Manolo for the Home

I’m always a little wary of spending any sort of real money on children for anything other than health, safety, nutrition, and enrichment. I watched my six younger siblings grow out of clothes, get bored with toys mere minutes after receiving them, and ding the heck out of all of their furniture….that is, when they weren’t accidentally painting on it or carving their initials into it.

I understand that one must drop enough cash on things like carseats and cribs to ensure that they won’t suddenly turn into a fiery ring of snakes or devour the baby in the dead of night, but the thought of dropping a phat wad on a single purpose changing table because it will instill junior with an early aesthetic sense makes me cringe.

That’s not to say I don’t like looking at kiddie rockers inspired by the Galapagos Islands or a high chair whose design was based on the fabled hanging gardens of Babylon. So while it’s unlikely I’ll ever be purchasing any furniture from Arlington Modern Children’s Furniture, I do like to have a gander at what’s on offer on the web site and imagine the day I’ll be able to stock my home with expensive furniture that will be pooped on, scratched, and forgotten without giving it a second thought.

Plus, is it just me, or do both of the pieces above look darned uncomfortable?

The Beard and I spent the weekend jumping from shop to shop, looking for the perfect patio set. What we saw was somewhat dismaying…the sturdy metal chairs had flimsy plastic seats while most of the umbrella-ready tables were far too big for our modest deck. Even boxed, the sets we liked were too big to fit into our car, and we weren’t willing to pay $250 for shipping on a $500 item!

We eventually settled on a white wicker set from Target that received rave reviews from just about everyone who bought it. At some point in the future we’ll be buying an umbrella, but that can wait. All in all, I’m pretty excited and hope it arrives quickly.

Interestingly, wicker refers not to a material, but rather to the act of weaving fibers together. A wicker chair or table may be crafted from rattan reed, bamboo, or paper fibre rush, and a lot of the wicker-style furniture in the world today is made of plastic. Natural wicker is susceptible to the elements, so it has to be covered and brought inside when not in use…or, at the very least, in the wintertime. Unlike molded plastic patio furniture, it won’t last ages and ages.

The good news is that wicker can last quite a while with proper care, as outlined in this NY Times article. Cleaning and sealing are musts!

I love wallpaper patterns, but I’m so not motivated enough to do the whole wallpaper thing. Right or wrong, I think of wallpapering a room as this tedious and complicated process involving lining up patterns and picking fights with The Beard. Why the fights? Tandem home improvement tends to bring out the worst in people. Consider my friend who installed a new bathroom sink with her live-in boyfriend. She said that she was close to killing him by the time the sink was in. Oy!

So, yeah, wallpaper. Do not want. Children’s book author and crafter Claire Louise Milne found a new and wonderful use for wallpaper, however, and I think I could pull it off without becoming a widow. I’d show you a snapshot of her handwork but she asks that people like yours truly not use her photos without permission, so you’ll have to go look for yourself.

For those who’d prefer to stay right here, I’ll describe Milne’s pet project. After falling in love with Neisha Crosland’s “anemone” paper, she decided to jump feet first into the world of wallpaper. Long story short, she backed the doors of a couple of secretaries with some gorgeous with the paper.

“I decided the best way to indulge the wallpaper fixation was to decorate a cabinet. And I found some lovely vintage paper on ebay. It has a lattice pattern (which I love) and flowers (which I love) and the colour scheme is fresh with light green and lots of white.”

This is DIY on a small scale — perfect for those of us with more ambition than time!

The house that The Beard and I own — or sort of own, because a goodly portion of it still belongs to Wells Fargo — came complete with a backyard deck painted a sort of rusty red color that burns the hell out of our feet on summer afternoons. We’ve got a power sander and a couple of jugs of deck stain at the ready. What we don’t have is time!

Recently, my MIL was in town along with one of The Beard’s cousins, my own mother, and her partner. Watching our relatives carry kitchen chairs out onto the deck was a bit humbling, to say the least. We’d had two of those molded plastic chairs one can buy at the Family Dollar and a little matching table, which was fine for us. Then The Beard dropped one off of the side of the deck, meaning no more leisurely Saturday morning outdoor breakfasts. For now, at least.

Well, it seems my MIL noticed the lack of outdoor seating because before she left, she presented The Beard with a check for a thousand dollars to put toward a nice patio set. Now I’m wasting precious time scouring the Internet for ideas. I can’t decide whether to buy something chic for two (seeing as that we’ll be the ones using it 99% of the time) or a set that can accommodate larger numbers.

Here are two possibilities:

The Provence garden set would be perfect for those intimate breakfasts mentioned above, but less than ideal when guests were in town.

The Al Fresco teak set, on the other hand, would allow us to play host to at least three other people.

