See you on www.houseofthol.nl

Waterworks @ Waterdrinker Aalsmeer

Waterdrinker  is a leading wholesale platform based in the epicentre of international flowertrade: Aalsmeer, the Netherlands. Their mission is to make plants and flowers available to everyone.
Waterdrinker has vast knowledge about everything concerning plants and flowers and has a strong focus on innovation. Aside from their larger trading business Waterdrinker runs a wholesale cash & carry that covers 12.000 square meters. It's an inspirational hotspot where flowershops and conceptstores from all over Europe buy their plants and greenery-inspired accessories. Innovation centre of the Cash & Carry is the 'Novelty square', and we're happy to let you know that Waterworks is now available at Waterdrinker and got a lovely spot on the novelty-square.

We'll be there for a meet&greet to tell all buyers about the irrigationn system we designed on Sunday October 2nd from 07:00 - 12:00 & Monday October 3rd 07:00 - 12:00.
Don't worry if you are not able to make it then, other meet & greets will be scheduled in the coming weeks.

photograph via Instagram

Kosmik Waterworks

Look at this well-designed overview page from last weeks' Kosmos magazine (coming with Suddeutsche Zeitung).


Vielen Dank for the mention Kosmos Magazine and Süddeutsche Zeitung!













Here's a close-up of the Waterworks-feature:

Lifesaver / Waterworks in Brigitte Magazine

Earlier this summer we were very happy with Waterworks being featured in German magazine 'Brigitte'.

If the caption is 'Life-saver', what's not to love about a publication?!

Here's a close-up of the text:

Waterworks in Urban Jungle paradise / Wildernis Amsterdam

photograph by Wildernis Amsterdam

Urban gardening is happening and Wildernis in Amsterdam is the absolute hot-spot for all interior and urban plant lovers in our Dutch capital city.
Wildernis opened about a year ago, and it didn't take long for the store to rise to cult-status among bloggers and urban jungle fans.

It isn't difficult to see why: the interior is stylish and green as well as welcoming and pleasantly chaotic. An impressive collection of houseplants is showcased in a variety of pots ranging from basic terra cotta to contemporary design and quirky vintage finds. The many (many!) hanging plants create an instant urban jungle vibe with their downward cascading leaves.

photograph by Urban Jungle Bloggers
click for full blogpost

All products sold at Wildernis have a link with greenery, albeit in the broadest sense of the word, which makes for a varied assortment and something on offer for anyone.

But Wildernis is more than just a store. Together with their team, owners Mila and Emma are on a mission to make Amsterdam greener.

Wildernis's goal is to showcase how easy it is to create more greenery in the city: in the (little) gardens, on your balcony, windowsill and inside your house. Collaborating with plantcare-professionals, Wildernis initiates projects, creates awareness and organizes workshops and courses to educate about plantcare.
Be sure to check out the workshop schedule on their website (-in Dutch- click).

photograph via Wildernis Amsterdam
click for overview of workshops (in Dutch)

photograph by Wildernis Amsterdam

We're very proud Wildernis Amsterdam is now selling Waterworks in their store!
Definitely a must-visit next time you're in town. (they serve coffee too :-))

Wildernis Amsterdam
Bilderdijkstraat 165F
1053 KP Amsterdam
www.wildernisamsterdam.nl

Open Tuesday to Sunday - check website for opening hours.

A designers' dilemma: The story of Stuff

This short film was made in 2007, and is still very relevant today. Even more relevant, i would say, with our collective cellphone addicition (the Iphone came out somewhere around the time this movie was made)(feels ancient, right?).

What to do as a designer?
Should we stop creating stuff altogether or is it our responsibility to keep designing, but do it smarter and make a difference?
Is that even possible?
Can we make a difference by adding more stuff?

More about this and more video's can be found on thestoryofstuff.org.
Feel free to share your thoughts.

Urban Agriculture - this looks like a pretty good idea

Food Farm Tower - design and visualization by ABF Lab
via Designboom

I spotted this on Designboom a little while ago. Seems like a pretty great idea.
Read all about the design by French Design Studio ABF Lab in this article on Designboom.

Food Farm Tower - design and visualization by ABF Lab
via Designboom

North of The Bridge at the meeting place for ideas - Form/Design Center

photograph by Christian Beiwinkel via Wikipedia

Last (and only) time we visited Malmö it was February, and it was rather cold and a bit dreary. Nothing at all like the photograph above, which i picked from Wikipedia.

