I really did love the color. The leather is gorgeous (and can be found at this eBay seller), but the light in our dining room is funny and it would totally wash out the leather from most angles. Not that that was a big deal, it's just that I was counting on the leather for a bit of color in the room and it's not really peacock blue in the room if it always read as black to my eye.
I went back and forth a little about the decision and hadn't pulled the trigger yet when I stumbled across these hides in a local fabric store called Mesa Sales.
Hello, turquoisey emerald! Where have you been all my life?
Is this color me, or is it me!?
It's me. But still I didn't buy it on the spot (leather is on the pricey side - about $250 for the full hide). So I mulled it over for a few days while I was working on other stuff and then when I came back to Mesa Sales to buy the hide, the sales guy told me someone had put it on hold like literally five minutes before I walked in (!) and that they had a seven day purchase period (seemed overly generous to me at the time - harumph). So I left empty handed and bummed.
I called exactly seven days later and my luck was with me - the hide was available again! Sweet mercy. Come to momma.
The color is obviously different and my chairs are different (I'm keeping the caning on my chair backs), but I kept thinking about Grant K. Gibson's San Francisco Showcase dining room chairs. What a fun hit of color in that space. I hope my new leather does the same for my dining room.
I got to thinking about the new Widdicomb chairs and what I want to use to cover the seats. I like the gray bonded leather I got at Home Fabrics - the color was nice and neutral and the material would wear really well. But I think the gray is probably too close to the floor color and I don't want the space to get too neutral (most everything else in our kitchen will probably be a neutral color other than the red lanterns and the accessories). I was looking through inspiration images and I came across this oldie-but-goodie from David Jimenez.
Such a great space. And the blue leather was calling out to me as a great option for the louis chairs. I thought ideally I would want something a little more on the green-blue side to work better with the lanterns and the gray floors. A quick eBay search later and I found this beautiful peacock leather.
Whenever I'm trying to imagine the way a fabric or leather will look on a piece of furniture I just search online for images of chairs or sofas or whatever in that general type of fabric. "Peacock Blue Leather Chairs" brought up a couple of chairs in the exact shade of teal that I'm considering. I think the color is really nice!
I like that it is definitely not a neutral, but it isn't too in-your-face either. And I think it will pair beautifully with the red lanterns I'm planning on in the dining area.
I ordered a sample and used it to conduct a little testing with a bit of ketchup, some soda and a dripping-with-condensation cup. I left everything to sit for a couple hours and I was surprised that it all wiped off without so much as a shadow of a stain.
If I order the hide or two that I'll need for the six chairs, I might be tempted to change the finish a bit on the chair frames. I'm committed to living with the chairs as-is for another week or two while I get the leather ordered, just to really give it a chance. But the last two days we've been using the chairs at the table and I'm sad to report that the finish is not sitting so well with me in here.
(but doesn't the whole set fit the space perfectly?! I love it)
The finish is just a little to bespeckled and glazed. And upon close examination, there are some chips in the caning that would help justify my cause a little too.
If these were antique chairs, I definitely wouldn't touch the finish, but these are mid-century chairs and the finish just screams "bad vintage paint job!" to me right now, but I know I'm being overly critical.
If I do paint them, I'll lightly go over the green with a pale gray paint and then dry brush the whole chair white, just to brighten up the glaze. I still want an antique look to the frames though - and I think the combo would be so pretty with the new leather color.
I've been having the best luck with thrift stores and vintage furniture shop finds since we moved here! I won't lie, it feels like a super-sweet consolation prize for leaving New York's great vintage shopping scene (which I had been really sad about). It might take a little more work to find the great pieces here - but they do exist and they are cheap. It feels a lot like Delaware did, where people either don't know what they have or they know and don't like it so are willing to part with things for a song. Which is still weird to me because, you know, the internet exists! Why not sell the stuff online? Not that I'm complaining about getting deals!
