Green Shag or Bust!

Posted on October 19, 2012 by | 5 comments

Well it’s now like T-18 hours to the Green Shag Parking Lot sale so I guess I really have to do this thing that I committed to  . . . .

Good news: I did all my pricing and this stuff is gonna be cheap!  I want it gone, not coming back into my house, bye bye, see you later.

But I do want to see it later so I hope some buyers might send me “after” pictures.  Especially some of the items that are more “project-y”, as in they’re not in mint condition right now and need someone to love them and I didn’t have the time . . . .

Other good news:  I think all of the STL blogging community will be there!  Or at least the ones I read: Mister Modtomic and Secondhand Hannah have both committed to parking space/booths.  Nick Armadillo from Mid-Century Midwest is coming.  Anyone else?  Maybe if I get brave I’ll introduce myself.  It is kind of nice being anonymous on the interwebs though . . .

Bad news: I have no furniture pictures to share.  And what’s a blog post without pictures?  Would dog pictures be an acceptable substitute?

Here’s some of Mr. Shenanigan, doing what he does best, and living up to his name.

#1 — (little paws under the door) Hey, I want in this room!  Hey, I’m in.  What’s going on?  Got anything for me to eat?

#2 — Aww man, no bacon.  I want out of this room!

So there you have it.  A day in the life of a very self-centered dog (taken with a very grainy iPhone).  If we weren’t already manhandling around three hundred pounds of furniture, I would bring the dogs on Saturday.  Maybe they will end up stopping by . . . . Green Shag sale or no sale, have a great weekend everybody!

Cheers – CT

5 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Dogs, Furniture

The Storm before the Calm

Posted on October 15, 2012 by | 3 comments

Next Sunday I will be so relaxed and our house will be so nice and blissfully empty . . .

Because right now it is craziness as I prepare for the Green Shag Market Parking Lot Sale next Saturday, October 20th. 

The living room is full.

Chair party!

The music room is full.

The basement is REALLY full.  No pictures.  Bad.

I’m happy I signed up for this even if I’m freaking out a little bit right now.  It’s making me face head-on two resolutions I set for myself back in January. 

11.  Participate in a outside-of-work money-making opportunity like the Rock and Roll Craft Show or a Flea Market to whittle down all the furniture/crafts I have stashed in the basement and maybe pave the way for the future “Thompson Guitar and Thrift” store that husband and I will run someday.

12.  Attempt to upholster a piece of furniture.  Attempt.

So #11 is obvious, #12 not so much.  I was given another gift by the alley gods last week.  I forgot my coffee in the morning before work and circled back around the house to run back in and get it.  As I cruised down our back alley I saw this poor chair sitting exactly at our back gate, begging for mercy.  I dragged it into the back porch, sent husband a text so he wouldn’t be alarmed upon returning home before me, grabbed the coffee and was only a few minutes late to work (albeit covered in cat hair).

So this one is definitely a “look what the cat dragged in” or really a “look what the cat scratched up” kind of guy.  He’s not vintage but still had good bones – a simple chair for my first major foray into reupholstery and if I mucked it up, back to the alley it could go.  I had some nice heavy-weight upholstery fabric that I snagged at Garden Ridge forever ago waiting in the basement that seemed just right. (Warning: bad in-progress photo ahead.)

The top I will be redoing tonight — the inside out sew down the sides method I was trying out there did not work.  Instead I’m going to replicate what the chair already had going on and wrap around the front of the upper back and then apply a wrapped panel to the back.  And so now this guy is living in the Living Room with all that other stuff. . . .

Something you may have spotted in the Music Room disaster photo above is a cute little dog bed. (What you didn’t see it in all the piles of stuff?  For shame.)  I found it a while ago at the Creve Couer Antique Mall but it didn’t have a pillow.  And there’s no way Sophie or Shenanigan will lounge on something without a pillow!  So I got to work —

I used the basket to make a makeshift pattern, then I cut the pattern out of some old Shabby Chic brand sheets (the fitted sheet died so I sacrificed the flat sheet).  I even did a cute detail with a dog bone in tan and white seersucker that ironed on top for that little extra “je ne sais quoi”.  Turns out Sophie and Shenanigan won’t get near that adorable wicker bed with an adorable cushion to save their little furry lives so it’s going to the Green Shag sale as well . . .

Will I be seeing any of you at the Sale?  I hope so, at least to say hi!  It looks like it could be some glorious weather . .. .

. . . until then, I’ll be feverishly working in my basement, shining and buffing and doing some last minute projects (one of them involves Annie Sloane Chalk Paint which must be diamond-encrusted BTW because it costs a small fortune!)  See you soon!

