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Design “Anatomy”

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Progress in my work-out room is happening. I’ve got all the walls, ceiling and windows done and now we’re working on hanging sheetrock on the only wall that needed it. I’ll definitely give an update on all this progress as we approach the finish line. When I get close to finishing a room I always start to put things together in my head and then eventually begin gathering, purchasing, or making the things I need. Decorating a room is by far my most favorite part. DUHHH, isn’t it everyone’s!! The work sucks… but the decorating makes up for it all.

This post was inspired by ONE of the really special pieces that I’m going to use in my room. It’s a piece that we’ve been saving in our stash of special finds for almost 6 years. I’m pretty excited to finally have a place for it and as CRAZY as it may seem…. it’s gonna be GREAT …. A VINTAGE ANATOMY CHART!!!!

anatomychart1

Richie and I are NOT doctors (or nurses for that matter). Unless you count the naughty nurse outfit… but that’s for another post. (KIDDING!) We’ve never worked in a hospital and actually hate even being in them. Although I have to admit I’ve diagnosed both of us with all kinds of ailments. It seems the internet is really all one needs to be a doctor. Forget medical school…. and at our house there’s no appointment necessary. HA HA!

It seems that these charts are highly collectable and are being used in the coolest ways. Here’s a couple of images I found online. Crazy that the are both the exact charts I own.  The bottom right image is another one I have but I’m not hanging it anywhere. I’ve seen the 6 chart set on 1st dibs for $4,500. Ha! Yes, I’m dying of laughter too. Who the hell would pay that much? But they are cool….

anatomycharts
top-via, left-via,

I suppose it seems crazy but there are things in my house that might make someone think we were in fact medical professionals… or maybe just creepy as hell people. Definitely the latter. We have collected some really great medical stuff over the years so here’s a few things we love. Thanks to my friend Tamara (Scrap and Salvage) who encourages me to share this stuff!

Here’s a vintage medical cabinet that came out of one of the schools where Richie taught. The nurse knew he loved it and when she retired she quietly had him back his truck up to the back door and the rest is history. It’s in our dining room and we’ve filled it with all the little wood pieces we’ve collected.

medicinecabinet

Some of them Richie carved himself… like the airplane and the tooth. We love it!  We’ve started a great little vintage top collection.  I once did a post on the little man in the back on the left.  His penis pops out.  It’s hilarious.  SEE HERE.

medicinecabinet2

Of course after 20 years of estate sales he’s brought home some pretty crazy stuff. Here’s just a few more pieces from our “doctor bag of goodies”.

Lots of Anatomy books, old medicine bottles, the man with his removable organs (always fun on a Saturday night!) and the strangest thing yet.

medicalcollectables
(the display above is only for the picture… trust me, this is not how I decorate my house! HA HA!)

A plate for making teeth impressions.  Those teeth our kind of gross.  Richie loves them and is always on the hunt for glass eye balls.  That’s all I need… more creative ways for Richie to “Roll His Eyes” at me.  (NEVER!)

toothplate

Decorating our home with strange and unique pieces is what we love to do. I’m really looking forward to using the chart in my work-out room.

Speaking of… the work is going well and we’re sheetrocking the final wall. I’m SO motivate to finish because this is where I’ll hang the chart.  Here’s a sneak peek….

sheetrock1

More to come soon. Until then… if you have an ache, need to be diagnosed, want to know where your liver is, or if your tooth falls out.. let me know. The doctor is IN!

An Unrelated Note:

The HomiesA friend and fellow blogger, who is always encouraging to me and Richie, has nominated our blog for the “HOMIES” award through ApartmentTherapy.com  We are nominated in the “Best Home Design & Inspiration Blog” category.
To find out more and vote for my blog (if you’re so inclined), please visit their site and get all the details.

From their site:
Join us as we survey the blogosphere together in the fifth annual Homies. We’re looking for the most notable home design & home cooking blogs that we can find. It’s all about sharing your favorites, checking out the ones you don’t know and being inspired. The Homies isn’t a competition as much as its about celebration and discovery.

THE 2013 SCHEDULE

Week 1: 
Add your favorite home design & cooking blogs in six categories
Friday, February 1 – Friday, February 8 (until midnight EST)

Week 2: 
Vote on the top nominees
Saturday, February 9 – Wednesday, Feb. 13 (until midnight EST)

 THANKS!
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Nice Legs!

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When something doesn’t go the way you planned… just put some hair-pin legs on it… and everything is alright! Nothing beats a nice pair of legs, right? Long, short, skinny, thick… metal, wood, or concrete…. there are so many kinds to love. Of course I’m talking about furniture and particularly the little tables we planned for our bed side.

These pretty legs arrived a week ago after I realized the little “box” tables that Richie built for our last platform bed would not work in our new master bedroom. The tables are suppose to hang and “float” on the wall but unfortunately there is not enough support in the wall behind it to hold them. Our last house had shiplap walls (solid wood) so you could hang ANYTHING, ANYWHERE…. it was fabulous. But I really wanted to use the “boxes”, as I love that you can put your books and magazines in the opening instead of on top of the table. We both enjoy reading in bed.

I got these beauties at www.hairpinlegs.com and we ordered the raw steel so we could paint them the same color as the bed legs. They also come in stainless steel (more $$). We just screwed them into the bottom of each “box” and they are now the perfect, small, modern little side table. (no holes in the wall, no crying, no screaming, and no frustration. It was an easy and hip solution.  I don’t know about you but a set of these makes anything look better!

Here’s my side.

