Archive for the ‘travel’ Category

THRIFTY!

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Hit up Palm Springs for a little thrifting action on what turned out to be an ‘extreme’ wind day. Unusually strong gusts mixed up the fine desert dust with low hanging clouds to create a strangely ominous apocalyptic wasteland. This was some crazy end of the world type wind.

Anyways.

Despite the wind, shopping happened.

Having a soft spot for broken down classics, I grabbed this vintage Knoll Bertoia Diamond Chair on my thrifting route. For more than a year I’ve watched this puppy gather dust at one of my favorite consignment spaces as the price was repeatedly knocked down until it just recently hit $50. No rational person wanted to touch this thing because of a few broken welds and lovely dusting of rust, but I guess I have time to repair it?

Of course. Throw another project on the pile.

Perhaps I’m a tad blind to its many faults, but ever since missing out on this Bertoia, the hunt has been on for a similar piece to fill the sad black hole left in my heart. With some welded love and the addition of a full cover, this wounded specimen will be all sorts of design gorgeous.

Otherwise, Palm Spring thrifting was fairly sparse with only the usual ceramic pieces and this awkward Tom Wesselman amateur style painting found and purchased despite the crazy wind and my waning enthusiasm.

I must stop buying thrift store art, but it was impossible to resist that furry little blond bush.

Oh, J.BEAN, you perv.

The wind apocalypse eventually cleared up early in the evening and the floating dust clouds made for an incredible sunset. Palm Springs is always pretty beautiful.

Enough of that nonsense.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving! – or – Enjoy your normal weekend!

With pie and such!

WEST ELM

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

I recently day tripped to Los Angeles to lend a hand at Laure’s photo shoot of the new West Elm. Even though I was a bit busy being amazing at holding tripods and such, I did try to grab a few quick pics using my favorite 50mm lens. This new super huge store has a nice mix of industrial details and rustic wood with a big ‘ol vertical green wall to top it off. Totally photogenic.

Seeing that LA has two West Elms now, maybe some of these modern home style stores could begin branching out into the desert? Maybe just to expand the local options beyond Living Spaces and Sears? Yeah, that’d be nice.

 

*Special thanks to Alison and her expert foot modeling.

 

KILIM RUG

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

The only thing I picked up in Phoenix – ever so long ago – was this little kilim rug. I grabbed it at one of those antique-y/consignment/ugly jewelry/collectables type shops that always have Blossom style hats next to old fast food cups stacked on random grandma potpourri junk with a small sprinkling of vintage thrown in for kicks.

I actually love those kind of places, even though pricing can be a tad random kooky-town and impossible to grasp. Why is the broken Mr. Potato Head $80 and the Knoll table $10? Who knows! It’s a wacky pricing roller coaster of delight and horror.

I should maybe have spent more than a minute photographing this thing and definitely switched my 50MM lens to something a bit wider. But hey, that’s apathy for ya.

Sort of making it work, kind of.

The rug is just the right size for the main work area of sink – stove – fridge. Plus adding color? What? So much pink is happening around here lately, it’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore.

On a side thought – still need to do something about updating the kitchen. The “temporary” faucet and other “temporary” fixes aren’t feeling so “temporary” after four years.

Apathy begone!