3 Comments

Posted in Design Diversions, Furniture, Thrifting

Living Analog’s Living Room – 4th paint color is the charm

Posted on October 8, 2012 by | 10 comments

I’m a little overdue in sharing some “after” pictures of a do-over on the fireplace and our accent wall. (Maybe it was because I spent all last week ranting and raving. Sorry about that.)  So as a reminder, we started here:

White accent wall and dirty, stained concrete fireplace.

Then came a can of off-the-shelf white garage floor paint from Home Depot and a can of Behr Paint & Primer color matched to Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze.

Urbane Bronze is the darkest member of Amazing Gray’s color family (all the other walls are Amazing Gray).  Since they share a similar base color, they blend well together.  Although if I had all the time in the world, I might consider painting all the Amazing Gray walls to be Shoji White (the color that used to be the accent wall which is two steps lighter than Amazing Gray in the same color family).  Having your colors be “related” can make a big difference in your home.  They work together effortlessly, e.g. with no effort on my part in picking from the whole big box of colors — I can just go to one strip on my fan deck and – voila – done!

Since I had the camera out and I’m about to reshuffle everything in the whole damn house around, I thought I’d take a minute and do a “snapshot in time” of the living room and dining room.  For our tiny bungalow of a house, we actually have a fairly open floor plan with the living room and dining room joined together.

The Value Village doesn’t-fit-in-the-car-debacle chair is currently hanging out in the living room as well.  Our house is about to explode with all the stuff I have crammed into it for the Green Shag Parking Lot Sale (October 20th!!). 

I gave the chair a good scrub-down with some rubber and vinyl cleaner we have for the Fairlane and then went after the legs with the Simple Green stainless steel spray and some aluminum foil.  That has been my secret go-to for getting chrome to shine up nice and get rid of age/rust/dust/miscellaneous spots.

He looks better, no? Well everything looks better with a (faux) sheepskin on it, especially now that fall’s chilly weather has arrived.  Next to Paul (our Paul McCobb secretary turned bar) you will see one of my I’m-a-lucky-girl birthday gifts.  My father-in-law and his wife now live in Eureka so we sometimes hit the Eureka Antique Mall together.  They remembered how I fawned over this cool bullet-esque planter but resisted pulling the  trigger for fear of becoming a crazy plant hoarder.  When we were at Home Depot picking up paint, I added a Draconae (?) plant to the cart but haven’t had a chance to pot him up all the way.  (As a side note, I’m not sure why there’s an eery green light in the hallway in that picture above.  Husband was working on his guitars in the music room so maybe he did it).

I also have another little before and after of the dogs’ storage — before it was a large woven basket we kept under the orange vinyl sofa.  It was hard for the dogs to get to their bone stash and the woven basket was a magnet for dog hair.  I picked up the white plastic one at Target, purged out a few of the toys they don’t like anymore and moved it over under the black chair.  Sometimes it’s the smallest little “tweaks” that can make a big difference.

Speaking of dogs, where are they?  Oh, just relaxing on the sofa while I take photos.

Lazy bums.  And for documentation sake, here’s one more of all the clutter that lives on the wall behind the sofa:

The floating shelves are not really styled right now, they are mainly filled with all the things I took off the mantel and moved about willy-nilly.  Since the whole room is about to get moved around willy-nilly, I didn’t really mess with them. 

So  that’s the living room and dining room as it stands right now.  And yes, if you look carefully you can see that one of the Hans Wenger-ish rope chairs has had its seat de-roped.  It’s a snapshot in time, a snapshot of how we sometimes live with half-finished projects until the time rolls around that they can be completed . . . a nice dose of reality — the Living Analog living room will never be quite “done” but I’m starting to like where it’s headed. 

Cheers – CT

10 Comments

Posted in Around the house, D.I.Y., Furniture

Shame on St. Louis, Part II.

Posted on October 5, 2012 by | 7 comments

So if my diatribe about St. Louis’s general ass-backwards-ness upon learning that we had lost out on Ikea wasn’t loud enough or shaming enough, here’s take two. 

Yesterday our little watchdog Shenanigan was at the front door as he always is, observing his little kingdom and occasionally barking at cats, dogs, squirrels, bikes and children. 

So cute, so precious.

Then Shenanigan alerted me to a poor, skinny little collarless dog slinking down the sidewalk across from our house.  Not so cute or precious anymore (as he should have been).

