Antique store and estate sale finds

 I don't often have the time to go antique shopping on a weekday or estate sale browsing on the weekends, but it's always one of my favorite things to do.  This gives me an extra appreciation for smart phones as I can simply take a picture if I see something I like and want to think about purchasing. In the past, I never seemed to remember to bring a camera. I especially love being able to send a pic immediately to a friend if I need feedback or I find something I think they may like.  Yes, I realize some of these pics are poor quality, but I wanted to show you what I have spotted lately.


This stop was Alameda Antiques:


This amazing pair of lamps had an block ice glass like quality with an interesting texture.  Great for a modern living room.  I believe they were $225 for the pair.

 Close up of fine cross texture:

So sad this pic was especially poor. I call these Mad Men glasses.  Very fun. If I wasn't already inundated with glasses, I would have scooped these up at $22 for set of 6!

I wasn't sure what I'd do with this old desk, but it caught my eye.  Very sweet for a kids room.
A bargain at $50 and the base was heavy wrought iron:

  Over the weekend I went to the Hudson Warehouse sale in downtown Oakland.  I'd gone to a few of their estate sales and always found a few items.  This turned out to be a small cramped warehouse.  This made me cranky. There was a wait to be allowed inside due to lack of room.  As I arrived late after getting lost, I could only stand in line helpless as antique dealers and stylish folks came out with items I coveted.  I soon turned to my little IPhone companion so I didn't have to face more torture of seeing all this cool stuff come out of the warehouse in other people's arms!  When I finally got in, disappointment.

 Much more people to navigate and much less fun stuff for me.  I was originally drawn to the sale as they were clearing out the estate of an unnamed long time interior designer from San Francisco and I recognized his items from the preview pics online. Of worthy note:


Leopard print black with gold gilding settee for $200. Gorgeous.  I just about killed myself trying to do mental hoops about finding a place for this in my home.  Alas, it stayed.

Older Lucite chairs, scratched and overpriced.  Thought of the stool for a side table.  Again overpriced and I already have a set of Lucite chairs in my home office. Overkill.

Leaving in disappointment, I came across an estate sale by another liquidation company at a home near mine.  Scored two gold loopy line mid-century bowls for $5 each. One for me and one for a friend.

 

However, my biggest recent thrill find has to be this sweet little yellow china cabinet.  I'm taking an uneducated guess it's from the early 1960's.  Found this deep in the basement of Alameda Antiques and couldn't stop thinking about the color and bamboo detail.  Two of my favorite things.

 So it ended up coming home, got cleaned up, left original paint intact and but put some initial accessories inside.  Never mind I had to move all of the furniture around in my living room to accommodate this baby.  It was worth it!

Close up of bamboo details:

By the way, for any of you Northern Californians.  The Mac Daddy of all garage sales is happening next weekend.  The Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale. While I once again showed up too late last year to score much,  I did find a sweater that won me first place in an Ugly Sweater party!

http://www.whiteelephantsale.org/

For the Love of Chrome Chairs and Craigslist

 Vintage Memorex ad with classic Le Corbusier chair

Style cycles are funny animals. What we once loved in fashion and design suddenly goes from looking wrong to completely outdated to hot once again in relatively short order. Some styles manage to transcend time and remain classics. Take chrome chairs. The classic Le Corbusier chair always looks great. The 1970's Milo Baughman style chairs to me, not so much......until recently. 

Apartment Therapy

In my daily reading of blogs, I've been wooed by the pictures of chrome chairs used in design. Must fit one of these in somewhere in my own home! 

 

 Design Pad

 Design Pad

 All The Best Blog

For the Chrome Shy, just a touch of Chrome:

Let's Buy It, UK

After many years, I finally got the time and courage up to rearrange my living room. Out went the slipcovered white slipper chairs that were never really that comfortable. My beloved faux mohair sectional got split up into two components. 

I fell in love with a yellow bamboo detailed china cabinet from the early 1960's found in an antique store (more on that in another post). But one thing was missing. One of these 70's chrome chairs. On Craigslist I searched and searched, and finally found one such chair. 

 

  

Though I love the light blue velvet, it doesn't quite mesh in this room. Hopefully the future will see it in Navy, slightly deep teal velvet. For now it's happy in it's place and has many admirers in my friends who have been by to visit.

An Exception to the "All Greens Go Together" Rule

  
Just a little giggle and some food for thought to start off the week. I've never been much of a rule follower, more like a rule questioner.  When it comes to rules for color, I tend to use some of them more as guidelines.

   Like most rules, there are exceptions and gray areas.  One of my favorite looks is the layering of different greens.......yellow based greens with bluer based greens can be so lovely together.

 Tobi Fairley Interior Design

One of the general sayings is to look to nature for inspiration. The rule: All greens go together.  All greens in nature work together in harmony so they do in design as well.  

Love the color play of moss, leaves and greenery:

This is lovely:

 1912 Bungalow Blog

Yes!!

 Rosalie Fienes Design

 A Modern Twist

 Lyrics Dramatics

As always, I love finding an exception to a rule, even one I use and believe in. It keeps me on my toes. Coming back from a recent long bike ride, I think I found an exception to the green rule.

 

This building was practically screaming at me when I drove by so I had to document it as my idea of a rule breaker. Maybe it's just me, but perhaps the lower green just doesn't exist in nature?