I've lived in lots of different cities at this point and I think the best way to find new sources is to be willing to stop your car everywhere you go. Whenever you're driving, be watching for signs for thrift stores, used furniture and junk shops and even consignment stores. Don't ever judge a book (shop) by its cover (window displays/signage) either. Often times the weird new stuff will be prominently displayed in the front and the great vintage finds will be tucked in the way back. This exact scenario played out for me a couple of days ago when I was driving around Scottsdale, waiting for my cracked iPhone screen to get repaired (why I don't have any real-time photos of the experience). I saw a consignment store had banners and balloons out front saying they were closing down, so I decided to pop in even though the place looked like it was going to be a major flop in the finds department.
I nearly turned right around about three steps into the store. It was almost completely empty except for a handful of oversized Tuscan stuff that is (was??) so popular here. But I kept walking around and found a back room area that had a pretty good selection of vintage things. The owners were moving things out of the room. Apparently they had officially closed down the day before. I did a quick once over and the only thing that really caught my eye was a dining set in the very back corner of the store. Six chairs and a table.
I asked how much for the set even though I thought I wouldn't take it. Only $50. It was a steal. I went over to take a closer look at the set. The more I looked at the chairs, the more I wanted them. The proportions were perfect and I loved the elongated oval shape of the backs. The tight caning was in perfect condition and I really liked the style of the weave. So simple.
Then I flipped one of the chairs over and saw a flash of a gold name plate. That was a good sign.
WHAT THE JOHN WIDDICOMB.
No wonder the shape was just perfect and they weighed about a million pounds each. So solid.
I told the sellers I would love to buy the set and asked if they were sure that $50 was enough. While I was asking that, my mind was racing with Do I or Don't I ethical questions about needing to tell them about what I figured was the real value of the set. And then the owner completely put me to ease by saying "Oh, aren't they great? Did you see they're by Widdicomb? I wish more people cared about great mid-century design here. I'd be happy to give them to you for $50 just so I don't have another set to load up on the truck."
I still felt a little guilty, but I was also so excited. Find of the century for me! I've been wanting Louis chairs for a long time, but I've been too picky up until now to spend a ton of cash on brand new chairs. I'm so glad I waited. I gave Ali, my sister, the table already since I think we're going to use the old Drexel table like I mentioned before. I think the two styles will pair really nicely together!
The same day I found this cute pair of swivel arm chairs for $30! I love the shape of the arms. They need to get reupholstered, but I think they're going to look amazing in a new fabric. I'm thinking maybe the library?
Since my luck was running so high that day, I also swung into Home Fabrics to look for a vinyl for the Louis chairs. BINGO.
Dark gray. Buttery soft. So much like leather in look and feel. Not thin, squeaky or sweaty like most vinyls. And is was only $6.99 a yard!
Most anything would be an improvement on the current fabric though. Looks like these chairs got a little face lift in the 80s. Time for some new clothes, ladies!
Now to figure out what color I should paint the frames. My mom and I were talking about it and she suggested considering leaving them mostly as-is, just a good cleaning and brightening. I like the idea a lot and it might look good to have something a little more antique-y looking in the room, but I don't want them looking too vintage in the bad way. You know? If I go bright white though, they might look too new and cheap-looking. Black would be a similar result I think, unless I did a chalky, matte paint. But then, fingerprints! I could do a bright color, but I want to paint the lanterns red, so that would be overkill. I was also thinking about stripping the frames and doing sort of a limewash look... Lots to figure out!
Michael and I both had business trips scheduled in Arizona this month so we decided to move things around and travel together at the same time. We brought Evie along with us which declared this trip decidedly unromantic, but 100% more cute. She charmed just about every person on our flight last night, which was no easy feat since our flight was delayed twice followed by an hour of sitting on the tarmac before take off. I'm excited to give her some extra attention over the next few days. So far she's loving room service and sleeping in a Queen bed all by herself. :)
One of the things I'm doing while we're out here is meeting with a long-time client who has this exact vintage burlwood dining table. I'm unbelievably jealous of it. I do like having a round table, but sometimes I miss having a really, really long dining table where you can spread out a bit.
