Manolo for the Home

Nothing new, patchwork furniture is often the purview of crafters with leftover fabric scraps and quilt-happy grannies. But is it chic? Can it ever be? Squint Limited thinks so and churns out colorful bespoke chesterfields, lampshade, and even dressers, all wrapped in a mix of contemporary and vintage fabrics. Oh, and period furniture styles that just pop when upholstered with bright, cheeky prints and bold colors.

Squint Limited’s pieces are made in England and upholstered traditionally, with tied springs and hand stitched seams. Each design is priced individually depending on the final mix of fabrics used, and a selection of sofa shapes can be made as bed settees. In other words, this ain’t your granny’s couch, and you’re going to pay more than she did for one. But, oh, aren’t they divine?

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.

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?

The first comes from Mod Podge Rocks:

Amy took a fairly boring end table and spruced it up with a little paint, some scrapbooking paper, and of course, her signature Mod Podge. Directions can be found here for those who have their own boring end tables in need of upcycling.

The second comes from Moneywise Moms:

Gina posted a dresser re-do how-to that looks slightly more advanced than the one above, but seems straightforward enough for the dedicated crafter. I think both are awesome, and super inspiring to people like me who want to spruce up their furniture but are always putting it off.

…or as I prefer to think of them, boys boys boys! All right, not really, but many people see these terms and what comes to mind is men of varying statures as the modern individual is seldom schooled in furniture jargon. To combat ignorance and making shopping that much easier, here’s a guide to tallboys, highboys, and lowboys. I’m thinking perhaps that it will be the first of many posts clearing up misconceptions where furniture and decor are concerned.

A highboy is a tall double chest of drawers marked by a wider base of two levels of drawers and an upper section consisting of three narrower stacks of drawers topped by a series of even small drawers. Known as a best-on-stand or a chest-on-chest, the highboy’s name is derived from a corruption of the French bois (“wood”).

A tallboy is similarly marked by a wider base of a double chest of drawers but is topped with a wardrobe. Highboys are frequently mislabeled at tallboys, which is a shame because it makes these beautiful storage pieces more difficult to find. Tallboys cab be further differentiated by the fact that they may have five, six, or even seven long drawers with only two short ones.

And a lowboy is a small table with one drawer or two rows of drawers, named so as to differentiate it from its loftier cousins, the tallboys and the highboys. Just picture the bottom half of a highboy or tallboy, and you have yourself a right and proper lowboy.

(Photo via 1, 2, 3)

There’s a long tradition of looking to nature for inspiration in art and design, and no wonder. Once upon a time, there was nothing but pure imagination and what you could see around you in the great outdoors. Nowadays we have a lot more to look at, but nature continues to inspire those who create.

The tree bed from Shawn Lovell Metalworks is a wee bit pricey at $15,000, but how delightful to sleep and dream in the comforting arms of a break in the woods. There’s even a nest for passing birds overhead!

For those who wish to dry their duds the old fashioned way, Insitu has stylized tree clothes lines, suitable for indoor or outdoor use. The colors are great, though the $600 price tag leaves a lot to be desired.

These look like slim vases, but they’re actually quite tall. Jean-Marie Massaud’s Missed Tree Flower Pot has a sturdy steel base so you can be quite sure you won’t be left shouting timber as your beautiful pot crashes the ground.

Anthropomorphic furniture? Yes, please! How adorable are these chairs? They make me want to sit down and stay a while.

The Face Chair, designed by Bora Çakilkaya for P-ARCH, is definitely cute and right up my alley, whether you’re talking about the happy chair or the sad chair or the chair that looks a little irritated.

There’s not much out there about the Istanbul-based Cakilkaya, but I can’t help but think he must be a pretty playful fellow to have made simple seating into something so fun.

Fact: Kids like the write in furniture. Fact: Getting ink out of upholstery or crayon off walls is tough. One simple solution is providing children with furniture that they can write on without fear of punishment. That might mean a play table in a daughter’s room or son’s room that gets graffitoed to within an inch of its life. A better solution, however, is a write-on/wipe-off chalkboard table that will look as sweet in the nursery as it will in a big kid’s room.

