O l i v e O w l

Search for the Perfect Bread Box: Option 1

2011-12-30T16:32:00.000-06:00

Joseph Joseph melamine bread bin with cutting board lid: this one looks pretty good-sized (bigger than your average bread box, you might say. Or you might not. Actually, let's not sat that.), and I like the functionality of the lid/cutting board. I'm still looking around, though, at new and vintage options. Major contenders will be posted here, and in the meantime, all bread in this house will brave the elements.

Too cute, right?

2011-09-14T00:17:00.000-05:00

He's flipping it on Ebay, but I thought I'd at least document that the little alien lived here for a bit. A true 70s gem.

Stu-stu-studio Wall Plans

2011-09-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

Marimekko Unikko wallpaper; Walnut Wallpaper

Hi. Still here. Work has been a little nuts the last few weeks, but I've missed this little forum for wishful thinking/documenting our progress at the house. File this one under "Thinking, Wishful":

We've managed to put up some cork wallpaper on the big blank wall in the stu-stu-studio: picture soon... right now the stu-stu-studio is also serving as a storage room for things that would be in the dining room, if Sean hadn't moved everything out of the dining room to rip up it's carpet. (We're kind of a mess right now.) Anyway, I've been thinking about what to do with the other three walls...

Original thought was just to paint them a clean, pretty white: good backdrop for a kooky assortment of art. Then I thought I might embark on another painting project: a kind of abstract owl pattern (again, too lazy to post a picture). THEN, I thought, "why not some nutso, giant-repeat wallpaper?" And if one is going to go whole hog with a loud wallpaper pattern, shouldn't it be one's all-time favorite floral, Maija Isola's "Unikko" for Marimekko?

Well, sure.

Thing is, it's expensive, and I'm in no position to justify it right now. So I'll either wait until I can, or think of something I can paint. And I can always paint now, wallpaper later. Even though I really wanna wallpaper now.

Bedroom Walls: Done!

2011-06-22T21:53:00.000-05:00

Hooray!! The era of non-stop taping and painting has passed, and the age of reading and chillaxing is upon us... thanks in LARGE part to Sean, who finally got fed up with how long it was taking me and picked up a roll of painter's tape and a brush.

Not my most flattering pair of pants... but the Ghostbusters 2 mirror itself (Sean + Ebay), I love. I traced it's space on the wall before I started drawing the pattern, to make sure the other shapes would meet up with its corners.

This Inspector-Gadget-y retractable lamp is another of Sean's ebay finds... as is the Aalto chair. And most everything else in our house... like this:

...a Curtis Jere wall sculpture that we originally thought we'd put in the dining room. But it wasn't quite right; kind of an odd match with everything else in that room. Turns out it was just waiting to be perfect for this spot.

That ceiling fan is sticking out something awful now, and it's gonna have to go soon. We already have a possible replacement, but I'm not really sure if it's going to work. If it does, I'll show ya. If it doesn't.... well, I'll probably show you anyway.

This is a super blurry picture of my temporary solution for the other bit of unsavory lighting in the room: a $3.44 home depot special wall sconce. This is one of the places in the house where they replaced an original spun aluminum bullet sconce (the house would have had 12 or 13 of them, but we only have four left) I took the grape-vine etched tulip shaped glass shade thingy off, and threw this Tord Boontje garland over the bulb. It's a little slapdash, but it'll do until we find the right sconce.

Do you have a contingency plan for a crapstorm of this magnitude?

2011-06-08T07:36:00.004-05:00

Not really, Jack Donaghy; not really.

But I have some new shorts.

It's already been way too interesting of a morning. We've been planning a fall photo shoot for weeks now: we found a great photographer and a wonderful stylist; had one of our buyer's assistants working her booty off getting hundreds of clothing and jewelry and accessories samples flown in; found a perfect location and lugged a whole mess of borrowed furniture and antiques there; went round and round on the model choice....

Today's the day, and the model we finally settled on is puking her guts out.

It'll all work out, of course. No one died or broke any bones, and I'm sure we'll figure out a violent-stomach-virus-free way to reschedule. We just lost some sleep and money.

Here's a nicer thing: I did get a super-great deal on these polka dot play shorts I've been wanting. They have giant side pockets, and they remind me of something I would have worn when I was five. I will be living in them during off-work hours this summer.

I could find places for ANY of this, Arik Levy.

2011-06-01T17:08:00.000-05:00

http://www.ariklevy.fr/

Carport Plans

2011-05-18T18:03:00.003-05:00

So this is what the carport looks like now, and these are my issues with it:

For one thing, there's a giant row of cabinets... we call it the workbench... on the west side that's not really serving a useful purpose. Sure it's storage, but it isn't secure, and it really isn't pretty. It's not the most well-constructed thing in the world---wonky doors and such---and on top of the "work surface" there are some old phone book pages, or maybe newspaper, fossilized under layers of paint. We tried to sand it off, but it wasn't happening. Also, there are all kinds of chemical residues on the inside, along with boxes of rusted nails and broken tiles that the previous owner left behind (I know I could just take the nails and tiles out... I'm just painting a picture for you).

And then there's this unfortunate effect of its existence: it's turned into a catch-all for our ongoing project paraphernalia: mixing buckets, boxes, scrapers, etc. I know I shouldn't really blame the workbench; that's just us pretending like the carport is a garage, and that no one can see through our invisible garage doors. But if it wasn't there, we couldn't stack things on it.

Anyway, here's my other beef: the front door is on the corner, and then there's another door (the one on the right) that just leads to a small storage area. I don't like the two door thing. I want the main entrance to be prominent, and the other door to be hidden somehow. I also don't want it to feel like a carport... I want it to feel like a front porch or patio... like a loggia, where we happen to park our cars.

So this is my plan...

Kill the workbench.
Replace the cracked concrete with something pretty: some kind of large paving stones.
Put up an L-shaped wooden screen: one side would be on the west side of the carport, and the other would cammoflage the storage room door and the water hose (I forgot to add that to my sketch, but the water hose is to the left of the storage room door.), leaving enough clearance of course for opening the door and passing through to the back gate (something we can't to now because of the workbench).

Here's a better idea of what I think it should look like from the street, with option one for the screen pattern:

See how the eye is drawn to the front door and seating area instead of to a storage room? I also thought that a pattern like this could be nice:

It's a little bit busier, but not too much. And we could put some simple boxes for plants on the side that faces our neighbors to the west:

So that's my plan. Now I just need lots of time and money.

THIS OLD THING: A Two-for

2011-05-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

From luola on etsy. $39.

2011-05-14T17:58:00.003-05:00

We've been in the house for a solid year now. Can you believe that?

Okay, you probably can. But I was kind of thrown by it. We've accomplished a lot, for sure, but we still have so much to do... and I still have so many unfinished projects just partially sitting around and staring at me, uncompletely.

Anyway here are some lists: what we've done, what we're in the process of doing, and what we know we want to do soon, but haven't started.

2011-05-13T14:42:00.002-05:00

My New Favorite Fashion Plate

2011-05-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

I wish they would have allowed cameras at the Arcade Fire concert for a lot of reasons, but I must admit that one of them is so that I could have taken pictures of Regine Chassagne's awesome pailletted dress. She has a thing for shiny frocks, embellished fingerless gloves, and never being upstaged by that giant accordian or hurdy-gurdy. She's the coolest.

Image 1: via mystery of 1990; 2: Ian Gavan, Getty Images Europe; 3: via marie claire 4: Raw+Salt 5: Kevin Winter, Getty Images North America; 6: Life Magazine

2011-05-10T18:07:00.002-05:00

Curtains

2011-05-04T13:31:00.004-05:00

Let's pretend I'm about to go buy some new curtains for the living room (I'm not. Not for a while.) We have some stand-in Ikea curtains right now that we don't really love. They're very neutral, and I think we'd like to wind up with something a lot weightier. Physically and visually.

