Archive for the ‘thrifting’ Category

COMMITTED

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

Sighs of relief everyone. The dining room light situation is resolved.

Bubble it is.

Those terrible weeks of baited breath and restless nights are a thing of the past, so feel free to revel in relief as that desperate anxiousness in your heart melts away. Because yes. OH YES. The single most important lighting decision of our time concerning a dining room in a nondescript vintage home in a crappy neighborhood in the armpit of the Inland Empire has been made.

Look at how this lamp can now turn on and illuminate stuff. Stuff like dinner.

Spectacular.

It’s like we finally connected those funny wires that stick out of the ceiling to the funny wires that stick out of the cord in order to fully commit to that good ‘ol ubiquitous Nelson bubble lamp in a dining room thing. And you know what? I love it. Unashamedly.

Goodbye pretensions. Hello thirty six inches of iconic mid century design.

Something feels different here…

Less fibery? More green? Somehow ruggy?

Pointless meandering aside, there’s obviously been a couple of additions and changes in the past few weeks that made the big bubble finally feel like the right choice. Firstly, yes, the amazingly huge fiber art wall hanging has moved (and not very far). Then the crazy grandma plant (or philodendron if you want to get all correct or something) was moved from the bedroom into here for some ‘effing greenery. Finally.

Plants make a room. This truth I live by, but somehow can’t enforce around the house.

Oh, then lastly, I slammed the old living room cowhide rug under the dining table. Rug action in the dining room finally seemed to make sense when paired with the Moroccan rug situation happening in the living room.

This incredible 70’s hand cut paper wall sculpture was a recent thrifty find at a local consignment/antique type shop. I believe I actually gasped out loud when I saw it leaning against the wall and then gasped again when I saw the affordable price.

Huge, handmade, strangely heavy, unsigned and beautiful. I could not love it more.

Reminds me of Greg Copeland for sure, but feels more like a study or experimental piece someone was playing around with.

My once lush and rampantly growing philodendron seems to have gotten a little stressed out after the move. I was hoping to break old patterns of neglect and serial plant killing by being a better and more attentive plant owner, but just ended up over-watering the thing.

Ironically, this baby prefers abuse.

Stupid plants. Make up your minds.

Also, the butterfly’s are back.

I probably should focus on being a better and more attentive blogger. Or on finishing some projects (like painting and fixing up that busted pocket door). Or clearing out some of the piles of vintage stuff laying just outside the cameras frame.

Yeah, this is all an illusion of organized cleanliness. Reality is much more cluttered.

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!

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.