Angie Hranowsky - How crazy good is that wallpaper-light fixture combo?!
Anyway, we're going chair shopping while I'm in town. My client needs something for an event she's hosting at her house in less than two weeks, so we're really limited with options. Cross your fingers for us! :)
Our kitchen is so teeny tiny that right after we moved in I realized that most of our kitchen items would need to be stored in the dining room. I planned on using the red credenza in there and I thought about painting it a really dark plum color.
Also, I didn't have a place in the brownstone to put the HUGE bookshelf from the loft's laundry room and it didn't fit down the stairs to the basement, so we had put it out on the curb, but only for about 15 minutes.
As I unpacked all of our kitchen stuff, it was pretty clear that my plates and bowls and servingware weren't all going to fit in the red credenza. So we hauled the giant (heavy) bookshelf back up the stoop and set it up on top of the credenza.
We were shocked and thrilled that it actually fit, but the ketchup/mustard color combo was not so appetizing to me. :) I thought about still doing the plum idea for the whole piece, but really, it is such a huge, huge piece and the room is so small, I thought a big block of dark color would overpower the space. So I decided just to try gloss white. But before I painted it, we secure the shelves to the wall and I added two pieces of wood to the base of the bookshelf to make the whole thing look less disjointed and more like a single piece of furniture. (We did a similar trick with our Billy bookshelves)
I used a 2x4 for the bottom of the base and a 2x6 for the tall part. I made a couple of 45 degree angle cuts with my miter saw, screwed the pieces together and caulked and filled the holes and gaps.
I painted it all out with Rustoleum's white gloss enamel and I used a bit of my favorite Penetrol to help reduce the brush marks (this stuff really does work - as long as you use the recommended amount!).
I decided to leave the insides of the shelves the navy color from before and I like the contrast. I know it's busy - there are so many dishes in there! I've since edited and taken some of the things out, but really this space needed to be about practicality (isn't every small space?). I've considered adding doors, but you don't really see the contents of the shelves from any other angle in the room (and not at all from the entry). Mostly, it is SO nice to have easy access to all of this servingware and I love that my girls can easily grab the dinner plates from the bottom shelf to help set the table by themselves.
I like that the white sort of blends into the pale walls and helps to make the small room not feel even smaller. Though, some days (usually during breakfast, when the light is so pretty in here) I start to daydream again of painting the whole thing dark, dark, almost black, plum. We'll see if my better judgement holds out. :)
It's a fun challenge for me to figure out ways to make furniture from previous homes work in (very different) spaces. I'm usually tempted to get rid of everything each time we move, but it never really happens that way and I usually can find a way to make our old stuff work (which is probably for the best) :)
What have you done to make your old furniture work in new spaces?
Last December I had one of the coolest days ever. Lean Cuisine is reinventing and they invited famous chefs and farmers and a handful of bloggers to come to a round table event here in New York just to eat and chat about food and style. They held the round table at one of the coolest venues I've seen - Haven's Kitchen in Chelsea.
All day long I was sneaking photos of the decor at Haven's Kitchen. Seriously, I want to move in.
This staircase was stunning with the great, graphic art on the black walls. It was really cool.
Everywhere you looked - amazing, amazing chairs!
I loved this idea of creating an inset out of subway tiles for a chalkboard wall in a kitchen. I would love to do something like this someday. Uber-chic menu planning!
While the decor at Haven's Kitchen was completely drool-worthy, the day was all about the food. We were grouped into three teams for the round table. On each team there were two chefs, a style expert (the bloggers), and a farmer. My team's farmer was Josh Kilmer-Purcell, who had (seriously) won Amazing Race the week before, has a wildly popular blog of his own, and a TV show on the Cooking Channel. Also there could not be a nicer man on the planet.