Most of these examples are not things I could actually go and buy. #1 is a concoction of mine that mimics a Kelly Wearstler rug that I really love; I don't know if anyone ever realized it in fabric, but if they did, it probably wouldn't have been on such a large scale.

#2 is an actual fabric from Hancock; it looks very much like a Proud Mary fabric that's only available in blue... a SUPER pretty blue, but not a blue that would work in my living room.

#3 is a vintage Japanese ikat, but I bet I could find something like it if I looked hard enough.

4 is a pattern I made for a pillow, but I like it big and crazy like this, too.

5: from Cavern Home (I know they do it in a wallpaper, but not in fabric, as far as I know).

6: from cloth;

7: this one is a vintage fish pattern from Ilonka Karasz... I think she did it in the 30s.

8: a spirograph print that my sister-in-law Emily did. I'm hoping we'll actually be able to get this made one of these days... if so, I would very selfishly like to have it in black and brass.

Anyway, these are the windows in question and our living room as it looks today, in case you haven't seen them. Pay no attentions to all those unsightly cords leading to the projector; we're gonna hide those soon.

Okay. Vote.

pun intended.

2011-05-02T13:02:00.002-05:00

Store Stuff: New Roost/Old Art

2011-04-29T15:54:00.002-05:00

Look at this! Some new (to us, at least) Roost glassware showed up at the store a couple of weeks ago, and I'm liking it VERY much; it's really thick, substantial, Mexican glass... at least it looks like glass I've seen from Mexico.

Aside from a small set of Dorothy Thorpe highballs that Sean bought on Ebay last year, our current glassware collection is a hodge-podge combination of rent-house survivors. I'm not one of those people who thinks everything has to be perfectly matched, but I think it would be nice for our glasses to be an intentional collection, as apposed to a "this is everything that didn't break yet" collection. Those are the wine glasses up there, next to some Roost carafes with wooden sphere stoppers, and the martini and champagne glasses are below.

Stemware like this is usually so delicate and fragile-looking; I think that's why this girthy stuff appeals to me so much. It also looks like it might not break as easily and thinner glass, and---being the butter-fingered super-klutz that I am---I think that could work out well for me.

And here's something else I thought I'd show you for no good reason: this is an old painting of the Champs-Elysees that's been at the store for over 50 years, maybe longer (I know because I've seen it in archived photos from the sixties). I don't know who painted it, but it is by far my favorite piece of art in the store.

It had been in storage for a few weeks, but I hung it back up in the shoe salon early last month after some temporary artwork went away and left a perfectly-sized vacant space in the wall.

Also back on a shoe salon wall: "Suck It Pete". I'd brought this one back home, but we were at a bit of a loss after all of those other paintings went away, so I decided to hang him again for a spell.

The horse on the right is also mine, but he's been at Miss Jackson's for over a year now. I ripped him out of a painting instruction book that I bought at a flea market and put him in a black and gold frame.

The horses on the left are hanging on the wall in my office, because I'm going to build a horse for the windows next month, and I needed a bit of a map. He'll be made of wood, trash, and papier mache, then laquered in black. I'll post pictures of that as he's coming along.

Facts and Figyas: Nonsensical Infographics by Chad Hagen

2011-04-28T15:51:00.005-05:00

My very conscientious, stat-loving brother posted an insanely detailed chart about world greenhouse gas emissions on his facebook page today, and it made me think of these really cool, completely non-referential charts and graphs by Chad Hagen. You can buy a few of his "Nonsensical Infographics" prints at 20x200, and see more of his work here.

Green Tea Challenge: Week... 5? 7? 12?

2011-04-26T17:06:00.002-05:00

I've been terrible at chronicling this little experiment... and that was the whole point: accountablility. Even if it was just to a computer. If I lied and said I've been doing a great job the last 2 weeks, Sean would totally call me out. So here comes honesty: I have fallen off the wagon a bit. But I'm getting back on this week, Computer.

Here's the okay news: even though I've had more than my allotted 3 servings of diet soda a week, I've still been drinking a lot less of it than I was before I started tea-replacement therapy. And I've had a TON of tea, so hopefully all those antioxidants have been tipping the scale.

I've been drinking a lot of chamomile tea, too, which I'd always thought was nothing more than a very mild and tasty sedative. Turns out, chamomile is actually pretty good for you, too. It's like a super-opiate*! Unless the poweful American Chamomile Lobby is pulling one over on us, it's supposed to help soothe stomach woes, cramps, cold symptoms, and anxiety. It also allegedly boosts your immune system.

Anyway, the point of this is to say that I'm back on the wagon, tea-drinkin' it up.

*Not really. That's not at all what it is.

Springtime

2011-04-25T21:50:00.002-05:00

Here's some of that pretty-and-eerie post-storm orange light in the evening sky, the kind that makes everything look like it's lit from within.

That light always makes me think of my Grandma Marguerite, and of those early summers when I was young and very afraid of all storms, but especially the ones that threatened to turn into tornadoes (a common threat in Oklahoma), and of emerging from the cellar in her backyard into that light, after the sirens had subsided and the rain had stopped, and of looking at her roseate face while she talked about how beautiful everything looks after a storm.

Yes, I still have Christmas lights on my house.

I had nothing to do with the cultivation of any of these flowers. Just reaping what someone else has sown. These roses are in the backyard, and the irises are all in the front on either side of the driveway.

I have no idea why (probably because, as I mentioned before, I'm not the mother of any of this botanical splendor), but there are so many more colors this spring than there were last... last year, they were all the same shade of periwinkle, but now there are some with deep purple at the edges and white in the middle...

...some yellow, some white, some the color of peach flesh, and at least one that's almost the color of rust. I don't know, maybe it's normal. Is it, people who have irises and actually know a little something about them?

One other thing that made me think of my Grandma tonight:

I made pizza for dinner (with tomato sauce and mozzarella and chicken apple sausage), and after I stretched out the pizza dough and put in on the pan, there was some extra hanging over the edge. So I cut it off in strips and baked in on another pan, the way she used to do with extra pie crust. We would eat it with fresh strawberries and sugar and ice cream.

So now I really want some ice cream.

Bedroom Walls: Progress!

2011-04-25T19:15:00.003-05:00

Project Shattered Glass Wall Painting is coming along... slowly but surely. Here's a view of the only completed section of the wall.

Granted this is the smallest wall-space in the room, the 6-foot-wide space between the bedroom door and the closet. But it's done (basically). And I have to say, I'm super happy with it.

Unintended Consequence: I really don't like the trim color now. It looked just fine and white-enough against Get-It-Sold Gray, but now it looks sort of dingy; the color of the pages in old paperbacks. Plus it makes the Peach Linen-colored sections of the wall (the lightest shade) look whiter and less peachy than they actually are. So the trim and doors will have to go bright white as soon as I'm finished with everything else.

By the way, the closet doors are going to have to go eventually. I don't like the bi-folds for several reasons, but the main one is that they come out too far into the room when opened... especially the one on the left, closest to the corner; that one bangs against the nightstand, which is non-good. Bi-folds out---sliding milky or frosted glass doors IN. As soon as I can find affordable ones.

Here are the ideal doors.

This Old Thing: Vintage Huaraches

2011-04-22T13:01:00.000-05:00

All of these vinage huaraches and woven sandals are on Etsy today. None of them are my size.

Smell some flowers today.

2011-04-22T12:14:00.001-05:00

Status Update

2011-04-21T12:40:00.001-05:00

THIS OLD THING...