Anyway, our very energetic local tour-guide friend didn't care for frozen toes and happily led us to all design hotspots in the city. One of the best things on the tour was drinking a nice and hot cup of coffee in a design center with shop located in an ancient building, to be entered through a courtyard: Form/Design Center.

Photograph via Lillatorg

Form/Design Center is not actually a shop per se, but an exhibition-/meetingspace, run by 'Svensk Form' (The Swedish Association of Craft and Design). Like they state on the Form/Design website: "Form/Design Center is a meeting place for ideas and projects in the field of design and architecture"
There are regular exhibitions, a programme of lectures, workshops and seminars. All with the goal to "engage and educate about design and show its importance in our surroundings and our everyday life".

And in this center there's also room for a café where they serve the best coffee and tea and you can spend hours going through the vast collection of international and Swedish books and magazines dedicated to design.
Since you're all full of design-inspiration by that time, it would only be fitting you get to take a little design home with you: Enter the Butik.

photograph by Form/Design Center

And here, in this bulwark (yes that's a word, i checked) of Swedish and Scandinavian design, you can now buy Waterworks.
Truthfully: this is making us pretty proud.

FORM/DESIGN CENTER
Lilla torg 9
211 34 Malmö
www.formdesigncenter.com

These treehouses by Jedediah Corwyn Voltz

Treehouse by Jedediah Corwyn Voltz
photograph courtesy of monglo.tumblr (Jedediah Corwyn Voltz)

The tiny scrapwood Jedediah Corwyn Voltz had left-over after Stop-Motion modelling projects, lead to these little fantasy-dwellings. Read more about it in this article by Designboom, or check out Jedediah Corwyn Voltz's website (for more 2D-projects) or Tumblr (for more of this).

Treehouse by Jedediah Corwyn Voltz
photographs courtesy of monglo.tumblr (Jedediah Corwyn Voltz)

Martino Design - Innovation and style in the midst of Medieval beauty

photograph via Wikipedia

Ah, Bologna, historical city of music and study in Italy. I visited the city once, 11 years ago, and remember archways, medieval squares, cobble stones and courtyards.

And in the midst of all that ancient beauty in an old Jewish neighbourhood, you can find Martino Design: a store dedicated to sustainable interior design, style and innovation. 

We're proud and happy Martino Design is the first Italian store to sell Waterworks.
Here are a few photographs Martino Design kindly sent us from Waterworks in their store.

For more information, check out Martino Designs' website and Facebook page, or this blogpost by UrbanMirrors about the designstore, and make sure to visit the shop next time you're in Bologna.

MARTINO DESIGN
Via Canonica 1/a
40126 Bologna
www.martinodesign.it

Click here for a full list of shops selling House of Thol products.
Photographs in this blogpost via Martino Design.

In the Clouds / Planes - Crowdyhouse premiere starting soon!

In the Clouds / Planes
photograph by House of Thol

It's been a couple of months since we first launched our original 'In the Clouds'-series during ShowUP. (Back then, i wrote this blog about the heritage of the clouds and birds as a porcelain print.)
In August, the initial pieces were received with great enthusiasm, and even more so in October, when we presented the first extension of the series: the In the Clouds bowls, during the Dutch Design Week.

In the Clouds / Planes - porcelain cups
photograph by House of Thol

And then... well, we didn't put any effort in getting the porcelain pieces out there.
Truth is: we had made the range of variations within the series too large for us to produce in the quantities needed.
This made us hesitant to approach stores and resellers in fear of orders that would be wildly inefficient to make.

production original In the Clouds-series
photograph by House of Thol

Well... we made a few minor adjustments in the design and are now launching a new In the Clouds series.
And this time we're keeping ourselves in check: Instead of offering 24 variations to start with, we're relaunching the In the Clouds cups in one size: medium, two versions: birds and planes, and three possible colours: white, greyish white and light-blue. All cups have a glazed finish.
Still plenty to choose from!

In the Clouds cups in light-blue and greyish white
photograph by House of Thol

To give ourselves the much-needed time to produce a little supply, we're launching the new In the Clouds / Planes cups as a Crowdyhouse premiere: From April 4th onwards, the In the Clouds/Planes cups will be available exclusively via Crowdyhouse for three weeks.
After this launch-period, the cups will be more widely available and we'll keep you posted about new points of sale.