Our team's chefs may or may not need an introduction. Brad Farmerie is the owner of Michelin star rated PUBLIC and competed on the Food Network's The Next Iron Chef. He was hilarious and the life of our party, for sure. And James Beard Award-winner Michelle Bernstein of Top Chef fame is probably one of the most famous chefs out there, so I probably don't need to tell you about her successes. I will say that I want to fly down to Miami to hang out with her for a week straight, just to hear her tell stories and share wisdom. Seriously, what an inspiring woman.
And then there was me. My job was to shop around the city for some pretty things to set the table with, inspired by Josh's produce and Michelle and Brad's dishes. And then just eat and talk about food and style. Best job ever, right? I could so easily do the eat-decorate-talk-eat-decorate-talk rotation until the cows come home.
Here we are making plans for the dishes and decor. We all decided something more rustic and earthy would be perfect for the table setting.
While the chefs got to work in the kitchen, I hopped into a giant van, armed with two assistants, but with only two hours to rush around the city and buy everything to set the table for our team. I'll admit, it was a teensy bit stressful, but mostly it was just really, really fun.
My first find was actually at West Elm. These wooden antler candle holders were just the look we were after - modern, sort of Scandinavian and a bit rustic.
We shopped at about ten other stores and things sort of fell into place. It was fun to see what my fellow bloggers Liz and Jessie found while they were out scavenging for place settings and flowers too.
I checked in with the chefs just before dinner (it smelled so good in that kitchen) and they loved the direction our table design was going.
And here's what I came up with for my version of a Scandinavian/rustic/modern table:
I bought the striped linen at Jem fabrics and literally ripped it into two wide strips so the edges would be a little frayed. I tried to have a lot of textures on the table - linen, woven chargers, smooth woods and soapstone, hand-thrown porcelain, etc.
I found these mini enamelware mugs in the clearance section at Sur la Table. I'm discovering that I like to have a big floral centerpiece and then little individual flowers at each setting. I think it is so pretty and makes guests feel special. Also, how great is this antique engraved silverware that we borrowed for the dinner? It weighed a ton and made everything taste even more delicious. :)
I found a lot of the little accessories at thrift stores and at Pearl River Market.
The soup tureen was probably my favorite thing on the table, though. Michelle had a fabulous Celeriac soup on the menu, so she asked me to pick up a tureen. I really wanted to find something unique to be the focal point of the table, but everything I saw out shopping that wasn't all white was really fussy-looking. So I bought a plain white one on sale and picked up some porcelaine paint at the art supply store and painted on the bright red border on the tureen. I really love how it turned out. Just enough color for our "rustic" table.
The flower arrangement was another favorite part for me. I didn't end up having the time to pick up enough flowers to completely fill the creamy white faux bois vase I had found at Housing Works, so I filled the empty spaces in the vase with herbs I snuck from the kitchen and even some leek stems, which kind of look floral when they're cut on the diagonal! :)
You'll have to keep an eye out for Liz and Jessie's posts about their table settings - they both did a really great job. I love those talented ladies.
After the table setting was done, the food was brought out and that's about where my memory drops off. (TOTAL FOOD COMA.) I ate way too much, but how was I not going to at least taste every single one of those super-delicious dishes made by super-duper-famous chefs!? No choice in the matter at all. It all was so, so good.
I was so honored to be a part of this round table. Meeting all of those talented, creative people, hearing their thoughts about the future of food, and, of course, tasting all that deliciousness was nothing short of completely inspiring.
PS The entire event was filmed (there are lots of clips on Youtube), if you're interested in seeing a little more from the day!
This post is brought to you by Lean Cuisine . I was invited to the Lean Cuisine Culinary Round Table and was provided with a stipend for the visit and experience. All thoughts and opinions surrounding the experience are authentically my own.