2011-04-19T17:06:00.002-05:00

...would look awesome in my bedroom. It's a print by Burton Wasserman, and its for sale on Etsy.

If you happen to be in Stillwater today...

2011-04-14T11:58:00.003-05:00

owl stuff: measuring cups that don't look like measuring cups

2011-04-07T11:55:00.002-05:00

Owl measuring cups and butter dish from West Elm.

Found it...

2011-04-05T11:13:00.001-05:00

Found a better picture of it, too... the BA15 MITO Towel Rail. It's from e15, and it was designed by Philipp Mainzer. Below are a great minimalist coat rack, a beautiful chest of drawers, and some metal tray tables from the same storefront.

Bathroom Towel Ladder Idea

2011-04-04T12:09:00.001-05:00

Saw this on Remodelista this morning: a great idea for that bathroom ladder/towel rack. Looks pretty DIYable.

Gondola Sofa Pillow/Lampshade Options

2011-04-02T11:26:00.000-05:00

Tulsa People April Fashion Spread

2011-03-29T13:53:00.001-05:00

This is their best fashion shoot yet... it was shot by Nathan Presley (at Mod 50s on 15th) and styled by Shannon Schroeder. It features a lot of great clothing and accessories from the store, but I gotta say, it's the Platner chair I'm liking the most.

See the whole spread here, or find a copy somewhere.

ART: Sarah Morris

2011-03-25T11:29:00.000-05:00

Artist, architect, and filmmaker Sarah Morris is profiled in the most recent issue of AD. Above are some of her kaleidoscopic works.

2011-03-24T08:22:00.002-05:00

I'd say it went very, very well... until we got to South by Southwest. I don't know why I thought it would be a good time to start something like this, just days before this trip. Anyway, it really wasn't a total failure, thanks to a few of downtown Austin's green-tea-stocked coffee shops and restaurants (especially Halcyon and Cafe Crepe).

While I didn't get the full 4 servings of GT every day of the trip, I only exceeded my soda limit on one of the days we were there, so I'm generally impressed with myself. Normally trudging through the crowds and heat sends me straight into the arms of diet soda, and I did an okay job of resisting.

This week: only one serving of soda per day, 4 servings of green tea, and plenty of H2O. And let's say that week 2 officially starts today (I'm in charge).

Kaico Enameled Steel Cookware by Makoto Koizumi

2011-03-16T12:50:00.001-05:00

Turns out there's more of this stuff than I thought: I had seen the milk pan and the coffee pot shortly after I first saw the tea kettle, but there's also a lidded sauce pan, a lidded pot, and this guy:

...a large pasta pot with a smart steel strainer insert, so you can strain directly from the pot when the pasta's finished. I really wish I would have had this last night, actually... that and a little more gnocchi expertise.

This stuff isn't cheap, but its much more affordable than a lot of high-end cookware, and definitely cheaper than something like Le Creuset. You also get a lot of the benefits of enamelware without the bulk of the cast iron French stuff. The look of it so much simpler, too; maple touches give it some warmth, but the white color and clean shapes keep it looking modern. Images from Mjolk.

To Try: Ginger Green Teas

2011-03-16T11:05:00.002-05:00

__________________________________________________

Sean got this for me a few weeks ago: the lovely little Kaico kettle, which I've been putting to very good use the past few days. The tea challenge is going well so far, but I'm looking forward to mixing it up a bit with some flavored options (so far I've been keeping it simple.):

I think I'll go for some ginger varieties next. I've tried this Tazo Green Ginger tea once, and I'm pretty sure I remember liking it. And ginger is super good for you, too: aids digestion and circulation, and it's supposed to be a natural anti-inflammatory (Just ask my scatter-brained-but-brilliant primary care physician, Dr. Google).

My favorite Republic of Tea black tea is Ginger Peach, so I might as well try the Ginger Peach green tea, too. Little bit of spicy, little bit of sweet. The black variety is very good iced, so I'll try this one cold, too.

2011-03-11T16:06:00.001-06:00

If you know me well at all, you know that I've been seriously addicted to caffeine-rich diet soda for a good seven or eight years now. It started around the time I had my first brain hemorrhage; I was prescribed an anticonvulsant called Keppra to control seizures, which had the intended beneficial effect, but the not-so fabulous side effect of making me feel like I was on the verge of deep sleep at all times.
...
And I'm not a lightweight when it comes to drug therapy; allergy medicines like Benedryl have no effect on me whatsover... and I really wish they did. Keppra, though, did me in completely. "Drowsy" doesn't begin to describe my daily level of near-unconsciousness during those initial days, so I started counter-medicating myself with Diet Mountain Dew.
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SO MUCH Diet Mountain Dew. It totally worked, but it was coursing through my system in such shocking quantities that even when I finally got to go off of anticonvulsants in 2006, I couldn't make it through a soda-free morning, let alone a few days, without those pounding caffeine withdrawal headaches. Made me feel like my head was going to explode (and I actually know what that feels like). So despite a few valiant efforts here and there over the past few years, I've yet to kick the habit.
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You can call me weak if you like, but this is the conclusion I've come to: cold turkey will never work for me. I'll have to ease off of it and employ some kind of caffeine replacement therapy... so what's caffeinated but also very good for me?
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Green tea!
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And I do actually like green tea (with or without sweeteners), so this could work.
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Here's the plan, my little self-challenge:
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At least four cups of green tea a day, and no more than 2 servings of diet pop for the first week. Week two: one serving a day. Week three: 3 servings all week. If I can sustain that, having replaced the majority of soda-chugging with tea-sipping, then I might be able to turn myself into a special-occassion-only pop drinker.
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While diet soda has no health benefits (other than being superior to no hydration at all), green tea is lousy with them (according to the interweb): it's super rich in antioxidants, studies have linked it to the prevention of cancer and other diseases, and it assists in optimum immune system function. Basically, if I'm going to be dependent on caffeine forever, I'd like my caffeine vehicle to be doing more for me. So we'll see how this goes.

More Fuller-esque Facets: Bar Cart in AD

2011-02-26T17:47:00.001-06:00

From the most recent issue of Architectural Digest: look at this black laquered geodesic bar cart. The designer isn't credited; just the antique dealer through whom it was sourced. I'd never seen anything like this.

WALL/BOOK/SHOE

2011-02-26T15:36:00.001-06:00

This (the bedroom paint project) is happening much slower than I'd originally planned. I have a habit of underestimating how long certain things are going to take me. Still no paint on the walls; but everything's drawn on them. Just need to tape off the first color, paint it, tape off the second color, paint it, tape off the third color, and paint it.

I flipped through this book yesterday at the Nickel Lane office in Stillwater. Emily got it from Bill Goldston at ULAE. It's a really great collection of images and stories from a woman who, despite her limited name recognition, had a massive influence on modern printmaking. So many artists---like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Claes Olderberg, even Buckminster Fuller---were encouraged to work in the medium because of her. Anyway, its a lovely and interesting book, and I'm glad I got to sit with it for a spell.

These are on sale at the store. I might have to get them.

Blueblocker Indecision

2011-02-24T23:49:00.000-06:00

White or tortoise?

Wheels

2011-02-23T23:20:00.003-06:00

This is the new (and by new I mean used) ride. I bought it from a charming old gentleman in an A-frame building at car lot on the Mother Road. Honk if you love that giant crack in my driveway.

Hall Bathroom Wish List: Towel Ladder/Otomi as Shower Curtain

2011-02-23T17:38:00.001-06:00

Hi. I've been busy having my car totaled by a troubled teen (the pitiful kind, not the angsty variety), waiting weeks for a settlement from her insurance company, and finally buying a vehicle. I don't know why that kept me from blogging; you'd think I'd be plenty wordy (even angsty) with all that transportationless down time.

