Archive for January, 2010

Not Thrifty! Hemet Edition

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

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For Part 1 of The Amazing Hemet Tour I wanted to showcase some of the local thrift stores I frequent, beginning with the thrifty tease of the Assistance League Thrift Store.

Closest to the Brick House, this store is only open a short portion of the year with very limited hours. Good for clothes, jewelry and some small kitchen stuff the pricing is spectacularly low and the local women who run it are always colorfully and totally spaced out.

They also hoard a secret treasure in the back room – a vintage Herman Miller rosewood conference table with those pretty swag legs. Believe me, I’ve offered to take it off their hands a number of times, but unfortunately they use it to sort clothes. Sadly it’s NFS.

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Another place I check out on my rounds is the Hemet Hospice Store. I’ve found some rad stuff here and they have a whole separate furniture warehouse down the street.

Yeah, I didn’t grab this signed Indiana Jones poster for how much? $100 – YIKES.

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Salvation Army. Love. Love. Love.

They had this rad Realistic Concertmate thingy but not much else. It’s a huge store but can be hit or miss.

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Angel View is a delight. My one and only go-to for finding awesome crap. As always on this slow thrifting day they delivered a few treats.

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Plaid chair? Cool. Surprised owl in landscape painting? Rad. Together? The coolest lodgiest look you could hope for.

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CRAZY wicker green lamps. I could totally imagine these looking very chic in a particular kind of interior. Maybe with this:

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Now these 70’s chrome and glass shelves called my name. Ohhhh how I’m pining for them right now. I have nowhere to put them and at $129.99 each, I wasn’t willing to dish out the $260 it would cost. Angel View is really jacking up prices lately.

These bottom places aren’t thrift stores. These are a couple of vintage shops just outside of town that I like to visit. Mostly full of junk they had a few surprises…

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For TWO YEARS I’ve been watching this crazy ass Diana Ross painting.

I want it.
I need it.
I love it.

BUT at $750 it’s nowhere close to coming home with me. I’ve pleaded and begged but still after all this time the owners are very assured of its worth.

Maybe in two more years I can talk them down.

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Here is a new little booth that was a big surprise. Modernism! It was like a ray of sunshine amongst all the terrible turn of the century doldrums scattered in this antique store.

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These speakers are kick ass, and I wish I had a spot worthy of them. Also, I loved this coffee table – a big thick chunk of wood on an Eames LTR base? LOVE it. I just didn’t love the price of around $400.

This little booth makes me want to open up my own little consignment space. Maybe 2010 is the Year of Dealing. Furniture that is…

FILED UNDER: hemet, Not Thrifty

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Thrifty!

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

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I’ve been on the hunt for a new coffee table for the den for a long while. We’ve gone through multiple coffee tables (for a recap let’s time travel to here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Most recently we used a pair of John Keal for Brown Saltman end tables (just like these on fancy 1st dibs) that worked adequately but never really made me happy.

This weekend I found a pretty beat up Eames elliptical table at this place called Foothill 5 Fifty.

This place is not for the faint of heart, well…pretty much its just plain awful. The store is seriously packed with amazing pieces of furniture (all the biggies – Eames, Nelson, Bertoia, Wegner, Nakashima, you name it they got it stuffed in there – like crazy hoarder style) but it’s almost impossible to move around and you can’t see anything. When I’m feeling particularly masochistic I tend to check it out.

Customer service? TERRIBLE. Prices? OUTRAGEOUS.

So, my little beat up table was $90. I like it, Iggy loves it, The Boy, well he’s not convinced. You gotta get low low low low low low low low…

FILED UNDER: decorating, den, furniture, thrifty, vintage

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Patio Walkway

Monday, January 11th, 2010

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Figured out today that we are stupid, like really stupid.

I blame it on inexperience, but logically if your going to create a gridded cement paver patio it would be wise to level the area, put down sand and install the pavers first.

Maybe it’s just project fatigue. We also drove to Home Depot in my little Scion to pick up 10′ lengths of wood and 30 super heavy cinder blocks. Once we loaded up the cart we realized we had to drive back home and get The Boys truck.

We Are Idiots.

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The whole plan was to create a 18 x 18′ gridded cement paver patio around the fire pit with gravel as a filler. It would have been smarter to install those f*cking pavers first but somehow we got gravel happy and thought we needed to level out the area with gravel. Dumb move.

I installed the first row of stepping stones behind the garage today and it required digging out each individual spot, leveling and finessing each stone in a rocky pit of hell, and cursing our own ineptness.

I do think it turned out rad considering the disgusting hamster bedding dog run of death that was there before.

We chose 18 x 18″ cement stepping stones that cost about $50 total.

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Now we have to decide what to do:

– Leave it all gravel.
– Install 18 x 18″ pavers at $5 a piece.
– Install 12 x 12″ pavers at $1 a piece.

I’m leaning towards the 12 x 12″ pavers, even though initially I was super opposed to them (I had lofty dreams of like 30 x 30″ pavers till I found out how much they are and how fragile). The smaller ones are WAY easier to work with, could be installed closer together and would be about $150 compared to like $350 for the larger size.

FILED UNDER: before, DIY, exterior, landscape, patio, question

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