Not to worry; I'm Doing My Part for the World Economy

It's quite simple, actually.
Just do as I've done this week, and purchase something from an international seller on Ebay.

Remember my obsession with French Art Deco pate de verre chandeliers? Examples are here and here. Well, I've continued to stalk them on Ebay, and I recently found this little lovely. It's 'in the style of' Schneider, although it's not a signed piece.

It was listed by a British expat, currently living in France. Now that the dollar to GBP ratio has improved a bit, the price for the light wasn't so bad. It seemed, well, silly not to jump in and purchase it.

So, voila, a Paypal purchase in British pounds, a boost to the French economy, and the French postal system ought to help things out a bit.

Before anyone gets all up in arms and says 'what about America?!'
Again, not to worry.

The chandelier will still need to be updated for US electrical voltage, and Smithy insists that the silk cords and modern ceiling canopy need to go. So, the local lighting company will have a shot at rewiring the light, and a certain local blacksmith will rework the hanging structure.

Smithy is talking about forging long brass or copper hooks to suspend the chandelier. I'm not sure yet whether he will also forge a ceiling canopy, of if I'll go with a store-bought one. We're inspired the gorgeous, drool-worthy Deco lights at Decorum in San Francisco, but toned down a bit with non-ferrous (that's the official word for non-iron metal, like copper and brass) materials instead of the nickel finish on Decorum's lights :

Gorgeous, aren't they?

So, it's simple really.
Ebay. The answer to the global economic downturn.

(Y'all know this is all tongue-in-cheek, right?)

A Simple Makeover

Nautical light 'before'

I continue to drag my feet on starting my master bathroom update. Part of the problem is that when I do it, I want to knock everything out at more or less the same time. Sounds logical, right? The problem is, I'm still on a quest to find the 'right' vintage sconces, for a price I can afford. The key to that statement is the price; I've found zillions of great fixtures on Ebay, but the prices of the best ones have been routinely been near or above the $300 mark. I'm determined to stay below that number, so...the quest continues.

In the mean time, I thought I'd show you some pictures of a quick spruce up I did in our guest bath. It's a full bathroom, but it's a tiny space. There's nothing functionally wrong with it, it's just been a bit dull.

You may remember this light, and some talk about pinup girls...

Nautical light 'after'

Well we've got 'em now!


I found the brass anchor mirror on Ebay, and some of the girls were simply cut out of a brand new calendar and framed. The girl above the mirror is a picture that I found at a local thrift store.

Since the anchor mirror is a lovely, old-looking antiqued brass, I decided to add some brass accents to the ceiling light to tie it all together. So I changed out the finial for one with an antique brass finish, and I painted the spokes and frame of the wheel with a metallic, antique brass colored paint. I'm hoping to rewire the light fixture and hang it this weekend - cross your fingers.

As a last bit of near-overkill, I changed out the switch plate on the wall, antique brass again, since it was going to be seen so close to the mirror. And I put some brass-toned cabinet pulls on the medicine cabinet and vanity cabinet.

I went really budget friendly on all the items, and landed good deals for the light and anchor mirror on Ebay. So my approximate costs for the whole thing including thrift store print/calendar images, Ebay light, Ebay anchor mirror, frames, lighting finial, switch plate, and cabinet knobs came in around $115 to $120! I'm going to try my hand at rewiring the light, and hopefully my dad can help me install it, so I'll save on those costs too.

It was great to do a simple spruce up on a modest budget, but really, best of all, the whole saucy sailor girl thing combined with the silly light cracks me up and makes me happy!

Lighten Up

For our tiny second bathroom, I'm thinking about installing something like this

or this on the ceiling

And then adding a trio of framed prints by my favorite vintage pinup artist, Gil Elvgren. He was very prolific, so there's tons to choose from, but in keeping with the 'Hiya, Sailor!' theme:

What do you think?
It's an otherwise bland, small, beige and white striped bath with a low ceiling. In a 1917 era cottage.

So, vintage, slightly-naughty-sailor-girl-themed bathroom = Campy good?
Or= campy bad?

