Archive for the ‘ceramic’ Category

DUVET

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Long I have pined for the perfect gray duvet and by some strange bi-coastal internet twitter miracle, this enduring quest seems to have come to an end.

It’s really all thanks to Daniel, wonderful (and similarly duvet obsessed) splendid man about town Daniel, who twittered with Anna from Door Sixteen and I about our initial hopes in finding the perfect gray duvet and then our ultimate disappointment when the CB2 Coast Bed Linens ended up being a bust.

But…because they are in New York, where shops besides JC Penny exist, Anna and Daniel just popped into Muji and stumbled on this great warm gray linen duvet…that is unfortunately nowhere to be found on Muji’s website.

I got a flurry of texts and pictures of what looked like a fantastic (and affordable!) duvet and proceeded to beg for them to purchase and ship one of these lovelies to the west coast to live in my house.

By the way, we don’t have Muji in Hemet. Shocker.

Then Daniel, even though he’s in college and working like crazy on projects and busier than a rabid squirrel, was kind enough to grab me one of the last duvets and mail it out to me like a goddamn sweetheart. Like a completely perfect and lovely human being.

That gray duvet longing runs painfully deep. Daniel gets it. Oh yeah, he gets it real good.

Apparently though, I took my sweet time posting about this, since it all went down in what? August? What happened? Is this not summer still?

Anyhow.

Besides the greatest duvet ever, there are a few new things around the guest bedroom that I’ve been meaning to post about.

Like these sort of brutalist studio pottery things. Someone got all crazy with that ceramic knife. So angsty.

Feel that powerfully emotional thrift store ceramic turmoil.

You knew that some kilim pillow style action would leak into the rest of the house. Say what? There are some actual colors in here besides black, brown, gray or white. Crazy.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this fine Craigslist procured vintage safari chair.

Awwww yeah. Awwww boy.

Sling that thing all up in here.

Hold on, I got distracted by that devilish safari minx. I cannot forget to mention that after months of use, I really dig the new duvet. It gets better with every wash and sort of shifts color in different light; sometimes the color feels warm and sort of taupe and then shifts to cool and silvery gray. It’s like a magical creature that transforms day to day.

I love it and can’t thank Daniel enough.

Possibly worth noting, this thing above? This is about as ornate, flowery and “fem” as I can get.

That’s just a detail shot of the vintage brass Moroccan lamp that I can never photograph properly in the guest bedroom, which – surprise surprise – I still really love and don’t want to get rid of. Unlike everything else I own. I’m possibly going through some weird, “WHY NOT START FROM SCRATCH” phase that is really unproductive. Stupid dark wintertime.

And these bright things down below…

…these are luxurious flowery yellow billy balls. The only flowers I’ll own.

Wait, are these flowery? I don’t know and apparently am too lazy to google, but these last forever and thrive on neglect.

Just like my grudges.

Come on, I just can’t resist you. Work it you hot thang. I’m liking what I see and the way you move? Regal. Confident. Sexy. Frugal. I love safari and I don’t care who knows!

Oh, wait. Oh, craphole.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I probably should have bought two Muji duvets. Since…I never want to give you up. I never want to let you go.

FILED UNDER: bedroom, ceramic, craigslist, decorating, furniture, guest bedroom, hemet, links, thrifting, thrifty, vintage

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LIVING & DINING

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Stuck at home alone with temperatures hitting the 100’s over the long holiday weekend, I went super stir crazy and fussed with the more temperate areas inside the house that had been suffering from months of neglect. The living and dining room were functioning as wayward storage rooms for all the extra homeless bits and pieces of art and lighting and crappity crap that somehow accumulates when laziness wins. The living room has suffered the worst cluttering as my new “shipping zone”, since packing furniture outside is an exercise in bikram yoga and tears.

Things were a mess and still are. Deaccessioning more stuff is still a requirement. Hello Craigslist! Hello smaller stuff in the shop!

I did clean up everything, vignette, adjust and add a few pieces here and there, although, really, nothing major has changed.

This little Tapiovaara chair is a lonely floater from a recent acquisition of a few Finish chairs. I love the shape and construction and it’s simple shaker aesthetic.

Of course it’s also where I make guests sit if they’ve been naughty.

Still need a new wall hanging for above the fireplace. Please please please – world – throw me a brutalist bone.

Fresh and clean and adjusted.

Still need to come up with a solution for the big back wall to replace the old pipe shelving unit. Have a few ideas brewing, just about zero to no motivation. I am considering adding some sort of desk type thing with storage, because sharing one desk between two heavy desk users? Not so fun anymore.

Hey. I need a another small house just to decorate and work on. By the beach…or a lake…or a storm drain. Somewhere cooler. Those are supposed to be cheap – almost free, right?

FILED UNDER: after, ceramic, decorating, dining, living, vignette

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REMIX

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

Slowly the house is getting put back together and rearranged to reflect the much less hoarded out state we had been living in for the past few months. I can’t even show pictures, it was just too horrifying. You will just have to imagine stacked piles of furniture and odd bric-a-brac overwhelmingly overflowing through the entire living and dining room.

It was so bad that we had to create a single hoarder style path to the front door. So, so incredibly bad that delivery people gave us funny looks when the front door wouldn’t open all the way and kept asking if we were in the process of moving.

Now we are blissfully decluttered and I’ve been rearranging all the leftovers into some sort of coherent floor plan as well as getting excited about acquiring a few new pieces.

During the big sale, I deaccessioned a large part of my studio pottery collection. While there is still a ton of ceramics sprinkled here and there, it feels good to be able to go a little more minimal in vignette town. Now to somehow resist the urge to scoop up peoples old high school ceramic projects…

Here’s a peak at a recent Craigslist acquisition. It’s a Danish rosewood credenza which is currently being repurposed as a media unit in the den.

We still need to mount the TV on the wall, but this thing is so much better than the dresser we were using before. This puppy hides away all the cables and ugly boxes and frees up so much visual and physical space that my heart is all aflutter. I can’t wait to have everything fully installed and looking banging…but I just do the furniture thing. I’m leaving it up to Jeremy to figure out the boring electronic stuff.

FILED UNDER: ceramic, craigslist, decorating, den, dining, vignette

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