...

Anyway, (no segue) I've been thinking about the hall bathroom, which is presently void of likable surfaces. We'll need to do all of these things eventually:

...

Resurface the tub (I do like the tub. It's one of those surprisingly roomy cast iron jobs from the 50's. Too good to toss, but too pink to work with. White it'll be.)
Retile above and around the tub
Redo the floor (currently it's covered in scratched-up linoleum)
Get a new vanity and sink (I think I'd like to repurpose a piece of danish modern furniture, but Sean's more in favor of a floating vanity... honestly, I think I like that idea just as well, so we'll see. The present sink is also pink, just not the same pink as the tub. It's also starting to disintegrate.)
Find a new mirror/medicine cabinet
Get new lighting
Paint walls and ceiling, maybe even do a wood treatment on the ceiling

So that's a big, expensive list, and it isn't likely to get checked off soon. The kitchen is next in line. But I can go ahead and accessorize, can't I? It can only help Sad Bathroom, and then when Happy Bathroom is realized, all the little extras will be there waiting for it.

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I'd like to have a ladder for towels instead of the traditional wall-mounted metal bars. This one from West Elm is nice, but I'd really like to find something taller (we've got nice high ceilings in there; might as well accentuate the verticality). I might even make something. And then I'll have plenty of room for some Turkish hammam towels, like the one's pictured above from L'Aviva Home.
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We talked about putting in a glass door for the tub and shower. I'm all for it aesthetically, but it's pretty expensive. Unfortuneately, I never really like most of the shower curtains I see, so I've just started considering a Mexican otomi coverlet as a shower curtain. It could TOTALLY work. The size is usually roughly 6 foot by 6, standard shower curtain size, and I could just hang it from clip-style shower curtain hooks. If we go with glass eventually, I can use it elsewhere.

This one's for sale on Ebay; check out the close up of the embroidery. Nothing like a wild-eyed armadillo to make you smile while you're brushing your teeth. HAPPY bathroom.

Living Room Floor: Check!

2011-01-23T22:34:00.003-06:00

The floor in the living room is finished!... literally! I finished it with a coat of shiny, protective polyurethane, and now it's inhabitable again for the first time in something like two months. You never know what you'll find when you rip up carpet in an old house, but at this point, we're oh-so-glad we did.
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Still waiting for several things to complete the room (rug, art, a glass top for that coffee table base), but I've been eyeing these little vessels from an Etsy shop called mgmy: they'd look nice clustered on the credenza or on the absent coffee table top (at least we finally decided what size and shape of glass we need: round it is).
...

Robie House/Chicago

2011-01-13T15:57:00.007-06:00

We toured the Robie House for the first time when we were in Chicago a couple of weeks ago (strange that I never did that as an art history student in Chicagoland, huh?), and this was my favorite of the tour guide's anecdotes (I do enjoy an anecdote or two):
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The house was only owned by the Robies for two years; soon after it was completed, they fell on hard times and had to sell. It was used as a primary residence by a couple of other families but then came into the possession of the neighboring Chicago Theological Seminary; they used it for classrooms and dormitory space.
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In 1957, it was in danger of being demolished. The seminary had plans to expand and thought the lot was more valuable than the house. But Wright himself, who was in his 90s by then, couldn't stand to see that happen to the greatest example of his Prairie Style, so he joined a group of protesters and helped save the building. He famously stood outside the house on the corner of 58th and Woodlawn and said, "It all goes to show the danger of entrusting something spiritual to the clergy."

ReadyMade Murphy Bar

2011-01-12T13:42:00.003-06:00

This is a cool little wall-mounted idea from ReadyMade: a fold-away murphy bar for Out-of-Spacers. Here's the instructions; this seems like the kind of thing that could have several non-alcoholic applications, as well.
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Project by Mark Perlson.

Time for a Snack

2011-01-12T00:12:00.002-06:00

Ginger peach tea, buttered toast, metal and wood clock that Sean found on ebay.

Rachel Likes Food: The Publican in Chicago/Niche in St. Louis

2011-01-11T13:56:00.008-06:00

We managed to take a quick trip to Chicago right before Cassie's New Year's Day nuptuals. We borrowed Sean's dad's big rig (bigger than an Aveo, anyway) so we could pick up some ebay-purchases: a Paul McCobb for Calvin table (the perfect friend for this) from a guy who lived enviably close to the lake shore, and the aforementioned club chairs in St. Louis on the way back.

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We also toured the Robie House, checked out the Mies Van Der Rohe architecture on the IIT campus (added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005), caught a Second City show, and stayed in the lovely Hotel Burnham (No pictures; we forgot to bring a camera.). And then we had to eat, so we figured we might as well eat at The Publican.

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It's a Belgian-style gastropub in the Warehouse District (837 W Fulton Market) with a menu dominated by heirloom pork, beer, and sustainable seafood. The place is physically dominated by a giant communal table and six long rows of simple orb pendants to illuminate it. I liked those a lot.

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We had a salad with fennel and fried pig's ears, the whitefish (best fish I've ever eaten, hands down... it was served on top of a remoulade and crusted with something really good, and I can't remember what; I looked at the menu on the website, but its already off the list.), and the suckling pig, which was served with the best pork-drippings-soaked sweet potatoes I've ever eaten, hands anywhere.

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And we couldn't help ogling our neighbors' plates, since we were knocking elbows with them and all: saw some very pretty oysters, french fries served with a fried egg on top, roast chicken with sausage (Sean's neighbor actually tried to get him to take a bite) and porchetta. Anyway, it was really, really good. If you're every hungry in Chicago, eat there.

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We also ate at a great place in St. Louis on New Year's Eve called Niche. (How boring is this without pictures of food?? I have to start taking dorkster pictures of my meals in restaurants.) I think Sean saw that it was the #1 rated restaurant in St. Louis on Zagat, so that's why we chose it...

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...Although the chef is a James Beard Award winner, so it's feasible that we would have heard of it anyway, if we were really in-the-know foodies... but we're not (although I do watch a lot of food-related television programming). If we were real foodies, we would take our camera to restaurants.

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Sean ate some little bacon and ricotta raviolis, the lasagna (truffled bechamel, egg, fontina, mushroom, and sage brown butter sauce), and the butterscotch semifreddo. I had the crispy octopus, braised beef Milanese (cooked in caul fat and served with a rutabaga/turnip/marrow "risotto" spooned into the bone), and the blood orange tart with grapefruit sherbet. Everything was lovely. And with no photographic evidence, you'll just have to trust me.

Floor Update

2011-01-10T14:21:00.004-06:00

All the pieces that didn't need to be cut are down. Tonight we'll borrow dad's saw so we can finish the edge pieces.

So long, entryway tile.

2011-01-08T17:18:00.000-06:00

COLOR/PATTERN/SWISHY DRESS

2011-01-07T17:24:00.002-06:00

SUNO

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Parquet on the brain.