Cheesecake ahoy!

Venus Envy

Is it just me.....

Or does this pair of Belgian Art Deco sconces, found on Ebay...

remind you a lot of this?

The little lady shown above is the celebrated and ancient Venus of Willendorf, who was named after the Austrian town where she was found. SimilarPaleolithic female figurines have been found in many parts of the world, and archeologists and anthropologists are certain that the ladies mean something, but no on can quite agree on what. The ladies are generally referred to as goddess figures or fertility symbols. More HERE.

And even more amusing, the town of Willendorf, Austria, where the first woman was found, celebrated the centennial anniversary of the discovery of the goddess figure with Venus Day at the beginning of August; the celebration includes pancakes and 'Venus jam', and chocolate in the shape of the Venus. Genius! Just in case you have regrets for missing the Austrian revel last month, there is also a chocolatier in upstate NY who offers Venus of Willendorf chocolate, available HERE.

And for what it's worth, I think that the art glass sconces are supposed to be a stylized vase holding a bouquet of flowers. That's just a guess....

Design Love: Degue Art Glass

(image via Decorum)

My intense interest (read obsession) in Art Deco lighting continues, and the second designer I've 'discovered' in recent weeks, besides Loys Lucha, is the French designer David Gueron.


Gueron formed his own art glass production company, Verrierie d'Art Degue in 1926; Degue being a shortened version of his name (much like a JLo or LiLo nickname today!). Initially the company concentrated on functional tableware. However, he quickly moved the company into the luxury art glass market intended for well to do French and American clients, and began producing thickly molded and acid etched glass chandeliers and vases. More information HERE . Degue was not without controversy; according to the summary at Style and Design,

"The factory produced glass which one might generously describe as an homage to Schneider. [Another well-known art glass manufacturer of the time.] Gueron employed ex-Schneider workers and soon over stepped the mark resulting in litigation between Gueron and Schneider. Styles include highly decorative brightly coloured Art Deco designs; all well executed which bear a striking resemblance to Schneider."


Copycat or not, Degue glass is credited with being well crafted, and beautifully designed. Degue produced several different styles of chandelier lighting, all with his signature thick glass, and various hand-worked metals. The style that I like best, though, is the simpler pressed glass (pate de verre) suspended bowls, or vasque, fixtures. The bowl is usually seen suspended by three silk cords or a trio of gorgeous nickel or chrome rods with a metal ceiling canopy. The lights are usually illuminated by a single bulb suspended just above the glass bowl.

While stunning and not exactly quiet, these simpler bowl lights seem more adaptable to variety of today's interiors than the grander armed-chandeliers. I'm still a novice at this, but pricing seems to vary wildly. For an entry level collector/fancier, you can find shades (with no wired fixtures) on Ebay, and basically build your own light. And some Ebay items are shown with non-original hanging apparatus - usually 3 chains and a new canopy. For the serious collector who wants everything to be original, expect to have significantly deeper pockets. Interestingly, the actor Michael Caine is a collector of Degue glass, according to this article.

Take a peek at some of these recent listings on Ebay to see for yourself.



A quick stroll through Google will reveal lots of antique dealers who have Degue chandeliers and vasques, including 1st Dibs, Modernism, DecoDame, Art Deco Collection, and others listed at right in the links section. But by far the treasure trove of Degue lighting can be found at Decorum, in San Francisco, and Jack, the proprietor, is very amenable to questions via email. (And please do visit his website to read his interesting and amusing description of just what it's like to go to the big antique shows in France!) The following two are a tiny sampling of the gems at Decorum, as is the first image at the top of the post. Please note the gorgeous metal rods and decorated ceiling canopy, as compared to the more piecemeal assemblage of fixtures in the Ebay images above:

Design Love: Loys Lucha

(via Modernism)

Apologies to my blog friends, I didn't mean to let you linger with the story of Miss Ophelia's plight for so long. How about seeing something pretty instead?!

