The name is a joke.

The name is a joke, and we are the punchline. We ran our days by the calendar: calls stacked, lunch at the desk, the dishwasher on a timer. Then one evening the two of us sat on the floor of a half-unpacked apartment with a single candle in a jar from the hardware store, and that hour was better than anything we had scheduled all year. We decided it was the one hour worth getting right. Optimized Living makes the pieces that mark it: candles, vases, bowls and incense holders in honed travertine and brushed steel, for the moment you quit for the day.

We chose travertine because it looks better the longer it sits on a table. It is warm sand coloured and matte, left with its natural pitting, and it takes a ring from a wine glass the way a good wooden board takes a knife mark. The steel is brushed, soft and quiet beside the stone, and it wipes clean with a cloth. We pick one slab at a time, by hand, for its veining, and we cut one lid that fits every vessel we make, so a candle you bought this year and one you buy in three will sit together like family.

Nothing we sell asks much of you. A damp cloth for the stone, a trimmed wick, and when a candle is done, a new one drops into the same stone. If something arrives chipped or you are unsure which vase wants the rosemary, write to us or call. The two of us and a small desk answer, in plain words, during the hours on the site. The whole range is on one page. Light one, sit down.