Room Ideas

This Is the One Thing You Should Always Do Before Freezing Meat

Polo

Take a look in my freezer. At any given time you’ll find at least one pack of chicken thighs, some ground beef, and maybe some pork chops. Often you’ll find even more than that. Because just like my mom did when I was growing up, I make a point to stock up on meat when it’s on sale, then I pop it in the freezer for later. I’ve leaned into buying and freezing meat even more over the past couple of months—everything from large trays of ground meat and pork loins, to family packs of chicken and sausage.

It’s made me feel prepared and organized. But when I told my mom about my freezer haul, she pointed out that there was one very important step I overlooked before freezing all that meat.

You Should Portion Meat Before Freezing

Despite having watched my mom do this all the time over the

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Garden

A Monumental New Headquarters For Fashion Trailblazers Incu

Polo

From its humble beginnings 18 years ago, Incu’s impressive growth trajectory has culminated in 160 staff sprawled across stores in three states, plus the Australian outposts for A.P.C and Rag + Bone. For a brick-and-mortar business that not only weathered the online retail boom, but thrived in it, Incu has taken the challenges of a pandemic firmly in its stride. So much so, that it was time for an update!

Deep in the Sydney suburb of Rosebery, the cult retailer enlisted longtime collaborator Akin Atelier to transform a newly-secured semi-industrial building into a retail outlet, office and warehouse. The brief was to convert the former mechanic’s workshop into a new headquarters, and the architects looked to the neighbourhood’s existing architectural personality for inspiration.

Red dry-pressed bricks wrap the facade in a nod to the building’s industrial locale, while terracotta tiles cladding the interior benches and courtyard bring texture

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Room Ideas

There’s an Easy Way to Keep Your Kitchen Sponge Sanitary—And It’s Hiding in Your Junk Drawer

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Kitchen sponges are notorious for turning nasty relatively quickly. After just one use, sponges, which are filled with tons of pores, can collect grossness and gunk from your dishes and flatware. That gunk plus moisture equals bacteria and mildew. Before you know it, your sponge is Nasty with a capital N. While you’ve probably heard by now that you need to replace your sponge on a very regular basis (we’re talking a matter of one week or so), there is something you can do to help extend the life of your sponge.

We have two words for you: sponge holders. A sponge holder helps your sponge dry between uses—which helps it stay cleaner for longer.

There are plenty of sponge holders on the market, if you would rather opt for something store-bought. (We

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Garden

A Legendary Design Writer’s Renovated 1930s Home

Polo

It’s hard to imagine now, but until recently, this now renovated 1930s property was actually two completely separate apartments. Despite their disjointed state with no internal access, design writer Stephen Crafti had been living across both apartments for years, until finally engaging Robert Simeoni Architects to combine the two.

The objective was to cohesively amalgamate the apartments by retaining the existing fabric wherever possible, while inserting new elements clearly distinguishable from the property’s original features. While the apartments weren’t heritage protected, they were treated as such during the design process. ‘The aim of not trying to do too much, or as the Burra Charter suggests “as much as necessary, as little as possible” informed the thinking behind the design,’ says Robert of Robert Simeoni Architects.

A compact, dark stained timber and raw steel staircase was introduced to connect the two previously separate levels of the building. This staircase is located

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Room Ideas

Transparent Glamping Cabin Immerso Airbnb

Polo

Published: about 2 hours ago

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Sleeping directly under the stars might sound romantic to you. Or it might sound like an invitation for bugs to crawl freely over you as you sleep. That’s where the transparent cabin comes in. With a clear roof over your head, you can feel as if you’re sleeping under the stars, while also staying sheltered from the elements.

One such cabin is currently available for rent on Airbnb. Called “Immerso,” the prefabricated structure was designed by architects Fabio Vignolo and Francesca Turnaturi to be quick and easy to install. 

The cabin has a birch plywood frame, anchored by metal to a plexiglass roof and walls. It’s just big enough for a double bed and coffee table, which makes sense, considering it’s basically a fancy tent. It

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Garden

A Cascading, Compact Garden That Envelopes Its Newtown Home

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Mark Bell of Bell Landscapes cautions against minimalism when designing a garden on a small footprint space. ‘There is the perception that using lots of plants encloses the space and makes it feel smaller.’ But rather, he says, empty pockets make the space feel sparse and underwhelming.

By carefully considering the compact dimensions and curating a thoughtful selection of plants, Mark devised a planting scheme of varied textures, shapes and sizes to create an illusion of depth in this suburban Newtown garden. This clever trick of layering is no more apparent that in the ground coverings, which are dense and varied, each offering different heights and textures of foliage.

Mark;s initial brief was to envelope the pre-existing terrace house with greenery. With a rear terrace, rooftop garden and internal courtyard to work with, his focus was to spread the plantings across various levels and sections of the site. Sticking to

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