Archive for the ‘furniture’ Category

THRIFTY!

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Hit up Palm Springs for a little thrifting action on what turned out to be an ‘extreme’ wind day. Unusually strong gusts mixed up the fine desert dust with low hanging clouds to create a strangely ominous apocalyptic wasteland. This was some crazy end of the world type wind.

Anyways.

Despite the wind, shopping happened.

Having a soft spot for broken down classics, I grabbed this vintage Knoll Bertoia Diamond Chair on my thrifting route. For more than a year I’ve watched this puppy gather dust at one of my favorite consignment spaces as the price was repeatedly knocked down until it just recently hit $50. No rational person wanted to touch this thing because of a few broken welds and lovely dusting of rust, but I guess I have time to repair it?

Of course. Throw another project on the pile.

Perhaps I’m a tad blind to its many faults, but ever since missing out on this Bertoia, the hunt has been on for a similar piece to fill the sad black hole left in my heart. With some welded love and the addition of a full cover, this wounded specimen will be all sorts of design gorgeous.

Otherwise, Palm Spring thrifting was fairly sparse with only the usual ceramic pieces and this awkward Tom Wesselman amateur style painting found and purchased despite the crazy wind and my waning enthusiasm.

I must stop buying thrift store art, but it was impossible to resist that furry little blond bush.

Oh, J.BEAN, you perv.

The wind apocalypse eventually cleared up early in the evening and the floating dust clouds made for an incredible sunset. Palm Springs is always pretty beautiful.

Enough of that nonsense.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving! – or – Enjoy your normal weekend!

With pie and such!

FILED UNDER: ceramic, furniture, thrifting, thrifty, travel, vintage

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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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MINI FURNITURE

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

I’m nothing if not obsessive, ridiculously self-critical and weirdly competitive with that cheapskate thing layered in for extra fun. Not a great combo for basic stuff like a sense of contentment or feelings of ease and satisfaction. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble finding modern miniature stuff on my thrifty routes and thought that instead of buying a bunch of super pricey premade mini furniture that wasn’t quite right for my Dollhouse Challenge, why not just build everything from scratch? Which is probably crazy person thinking.

Especially considering that CERTAIN people do micro better.

So, all my art school tools got dusted off and the local craft store hit up for all that craft wood, felt and leather scraps usually only encountered in my darkest nightmares. Of course, now there is a giant mess in the dining room from experimenting with materials and substandard construction methods, because I learn mainly through failure. Screw research.

Wait, what am I going to do with all this mini stuff when this is over?

Great.

Let’s not think about the future. Let’s look at that mini gray sofa instead. LOOK. It’s made of felt and basswood and tears.

Or look! After only three failed attempts I built a leather sling chair and ottoman…which probably needs to be tweaked and remade to address a few problems. But it’s fine for now? Or until my self-critical crazy brain wins and forces a rebuild.

Hey, a bench.

Yeah dude, I totally hand cut and sculpted those balsa wood legs like a pro. Totally mitered the crap out of the corners and slammed a craft store birch plywood veneer on top.

That’s how I roll.

Worked so nice I did it twice. With a coffee table.

This chunky mini dining table is made from a 99¢ “mosaic plaque wood blank” with four pieces of balsa slapped on for legs. Less than 10 minutes and $1.50 to build.

BOOM. Done.

Check out my “credenza” that doesn’t open or store anything. It’s all an illusion, except for the brass legs. Those are real brass.

This reminds me that at some point I need to decide on finishes (stains? oil? paint?) for all this sad crafty birch-colored wood. Maybe I should upgrade to nicer woods? Oh, but that sounds like it requires some effort and more money…so nope.

Boom. Another bench? Shut up. I like building benches.

And yes this is “upholstered” in fine leather (which means I glued scrap leather to balsa wood). Luxurious.

Right after I photographed my mini sling chair I dropped it and boom, looks like my patented “throw more glue on it” method of construction didn’t hold up so well.

Luckily, since I’m a genius, I knew to throw more glue on it and now it’s like it never happened. Except for all the visible glue.

Speaking of, I’ve become pretty glue reliant. Why do things right when you can glue your problems away? It’s too bad glue looks sloppy on fabric (as demonstrated via my pillow experiments), so still looking to resolve the mini textile issue…but I despise sewing. HOW CAN ONE PERSON FACE SUCH ADVERSITY?

BTW, this headboard / sloped ceiling / bed frame conundrum still requires solutions. Among many other things…

Things in context. Glorious.

I’ve neglected to finish building the a-frame structure or decide on it’s finer details since finishing stuff or focusing on doing one thing at a time is for suckers. Chaos is way cooler.

OK. Only a million more mini things to do.

*BTW – if you enjoy mini stuff (or dogs), check out & follow thebrickhouse : instagram feed. Expect an overabundance of terrible shots of my mini experiments & the chihuahuas (or liquor & food).

FILED UNDER: challenge, DIY, dollhouse, furniture

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