Archive for the ‘craigslist’ 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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THRIFTY!

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Yup.

This happened.

Is that an early production Saarinen oval marble coffee table? All up in Knoll town?

Oh yes.

I know I’m a dirty, no-good furniture dealer, but because I’m never ever selling it. Because this is my dream coffee table. Because it would have to pried from my cold dead hands. Because I am bursting that this happened. BECAUSE I CAN’T SHUT UP.

One.

Hundred.

Dollars.

Yeah. $100.

I hate me too.

Although, you gotta trust that this was a crazy unexpected fluke of chance and lucky timing.

Of course, I was browsing the Craigslist (come on, no way I found this in thrift store) and saw a posting for a vintage hutch that was super cheap but of course no freaking picture. Why people post furniture for sale on CL without a picture, I’ll never grasp, but the ad said to email for a picture and I randomly decided to just contact them and see what was the whats. When the pictures popped in (again, why not just upload them?) the hutch was pretty, pretty, pretty terrible, but something else looked mighty interesting in the far corner of the frame. Which leads to me asking if they had anything else for sale and apparently they were getting rid of everything in the whole house and they sent lots and lots and lots of pictures.

In the far distance, out of focus and sitting casually in front of a shredded up sofa was this tulip beauty. Just sitting there. Like no big deal. Whatevers. I’m just your favorite thing. Big whoop.

I got my ass down there and pulled out my big bag of negotiating tricks and walked away with some STUFF.

On a side note, apologies if I have to negotiate with you in the future or have negotiated with you in the past. I KNOW how I am. I’m an awful stubborn terrible monster.

It’s not in perfect condition.

There is some staining on the marble and I’ve been researching around about how to lighten it up. WHATEVER. Stains? On my 60 year old marble Knoll? I don’t care. I’ll never care!

Good news is that there are no chips and no cracks, just vintage goodness.

This table does weight about a thousand pounds. The tulip base is cast iron and the marble is chunk-y – like 36″ wide by 54″ long.

I really loved my old coffee table.

REALLY loved.

But there can be only one!

(It’s the Highlander. Lightning. Swords. Coffee table and such.)

 

FILED UNDER: craigslist, den, furniture, thrifting, thrifty

102 Comments »

HERE & THERE

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Not that I’m one to get all frothy over Target collabos, but perhaps the Missoni for Target stuff turned out to be kind of a meh? It seemed to be a lot of plastic and polyester and poor construction, but the black and white stuff was the best? Fo’ sho.

Giant shocker, Hemet isn’t a bustling hub of fashionistas and design fans. I know?! How is that possible with such a large retirement population and two super WalMarts? So, when I stopped by Target at a leisurely 2pm on launch day to pick up food for the dogs and garbage bags, ’cause shizz be glamorous around here, I took a gander at the Missoni pieces.

Pretty much ended up with a case of the underwhelmed mehs.

I did like this blanket thing – even though it was only sold online and sold out immediately – and did end up grabbing a few of the small black and white travel bags, since my luggage arsenal desperately needs actual bags to hold all the many fancy lady creams and powders I require.

The end.

Otherwise, on launch day the UPS guy wandered into the backyard to drop off a vintage Minolta Maxxum 35-70mm macro lens I recently won on the ebay for $30. Such a crazy day! TWO things happening? How do I keep it all together? Really. It’s a miracle.

So, these are some meh pics wrought from quickly testing the new lens out. I think I’m feeling a bit of an underwhelmed meh over this lens as well.

My middle name is meh.

I don’t feel so meh about a couple recent Craigslist acquisitions. In fact, I’m feeling pretty YEAH.

Headed out to Palm Springs in the late afternoon to pick up a few vintage bits off the ‘ol CL and took advantage of the twilight lighting to push this new/old lens through a few more hoops.

And yup. Still meh.

But did I hear someone say Russel Wright for Conant Ball dining set? Mmmm-hmmmm. Grrrrrrl.

From the few pics shot around our dusty as all neglect house, I found that the macro function wasn’t thrilling me. Also, the low light capabilities at F4 weren’t fulfilling all those wild fantasies and unreasonable expectations I had built up inside my heart. Over this $30 lens? That would change my life? Madness.

It’s a fine lens – not mind blowing – but maybe I need to put this thing through it’s paces. Or maybe I’ll keep buying more and more and more vintage lenses until that deep black hole inside of me is filled up with glittering glass.

I bet the CL guy – who I got the Wright dining set from – didn’t think I was a creepy insane person when I pulled out the giant SLR and wandered around the street to shoot pictures of the darkening sky…you know…instead of pulling out of his driveway and going home.

Because it’s never terrifying when a stranger from CL wanders around in front of your house with a big camera snapping a bunch of pictures after that always awkward transaction had supposedly ended.

No one would be freaked out by that. Come on.

Oh. I’m a creep.

Great.

FILED UNDER: craigslist, photography, travel

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