This neat chalkboard table from Mod Mom Furniture fits the bill, though it is unfortunately only available to residents of Los Angeles. The rest of us can go the DIY route with a kids play table from somewhere like Craiglist or the naked furniture store, a can of chalkboard paint, and a lazy Susan. Slap on the paint, affix the lazy Susan with screws, and *voila!* you have a custom chalkboard table that might just save your walls. Or a flat surface on which you can write a grocery list… since there’s no reason a chalkboard table should only be for children.

(Via Droolicious)

A bench of mine recently called it quits, committing furniture suicide by casting off one of its own legs. Once upon a time, I purchased that bench to match a writing desk given to me as a present when I published my first book. I wanted not just somewhere to sit, but a piece that would match the desk itself, which had brilliantly curved legs and a dark cherry finish. In looking for that perfect match, I discovered that my writing desk had been crafted in the Queen Anne style. Naturally this inspired me to want to find out more.

The cabriole leg is one of the most recognizable features of the Queen Anne style of furniture, but it’s not the only defining element. Queen Anne furniture is often marked by a carved cockle shell or fan motif that appears on the front of a chest or on the curve of an iconic Queen Anne leg. Frequently found in the dining room on tables and lowboys, the Queen Anne style of leg can also be found on dressing tables, writing desks, and benches.

I tend to think of Queen Anne furniture as being delicate, but that delicacy is oftentimes an optical illusion caused by the curvature of the legs or the scalloped edging on a sturdier piece. That’s not the only thing just a tiny bit strange about Queen Anne furniture, however, as I discovered in an article at Osborne Wood.

Who would have thought that a mistake in identifying the proper origin of a single table leg would result in arguably the best known furniture style of the world today–the Queen Anne? You see, it was really the Chinese who inspired the cabriole legs and the Devonshire legs. Although mistakenly attributed to England’s Queen Anne period, the nomenclature remains today. Carefully researching the history of the ‘Queen Anne cabriole legs’, we find that it most resembles the William and Mary styling of the late 1800’s. Thanks go in great part to William Thackeray’s novel The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne. Thackeray eluded to the Queen Anne style of architecture, but failed to give many particulars. So, readers and craftsmen devised their individual interpretations and labeled these different styles ‘Queen Anne’. Thus was born the many variations of the Queen Anne styling appearing today. Although quite a misnomer, the Queen Anne leg has certainly taken its place in the world of beauty and design, even if it does have a bit of an identity crisis.

Learning about one’s furniture is fascinating, no?

Pink goes from being cool to not being cool anymore with surprising rapidity, which means sometimes my tastes are cool and sometimes they’re decidedly uncool. For I, like many people, like pink. You’ll never catch me wearing it (heaven forbid!) but I do like to surround myself with touches of pink. And for a while I even had bright pink hair, so you know I must truly adore it. Every so often I go looking for more pink in my life, and now is one of those times.

Here’s just some of the pink stuff from Graham and Green that I’m digging on right now:

This pink mercury table light with its matching pink shade would pop in almost any room, but looks especially stunning when displayed amid lots of black and white or, as shown here, mirrors.

Cute as a button, a pink and white lambs wool hot water bottle cover hides the actual hot water bottle. Which is nice, since they tend to look rather nasty and medical.

This pink dresser would be great in a girl’s room… or a grownup girl’s room. But somehow even though The Beard is quite oblivious when it comes to most of my decorative choices, I don’t think I could slip this past him. Nuts.

I love this antique-style rattan back chair with its luxurious pink cotton velvet upholstered seat. Tell people it’s vintage and that you reupholstered it yourself. Who’s going to argue?

Finally, there’s a mother of pearl inlay bedside table with clear crystal glass drawer knobs. Handcrafted in India. Unique with a flaw or two, as a result. Very cool, I think, since pink paired with that style of workmanship is surprising.