Chairs!

Every time I think things will slow down a little bit, they speed up even further.  I just took a new job this past week and the commute is killing me.  It's so long that I was told if I decide in a month that the commute is too bad, they won't be upset with me for leaving.  I'm pretty tough, but I'm actually not sure how long this will last.

So, I had almost decided I was too low on energy and inspiration to post, when I found this.

Urban Motifs on Etsy

I love, love, love this chair.

SONO Caffeine

This isn't as much a restaurant or hotel interior post as I like to do on Tuesdays, it's more a chair post.  I was in the New York Tri-State area last week and of course had to find a coffee place to stop at and settled upon a place called Caffeine.  I love that they are up front about why people are coming in.

And I found this chair.

A low armed tortoise shell bamboo chair with caning.  And it was on wheels!  While I wasn't enamored with the area, there are two great places to visit if you happen to find yourself in South Norwalk, CT - SONO Caffeine and Chocopologie. 

The only sad thing about the trip was that I had a list of places I wanted to visit but wound up leaving the house more than 2 hours later than I had intended so this was the only stop I made.

Sancal - Tea Chair

I hadn't heard of Sancal before this year's visit to the ICFF, but fell in love with this little Tea chair.

The shape is perfect and I really like the quilted honeycomb pattern of the fabric. 

I managed to get my feet in a lot of pictures on this trip so you may see them here and there when I don't feel like Photoshopping them out.

More Chairs!

For the last few years I have been going into what used to be my favorite consignment shop to see what they had in the store and I have come out empty handed.  This is the shop where I have, over the years, purchased a lot of my furniture - an amazing velvet sofa and chair, a dresser, a bench, and tons of accessories.  They moved a few years back and haven't had anything worth looking twice at until last week.

I came out with two bentwood chairs to add to my collection {the price was under $15 for the pair}.

If I find one more I will be happy.

I also found a silly looking 60/70s upholstered chair that I kind of love.  I'm thinking it might be a perfect candidate for me to practice upholstering with the fabric I "accidentally" bought from Design Diva Fabrics last week.

You can see part of it in the upper left corner of the photo below.  If it's there, marked down in red super sale marker like the bentwood chairs were, then it was meant to be.  They seem to have preemptively placed it in the sale corner already, like they expect it to end up being marked down like crazy.

{photo: jeanine}

Kravet Continues To Torture Me

Years ago at the Kravet showroom in Boston, there was a chair I was totally in love with.  I was at the Design Center a few days a week and I would always visit "my chair".  They sold it as a floor model eventually and I was sad but happy I didn't have to obsess over how I would buy it {I was fresh out of grad school so purchasing it wasn't really an option}.  I had finally gotten over the chair and now they've gone and done this to me.

Same chair, different fabric, no nailhead trim but I love it.  It's like they're taunting me.

{photo: jeanine}

Happy Photos for Monday Morning

From an exhibit at a local art museum.

Brightly colored chairs, sparkly bags on a dizzy wall.  I have no idea who it was or the reasoning behind it but it did make me happy while I had my coffee.

{photos: jeanine}

Cane Chair D-I-whY

Armed with some fabric, white paint and the caning supplies I need to finish the project, I started un-upholstering one of the cane chairs I found a couple months ago at the consignment shop.  I took a few photos of the chair as it looked in the beginning so I would have some sort of reference as I put it back together.

The first chair I am going to tackle is the one that looks a bit sorrier than the other.  You can see the hole in the caning on the side.

You can see my tools of choice are an ice pick and some jewelry pliers.  Probably not the most appropriate of choices but they seem to work.

The front of the seat and the double cording at the wood.  I may cheat and use a trim or some nail head trim but I think the cord will be easy enough to make.

More cording and the tufting.  I'm betting on being able to put the cane on the back as well.  When I pull off the back I will know for sure.

The underside of the chair is kind of a mess.  The fabric wasn't neatly trimmed and is stapled all crazy.

The chair seat guts.

The upholstery was stapled on so crazily and most of the staples were embedded in the wood so that I had to dig the staples out with the pliers.  It ruined the wood a bit but it was not nice wood to begin with so I will have to fill the holes and do more sanding than I bargained for.  I'm not sure removing all the staples was the best idea but I thought it would be more difficult to have to staple the new fabric into the wood if the new ones were bouncing off the old ones.

