The Cultivated Home » Technology

MyPantone – Favorite New App!

Nina — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:35:06 +0000

We love color! Every tone and shade, from bright to neutrals—if Pantone has it, we get excited about it! This is why we became overjoyed when we downloaded the newest Pantone App for iPhones and iPod Touches called MyPantone. This great new app allows you to display over 5,000 shades, helping you choose the perfect color for everything from a wall color, to a couch fabric, and even the perfect shade of fabric to complete a window treatment.

Can’t find your shade or color palette but love what you see in a recent photo you took? This great app also allows you to extract the color palette from the photo and selects the exact Pantone colors for you. It’s priced a little higher then most of the apps at $9.99, but we think that the extra cost is totally worth the fun, entertainment, and usefulness this app brings to its users. Download it today, and make over your space this weekend!

Estate Sales for All

Nina — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:20:01 +0000

One of our favorite weekend activities is searching through Saturday morning yard sales to find those amazing hidden treasures. Whether it is an amazing dining table, a piece of art, or a chair, there is something about rummaging through all the junk and finding something special from the past that brings us back to our grandparents’ attic.

Searching for a few sales to attend this weekend? We found these two great sites that you must check out! New England Auction Company and EstateSales.net are great for both the seller and the buyer. They help you find a sale and give you tips for appraisal, internet bidding, and finding a live auction to attend yourself.

Check them out today and start your bargain hunting!

Yard Sale Treasure Hunting

Nina — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:03:15 +0000

We all love finding a deal—whether it is at a retail store, a flea market, or a sample sale. Scoring a great find can send a rush that we just can’t deny. One of our favorite weekend activities is to find a deal or two at a local yard sale, but one of the hardest parts is actually finding the yard sale and even finding the right house! Fortunately for us, the geniuses over at Apple have provided us with a solution by creating the “Yard Sale Mapper” application. This app maps out listings of yard sales, garage sales, and tag sales from Craigslist.org and lets you search the map and explore and plan your treasure hunt. The best part is this app is free, making the goods you find even sweeter!

Don’t have an iPhone? Check out the site, YardSaleTreasureMap.com, print out your own paper directions and start hunting!

Swede Shop: An iPhone App We Love!

Nina — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:00:11 +0000

We love when technology meets design, and this is one beautiful example. Swede Shop is an iPhone application that makes those crazy shopping experiences in IKEA so much smoother. This brilliant little app allows you to ditch those tiny little pencils that always get lost and make your writing finally readable. Not only can you write the names, sku’s, and aisle numbers into your phone into an organized form, but you can also attach photos so that when you are running around the warehouse you can remember your priority pieces rather then just staring at those brown boxes. And no more confusion in the warehouse – this app will help you organize your path and create an “aisle” map, so you don’t have to crisscross and backtrack through the enormous amount of space. Keep it real with Swede Shop, available here for 99 cents.

The One-Stop Green Shop

Nina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:34:14 +0000

We have stumbled upon one of the best secrets in green living – Green Depot! Green Depot is one of the leading suppliers of environmentally friendly products, whether it is building supplies, home products and services, or even home design. They carry products ranging from cleaning supplies, to lighting solutions, to baby nurseries, and even building supplies. Best of all, you don’t have to look far to find it! Not only does Green Depot have an amazing website, they also have many stores across the east coast, in many major cities.

Bye-Bye Boom Box

Nina — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:32:20 +0000

I’m sure we can all think back to a time when everyone had the three-piece, boom box CD player with the two side speakers and the center CD and radio. They were large and not the most attractive addition to a room. They may have worked for a Junior High bedroom, but we have found a great, chic solution for its replacement!

Geneva Lab is a company based out of Switzerland that designs and creates high quality sound systems for the contemporary user. They are not only minimalistic with their design, but also with their features. It is an easy to use system that looks amazing, giving you the latest technology– all for your hearing pleasure! With a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, there is something for everyone, even for those looking for an entire home theater system.

Check out the GenevaSound M. This little beast packs an iPod dock and CD slot. It also plays MP3s and has an FM radio tuner– all in a chic, 7” x 14” x 10” box. The best part is you don’t see any controls or buttons from the front.

Also, the GenevaSound Home Theater is simply amazing. Available in both white and black, it looks like any other TV console straight from your favorite modern furniture store. Not only does it support your iPod, CD, and radio, it is also fitted for your TV while supplying room for your cable box and DVD player. For anyone serious about home entertainment, this is definitely something to check out!

We are Looney for Lonny!

Nina — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:17:58 +0000

Finally it has arrived! The much-anticipated Lonny Magazine is here and we can’t contain our excitement anymore!!

Whoo Hoo!

Created by one of our favorite design guru’s, the creator of the amazing company Rubie Green, former Domino editor, and fellow blog panelist Michelle Adam along with her partner in crime the amazing photographer Patrick Cline. Lonny is a godsend in the design world, here to fill the void that Domino Magazine left when it ceased to exist.

Though Adam’s and Cline do not want to replace Domino they do want to “help bridge the cap between traditional print magazine and the online world”. Their mission is to “reopen the doors of accessible design. By embracing an online platform we provide inspiration at the click of a finger, directly connecting our readers to their favorite products and resources. “

We are obsessed with Lonny already and know you will be too!

We demand you go check it out today and for every new addition they have! We know you won’t be disappointed!

iHandy are you handy?

Nina — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:24:50 +0000

Do you ever wish you had a level to perfectly hang a picture or a ruler in your pocket to get the measurements for this great console your found at a flee market? Well our favorite company Apple has come to your rescue with their iHandy Carpenter Tool Kit app for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

This amazing app comes with 5 professional carpentry tools a ruler, protractor, bubble level bar, surface level, and plumb bob. It is easy to calibrate and only takes a swipe of the iPhone/iPod to get an accurate reading. Perfect designers on the go or just the handy and tech savvy men and woman we know. For only $1.99 this app is a must forever gadget lover we know!

Designer On Call

Nina — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:16:27 +0000

Not all of us can have the skill of a professional interior designer to walk into a room and instantly be able to make it into something special. We all struggle at some point to choose the right color for the walls, the most eye catching fabric for a pillow, or even to know if a couch you love will fit through your new apartment door. These moments of panic are when you wish your best friend was an interior design or you were lucky enough to have one on call!

Just when you thought all hope is lost our favorite tech genius Apple has come to the rescue with our newest obsession the “Mark on Call” application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Created by designer Mark Lewison this app. allows you to become your own interior designer! Based on Lewison’s book “What Would You Do With This Room”, this app walks you step by step though planning, designing, and organizing your space. Perfect for both profession and novice designers M.O.C. can be used as a cheat sheet or a source of entertainment. Download today and get obsessed!

A Pairing Made in Design Gadget Heaven

Nina — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:02:16 +0000

Inspiration is everywhere; especially color inspirations. Have you ever seen a brilliantly colored flower or a dress in that perfect shade of blue you have wanted for your kitchen, but can never find the exact color at the paint store? Fret no long for our problem has been solved!

One of our favorite paint companies Benjamin Moore has teamed up with Apple to create fabulous app called ben Color Capture App for the iPhone or iPod Touch and we have nothing but amazing things to say about it. Just take a photo of your inspiration and the app pulls together the closest color in the Benjamin Moore line. Once you have found the right color just shake the phone/ipod and it will bring up coordinating colors as well. After you have chosen the perfect hue for your space the app will even pull together a list of the closest BM retailers. How ingenious is that?

Think it can’t get any better? This app is free! So hurry up and download ben Color Capture and start getting inspired.