incorporate the orange, blue and cream pieces for a playful yet modern look.
This is practical and that's fine
Anker PowerPort Strip PD 2 Mini
Charge and power up to 5 devices at the same time via 2 USB ports, 2 AC outlets, and 1 USB-C port. With the AC outlets located on the side, you’ve got enough space for any size plug. Designed with a slimmer plug than other power strips, perfect for hard-to-reach outlets tucked away behind your bed or sofa. The child-friendly safety shutters prevent foreign objects from being inserted into the outlet, keeping you and your children safe.
Live a little and upgrade your mailbox
West Elm Modern Metal Mailbox
Featuring a lift-down front clad in steel and teak, the Modern Metal Mailbox—available in a black, antique brass, or nickel finish—is big enough for even thick magazines and padded packages.
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