Simple Amusements: Chester

The Craigslist furniture section is a favorite of mine. I love to check it out from time to time, and see what people are selling. Sometimes there can be true treasures on there, and other times, well...not so much.

And, like anywhere else online, you can run smack into some very creative spelling, never mind what the object itself is. I'm enough of a vocabulary geek and book nerd to get ridiculous amounts of amusement out of this.

As you might imagine, fancy-er, non-phonetic words like 'armoire' get brutalized regularly.

And 'Rod Iron' gets substituted for Wrought Iron all the time.
(Rod Iron just has to be somebody's porn name!)

But far and away, my favorite, guaranteed-to-make-me-snicker favorite is:
Chester Drawers.

Nope, not 'chest of', but Chester.

If one were actually looking for chester drawers, one might find something like this, from THIS ad:


Ick.

And to be sure that I wasn't being a snob and a moron, I Googled chester drawers just to be safe. Apparently, it's on a LIST of 100 commonly mispronounced words and phrases.

In case you think I'm just being picky about words, caution is advised, because CHESTER DRAWERS is also a children's author and songwriter, and he looks like this:

Great incentive to choose your words carefully, right?

Lucite Love

Ok, I have a confession to make. I'll admit it, I'm feeling a little smug.

I decided at the last minute to head out to some yard sales on Saturday morning. I only made it a very short block when I realized that some neighbors had set up a sale in the front yard. And they just happened to be a group of very talented local interior designers who were getting rid of some accessories and pillows, etc. Yippee!

Oh, and one groovy little chair:

For FIVE dollars! (that's the smug part)
I am now planning on finally reorganizing guest room/study so that this can be my computer chair.

It's no secret that I love Art Deco furniture. (If that's a surprise, re-read the blog description at the top of the page.) But I also have a weakness for mod Lucite furniture, and if you're careful with the lines of the pieces, they can go together well. There's also a lot of visual appeal to see-thru, airy furniture when you're living in tight quarters.

In a quick search I came up with a couple places to find similar mod contemporary styles.

Similar base, but a different chair shape. Found here.

Similar chair shape, different base. Found here.

Or something a little curvier, found at this incredible site:

A pair like these could be pretty versatile, and they could blend in with a more traditional decor. And for any of you in the Atlanta area, one of my favorites, The Antique Factory in Chamblee did have a pair very similar to this a few months ago.

For tradition with a twist, there's the Philippe Starcke designed Louis Ghost Chair:

Sourced here, but a quick web search will turn up tons of other retailers as well.

There's always some kind of lucite furniture on Ebay, and Craigslist may surprise you as well. Happy hunting....

Thrifting Joy!

As an aside from the Great Bathroom Reno of '08, I had a moment when the thrifting and antiquing gods smiled upon me yesterday.

I ran across something a lot like this:

I was cruising through one of my regular weekend stops, just checking it out. It's one of those stores that is (maybe) a step or two above a real thrift store, but not in any way a real antique store either. Picture a large store with tightly spaced rows upon rows of not-so-great quality mid-fifties furniture, usually stacked on top of each other. And then on every flat surface is every single piece of glassware, ceramic, and old bottle that you turned your nose up at at the garage sale down the street. It's dusty, it's cluttered, for the most part nothing is actually displayed, and the back room smells kinda...funky.

So why do I go? Because every so often there really is something cool there, and it's usually very affordable. There's enough of a reward from time to time to make the hunting fun. So yesterday, I stumbled across a match to a petite burled walnut side table that I have. The finish needs a little work, but it's really in decent shape, especially for the price. I snatched it up with the thought that someday I may resell them as a pair.

The only downside is that I made one, ahem, rookie mistake: it's not the mirror image of my current side table, so it's not really a matched pair; the doors both swing open from the same side. Stupid. I love the tables though, so who knows if and when I'll decide to part with them. Maybe the doors won't bother the future owner either....

Smithy has been holding my camera hostage for days. Photo above courtesy of this site.

Bathroom Renovation: planning stage part II

(Click to enlarge image)

Sorry for the lightweight graphics, but the picture above is my sketch for re-working the bath vanity, etc., while maintaining the current layout. I was inspired by an old article in Domino showing separate cabinets, with a pedestal sink inbetween. Since I don't have enough actual floorspace between the left-side wall and the commode to put in a pedestal sink, I'm thinking about a wall-mounted sink like this:
I like the vintage look of the separate hot and cold faucets, but is it a bad idea in reality?

And I would like to use this pair of Deco nightstands as a sort of deconstructed vanity.





















The nightstands aren't as tall as a typical counter height, but I think that with the sink at the proper height, it will all make sense. The nasty colonial green paint will be stripped off the cabinets, so that the beautiful golden oak will show.

And in a possible step of overkill, I've already painted most of the bathroom white (Pratt and Lambert's Seed Pearl), and in an attempt to use up old paint, I've added 2 horizontal bands of darker paint (P& L's Lambswool and B. Moore's Alexandria Beige) starting at the baseboard. Then I'm planning on adding a hand painted motif like this in the corners of the room, just above the top band:
I think the pattern will reinforce the carved pattern on the nightstands - if it doesn't just look insanely tacky instead. Here's some of the carving on the nightstands:
It sounds sketchy, but I think it's going to work when it's all together.

There are still some decisions to be made and a budget to be worked on...This is not going to be a quick project!

A Different Kind of Easter Egg Hunt

It was a moment straight out of an antique-er's Twilight Zone on Easter Sunday....

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon when I pulled up to the curb in front of Chez Dame, and as I was beginning to cross the front yard to the door, I could hear the Herd of Dogs in our back yard with Smithy. Or rather they made it known that they heard me. So, I altered my course to walk to the back fence and say hi. On the way, I nearly walked on top of this lying in the grass:
It would seem that the Easter Bunny has a strange sense of humor, because, you see, this little gem has been missing for close to three months!

Back in early January I splurged a little on a set of French Art Deco furniture from a local dealer. First I bought the vanity, thinking that I could convert it to a bathroom vanity. (Sadly, I couldn't make the proportions of the vanity work, but the price was right, the dealer was laid back, so I eventually went back for the pair of nightstands and the bed! Not that I have a furniture problem or anything - is there a 12 step program for this?)

Anyway, the vanity comes apart into separate elements. In my heated furniture frenzy, I set the individual vanity tables in the grass as I was unloading them from the car. It is now clear that one of the feet fell off, and has apparently been blissfully living in the front yard, right under my nose, enduring rain, snow, and a variety of temperatures for the last few months. In my defense, the furniture, including the foot, had all been painted a dull sage green which is quite effective camouflage when mixed with dormant Zoysia grass and brown leaves.
Really, I swear.

So, 1) I can now stop berating myself for being a lousy antique junkie, since the vanity really did have all of its parts. See? Here's one of the pair of tables, with all its feet!


2) I can take the stack of phone books out from under the other vanity/side table in the living room, and give it back its missing limb.

3) I can stop mentally accusing Bart-the-Antiques-Dealer of secretly holding the vanity foot hostage, and playing mind games with me until he receives my final installment payment.


And 4) Looks like I need to rake the front yard this week. God knows what else might turn up.