Favorite Album Covers of 2010

2011-01-04T21:48:00.007-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I saw that Michael Katzif posted his list of the best album covers of 2010 on the All Songs Considered blog, so I thought I'd share my own very short list (The Broken Bells album made both of ours, but I think my other two deserve nods just as big).
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The National, High Violet

Artwork by Mark Fox

Current Favorite Track: "England"

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The Walkmen, Lisbon

Artwork by Elizabeth Spiridakis

Current Favorite Track: "Stranded"

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Broken Bells, Broken Bells

Artwork by Jacob Escobedo

Current Favorite Track: "The Mall and Misery"

Barnett Newman-inspired Bedding

2011-01-04T15:49:00.008-06:00

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I've got nothing to back this up, but I'm thinking that the Martin bedding from unison was inspired by Barnett Newman's super-awesome zip paintings ("Super-awesome" is art-history-speak). At least, that's why I like it so much. It's hard to find a pattern other than an exaggerated wide stripe (or very thin, zippy stripes with a whole lot of space between them... who's to say which is stripe or space??*) that feels sort of grand and large-scale but minimal at the same time.
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I didn't want something that would compete with what I'm going to paint on the bedroom walls, neautral as it will be. So we chose this, and in the citrus color; it was on sale at All Modern, and it's nice and cheery and bold, but not too crazy and visually competitive.
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I do like it with the simple stripe pillows, but I think it will look good with these coppery-colored, "painted stripe" patterned silk pillows from West Elm, too (also on sale). I have to say, though... I threw them on the new Selig chairs the other day, and they look pretty good there, too. We'll see.

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That lamp is from West Elm... it's the top contender for the bedside table. We've been looking for something vintage, but we can't find anything we like as much as these... and that's saying something. My better, hairier half could win championships at ebay and craigslist scouring.
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The bed is scheduled to show up on the 12th, I think, so we are totally getting there.
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*Barnett Newman; that's who.

Where We Need Pillows

2011-01-03T17:49:00.001-06:00

Rougier Ovid Table Lamp

2011-01-03T17:07:00.003-06:00

Rougier's PVC lighting from the 70s. Images from NCModern and Live Auctioneers.

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Someone's selling one of these right now on ebay for $8,500.

"Marguerite" Bowls from Roost

2010-12-28T17:37:00.000-06:00

@ Velocity

For the Love of Bucky Fuller

2010-12-17T13:37:00.006-06:00

A portait of Buckminster Fuller by Todd St. John at Hunter Gatherer.

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..Fuller in his library in Carbondale, IL. Image from BFI.

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Geodesic planters by Kelly Lamb. I saw one of these (used as a fruit bowl) in this month's Sunset magazine. They're for sale at ReForm School, one of my favorite online storefronts.

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Kelly Lamb's geodesic terrarium.
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...and a chair of hers in the window at Mohawk General Store.
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This is the birdhouse she designed for Areaware.

And this is the Orloff bowl from Alessi, designed by Patricia Urquiola.

Where WAS I when this happened?

2010-12-16T16:47:00.003-06:00

Apparently I must have had my head in the clouds during the first week or so of December, because I completely missed the Alvar Aalto Savoy Vase sale on Design/Story. I've been wanting this vase for ages, and it was SIXTY percent off. I'm such a dork.

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Just now saw this, looking through older Remodelista posts, and they were super impressed with this art supply/utensil storage idea, too.

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So bummed.

Tea Kettle Time

2010-12-12T10:20:00.008-06:00

Well, it's official but not surprising: our 55-year-old house is not exactly air-tight. Despite our new (working!) high-efficiency furnace, there's still a noticeable temperature difference from room to room.

But it's not as if the conditions aren't totally livable; I've resided in MUCH much draftier houses than this one (my bedroom in the old Jamestown Avenue rent house was so cold in the winter that frost would form on my bedside water glass during the night). And a little bit of draft in the kitchen just makes me enjoy a hot beverage all the more... which is why I made a new tea kettle purchase a couple of weeks ago. My old Copco pot had lost it's lid and whistler in the move.

I'd been looking for a pretty vintage pot on ebay and etsy (where I spotted all the kettles above), but they were all either too pricey, or the condition was questionable. As much as I like to buy vintage when possible, it doesn't matter how cute it is if there are rings of rust inside rendering it useless. I kind of needed a work horse. An adoreable work horse. Like those mini Clydesdales.

This thing, the Kaico Kettle, I love. Shoei Kogyo's design won the 2006 Good Design Award in Japan, and I completely concur. I like how simple and modern it is, especially in this clean white enamel, and those beechwood and maple accents add just enough warmth. However, $125 is more than a little bit above my current tea kettle budget.

So I opted for the attractively-priced Easy-Fill kettle, from Michael Grave's collection for Target. So far, I love it. For one thing, it was only 25 bucks, and it's in nice and shiny stainless steel. I also like the fact that it's all one piece; no seperate lids or whistlers to lose. The opening on top slides open and closed, and the whistler is hinged. It's good sized, too, in case you need to boil a lot of water quickly. And aesthetically, I think I like it just as much as any of his much pricier pots for Alessi.

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So bring on the draft and coffee and tea.

Bookmark Schmookmark

2010-12-11T11:30:00.003-06:00

As a person who never finishes a book in one sitting, I think this laquered metal, minimalist-birdhouse-shaped bookshelf is pretty fantastic. The bottom shelf holds a healthy queue of titles, and the "roof" holds your place in the book you're currently reading.
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It's called the Reader's Nest, and it's made by David Design. You can get it here, at Scandinavian Design Center, for $76.35 (and not a nickel less).

Arne Jacobsen Cylinda Coffee Pot

2010-12-11T11:07:00.007-06:00

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I wish I had enough disposable cash to be competititive in this auction, but alas, someone else is about to win this awesome Arne Jacobsen Cylinda coffee pot on.ebay.
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This is a 60's original, but the company that produced it, Stelton, recently had Paul Smith re-design some of the most polular pieces in their history, including Jacobsen's Cylinda coffee pot ($499). Smith's contribution was to change the color of the handle: it's available in bright, pastel, or muted blue hues. There are also pitchers and a short-and-stout teapot in the collection, available at http://www.unicahome.com/.
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"Suck It, Pete" Comes Home

2010-12-08T14:43:00.002-06:00

This is a channeled-frustration painting that I did early this year. It's called Suck It, Pete (long story), and its been hanging in Miss Jackson's (without a title plate) since April. We needed to fill a wall in the shoe salon, so it was a nice temporary stand-in, but thanks to something new and borrowed from Melissa Key for the store, I can finally introduce this one to our house.

I put him behind the computer for now, but I'll let you know where he winds up.

Let There Be Sixteen Lights Above My Dining Table

2010-12-08T12:39:00.005-06:00

How awesome is this? I can't get over it.

Mirrors: Faceted-Glass-Look

2010-12-06T16:50:00.003-06:00

I love this Cattelan Italia mirror (seen at http://www.macandmacinteriors.co.uk/).

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It could look nice over the dresser and against that faceted glass pattern I'm thinking about doing on the walls in the bedroom... nice and pricey.

A Bedtime Story

2010-12-06T15:33:00.008-06:00

It won't actually be here for a few weeks, but we do finally have a bed on its way. No more matress on the floor! We've been looking for a Case Study platform bed by Modernica (theirs is supposed to be the best reproduction out their of the original George Nelson design) on the secondary market, and we finally found one in a king size for not a lot of buck.

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Which means I should get cracking on the bedroom paint job soon. The walls are presently sporting the same perfectly inoffensive pale gray that they wore they day we bought the house, but I'd like to do a really geometric, large-scale, shattered-glass pattern on the walls in very subtle warm neutrals.

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Like this:

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So it would have this sort of effect with furniture:

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I think our mirror would look great against this pattern. Its a large rhombus-shaped mirror with a simple brushed nickel frame. We've got it hanging vertically so it acts as a full-length, check-yourself mirror, but if you'd like to see it hung horizontally, watch Ghostbusters 2; there's one just like it in Ray's apartment. I think its over the bathroom sink, but I'd have to do a rewatch to be sure.

Here's an extremely similar version... this one looks like gold instead of nickel/silver, but it's the right shape (I'm too lazy to take a picture of mine):

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Charley Harper: "Birdie" print

2010-12-05T14:45:00.004-06:00

A birthday present from Sean: the beginning of my Harper print collection. This one is titled "Birdie".
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The wet-scraping of the cutback adhesive on the living room concrete is underway this afternoon. One step closer to a finished floor.

