Vintage pottery is just plain fun. It’s fun to collect. It’s fun to display. And it’s fun to use, because if it’s going to take up space in your home you might at well enjoy it. Plus, as collectibles go, it’s easy to find and inexpensive to buy (especially on eBay). What’s not to like? You can base an entire room around a cool piece of vintage pottery, especially if the piece has great color or lines.

What’s not to like? You can base an entire room around a cool piece of vintage pottery, especially if the piece has great color or lines.

I’m not advocating smoking, but if you’re looking for ashtrays that don’t scream truck stop, vintage is the way to go.

(more…)

Har haw, I know. Terrible pun, but I couldn’t help myself. Growing up close-ish to some of the less savory parts of New York City, I saw plenty of wrought iron window grates, but as a child of the “safe” suburbs, I thought them a terribly eyesore. It didn’t help that many of the wrought iron window grates I saw were warped or rusted or just plain uuuugly. When you’re a builder throwing up cookie-cutter apartment blocks and houses, I suppose it doesn’t make much sense to think of the aesthetic properties of wrought iron. Can people get in via the windows? No? We’re all good.

It was only later when I lived in Costa Rica, where people coming in through your windows to steal whatever isn’t nailed down isn’t what I’d call an impossibility, that I saw wrought iron window grates that had *gasp* style! Granted, they were new, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily had to be pretty or fanciful or just gracefully curvaceous. I wish now that I’d taken some pictures of all the amazing wrought iron window grate patterns I saw, but to make up for that I found some awesome examples of wrought iron grating from around the Internuts. Enjoy!

(via Lady the Tramp)

(via Haddoncraft Forge)

(via Cor-Ten Art)

(via Palazzo Pizzo)

Nice, no? And perhaps even pleasantly inspirational to those contemplating buying cheap-o real estate in areas that one wouldn’t necessarily describe as savory.

Is it just me, or does everyone grow up with an ugly furniture store, the one that advertises on the weird local station that shows syndicated re-runs, wacky old movies, and very local news? I don’t know who supplies all the ugly furniture stores, but someone somewhere is making bank selling wholesale leather couches, “modern art” prints, and glass side tables to these places.

I used to be a huge candle fan, meaning I was one of the people who actually burn the candles instead of just letting them get all dusty, until the day I found out that cheap candles from the Chinese dollar store in nowheresville Brooklyn frequently have lead in the wicks. That gave me pause, but didn’t prompt me to toss out my tea lights. No, the last straw was a candle that threw off so much soot as it burned that it somehow stained a bunch of nearly invisible leftover grout that wasn’t cleaned properly off my bathroom tiles. You couldn’t actually see it until the soot started flying… when I tried to clean up, it stained the grout, which is why I have these odd stains on my bathroom tiles. Stupid candle!

Nowadays I don’t burn quite so many candles, what with the baby and the cats and the extreme dislike of soot, but I do keep some around, just in case. The ones I do keep around are pure beeswax with organic cotton wicks, with no scents or fillers. I’m partial to the Timberline brand, but there are plenty of great candlemakers out there working with pure beeswax instead of petroleum-based products. If I had the time, I might even try rolling my own with a kit or maybe reading up on the topic (which is a lot less appealing than just jumping in with the kit, really).

Long story short, I’m sewing a new deeper diaper bag for myself. The old one is awesome, but much more suited to the needs of a newborn than a little chick who’s less than a week away from being a year old! I’m avoiding thinking about where the time goes by contemplating the task of digging out my craft room, which was once my home office. I moved my laptop into the living room so as better to watch the baby, leaving what ought to have been space to sew but became a temporary storage room straight out of that show about hoarders. Not cool, not cool.

Today’s post is meant to inspire me to make my now craft room a little bit more suited to its purpose, but perhaps it will also inspire some of my dear readers, who I know for a fact can get pretty craft when they want to! Here are five cool craft rooms in which there’s a place for everything, and everything appears to be in its place.

(via Making Memories)

(via Crafty Intentions)

(via Heather Bailey)

(via Bliss Tree)

(via Making Memories)

Brrr, so cold here. And the snow that’s still on the ground has turned that dismal gray color that means it’s no longer at all nice to use for snow ice cream. I’m entirely sick of winter at this point. I’ve exhausted my to-do list of indoor projects needing my attention, and I’m itching to tackle some outdoor projects. Alas, it is too cold for exterior painting and too wet for sanding, so I’m SOL. The worst part is my brain keeps retreating into itself where it can dream of places like this uninterruptedly.

Maybe not places exactly like this, as those lovely little bungalows are in Wells-Next-The-Sea, a seaport situated on the North Norfolk coast in England. I’m sure Wells-Next-The-Sea is quite picturesque just now with all those pretty colors, but I can’t imagine that it’s at all warm, which makes it less than inviting in my mind. Summer (or at the very least springtime) cannot come quickly enough, in my opinion.

(Photo by russelljsmith)

Here’s a little antidote to the colorful interior shots that had some of you covering your eyes because oh my gosh, the brightness!

Jake Phipps Jeeves & Wooster pendant lights are made from authentic bowlers and top hats, and are British to the core. Forget fun and funky, these lights will imbue your dining room or other space with a somber seriousness fitting your station in life.

Looking for ideas for your little chick’s room? Meg of WHATEVER created this tented bed set-up for her wee ones using blankets and ribbons and flowers, oh my. The best part? It’s in a corner, so behind the pillows is what might be a secret princess sanctuary with ample seating and space to play in a pink-tinted atmosphere.

Nice, right? I would have killed, figuratively speaking, for a bed such as this when I was about seven or so. Alas, my mom was never the girly type so my dreams of having a canopy bed or something similar will have to be passed on to my own daughter, who will no doubt want a racebar bed, much to the delight of her papa.

Anyone who has ever been afraid of using color should take a good look at this amazingly colorful villa designed by Giorgio Saporiti for Il Loft to see just how awesome color can be.

Beautiful!

This room reminds me strongly of one of my first apartments. I wouldn’t say that flat was a put together as this one — in fact, it was rather cluttered due to a wackadoodle roommate — but it had the same shabby chic feel. Of course, for many people shabby chic is just not something that exists. In their minds pits, dings, scratches, and paint less than uniformly applied are defects rather than features. Old things that haven’t been perfectly preserved are fit only for junking, and charming little cottages crammed with threadbare settees and chipped teacups simply don’t exist in real life.

I suppose I fall into the pro camp when it comes to shabby chic, and I can easily imagine a younger version of me settling comfortably into an apartment that includes this room (styled by Emma Thomas). The peeling walls might drive me a bit batty after a while, but who knows how long it would take considering that my own kitchen is currently sporting a rough area where I steamed off an ugly wallpaper border along with a great deal of paint and then just stopped. What do you think, dear reader? Is shabby chic a valid decor style or simply a way to excuse imperfection?