wee gardens
orchideenoire
razberryswrl
Erica Mulherin
And this entire post at Thrift Candy, which also links to a wonderful tutorial on how to create these miniature gardens. While I adore the bell jar-covered terrariums I actually have some apothecary jars at hand..so I may give these a shot. Miniature animals are a must.
The good:
I got pretty much exactly what I wanted: a solid 60’s style cabinet with clean lines and glassed-in shelves.
I put everything I wanted to in there and there’s actually some room left over.
It does remind me of my parents’ cabinet in the feel of the wood and the latch hardware (though the styles are radically different!)
We freed up a good amount of space in the kitchen, so we don’t have to re-arrange things every time we pull out a bowl to make dinner.
The bad:
It’s BIG. Real big. I measured it out, looked at it in person, yet it seems so much bigger in the house. I am concerned about it’s scale within the dining room. I’m worried that when we put the leaves in the table there’ll be no room for people to walk around. My hope is that when we switch out the light fixture some of this feeling will go away…and some of it is just getting used to something new. But wow!
It’s a few shades darker than the table. I thought they were at least close, but put next to each other the cabinet looks way darker. I hoped maybe there was a way to cheat a refinishing job…like those shampoos that slightly tint your hair. I don’t want to go all out on a bleach job, I just want to tone it down a little, ya know?
While putting the dishes in there I had to come to terms with just how much STUFF i had. I mean, I still have a kitchen full of mixing bowls and bakeware that I use on a daily basis. Well, you know…when I cook, that’s not exactly “daily.” I think I’m just having issues with practicality vs. a collection mentality, and hopefully they’ll pass. It’s definitely time to get back on etsy and put some pyrex in the store!
The Ugly
Oh hayel naw. There’s no ugly here! I’m still arranging it (over and over again, I can admit it) but i’m keeping the lime dinnerware on the bottom, assorted other greens in the middle and I’d planned for the top shelf to be dynamic and seasonal. But that blue looks durned good in there, and you know what…there’s not much else to go in there other than a handful of pink and red pieces. Please Lord, help me keep it that way. 
I found the cabinet on craigslist after a long search. The sweetest woman in the world was selling it – she was getting a new set, something more traditional and curvy. I was so happy to finally find something, and it was so nice to talk with the seller that I made a card+envelope to tuck the money into. I dug into my stash of old books for the image and cut links from an old necklace to embellish the door handles. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve done that and it took me a while, but I had a good time.
with the china cabinet shopping set to end this weekend and the dining room light drama about to end by necessity, what am I going to do in my spare time? Well, move on into the living room and find a nice couch to replace the hateful, evil futon. I know Jim likes it, but it’s painful to sit on and even less fun to sleep on. I don’t know how he does it, but I think we can find a nice comfy couch that he’ll like just as much.
He also laid down the law that “we are NOT buying a used couch.” Well, duh. The ones in the thrift stores all smell like cat pee and could have dead bodies stuffed in them. No kids, we’re going high class with this one. And since there’s no time like the present, I found this one from American Signature Furniture this morning:
That’s the “Aiden” sofa in “Shitake” (heh heh) and it’s alllllllll velvet. Imagine for one second that you wouldn’t have to clean cat hair off it every day, and read this marketing copy:
You must have an eye for fashion if you’re interested in the Aiden Living Room. Wrapped in textured velvet, this is one of the hottest looks in today’s furniture fashion.
So Leah brought forth the idea of joining the 365 Days flickr group, which sounded like a good idea to me. You’re supposed to take and share a self portrait every day, which a. provides an opportunity for a little creative exercise and b. allows you to chronicle a year of your life with t he opportunity to see how you’ve grown and changed in that time. It’s all about self discovery, introspection, yadda yadda.
We started on New Year’s Day and i’m pleased to report we haven’t missed any yet:
So what have I learned so far?
Yes, the struggle for a dining room light solution continues, nearly 10 months after I first hit my head on The Monstrosity of a Chandelier when the realtor showed us this house. To recap, The Monstrosity is ugly, heavy, and completely out of scale with the dining room and the house as a whole.
I knew that if I just kept searching eBay, Craigslist, antiques and thrifts that one day the Perfect Light would appear to me with a mystical revelation-type effect. Indeed, a number of fine contenders have come and gone, with price usually being the sticking point.