Cupcakes!

2010-11-02T21:51:00.004-05:00

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It's the week of my birth, and I can think of no better excuse for making myself some spice cupcakes, and eating 65-80% of them myself over the course of said week. Here they are in their little Fire King cups, waiting to get heated and fluffed inside my oven (as you can see, I hardly mind a batter drip here and there)...
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...waiting to cool and be iced on top of the stove...

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And slathered in cream cheese icing. Happy birthweek to ME.

Boo.

2010-10-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

Kitchen stuff: Wooden "Food Processors" and Bottle Openers

2010-10-28T13:41:00.004-05:00

Here are some newish Roost kitchen accessories that I bought at the store (for 70% off), pictured atop my old-ish Formica. Wooden mortar and pestle above; set of muddlers below:

And an apple-shaped wood and brass bottle opener with a leather leaf:

I also got another bottle opener that's carved in the shape of a fish; his mouth is the opener. Very cute... but I guess I didn't take a picture of him.... so here's an image from velocity of all the openers:

You know I'd love to have that owl, but we didn't order it at the store. I might just have shell out full price for it one of these days.

Hitchcock Windows

2010-10-23T20:17:00.006-05:00

We decided to do a tribute to Hitchcock for the October south window set....

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Rear Window

Alfred's Profile

The Birds

Dial M for Murder

Englewood, CO: Arapahoe Acres Architecture Tour

2010-10-16T16:21:00.009-05:00

While we were in Denver, we made a special effort to visit Arapahoe Acres, the first post-war residential subdivision to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. I first read about this neighborhood in an article in Metropolitan Home several months ago; the article focused on this and a handful of other landmark-status mid century modern developments, and the trend toward recognizing the historic significance of homes from this era of residential architecture and (sub)urban planning.

The subject's become increasingly interesting to us since we moved to Lortondale, so it was fun to visit one of the earliest neighborhoods in the mid century modern design and residential development boom.

These are a few pictures from our little walking tour; I wanted to take more, but I was trying not to look too suspicious... and that's hard enough for a stranger with a camera in a quiet and secluded neighborhood.

Most of these houses were built between 1949 and 1957 by an architect named Edward Hawkins. He initially collaborated with another architect, Eugene Sternberg, who was much more concerned than Hawkins with tempering certain elements of the initial designs in order to pacify the Federal Housing Administration, known at the time for being incredibly wary of approving loans for homes that featured modern, non-traditional architectural elements.

But after Hawkins' and Sternbergs' partnership ended in 1950, Hawkins was free to value the integrity of his designs over economy. His post-1950 homes for Arapahoe Acres tended to be larger and more expensive than the original Marion Street tract.

Hawkins was a long-time admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Style and Manifesto, and many of the later homes in Arapahoe Acres show this influence, particularly in their relationship to the land and the use of materials like natural stone and concrete block.

We were both really impressed with the landscaping, which was apparently a pretty huge deal to Hawkins. He's known to have included detailed drawings for plantings on his plans for AA homes.

Of course, I'm sure there have been significant updates, but most of them seem to have been done in honor of the original vision.

Stu-stu-studio Redux

2010-10-12T22:26:00.002-05:00

So right now the small front bedroom that will become the new Stu-stu-studio is really nothing more than a glorified storage room/interweb portal. But thanks to a little bit of serendipity, I feel like I know where it's going eventually.

The painting in this poster for the Tulsa Opera's production of La Traviata is by an artist named Hadley Hooper (www.hadleyhooper.com), who, aside from being awesome and charmingly dubbed, also happened to choose the same shade of lapis blue in her portait of Verdi's Violetta that I've been gravitating toward ever since Sean found this cool old aluminum-group desk chair on ebay.

He also found this vintage yellow arc desk lamp on ebay.... and it just so happens to be the same color used in the text on the La Traviata poster that I love so much... the same poster that showed up in the store in multiples last week, leaving one for me to snag for my own (it's right there on top of dad's Royal typewriter).

So there you go. Kismet.

At the very least, a fortunate coincindence.

Other things I have planned for the room:

A cork wall for posting interesting ephemera
some form of seating that converts to guest sleeping arrangements (...but not a futon. Don't worry, potential overnight guests.)
parquet flooring (good-bye, carpet)
a new, bigger desk (for now, I think I'll just paint my mint green parsons desk white, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a good deal on nice big George Nelson swag-leg desk.)
more posters by artists I admire
a cool little morroccan tray table I saw at an antique store that shall remain nameless... don't want it to get snatched up before I get a chance
an incredibly well organized closet of art supplies

Colorado Acquisitions

2010-10-06T12:48:00.002-05:00

In between our RMNP mountaineerings last weekend (really fun/incredibly draining), we drove into Denver and picked up the upper half of this modular storage unit. It's part of the Linear Group designed by Paul McCobb for Calvin. We have a couple of Linear pieces in the dining room already, and I think they're all going to look awesome with the finished sliding-door kitchen cabinets, when they finally get finished.

Still looking for the bottom piece, so if you see one lying around on the inter-web, let me know (I believe its 5 feet wide and about 18 inches tall).

Also came home with a sore back (me), an achy knee (him), some minor sunburn (him), some seriously chapped lips (me), and the determination to work out with greater purpose before our next national park visit, especially if it presents the Problem of Altitude (us).

Rifle Paper Co.

2010-10-06T12:22:00.003-05:00

These paper goods are created by Winter Park, Florida-based Anna Bond and her husband Nathan.

www.riflepaperco.com

Vintage Cookbooks: Part 2

2010-09-21T22:45:00.006-05:00

The Esquire Cookbook, published (my copy, at least) in 1955 by the editors of Esquire Magazine, and designed to educate its readership on how to impress women with home-cooked squab a la russe (p 136) and such. Illustrations by a mysterious one-namer called Charmatz... more of that clean, colorful, quirky illustration style that I usually associate with mid-century children's books.

Starburst Wall: Progress as Promised

2010-09-19T16:22:00.002-05:00

Just need to go in with a kneaded eraser and eradicate those pencil marks. And replace that acorn-shaped brass sconce next to the front door. AND pull up that tile and make way for parquet. And, and, and.

Vintage Cookbooks

2010-09-19T15:47:00.005-05:00

I found this copy of The Emily Post Cookbook (published in 1951 by Funk & Wagnalls) last year at Hoover's Have-All Mall in Claremore. I bought it purely because of the book's design and illustations, and I have to admit that in all the months I've had it, I haven't cooked a single one of its recipes.

That might be because, at least according to Emily Post, conventional home cooking in 1951 called for a lot more beef tongue, turtle meat, stewed kidney's, pig's knuckles, and aspics than I care to prepare.

Regardless, the book's worth having if you only consider it a collection of food-related short stories... take for instance page 43's instructions for how to properly murder live crabs. And, of course, the genius of the look of it: Marshall Lee's design and illustrations are art in their own right.

Okay, then; who wants some creamed smoked chicken carp? ...Anyone?

AD HOC CLOSET window

2010-09-18T01:07:00.002-05:00

You know what they say; when previous homeowners give you lemons for kitchen cabinets, make lemon-flavored window displays.

Something like that.

Just finished these yesterday:

I used some of the rubble from our remodel-progress, mostly cabinet doors and drawers, plus some things we already had at the store; trim, moulding, a door, chain, copper pipe, and a few other scraps of wood. Painted then crazy colors (also leftovers), and there you have it: a practically free installation.

Little bit flashy, but you get the idea.