We’re gravitating toward something durable that’s less than the amount donated by my MIL so we can buy a few other things for our home. I’m thinking about picking up this lamp from Bellacor:

It’s lovely, it matches my living room scheme, and it costs a mere $151, which doesn’t seem like a lot when you have a thousand bucks to play with. Would I spring for it normally? Probably not because I like the thrifting game too much, but the rules have changed for the time being!

Oh, MetroSofa, you minx! Temptress! Or is that tempter? I mean, really now, is an only seating shop traditionally male or female? It doesn’t matter. Your antique-modern aesthetic makes me want to light all of the furniture in my house on fire just so I have an excuse to buy more.

Seriously — classic styles merge with hip fabrics in a perfect blend of old and new. They start with recyclable or antique wood frames that would otherwise end up in a landfill and work their magic to make them beautiful again, choosing “paints, fabrics, cushions and finishes with green production and manufacturing in mind.” Yep, green as in eco-friendly so you can feel good about your chair…unless you had to torch all your existing chairs to get it.

Plus, if you don’t like any of the chairs you see below, you can custom design your own!

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The problem with so many of the lovely antique and vintage things I see each day is that while they look as close as can be on my laptop’s screen, they’re actually thousands of miles away in cute little shops located all over the country.

I find, for example, the most darling little hand shaped teapot, only to discover that the Arizonian potter who creates them doesn’t do distance sales but would be happy to meet me at my convenience. That’s just one hypothetical example, of course.

Everything in the pic above can be found at Coleen & Company, in lovely Newport Beach, CA. Designer Coleen Rider finds lots of sweet pieces who knows where, stocking her shop with all things beautiful. She even deigns to put some of it up on the Internet so that those of us who secretly dream of things like leather-topped Italian writing desks, vintage porcelain birds, and colorful Chinoiserie panels can drool.

That problem I mentioned in the very start of this post? It’s no problem at all — order what you like on the web site (if, unlike me, you have the money), and Rider will have it lovingly packed and carefully shipped right to your doorstep. Happy shopping!

United States Patent #3149880 is for “Disposable Furniture.” It’s an interesting idea, and one that I feel has been thoroughly embraced by people in the U.S., if not quite intentionally. I like to walk around my neighborhood in all sorts of weather, and it’s an unusual day indeed that doesn’t involve my stopping to inspect some piece of discarded furniture. There isn’t all that much in my house that came out of someone’s trash, but there are a few things. I enjoy refinishing tables, you see, and the curb is a wonderful place to find blank slates upon which to work my magic.

So what do I mean by disposable? This passage from Yet Another Blog about Money sums it up nicely:

IKEA makes sense if you’re willing to recognize that the furniture items you buy aren’t going to become heirlooms–and indeed, might not even survive your next move. They are, in a sense, disposable. If they break or get scratched, you won’t be happy about it, but you won’t lose sleep over it, either. And when you finally decide that you are sick of a particular piece of furniture, it will probably have a used resale value of somewhere between $5 and $25, which, depending on your personal finances, you might not even bother with reselling.

I have one of the chairs in the image above, complete with a nubbly off-white cushion that attracts cat hair like some kind of magical magnet. I tell you this: It’s flimsy. Yes, I’m probably the third or fourth owner of the chair (thanks, Kristina!). Yes, there’s a bit that’s glued because there was a “fyorgen” or whatever it is Ikea calls those oddly shaped screws they give you with your flat packs. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the chair is simply not made to last.

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I always thought beanbag chairs were kind of stupid. Yes, they’re comfortable when they’re not the really cheap kind from Wal*Mart, but they’re always just a tad too small for the grownup human being. I generally view beanbags as being something you stick in a kid’s room until they’re old enough to know better.

Here’s me, eating my words as I contemplate cozying up to The Beard on this six foot beanbag from Studio OneUp. They still look like something you might blunder into in a stereotypical “mantuary,” but at least they’re big enough for two.

I was all set to write about moon gardens, but it’s already just shy of 11 p.m. and I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. so there goes that idea. A post about moon gardens is forthcoming, and to stimulate your appetite, here’s a description: “Designed to be enjoyed from dusk until the coming of the darkness, these gardens serve as a perfect complement to silvery moonlight, mild summer nights, and the spirit of rejuvenation.” Uh…okay, maybe not. Basically, moon gardens contain a mix of flowers and plants that look badass at night.

Until I muster up the energy to compose a missive about ‘em–look for it on Friday morning–please enjoy some pictures of freaky chairs…like this meat chair, for instance:

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Please don’t confuse this with the five things I can’t live without. It’s totally, totally different! For one thing, I already have some of the things listed below. It’s just that my particular versions aren’t quite as nice. And some of the things are totally impractical, pointless, and even silly!

It is the height of ridiculousness and something I could probably make myself, if necessary. We’ve talked about ceramic cats in the past, but this one is just a tad different. What’s stopping me from snapping it right up is the price tag. The Rosenau Castle cat (part of Nymphenburg’s Big Five porcelain trophy series) costs a cool $929. Ouch.

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