Now to be honest, I wasn’t totally thrilled with the idea of purchasing an actual vintage fixture. My fears over burning my house down far outweigh my obsession with retro-style. So I knew that if I purchased anything manufactured before I was born, there would be significant time and effort required to make the piece safe for use. I’ve heard “Oh, it’s cheap and easy to do” but i’ve never done it nor have I priced anything out in that regard, so nyah. I felt that this totally justified my “I’m not gonna pay a lot for this muffler” attitude about the price of vintage lights.
The only “new” fixture that won my heart was Jonathan Adler’s Parker Pendant. Not being hip by any stretch of the imagination, I had no idea who Jonathan Adler was until I saw this light; now i’m a member of his fairly large and trendy fan club. While I couldn’t pull the trigger on the pendant, I did purchase the sconce on eBay at a decent discount just before Christmas.
What is probably readily apparent to you was not at all apparent to me when I placed the impulse bid: a sconce light really didn’t solve my overhead light issues in any way. I was just so excited to see anything from the Parker series and I figured I’d find SOMEWHERE to put it. Nevermind that we don’t have any sconces currently in the house, so this is going to be a “call an electrician job,” thereby negating any discount I received on the light and then some. Oy.
So that brings us to now, with the Monstrosity silently mocking me and still knocking me in the head, and a nice but useless Jonathan Adler sconce in a box. Certain facts have only recently registered in my brain, facts that have forced me to completely restart the search for an overhead light (yes, Jim is about as thrilled as you can imagine.)
Fact 1: I was looking for a chandelier/large pendant just because there was one there to start with. I really did love the amount of light that The Monstrosity puts out with it’s gajillion different bulbs, and I didn’t want to lose that. I’d focused my search on midmod, teak 3-5 light chandeliers because I thought it was a good compromise between form and function. My revelation today is that three and even four light flush mount fixtures really do exist and would put out just as much light.
Fact 2: Nothing dangly is going to work in that space. We put the table under The Monstrosity to reduce injury, and while we fudged it a bit it wasn’t possible to actually center the table under it. It’s not the fault of the table but rather the location of the fixture – centering ANY table under it would seriously block access to the kitchen. Now, I’ve been doing a lot more measuring in that room as the need for a china cabinet grows and an actual purchase gets closer to reality (gasp!) The addition of a china cabinet would require moving the table completely out from under the fixture – can’t even fudge it – to where Jim and I would bump our heads on anything other than a flush-mount.
So now that THAT detailed explanation is out of the way…the requirements for the new flush mount fixture are:
1. silver-toned metal, preferably brushed nickle (just in case I should actually try to get that JA sconce installed.)
2. Three lights or more would be ideal, though I might settle for two lights if I fell in love with the fixture.
3. Shape is optional, though if all other things were equal square win out over round.
4. Nothing shaped like a boob:
So what does that leave us with? Not much after a trip to Lowe’s and Home Depot. It was off to the internet for intensive research! Here’s a whirlwind tour of some awesome and not so awesome flush-mount fixtures:
Yes, there is a flush Parker fixture, but it’s pretty much the same price as the pendant so that does me no good.
Ugh…this one reminds me of the the T1000…would be doubly bad if your name was John or Sara Connor.
Technically a “semiflush.” I lurrrve this one, but it only comes in a color called “silvergold.” Look, either it’s one or the other, folks.
There’s always room for sputnik.
I love love love this guy, and it’s on sale…for $750. Yikes!
This got an insta-veto from Jim.
I have been drawn to many lights with geometric patterns on them…this one is spectacular.
a basic fixture can be dolled up with one of several gorgeous vintage glass shades available on eBay. Jadite would be especially appropriate for us…and it’s got all the charm of a vintage piece with no fears of electrical fires!
So the research continues. I’m doing my damnest not to end up with some boring hardware store light, but i’m just so tired of thinking about it. And anything will be better than that ugly chandelier!
I think you can only vote for one, but just in case here’s all three of Jim’s entries in the Times Union photo contest:
not to make resolutions. But i gotta have my black eyed peas.
Recipe here. Jim normally cooks the peas but I got the honor this year. While those were stewin’ I took out the last bit of red from the kitchen and went blue for January.
There was quite a bit of it.
No, really. I kept finding stuff.
I’d been patiently waiting to use these, a gift from buddy Kristi. Mikasa rules my world.
I’d even stashed away some towels for today. These are a special triumph because I found them at Big Lots with some generic label on top – but when i got home, I found the sewn-on Martha Stewart label. Yessss.
Happy New Year to all!