These are nighttime shots; I'll take a few during the day at some point; there's a bit more glare on the glass while the sun's out, but the lighting in the windows is a little less harsh. Plus you don't get the reflection of those weird, yellowish box light fixtures and the P.F. Chang's sign.

2010-09-09T20:20:00.005-05:00

This is gonna HAPPEN, people. I am gettin' on that train...

I know this tape has been on the wall for weeks now, but I'm finally getting to it this weekend. I just have to repeat this starburst in a pattern across the section of wall next to the front door, and paint the wall around it a rusty color. Probably. A color, for sure. This is the inspiration:

Thanks for that, USPS.

And these are the color options I've been staring at every time I leave the house. Rust is still winning.

More new (but old, really) Russel Wright: the teapot, a lidded casserole, and the sugar bowl to mate with my creamer. These all showed up this week.

Sean also found these pieces of Ben Seibel for Raymor on Ebay; they're lidless, but perfect for little flowers.

Dishes and Such

2010-08-28T23:44:00.004-05:00

My little collection of Russel Wright's Steubenville American Modern pottery in granite grey is growing, slowly but surely... the set of cups and saucers (Ebay) came in the mail this last week. Mommo found the water pitcher in Chouteau a while ago, and I got the little creamer at Mod50sModern. Now I just need a sugar bowl, a teapot, some dinner plates, salad plates, a couple of celery dishes and serving bowls, the casserole dish, and several hundred dollars.

More Ebay aquisitions: a couple of sets of glasses and pitchers attributed to Dorothy Thorpe... one set actually has an identifying sticker; as for the other, I'm not exactly a Dot Thorpe expert. Either way, they're very cute.

This set, also possibly Dorothy Thorpe, came with an ice bucket and a caddy.

These Anchor Hocking milk-glass dishes with the gold scalloped trim I've actually had for a while. There darn-near prissy, but I still like them. I actually have a pretty huge set: tons of dinner and dessert plates, berry bowls, a mess of cups and saucers, two cream and sugar sets, and cool oblong serving bowl.

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And since they're Fire King and oven safe, I like to bake cupcakes in the tea cups.

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The whole set served as filler in our Alice in Wonderland Holiday windows a couple of years ago. Now they serve things like red beans and rice with sausage and buttered bread.

Phone Book Dress

2010-08-28T16:02:00.009-05:00

This is from an older installation; early spring of this year, but I just realized that I never posted any pictures of it. I made this dress almost entirely out of yellow pages, plus some used 80 lb. drawing paper that I repurposed to give the bodice structure, some string, packing tape, and a mess of hot glue.

View of the back and that fan detail on the shoulder...

Pay no attention to that dismembered hussy in the corner.

Meredith and Emily helped me accordian fold the 2- or 300 phone book pages that I needed to make the skirt.

Bow... with some valuable contact information, if you're in need of legal help, auto repair, or carpet steaming.

Bodice.

And the lace-up back... I made it to where it could be worn again, so if you know anybody comparably thin who needs a paper ball gown, let me know. I've still got it in storage.

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The window next to this one had some pretty fun stuff in it, too: I made several black-on-white profile silhouette portaits out of white pages and black-background ads; Hayley made a sofa out of stacked phone books, and Stacy decopaged an odd collection of objects with white pages, including a cute little tea cup, saucer, and spoon.

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All of the phone books came from the Met. And of course, they went back after they'd served their purpose.

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Speaking of recycling, we're repurposing some by-products of my home renovation and channeling Louise Nevelson for the next set of windows. It should be interesting.

Conversation

2010-08-27T09:29:00.002-05:00

PAT SAJAK BOBBLEHEAD: Yes, Gumby... you have a comment to make?

GUMBY: I just wanted to say that I'm SO GLAD Rachel let this spoon fall to the bottom of the dishwasher and melt on that heating mechanism. I love it when this entire house smells like burnt plastic.

PAT SAJAK BOBBLEHEAD: Now really, Gumby, sarcasm is unbecoming. But you're right that she... oh, do you have something else to say?

GUMBY: I'd like to buy a vowel.

PAT SAJAK BOBBLEHEAD: Shut up. Put your hand down already.

Wall Flats Project

2010-08-27T08:10:00.003-05:00

These are those textured bamboo-pulp wall panels that I stuck to the wall a couple of weekends ago. They're called Wall Flats, and they're made by Inhabit. This is the "architect" pattern. They come in 18x18 squares, and you just adhere them with either contact cement or mastic (I used the latter).

I'm happy with the way they turned out; kind of elated, in fact. I think they make the furniture against them look more interesting, and with so much natural light in the room, its nice to have an element that casts interesting shadows.

I only need to finish priming them with drywall-grade primer, then they're ready to take latex paint. I can also fill the seems with either caulk or some kind of nail hole filler, so the gaps aren't as noticeable as they are now. I think I'll go with a high-gloss white paint, kind of a parchment tone... but, to quote Myrna Loy in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse, "not to suggest any color BUT white."

Books and Demo

2010-08-23T16:33:00.003-05:00

Started reading this on Sunday morning; started demolishing the unoriginal parts of the kitchen cabinets on Sunday afternoon.

Book report and pictures to come.

Parquet Diem

2010-08-12T14:32:00.005-05:00

We drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee, America and back this past weekend to buy some deeply discounted parquet flooring from a man with hair kind of like this:

...who also sells hang-gliding equipment on the secondary market, and tried to get us to pay him with Sean's digital camera instead of money. (Thanks again for the memories, Craigslist.) At the very beginning of the trek home, we took a detour through S. Pittsburg, TN to the Lodge Factory Store, where I bought this little enameled cast iron gem that you might remember from a previous post, also deeply discounted:

Speaking of parquet, the internet is awfully full of haters, impassioned haters, the kind who like to leave scathing comments about it on Apartment Therapy, as if parquet flooring had somehow hurt their feelings. And who knows; it could be the trauma from rejected offers to dance on it's portable varieties at wedding receptions.

But it does not hurt my feelings. It reminds me of my summer-school apartment in Florence, and of the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, and I think it's perfect (and historically accurate) for our little house. When we put it down and make it shiny, I'll take a picture for you. Because we still have a camera.

Installation Artist Elvira Wersche

2010-08-11T09:28:00.007-05:00

These temporary installations were the work of Dutch-German artist Elvira Wersche. She uses sand, dirt, and clay from as many as 600 different world-over locations in a single installation. The colors aren't altered at all, but it's incredible how vivid they are next to each other.

On the one hand, the whole ochre and sand art tradition is very primitive (and it links indigenous cultures all over the globe), but the geometry and scale of these installations, the colors, and the way they play off of the architecture in which they're installed, is so modern. It makes you think of so many things at once: textiles, spices, mid-century minimalist paintings, quilts, cave art, summer camp art projects, stained glass... so-so cool.

Agelio Batle Graphite Sculptures

2010-08-04T17:21:00.002-05:00

I saw this at Pop Deluxe today; This hand is cast in graphite, so it's a functional writing utensil and a fascinating little piece of art. The artist's name is Agelio Batle, and he also makes graphite antlers, horns, peapods, feathers, and asparagus stalks.

Giant Glasses Window

2010-07-30T15:49:00.002-05:00

I meant to take a picture of this window at night, but I never got around to it. The display came out on Monday to make way for something else comically oversized, so these will just have to be the best pictures that exist.

I'd wanted to make some gigantic glasses for a while now, but I didn't have the tools or the experience using them. I asked my sister-in-law, Emily, to build them and let me help, and I love the way they turned out. These are made out of 3/4-inch thick birch plywood and hinged with regular ol' door hinges. We sketched the pattern from a pair of my sunglasses.

It was a very educational tutorial, so I might be confident enough to try some weird builds on my own soon.

