Manolo for the Home

My grandmother decided recently to clean out her cupboards and gifted me with a great deal of vintage upholstery fabric. I took it all, fearing I’d miss something spectacular if I poked through it to find the good stuff when my ferry was set to leave in a mere half hour. A lot of it is rather thick and nubby, leading me to believe my sewing machine would balk if I tried to make curtains, but a few yards were utterly gorgeous. One swath in particular is white and orange and two shades of blue that just happen to match the two shades of blue in my living room.

How is it that I only recently learned that blue and orange can be combined to good effect?

No matter! Thus far I’ve pre-washed and ironed the fabric to prepare it for its eventual fate, which is to become a pair of throw pillow covers for the living room. Too bad my sewing machine is on the fritz. There is, however, one benefit to not being able to indulge my need to sew, sew sew, which is that I can spend all sorts of non-productive time looking at beautiful fabrics, contemplating what I’d make if I had all sorts of money to drop on the raw materials for dresses and shams and slipcovers.

I’m a huge fan of Amy Butler fabrics — in fact, it was she who taught me not to hate florals. Previously, I associated all floral prints with a certain high school math teacher who daily wore dresses that looked more like couches.

Lovely, no? The nice thing about sewing pillow covers is that they’re generally square or rectangular, which means you only have to sew on a straight line. Additionally, you’ve got a lot of freedom where fabric is concerned unless your pillows see a lot of ‘butt action’ on a regular basis. If you want to give this simple project a try a try, the easy, illustrated instructions found here and here are a great place to start.

Now I’m off to inspect my newly delivered wicker set!

Radar won’t detect THIS chair from Blu Dot! Its faceted surfaces give it a very low radar signature because it can radiate almost all of the radar energy away from the receiver. Okay, maybe I’m making all of this up, but I can’t help it if my brain says B-2 when I look at this particular piece of furniture.

2Modern says: “Powder-coated steel ships flat and folds along laser-cut lines to create a dynamic and comfortable chair. As skinny as a supermodel, yet far more sturdy.”

I don’t necessarily know that I want my furniture to be as skinny as a supermodel. Furniture from my local discount store is as skinny as a supermodel and that isn’t good. I wouldn’t mind, however, if my furniture was as study as a F-117 Nighthawk because that’s pretty dang sturdy. Unlike the Nighthawk, the Real Good chair is available in ivory, aqua, and red.

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!

(more…)

I like furniture like this Blue Dot Bonnie sofa and Clyde loveseat…in a showroom or on the pages of a magazine, that is. It’s fun to imagine buying a thoroughly modern house and decorating with futuristic furnishings, but I’ve always gravitated toward a countryish aesthetic because the associated furniture tends to look comfortable and inviting. Whether or not it is…that’s an entirely different story.

For all I know, this sofa is a dream to sit on, but it simply does not make me want to “take a load off.” When confronted with seating like this, I tend to park myself on the very edge and sit up very straight. It almost looks as if it belongs in the lobby of a rather nice hotel where it’s understood that while people do need to sit down, they won’t be sitting down very long.

I look at this sofa and can’t help but wonder: When does design trump comfort? Does it ever?

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.

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.

There are few chores sadder than taking stock of the possessions left behind by an older relative forced by circumstance to move into a “home.” The things we gather over time define us in our own minds, but say something completely different to the outside observer. Some people–my mother, for instance–want everything to be new and flashy and modern. To them, anything vintage or outdated belongs in the dumpster.

Me? I like retro anything, even if it’s so kitschy as to be rather…ugly. I wouldn’t want a room full of kitsch, but a few crazy pieces of tacky history here and there can make an otherwise bland a room POP. People who visit say, “Oh my goodness, where’d you get this? My crazy old aunt had one just like it!” A ceramic cat or a crazy lamp really take people back…to spring vacations spent at the houses of grandparents…to their own childhoods. Everyone sees something different.

The story behind this photo and the ones that follow is this: I have a friend whose aunt is moving into a home, and it fell upon said friend to catalog the stuff left behind. His ladyfriend, Jennifer P., took pictures, and I found them to be quite moving.

(more…)

Etsy is one of my go-to destinations when I’m looking for cool stuff to feature on Manolo for the Brides, but it never would have struck me to look there for furniture. After all, shipping charges must be outrageous, right? And who wants to buy furniture you can’t inspect first? I’m not so sure anymore — a short search for furniture netted me all sorts of chill chairs I’d be more than pleased to install in my own home.

Here’s a sampling:

This “Swanky Louis XVI chair” is brought to you by Dinwiddies,maker of funky purses, pillows, skirts, and more. I’m personally in love with the giant stuffed olive.

(more…)

Oh how I wish you were mine, Sari patchwork ottoman. You remind me of a wonderful set of throw pillows that dazzled me in childhood, and you say, “I belong to someone who isn’t afraid get cultural in the pursuit of coolness.” Unsurprisingly, that’s also what Gaiam Living wants me to think when I look at this refreshingly red ottoman. Let me quote their catalog…

Sometimes all you need is one work of art to bring an entire room together. Reclaimed cotton fabric patches, shells, embroidery, appliqué, tassels - they all lend a hand in giving this handcrafted ottoman its fantastic worldly flavor.

Could this bring a room together? I’m not so sure…I rather think you’d need an awfully special sort of room for that to happen. That’s not to say I wouldn’t happily accept this as a gift and stick it willy-nilly in my living room…because I so would. But you have to admit that this is a stand out piece, not some kind of aesthetic glue that’s going to suddenly meld all of your disparate bits of furniture into a cohesive whole.

Who’s Jo Meester? He’s a designer from the Netherlands and co-founder of the Meesters & Van der Park Design Studio. I enjoy his work because of its amazing diversity — instead of sticking to one discipline, he moves from one to another with great skill. He explores woodworking before moving on to crochet before taking up a needle to create art from cast off pieces of wool. Not everything is particularly functional, but all of it is fun.

These err on the side of functionality, though the name — Ornamental Inheritance Vessels — speaks to me of urns and ashes. I think I’d set them up somewhere instead of, say, filling them with filberts.

(more…)