In the Clouds cups
photograph by House of Thol

To be the first to own the new In the Clouds / Planes, check out our campaign on Crowdyhouse.

Interested in reselling these cups? Get in touch!

Plantcare for the Botanically Challenged

Interiors are all about the greenery these days.
Every interior photoshoot on every blog and in every magazine features a few strategically placed houseplants; tradefair stands are dressed up with jungle-walls; greenhouses are turned into restaurants; creating full-on interior urban jungles is no longer the exclusive terrain of the hermit down the street (who you suddenly feel like you should be asking for botanical advice).

Photograph by Livet Hemma: Ikea

I love this trend!
There are so many reasons to have houseplants: the hint of nature in your home; the improved air-quality and healthier moisture levels; the overall beauty of plantlive... What's not to love?
Not so sure about the botanical trend? Read this blogpost for 6 reasons to get houseplants now (5 of which are backed by science)

by House of Thol

However, for those of us with major black thumbs (me), houseplants very seldomly become a lush and blooming urban jungle to take pride in, but rather turn into something that can only be described as a painful representation of an apparent inability to take care of living things (which can be pretty depressing).

all photographs from the House of Thol Instagram account

Anyway, fear not. -All is not lost.
Although we'll probably kill a lot more plants before truly mastering the art of plantcare, over the last three years we've managed to create a pretty green home and a small urban jungle in our studio.

And... if we can do it, so can you! - Here are 7 tips to help you along.

1. Start easy
Luckily some plants are pretty resilient when it comes to bad plantcare. Killing those plants might even involve some skill (from personal experience: it can be done).
A few of the easiest plants to maintain are Spider plant, Devils' ivy, Aloe Vera, Peace Lily and Snake Plant.

illustration by House of Thol

2. Keep the plant-tag
You know the little tag on each store-bought plant? Don't throw it out.
You'll probably want to take it off because in general it doesn't look very pretty, but make sure to keep it somewhere so you'll know how to properly care for this plant.
A plant doesn't always come with a tag. If it doesn't, make sure you find out the type of plant, and don't forget the name (you can add a nice-looking label).
If you run into trouble later on, you can google away and spend hours and hours researching the yellow tips /  white spots /  brown edges of your Musa.

Photograph from our Instagram

3. Water regularly.
If you're anything like me, your first thought when looking at a houseplant is 'when was the last time i watered it?'.
I always forget. I forget right up until the moment the leaves start to droop, which is when i decide i'm too late and try to 'save' the plant by throwing in a bucketload of water. Which drowns it.

What most people don't realise, is that houseplants sooner die of getting too much water than of drying out.
When dried out, a plant can pretty often be revived with the proper care. A drowned plant however, usually suffers from irreversably rotted roots and has passed the point of no return.

There are a gazillion helpful tips out there to make it easier to water your plants: from apps to grandmothers' tricks.
We based our natural watering system Waterworks on ancient irrigation techniques and it works wonderfully, we even use a Waterworksset (with a small cone) in our Cactus, and it's thriving. More about Waterworks here.

Waterworks by House of Thol | photograph by Masha Bakker photography

4. Pick the right spot.
Use your plant-tag or google to read up on the best situation for your plant: most plants like their sunlight to be indirect and might even develop burn-spots when put in a brightly lit window-sill. Although very few plants thrive in the dark, there are plants that can live happily in badly-lit places like bathrooms.

The ideal place for plants is about more than sunlight: they often don't like drafts or being touched by the door every-time it opens, and not every plant is happy too close to the central heating.
Also: plants usually do not like to be eaten by your pet.
Note that some plants (like the peace-lily) can be toxic to cats and dogs and should be placed somewhere the pets can't reach them. (some plants are even toxic to humans, so keep those out of the reach of children).

from Pinterest - unable to find the original source

5. Repot. 
This might sound daunting, but most plants won't last long if you keep them in the plastic container they came in: they'll run out of space or nutrients and you'll need to repot them.
Knowing when or how to re-pot your plants is one of those things that doesn't come naturally to us black-thumbed people, but i'll promiss you: it's worth the effort, most plants really thrive when their roots have enough space in a soil filled with fresh nutrients.
There's this pretty good Wiki-how about repotting plants.
When repotting, always use a pot with holes in the bottom and/or add a layer of large stones underneath the soil so it's well-drained.
NB Make sure to run a quick google-search on your plant. Some plants can only be repotted in certain seasons or they won't make it.