During some of my recent strolls through Ebay, I've stumbled upon two names that are new to me: Loys Lucha and Degue. Both are names of French designers, or design firms more correctly, during the Art Deco period of the 1920's who created glass ceiling lights, or plafonniers. One thing led to another, until I came up with a collection of photos of beautiful ceiling lights. I'll separate this into two posts, one about each designer.

Loys Lucha specialized in colorful enameled glass, most often with stylized, vibrant flower patterns. The shallow glass bowl-shaped shades were typically suspended by a trio of either silk cords or metal chains from a central ceiling canopy, and had a single bulb suspended above the glass shade. The photos shown here primarily show the gorgeous patterns on the shades.

I haven't been able to find much information on the designer on the internet, so if someone is more knowlegable, please enlighten me. Here are some gorgeous examples:

Alhambra Antiques

Antiques Plus

Liberty's

And Modernism Gallery in Coral Gables, FL has had some stunning examples:





While the prices listed for several, ok, all of these lights are beyond the reach of many of us mere mortals, I have seen a handful of lights in this style on Ebay.

Memory Game

Sometimes when you zoom in on a particular time period in design, like oh, say, Art Deco and Art Moderne lighting, and really focus on it, you start seeing connections, or echoes of similar styles. I had one of those fun 'ah ha' moments last night while trolling through my local Craigslist furniture section.

I ran across this listing with these cool white sconces:

I knew that I had just seen those sconces, or something very similar, very recently, so I did a little surfing.

As it turns out, I had spotted them first on the Deco Dame website (all images are copyrighted and cannot be copied from that site). The circa 1955 sconces are attributed to Morris Lapidus, architect of the Eden Roc hotel in Miami. On the Deco Dame site, you can clearly see the hotel's initials in the crest on each sconce. The Craigslist photos don't show enough detail to be certain.

Artnet also had a record of a recent sale of a Lapidus floor lamp and sconces, shown here:

They've got to be the same design, right?!

Here's the fun part:
Craigslist sconces listed at $100.
(Granted one sconce arm looks cracked/broken.)
Deco Dame sconces listed at $4,200 for the pair.

And I believe that there is a relative of Morris Lapidus living here in Atlanta, although that's not necessarily the person selling the sconces. Just an interesting connection.

This is exactly why I love Craigslist: in amongst the dreck, there are treasures to be found!

*By about 1:30 pm today the Craigslist ad has been deleted. I'm guessing someone scored a cool deal on a pair of sconces.

**Later re-listed!

Latest Obsession: Lighting Part II

There are some weeks when eBay is the perfect crack-like addiction. The last two weeks must have been a case of perfect timing, and I've barely come up for air. The dogs are thoroughly bored, and I haven't talked to my mother in a week, but damn if I haven't come up with some fun things to look at!

I've been scouring through lighting listings, looking for the ideal combo of great looks and moderate price. While I'm not trying to recreate some kind of museum vignette in the bathroom remodel, I would like to keep the feel of an older cottage. The house was built in 1917, and believe it or not, it was built pre modern conveniences like an indoor toilet. (There is evidence of the old privy in the basement, but let's not talk about that.) Since there' s no real bathroom to match up to, I figure anything from the 20's to the 40's is fair game for the look I'm going for.

So here' s some more images that have caught my eye....


I shopped victoriously alright, so a few items will be winging their way to me soon via priority mail. I'm really excited about this one:

I think it ties in nicely with the carved flowers on this:



Yes, the painted mounting fixture at the top is garish as hell. I was thinking about painting it white, but Smithy insists that it's been like that for going on 70 years, so I'd probably just screw it up if I painted it. (Thanks for the vote of confidence, Babe.) I'll leave it as is for now; the space is small enough that you may not ever have distance to catch of a view of the ceiling mount anyway. Especially if you're 5'-2" like me.

Due to my eBay addiction, I also got a little carried away, and 'victoriously' landed myself another project.


This one is slated for the bedroom. I think it has great potential, but right now it needs everything: new wiring, new mounting fixture, new sockets, slip shades. Not exactly a smokin' deal. However, the folks at my local lighting store, Lamp Arts, are going to love me soon.

Post brought to you by the latest member of Ebay Addicts United.