I've spent a bit of time wondering why I thought this was a good idea and thinking that it is much more work than most people lead me to believe, but it is my first time and I'm sure the second one will be easier.  My DIY turned D-I-whY will get finished and I'm determined to do a good job in the end.

As soon as my knuckles heal, I'll be ready to work again!

{photos: jeanine}

New Chair Fabric

I popped into the Garage in Chelsea last month when I was at the ICFF. I was walking up the ramp to the upper section and spotted two upholstered chairs that I fell in love with.  As I walked up further I could see that there was a child sitting in one and someone {Cynthia Rowley, I think} buying them.  First I was disappointed and then I realized she had saved me from myself.  I HAVE two chairs that need to be cleaned up and reupholstered and really don't need two more.

So, I was at the Design Center last Tuesday and on a whim I decided to go to a mysterious and dirt-cheap fabric store that I had heard was kind of nearby.  In my sickness-induced craziness I was determined to just drive around until I found it, and thankfully, I did!

After much debate, and some conversation, advice and encouragement with a super nice customer who does her own upholstering, I decided to purchase some fabric for the cane chairs and upholster them myself.  Luckily the fabric was super cheap and I won't feel terrible if I have to redo them in a few years.  I was trying to get away from having blue in every room but, obviously, I'm having a bit of trouble doing that.  I'm considering this reupholstery project practice.

The fabric is cute, blue & brown, and will go well with my sad, sad couch.  I also went out and bought some high-gloss no-VOC paint for the wood and caning part.  I think I should have enough paint for the couch repainting/upholstering I have planned for the future.  I have the fabric for that but I still need the nail-head trim and new foam for the cushions.

Now I just need some caning for the side of one of the chairs and I'll be ready to go.

{photo: jeanine}

Emco Navy Chair

I keep seeing articles and images of the new Emeco Navy Chairs that debuted at the Milan Furniture Fair earlier this month and are produced out of recycled soda bottles.  From the images they look like they will be a great chair so I thought I would share.

It also seems like they will be half the price of the metal navy chairs {price was a main reason I wasn't able to convince a client that these chairs would be a good idea for their break room - the other was that I casually mentioned I saw them on a television show in a prison - oops}.

I hope to be able to see them up close at the ICFF to see if they look as nice in person.  I also hope they don't have a Coke ad on the back of them in real life and that was only put in for the photo shoot.  I would only get a chair like that if it was free {and these certainly are not}.

There is an interesting article on the L.A. at Home blog about the quality of the original Emeco Navy chairs vs two of the current knock-offs.  It's something to think about when looking at original furniture versus cheap knock-offs and deciding what is right for you. 

{photo: Emeco}

Chairs!

I broke down and purchased a few chairs at the consignment store this past weekend.  I have had my eye on them for about a month and finally decided to buy them.

They all need a lot of TLC but I'm up for it once I decide what I want to do with them.  Until then, they are in the barn for the woodchucks to nap on.

I'm not sure about the bentwood chair yet but I'm thinking the cane-backed chairs would look nice in white.  I also think I might try to figure out how to take the upholstery off the back and replace it with caning.  I like the cleaner look of the caning better.

{photos: #1& 2-jeanine; #3 - DecorPad; #4 - Apartment Therapy}

My New Favorite Furniture Shop

I have been regularly visiting the consignment shop where I purchased my Eames Chair.  It is gigantic, everything is reasonably priced, and the owner and all the people that work there are fantastic.  I'm glad I finally stopped in since in among the country-style items there were so many unexpectedly amazing finds.

I took some pictures of my favorite pieces.  I have a problem with chairs.  I think I like them too much.

A Baughman chair with 70s fabric.

As you can see there are plenty of mid-century pieces and some other nice traditional furniture pieces like the wing-backs and the pair of black and gold Hollywood regency-ish chairs. It's hard to tell from the photo but they are in excellent condition and the fabric is a slightly sparkly {but not obnoxiously so} gold.   When I was there the first time, two middle aged women were talking about reupholstering them and I had a moment where I thought I had to buy them to rescue them from a dull fate. How could they get rid of the sparkle!!

Perhaps I'm not normal.

{photos: jeanine}