Photograph from the Wikihow 'Repot a plant'

6. Use the right soil and keep it fertilized.
The plants in your house come from different habitats. Some  will originate from a jungle-like environment, while other (for example cacti) stem from a desert-like area.
It will come as no surprise that those different types of plants thrive in different types of soil.
Get the right kind for your plants and don't forget to fertilize it once-in-a-while (if your plant likes it).

Alabama Hills | By Forest Mankins / a life alive

7. Be nice, be patient.
Imagine being a plant: you're happy in the garden-centre: surrounded by fresh air, warmth, other plants of all shapes and sizes and workmen to cater your every need. But then... suddenly someone picks you up, moves you around, has you wrapped, possibly keeps you in a trunk for a while, after which you're gifted to someone who cannot even keep a cactus alive.
Most plants are not a big fan of being moved: they'll need time to adapt to their new environment and growth will stagnate for a while.
Don't give up on those plants. Give them time. And love. And play some classical music for them, they dig that (click).

Plant Gang | photograph by Tiffany Grant-Riley for Urban Jungle Bloggers

For more green inspiration, follow Urban Jungle Bloggers or spend an hour or so on Pinterest  for the best urban jungle images.

Good luck keeping that greenery alive!
Any tips you'd like to add?
Don't hesitate to comment on this post, i'd love to hear them.

Get ready to start your greenery / Spring is coming

photograph by House of Thol

Last year we discovered Waterworks can help you create a pretty thriving balcony-garden.
This photograph was taken during the summer, but in order to get the lush greenery at this level when the warmer weather sets in, it's almost time to get into action and start your seeds.

Don't worry, you still have time to prepare, most seeds can be sown inside from March onwards.
I made a Pinterest board with some gardening-calendars i found online, check it out here.

While we're on the topic of balcony-gardening and herbs, an important side note about supermarket-herbs: After years and years of stubbornly trying and being 100% sure they were watered right, i'm pretty certain the living herb-plants sold in (Dutch) supermarkets are just not made to last. They're grown to harvest and be discarded. Not even a Waterworks-set will help you there.

Better to grow your own kitchen-herbs from seed: You notice the parsley in the photograph? That plant still lives, we were able to keep it green(-ish) all winter by moving it indoors into our cramped kitchen during the (few) colds spells of the past months.

New Confetti & Fireworks & why we have jewelry in our collection in the first place

Confetti necklace | brass, enamel, gilt steel | 2016
photograph by House of Thol

Aside from interior products and design-solutions for the day-to-day, House of Thol designs jewelry.
Random, right?
Maybe i shouldn't actually say 'House of Thol designs it', since jewelry is really my (Jana's) background, and what i focused on when working under company name 'World of Driftwood'.

Confetti & Fireworks necklaces | brass, enamel, gilt steel | 2016
photograph by House of Thol

Taking the step to work together with Thomas meant that part of my 'World of Driftwood' projects would have to be put on the side-burner for a while. Which i didn't have a problem with at all.
But jewelry ideas kept popping up, and although we still haven't quite figured out how it fits in with everything, we decided to incorporate some of my jewelry designs into our House of Thol collection.

Short answer: There's jewelry in our collection because i couldn't help designing it. (saving possible unconscious significance for retrospection)

Right.
Glad we got that covered.
Now let's talk about the new Confetti & Fireworks necklaces...

Animated preview of the Confetti & Fireworks necklaces by House of Thol

ABOUT CONFETTI & FIREWORKS

Confetti & Fireworks is a new series of contemporary brass and enamel necklaces, similar to the Neotribal collection.
The speckled finish, bright colors and geometric shapes make Confetti & Fireworks a perfect modern accessory, both for the everyday as for a dressy special occasion.

Brighten up your day with the light and bright Confetti-necklace, or go for mysterious chique with the darkblue speckled Fireworks.

Fireworks necklace | brass, enamel, gilt steel | 2016
photograph by House of Thol

All Confetti & Fireworks necklaces are handmade with care in our studio in Zandvoort, at the Dutch seaside.

Each necklace comes in a sturdy cardboard giftbox and has a lengthy gilt ballchain that slips on easily.

A bit of a 'salesy' text? 

That's possible, part of it is taken from Crowdyhouse, where Confetti & Fireworks will premier this Monday. - CHECK IT OUT

Get in touch for prices, high-resolution images and retail-information.