This guy bolted when he saw me but ran behind the neighbor’s house and ended up cornered by a fence.  He was so scared he tucked his tail, laid down and wouldn’t make any eye contact with me.  Even though he was so skinny, he wouldn’t eat the dog treats I had brought.  At first.  I gave him a little space and he finally came around.  He figured out I just wanted to help him and he let me put a leash on him.  So now it’s Thursday night at 6:30, Shenanigan is out of his mind barking at this dog and so we take him the Humane Society.  There was no microchip but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Humane Society no longer euthanizes unless it is a temperament issue.  This guy was so sweet and easy-going that I know he will find a great home with people who will love and care for him.

However this is the 6th dog that JT and I have found with seemingly no one else to help it.  That makes me sad for St. Louis.  And mad. Our residents don’t always care about spaying or neutering.  They don’t seem to have a problem with giving their family pet the boot when the going gets tough.  Some of these animals are kept by a family but they are not pets — they are chained up in the backyard to be “guard dogs” although I’ve never quite figured out how they’re supposed to protect anything beyond the 8′ radius their chain extends.

During our time as foster parents for Stray Rescue we saw firsthand a lot of these issues and more. (You can read more about all our foster dogs here).  Dogs that have had acid poured on them.  So many dogs with gunshot wounds.  Dogs with embedded collars.  Sometimes I really hate people.  So I’m going to say it again: St. Louis you can do better.  Get it together, go out there and be somebody!  Somebody who cares about animals.

To be fair, great strides in animal cruelty & abuse prosecution and prevention have been happening.  St. Louis recently created a task force and now has a full time animal welfare officer.  (See article/video here).  But the fact that we have to have a task force kind of tells you the situation here in St. Louis.

So that’s the last of my ranting for the week.  Go home, have a great weekend and give your pups a hug for me.  Cheers – CT

7 Comments

Posted in Dogs

I must need a dose of crazy now and again . . .

Posted on October 3, 2012 by | 2 comments

. . . . and the reason I say that is that I think by January 2013 the entire Living Analog living room, dining room and master bedroom will be mostly reconfigured/rearranged/new/different.  Crazy!

Above is a sneak peek of the plan I printed out and reviewed with the mister last night. Thankfully the kitchen and music room are “done” but I don’t think that will mean they are immune from the upcoming shuffle. 

The other day in her blog post about one gorgeous Knoll sofa, Stacey over at A Goode House asked “What special piece would you NEVER part with at your house?”.  I think the answer for Living Analog is that at this point, it’s all up for grabs! 

After watching Looper this weekend, I really did stop and think about what would I pack up from our house if we only had 15 minutes.  (BTW, such a good, good movie.  I have added Joseph Gordon-Levitt to my boyfriend list.)  I came up with the following short list: a) husband, b) dogs, c) photo albums and d) husband’s great-great-great-great-maybe-more-great-grandfather’s Civil War (Union) certificate.  The end. Oh yeah and food, money, passports and some clean clothes so I could hide out from the loopers that are hunting us down.  Now if I had 1 hour to pack and I knew we were going to a different house, I might add in a few furniture items . . .

So, due to the furniture re-shuffling, things are about to get crazy around here.  The first item on the chopping block is our beloved burnt-orange vinyl MCM 3-seat sofa.  We’ve had it in the music room (see some bad pictures here) and it has lived in the dining room as a banquette for a while now.  I love it.  Husband loves it (he originally picked it out which was unusual for him to voice such a strong opinion on furniture).  We just love change more.

We gave it a big hug and promised to find it a loving new family.  You can see the Craigslist ad here if you know of someone who wants to adopt it.  I hope whomever it does end up with will cherish and enjoy it as much as we have and maybe send us pictures of it in its new home.

So that’s the latest dose of crazy — total upheaval — that I have brought on myself.  Hopefully all this rearranging will make some room for the Danish Daybed sofas from Mister Modtomic to finally make their appearance in our living room.

If Loopers were coming after you and you had only 15 minutes to grab something out of your house, what would it be?  I would never wish that on anyone but it’s good to be prepared at least!  Cheers – CT

2 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Furniture

I’ve Been Crying Since Friday . . .

Posted on October 2, 2012 by | 10 comments

For those of you living under rocks or in small caves, let me tell you some bad news. 

Ikea picked Kansas City.  (Article here).  NOT St. Louis.   I guess he’s just not that into you.  Wait, wrong analogy.

I haven’t really been crying all weekend, actually I’ve been painting.  Once I got brave and started on the fireplace, projects lined up like dominos behind it.  Painting the fireplace white made the wall behind it seem . . . a little too white.   When we first bought the house we had painted our accent wall a brick red.  A few years later it was khaki green.  Then just earlier this year it went white.  Now it’s not.

