Manolo for the Home

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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VS.

The Beard and I hosted house guests for the past few days, and one noticed my growing stack of furniture, housewares, and gardening catalogs. What can I say? It’s a perk of the job — I need to know what’s out there, and I have the best excuse in the world for hoarding catalogs and magazines.

In a quiet moment, my guest was flipping through a home decor mag and happened upon a page full of of armless couches and loveseats. Her thoughts on living room seating are emphatic and rigidly defined. A couch, in her opinion, should have arms because armless couches look ridiculous and rob those who sit of a valuable perch for elbows and tired heads.

So naturally I have to ask y’all…

Personally, I like my chairs and couches to have arms. Arms hold teacups and cats…they keep a book open at the last page I read…and I can put my legs up without too much trouble.

With apologies to those who live in the southern hemisphere, I’d just like to say thank goodness that spring has finally sprung. I was getting terribly sick of keeping my house hermetically sealed against the cold and dreary weather. Now that I can finally sit outside without risking hypothermia, I’ve realized that my complement of weather resistant furniture is woefully inadequate.

In fact, my entire collection is limited to two plastic armchairs and one tiny plastic table because the only outdoor space I had as of a year ago was a 5′ by 10′ bit of deck hanging in space. Now I have a deck that’s quite a bit bigger and also overlooks an entire yard, which means I’m looking for an upgrade.

In yet another moment of synchronicity, I was on the phone with my gram whining about my lack of weather-resistant seating surfaces when I found Ballard Designs‘ summertime catalog in my mailbox. I wasted the next fifteen minutes losing myself in daydreams of customizable umbrellas, intricate cast aluminum lounges, and faux bois planters.

So, yeah, it’s time to hose off the plastic and shop around for some good deals on outdoorsy accessories because $600 for a chaise isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Clear and colored plastics don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon if all these house and home rags I read every month are any indication. There are the various Ghost chairs designed by Phillippe Starck, and then there’s the polyhedron Alchemia chairs I mentioned a while back.

Here’s another, again designed by Starck:

The Mademoiselle armchair claims to combine two (or is it four?) aesthetic qualities: “solidity and space, materiality and transparency.” I like the fact that it comes in oodles of different colors and prints.

This is Starck’s chair in what is presumably its natural habitat:

I don’t particularly like the way it looks like it’s hovering in space, a la Dominar Rygel XVI’s floaty chair. Maybe it’s something about the wall the chair is up against, but the legs just seem to disappear. I suppose that’s the “space,” but I’m not feeling the “solidity.”

What with papercraft looking to be the next big thing — you know, now that knitting is mainstream cool again — why not try your hand at something a tad more useful than the average origami swan? Foldschool is a teeny collection of furniture for kids that parents can construct using the cardboard boxen everyone seems to keep stashed in the basement…just in case.

There’s even a manifesto:

Mass culture is run by superficiality and ecological absurdity. Foldschool supports craftsmanship as a face-to-face approach to design and brings together product and user the closest possible. The mindset of foldschool is to restore design to one of its original missions: to provide a product at an affordable price through a smart manufacturing process.

The downloadable patterns can be printed out with any printer, and you may already have the required tools: cutter, ruler, cutting mat, spray adhesive, needle, glue, masking tape, and folding tool. According to the site, the resultant furniture is stable enough to be used by an adult…though the pieces themselves are small, so consider scaling up. I can’t vouch for the scalability of the designs, but it’s worth a shot, right?