That pixelated-print jersey dress is by Tibi.

Sarah Briggs Earrings

2010-07-30T14:42:00.003-05:00

Sarah Briggs designs one of the jewelry lines we've been carrying upstairs. I think the earrings we've got from her right now are my favorites in the whole store...

We have these in jade and black onyx.

The pictured pair has itty-bitty peridot stones; we also have them in garnet.

I like the hematite best, but we have these in cobalt-blue crystal, too.

Pachyder-mod-a

2010-07-21T15:41:00.001-05:00

by Charles and Ray Eames (Vitra)

The International Scout

2010-07-02T10:11:00.003-05:00

It's a trick question.

...

This ad for the 1964 International Scout models was on http://www.adclassix.com/, but I also found some great advertisement and promotional shots of Scouts on the Wisconsin Historical Society's website (http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/), in the International Harvester Gallery (which, incidentally, should be enjoyable for tractor and farm implement enthusiasts as well as Scout fans, if that happens to be your thing). I would just copy and paste some of my favorites here, like the '68 Aristocrat or the '71 Comanche, but since I haven't received written permission to do so, and because I respect the archiving efforts and copyrights of the good historians of Wisconsin, I'll just send you their way.

These Are Things NO DANCING! Tee

2010-06-28T14:32:00.002-05:00

Reminds me of Wheaton.

www.thesearethings.com

P.S. Look at their awesome maps.

Mike Miller Silhouettes for West Elm

2010-06-18T17:34:00.001-05:00

www.westelm.com

Now We're Cookin'... With Elegance.

2010-06-18T15:07:00.008-05:00

Did I mention that we found a range? An oldie but a goodie: manufactured by the Perfection Stove C0. (formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, USA: the company is no longer in business), and very very similar to the 1953 model pictured in this ad (found this reprint at http://www.adclassix.com/). Ours isn't a double-oven, but so far the one little guy has been sufficient.

...

We found it on Craiglist, and considering what we paid for it, I would have been happy if it was only reliable enough to suffice until we could save for something new. As it turns out, it works AND looks like a charm. Nests quite well under the original Nu-Tone vent hood, too. She aced her test run: some lovely boeuf bourguignon last weekend.

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Thank you, Cleveland.

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Here's a dark-ish picture of it:

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Fabric: Jenny Lee-Katz

2010-06-18T15:02:00.001-05:00

Gull

Macrell

...

www.jennyleekatz.com

On the Wish List Under Art Prints, 1968

2010-06-17T15:29:00.003-05:00

Barnett Newman, White Fire IV

Robert Rauschenberg for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

What is the other tenth of the law?

2010-06-16T16:35:00.003-05:00

There are 2 Harry Bortoia diamond chairs (or excellent copies of the legitimate ones), very similar to the one pictured, in my office at the store, only they're powder coated in hot pink. They don't belong to the Ghost of Miss Jackson, but I think I know who they DO belong to, although I don't actually know the person I think I know that they belong to.

...

Anyway, I'd really like to have them, but I'm having a Jim Halpert-style conundrum: am I willing to risk the loss of these chairs (and lets call them Pam 1 and Pam 2) entirely, by asking the person I think they belong to (lets call him Roy) if he'd like to let them go, or do I just go on enjoying them in the limited way I do?

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Roy is obviously not missing them, seeing as how they've been here on loan for something like 5 years, and he hasn't bothered to check in on them.

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BUT... maybe he's just super forgetful, and if I bring it to his attention, he'll decide to take them back?

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And what about that whole "possession is nine tenths of the law" idiom? Is that really a thing... math-wise?

A simple smallish table, please.

2010-06-01T17:29:00.007-05:00

We'd like to have a clean, modern, diminutive sort of cafe table for the far end of the living room... something that doesn't take up too much real estate and can accommodate 2 chairs. You know, for Scrabbling.

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Ikea BILLSTA table... this one sort of mimics the Florence Knoll look, for a lot less money.

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By FAR the coolest of the lot, the Saarinen 32-inch tulip dining table.
http://www.njmodern.ecrater.com/

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Here's a little one with interlocking hairpin legs.
http://www.overstock.com/
...

This one is from Blu Dot, and it comes in neutral shades, too.

http://www.2modern.com/

Progress as Promised

2010-06-01T17:07:00.002-05:00

What we accompolished this weekend:

We painted the exterior (not the trim or the stone; just the parts that used to be that terra cotta color): Olympic "Veridian Green"... a palish aqua.
Sean demolished the ugly built-ins, and I patched the holes it left behind. We'll try and ignore the fact that the carpet was cut to fit around it until we do away with the carpet in the living room altogether.
Sean installed some solar-powered accent lights in the front of the house that shine on the stone at night.
My dad successfully connected the water line to the fridge, so we have ice!

Pictures to come...

BEFORE...

2010-05-25T17:16:00.006-05:00

Here are a few pictures of the new digs...

Exterior from the street. We're eventually going to repaint the siding, but definitely not the brick. We also may do away with the work-bench area on the far side of the carport (next to that large, unsightly silver tarp). We're also going to replace the house numbers with something simpler: Neutrafont or Century Gothic. We don't have much landscaping planned other than surrounding that sweetgum tree with a couple or rows of stone for a flower bed. The previous owner left her beautiful prize irises behind on either side of the driveway: two weeks ago they were gorgeous.

Here's the living room. What we love: that wall of windows (I spent about 4 hours scraping paint off of them on Sunday, the remnants of a less-than-meticulous previous paint job) and the size of the room. What we DON'T love: the carpet, the ceiling fan and other misfit light fixtures, and...

...the built-in shelving on the east wall. We're going to knock that down and replace it with something like those Inhabit wall tiles that I mentioned in a previous post. The carpet will be replaced with wood parquet. If you're thinking the sofa looks strange, that's because its not on its frame... but it will be after it gets new upholstery. The Wassily chairs (the matching chrome ones) need some leather work, and the chair in the corner needs to be completely reupholstered, too. Are you exhausted yet?

Here's the outside from the backyard. It won't happen this summer, but next spring we're hoping to add a nice, simple stone patio.

Great uninterupted view of (and for) the pups... completely unlike the rent house. I think they like keeping an eye on us.

The kitchen... soon to be gutted! The bones of the cabinets are original, but they've been altered beyond regression. They used to have sliding doors (you can still see the grooves that the doors fit into), but at some point those were removed in favor of this set of doors, complete with pinkish-peach pulls and knobs. The drawers stick like nobody's business; 2 or 3 are completely unusable. The fridge, the opening for a range, and an original vent hood are behind the tall set of cabinets. This might all be shuffled around a bit when the new cabinets go in.

Nothing says 1955 like a pink and grey bathroom, huh?

Original light fixture. Wish there were more of them.

Here's the backyard at night. I really like how this looks. Of course, we'll need to find a window covering solution for these... we're leaning toward the sliding panel system from Ikea.

More PANTONE products...

2010-05-21T14:11:00.004-05:00

Mugs (at Graham & Green and Uncommon Goods)

Tins (at Design Warehouse in Santa Fe, a place I want to visit the next time I take a road trip through the desert.)

http://www.grahamandgreen.com/

http://www.uncommongoods.com/

http://www.designwarehousesantafe.com/

PANTONE "Wallstore"

2010-05-21T14:01:00.001-05:00

I just saw these at Remodelista.

MORE Tom Dixon Lighting

2010-05-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

Go to www.tomdixon.net to see it all.

2010-05-19T09:21:00.003-05:00

There were several ICFF posts on apartment therapy about these super-thin folding chairs, called Sheet Seats (http://www.sheetseat.com/). They're 3/4 inch thick, and made from a single sheet of plywood. There's practically no waste.