Now it’s Sherwin Williams “Urbane Bronze” color-matched by our friends at Home Depot to the Behr Paint & Primer in one and I think I can safely speak for the husband on this one and say we love it.  I wish we had done this 7 years ago and saved ourselves three other cans of paint.  As soon as we get the room put back together and some sunshine peeks out from behind the clouds, I will work on getting some pictures.  I also need to work on painting the only eyesore that remains — that stupid chipped brick hearth.

But back to my original topic.  Ikea.  Some hate it, some love it, some could care less.  I’m not all that mad at Ikea for choosing Kansas City, really I’m more upset with St. Louis.  Here is my message to St. Louis:  Stop being small-minded, racially segregated and afraid of change and go out there and BE SOMEBODY.  Somebody that can attract an Ikea.

I know there are a lot of vintage and thrift lovers who abhor Ikea.  I’m not one of them and I will tell you why: YOU CAN HAVE THEM BOTH.  Vintage furnishings will always have more character and perhaps be a higher quality of construction than Ikea furnishings.  But sometimes, to keep that balance of vintage from falling over to the kitsch side of things you need to add in a little new to the mix.  Why not make it Scandinavian design with an eye for function?  I bet someone who has designed or will design for Ikea goes on to be our generation’s Charles and Ray Eames. 

Ikea has said there is still hope for St. Louis but with the Kansas City store slated to open in 2014, I’m not holding my breath.  Plus the gift card I got from my mom for my birthday will be expired by then.  Excuse me while I go cry into my pillow some more. . . .

10 Comments

Posted in Design Diversions

Clown Car Thrifting

Posted on September 28, 2012 by | 1 comment

The last Wednesday of every month is a huge 1/2 off sale at our nearby Value Village.  A lot of times I will avoid going in on these days because it draws in all the riff raff and the store gets torn to shreds.  However now that I’m on the prowl for my booth/parking space at the Green Shag Market Parking Lot Sale on October 20th, I though maybe I should stop in on my way home from work. . . .

And I found a little chair I couldn’t resist.  It was tucked under a large dining room table so you couldn’t really see it.  I pulled it out and started marching my way through the store like a lion tamer with the chair legs out in front of me to clear the way.  The check-out was so slammed with three tired looking cashiers tending to the long lines of bedraggled customers.  Thanks to my little vinyl chair, I had a place to sit while I waited in line (although I looked a bit ridiculous).  But here comes the kicker of the story — after dragging this chair through the store and waiting with the hordes to buy it — I couldn’t get it to fit in the car!!!  Me, a person who does space planning professionally.  It was a sad, sad sight.  I tried it in the front seat, upside down and backwards and it would have fit — except for our little car has a dead seat motor and I couldn’t move the seat back the HAIR it would have taken.  I got desperate and tried shoving it in the back seat to no avail.  Finally I called the husband who came to my rescue (which was no small feat because he was on call and had to bring his whole work laptop in the car after activating and then crashing and then restarting his mobile hub.)

I tackled my new little chair last night with some vinyl cleaner, Simple Green stainless steel cleaner and aluminum foil and now it looks great.  I’ll try to get some pictures this weekend of its shiny new look.  My original plan was for it to go to the Green Shag sale but I’m kind of tempted to keep/hoard it for myself.

Is anyone else in STL going to the FORM show tomorrow?  Here’s their blurb/description: ”

FORM is an annual contemporary furniture, functional object, architecture and design show. FORM is presented by The Luminary Center for the Arts as a forum for exceptional designers to showcase their work, connect with a community of other designers and sell directly to supporters.“

Sounds interesting, right?  Maybe I’ll see you there!  Cheers – CT

1 Comment

Posted in Furniture, Thrifting

Weekend Update & “Big News”

Posted on September 24, 2012 by | 3 comments

Hey y’all.  Did you have a good weekend?  Was it sunny and brisk fall weather where you were?  Are you guys ready for some “Big News”?  Well hold on to your hat, it’s coming . . . First, the back story.   I went through a time warp this weekend and got twice as much project stuff done while also getting out to eat and seeing family too.  I wish every weekend could be so amazing.

Weekend update #1:  I turned 32.  Yikes.  Not really yikes.  I like where I am in my life.  The plus of having your birthday fall on a weekend is that it becomes a whole birthday weekend!  JT took me to Farmhaus on Saturday night for dinner.  The food was delicious.  There were little green tomatoes in the succotash that were mind blowingly awesome.  Like little vegetable candies or something.  I also need to mention that JT grilled tofu steaks for us on Friday night that was one of the best home-cooked meals I have had.  Ever.