Have a fantastic week!

The Colorful Music Inspired Art of Tim Bavington

Image: Mark Monroe Gallery

A little eye candy for your enjoyment. For anyone like me who is a color junkie and rock music lover, Las Vegas artist, Tim Bavington has managed to meld both into astonishing works of art. Bavington uses auto paint spray guns to visually create songs from bands such as the Rolling Stones, Guns and Roses, The Clash and Jimi Hendrix. Matching the 12 tones on a musical scale with the 12 main divisions on the color wheel, he translates the songs into abstract neon colored displays which practically vibrate with the music they are transposing.

Long May You Run-Neil Young

The process is more emotional and suggested rather than rigorous interpretations. While the color patterns appear sharp at a distance, the bands of color blur dramatically as one takes a closer look at each painting. The boundaries of color blurring and layering like the notes in a song.

The End-The Doors

Judy is a Punk-The Ramones

Bavington at one time was involved with drawing for The Simpson's on everything except the animation (comic books, etc.) But he was drawn towards mid-century abstract art as well as music spanning the ranges from jazz to alternative rock. He likens the starting point in each piece to that of a guitar soloist fleshing out a simple song and adding layers to it.

Blue Monday-New Order

He currently has an exhibition at the Mark Moore Gallery in Culver City, California. Many of his pieces are part of collections at many museums including the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Love on the Rocks-Neil Diamond

Bold as Love-Jimi Hendrix

Up in Suze's Room-Paul Weller

Physical S.E.X. by Darkness (collection at MOMA)

An Architectural Color Quandry in Carmel-by-the-Sea

Handout Photo

I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses the week between Christmas and New Years to totally check out, am I? I simply stop reading e-mail, doing blog posts, exercising, etc. The one thing I've always done since childhood is to visit Carmel by the Sea sometime during the holidays. The last few years it's been after Christmas. We'll rent a house near the ocean and play around on the beach as well as sight see for a few days. (See my post last year on Storybook architecture and Carmel here).

My husband is very patient about going to Carmel each year even though there are no “guy stuff or stores” there. He patiently drives me up and down each street to ogle the homes and see which remodels got finished from last year, what colors we like and don't like, guessing about the price tags of such homes. Even my two sons have gotten into offering an on the spot critique!

Although the rest of me is on vacation, my eye for looking at colors seems entirely unable to rest. Picking up the local paper, The Pinecone, I noticed an interesting story involving architectural color. It was about a color quandary the city planning commission was having with famed Tiffany's Jewelry. Tiffany's is a newer business to Carmel and is anchored at the street end of their outdoor mall called Carmel Plaza.

Riez

Called into question was the desire by Tiffany's to put up awnings on some of their windows in their trademark and iconic blue.

This clashed with the strict color code for Carmel. The code states: Color must be....

"Muted paint colors which blend with the natural surroundings. Bright and primary colors should be avoided. Contrasting colors should be saturated and earthen."

Very specific design/color codes are not unusual for historically unique tourist areas such as Carmel. They also have detailed guidelines for windows, landscape, doors, roofing materials and so on.

Tiffany trademark blue was custom created by Pantone and given the number 1837, which is the year Tiffany was founded.

Not all storefronts possess the decorative awnings as seen here.

Manhattan

Vancouver

Madrid, Spain

Beverley Hills

Notice the beige awnings instead of blue here?

Union Square San Fransisco

Newer designed stores like this one in Seattle, below, are departing from their well known storefront design and doing away with the blue altogether on the exterior. This is said to be in an effort to feel more accessible and less intimidating to shoppers.

Here is a picture of the storefront in Carmel. Sorry for the poor quality. As you can see, they have a decidedly low key profile with just a smallish sign out front. .... All of which are dictated by Carmel design codes. Outside the Plaza, there are very few chain stores with one of the exceptions being Coach. Obviously not all of the windows would have awnings as some of the windows are too tall for them.

Here is some of the feedback from the commission on the matter:

Plaza operations manger Jim Griffith said his company was OK with the departure from the center’s design rules.

“We support the color, even though it’s a bit of an exception,”he said. “It is their marquis color, so it’s hard to consider any other options.”

But Carmel planning and building services manager Sean Conroy disagreed, reminding commissioners that the town often contends with businesses that have signature looks they want to include on their storefronts. “The city has tried to avoid these kinds of notice-attracting features,” he said.

Commissioner Steve Hillyard agreed the teal would be too eye-catching, and commissioner Steve Dallas, who said he appreciated the store’s presence in town, suggested OKing just a couple of the awnings.

Chair Janet Reimers liked the color. “I think the color is fine,” she said. “I like looking at it, especially on little boxes. I don’t see them very often.”

The commission ultimately voted 4-1 in favor of the blue awnings, with Hillyard dissenting.

By the way, did you have any idea there were so many types of awnings?!

I think a great alternative solution would have been a silver or grayish awning with Tiffany's blue just in a stripe around the base. Not quite as noticeable but still in line with Tiffany's corporate branding. Thinking along the lines of the "Bullnose" stripe style above but in Silver/Blue.

If your city council has a color dilemma, if you own a company that requires some color branding or architectural color solutions, I'd like to help! Please contact me: Marie@ColorMarie.com