Then the whole shebang rounded up on Sunday for brunch at Lola with my mom.  We had beermosas which are getting added to my brunch repertoire immediately.  Picture a good beer like Blue Moon with a nice smooth orange juice (no pulp).  It does sound a little weird but tastes great and lets you drink beer in the morning.  Lola had some great live music (trombone and guitar player doing some old-timey stuff and jazz, the perfect pairing with brunch). 

There were also gifts but I’ll post about those later . . .

On to Weekend Update #2: Projects.  Hang in there, I’m saving the “Big News” for last. . .  This weekend saw some big progress on the basement closet I mentioned on Friday . . .

and I got brave and defaced our fireplace during the Emmys . . .

Longer posts to follow on these two when we have some nice after shots. 

Now on to the “Big News”!!! (No Mom I am not pregnant.)

Mark your calendars for October 20th as there will be a Living Analog booth at the next Green Shag Market parking lot sale!!  I will finally be able to clear my basement of all its hoarded furniture in one fell swoop.

Not only that but I also poked around the thrifts and a few estate sales this weekend and dug up a few things that will also make their way to the sale.

A Haskalite serving tray, Harmony House clock and a matched pair of Carrera marble bookends with the old Famous & Barr sticker still attached on the inside.  However all was not smooth sailing in the world of thrifting.  Friday night I swung by St. Vincent de Paul and spotted this little guy.

(Bad iPhone picture as I sized it up).  The drawer was stamped “American of Martinsville” and it reminded me of my Paul McCobb secretary/bar.  But there was no price tag as it turned out another lady had already scooped it up (along with a bunch of other stuff.  Thrift store fail.  I think I missed out on a good one.

And all that happened in one weekend!  Just thinking about all that we eating/celebrating/building/painting/cleaning/shopping that we did makes me worn out.  Now to snooze until Friday and then do it all again!

3 Comments

Posted in Around the house, D.I.Y., Furniture, Miscellaneous Diversions, Thrifting

Soon to be one less disaster area in the basement . . .

Posted on September 21, 2012 by | 2 comments

I haven’t posted any pictures of the basement on this here blog because I didn’t want to scare all you nice folks away.  In one corner of the basement (under our bedroom),  the previous owners “finished” off a room and added a walk-in closet.  I say “finished” loosely because there are no doors, no flooring beyond painted concrete and the ducting is attached with duct tape.  Although now that I type this, maybe that is the purpose for duct tape.  This larger closet was coming in pretty handy because the upstairs closets are all teeny-tiny in the style of the 1940s.  But then there was a leak or something in the mechanical stuff on the other side of the closet wall and I noticed one day my closet was smelling funny (and thus my clothes) . . . and moldy drywall was discovered and quickly torn down.

So now we’re here:

And we’ve been here for a while (One or two years?  Who’s counting anymore . . .)  My clothes have been patiently hanging on one of those mobile hanging racks and they want to go back home. 

But there’s good news — (insert drumroll) as an early birthday present,  my father-in-law is coming over tomorrow to help the husband hang the pegboard and some other goodies to put me back on the path to a functional closet.  Yay!  This may put me close to completing one more thing from my 2012 New Years Resolutions . .  Crazy. As always, updates to follow!

2 Comments

Posted in Around the house, D.I.Y.

Fireplace Dilemma

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 9 comments

So I know I’m supposed to be in the basement working on all my hoarded chairs, but I keep looking at our sad little fireplace and wondering what to do with it.  Especially now that we have been flung into cooler weather, an evening fire sounds kind of nice.

Our fireplace is cast concrete with different colors in it  (red, buff and green just like my sorority . . . )  which match the colors in the stained glass transom.  However this poor thing has seen better days.  When we bought the house it had a horrible brass-n-glass fireplace surround covering up the whole front of the fireplace.  We took that off a few years ago and hauled it to the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  It left a big (permanent) stained and sooty mess behind though.

When we were getting our concrete kitchen countertop installed, I spoke with the fabricator about options for our fireplace.  He did have some stains he could use on it but he said they would have to be dark stains because he couldn’t fix the real stains (soot and ash) that have leached into the concrete.

So, I’m wondering . . . do I dare paint it?  Here’s a little Photoshop magic for your consideration.

White?

Grey?

Black?

None of the above.

What’s your vote?  I’ve seen a lot of brick fireplaces that are painted (usually white) quite successfully.  I googled around and found some scary images of painted stone fireplaces but I couldn’t quite find any that match my situation which is not brick and not quite stone . . . . Hmmm.

P.S. Grey is out.

9 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Design Diversions