Each side got an aluminum letter that I have been saving for years. They came off a dentist’s office building that was going out of business. We collect all kinds of letters and numbers from old buildings, schools, and estate sales. I couldn’t wait to use these!  (update: The little metal thing is a gyroscope (spinning top) and you can see a video of it in action down in the “comments” section.)

Here’s Richie’s side.

It was great fun to be able to pull some of our little collectables from boxes and cabinets.  When you haven’t seen them for a while it’s great to put them in the room and remember.  I know, I know… we have weird stuff.  But we’re strange people!

So the little tables turned out nice and now there’s nothing left to talk about.  HA HA HA!  So when all else fails just show some pictures!  At least that’s what I’ve decided. So … here’s a look around the room and a sigh of relief that aside from some throw pillows and a new curtain track to install… I’m home.

Love Richie’s carved bird (Eames inspired).  The little clay pot I made for one of my tiny air plants.
You know me… a room isn’t a room at Stacey’s house without at least 3 or more plants!

This room is fun because there’s lots of vertical space to put stuff. Since the closet isn’t built into the wall it has a nice top to display things we love.  Of course the red arrow and Richie just found another monkey last week.  I swear there are a lot of monkeys around this house.  I think I have one in every room.

And a great picture of Richie!  We rarely if ever display personal photos in the house.  I don’t know… I guess I just don’t like it for some reason.  I love seeing other peoples pictures at their house but we just don’t do that.  I do, however, LOVE this of Richie.  When we were younger and he was always playing gigs with his band and we traveled a lot from one dive to the next I did take lots of photos.  This is one of him on stage TOTALLY in the moment… right in the middle of some guitar solo, no doubt.  HOT GUY!  So this one is perfect for our bedroom.  Who doesn’t want a hot guy in the bedroom.  (gasp!)

This little guy on his airplane is some sort of antique toy Richie found 2 weeks ago at a huge antique warehouse sale. He came home looking like he had just been rolling in the dirt.  Talk about a dedicated “picker”.  I found an old block of wood in his pile of crap, stuck a wire in it and bent it to hold the little guy.  He’s super cool, I think.

And a few more shots…
The Jens Risom chair made it’s way under the vanity area and my George Nelson bench now resides at the end of the bed.  The bench will be perfect for extra blankets, pillows, books, or putting your shoes on in the morning.  I love it there.

So I’m pretty pleased.  Happy to have the little side tables done and look forward to just getting creative with some handmade throw pillows.  My plan was to bring the color green into the room so I’ll be focusing most of the fabrics with a green theme.  I love green and black together… so we’ll see how it all goes.

Looking back at my inspiration board so many months ago I’d say I did pretty good at sticking to the plan.  Although lots of things changed, the room still feels just as I hoped it would.  Bright, clean, simple, and full of things we love.  We had to special order a mattress so it will be shipped to us in the next four weeks.  Good thing we’re patient.  Or at least we have learned to be!

master bedroom inspiration

Thanks for reading and welcome to the many new subscribers.  I appreciate you following along and please feel free to join in on the conversation.  I love chatting with visitors!

Richie and I have been taking a break and enjoying the FABULOUS weather here in Texas.  We’re talking 60′s and 70′s people.  Unheard of, really!  I’ve had my butt parked on the back patio in my butterfly chairs and it’s been heavenly.  Next up…  I guess the master bathroom.  I’m still trying to muster up the strength!  We’ll see.

Stacey

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Thrifty Finds – Estate Sale Scores

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Just a couple of things to share from this weeks estate sale stops.   If we’re anything… we’re persistent!  We never miss a chance to find something beautiful or useful.

As you may already know we have been collecting Russel Wright dishes for many many years.  (See some of our collection >> HERE.)  At one point I had so much that it was overflowing into other rooms and bordered on hoarding.  The madness had to stop… so we sold lots of it on ebay or to friends.  We do use it every day and unless it’s a really special piece, I don’t seek it out.  But of course, this week we came across a box of all white Iroquois. Okay, I admit, I don’t need it… but I’m a sucker for white dishes and I just couldn’t pass them up. ( oh no, the hoarding tendencies are sneaking back in ) The entire box as seen below was only $20.  I adore mixing white dishes with other colors so the box was MINE!

Russel Wright White Iroquois

There were 8 coffee cups and saucers, creamer and covered sugar bowl, 7 dinner plates, 5 side plates, a large serving platter and bowl, and 7 cereal bowls.  All were in perfect condition.  Some of the plates look like they’ve never been used.  Love them!

We also found 3 Kay Bojesen monkeys.  I was so excited about these because we LOVE the Bojesen animal collection and have yet to find the “real thing”.  We do have 2 replicas that are really adorable but I wanted his original design.  The only bummer was that they were in a box in pieces and we only found 5 legs.  Richie went back to the sale today and tore the entire house apart looking for the arms (he had to take a serious bath when he got home!  YUCK!)  He never found them but I’m going to contact the Rosendahl Company and see if if might be possible to get replacement  pieces.  To buy one new is $190.00.  If we can’t find them or purchase I guess we’ll try to create the arms.  They’re still awesome no matter what happens.  I’m just thrilled!!  And to find 3 of them was crazy cool.

(poor little guys… they need their arms!  They’re still cute, aren’t they?)
Kay Bojesen Monkeys

Kay Bojesen’s wooden Monkey is made in Denmark from teak and limbawood. The Bojesen Monkey is a genuine and sought after piece of modern Danish design.

Here are my replicas.  Very similar but not quite as cool. The differences are very noticeable on the head and face.

Kay Bojesen (1886–1958) was an apprentice of Georg Jensen, training as a silversmith in 1910. After a few years in Germany and France, he began working as a silversmith in Copenhagen. In the 1930s he realized there was something particularly lively about wood, and his wooden figures have made him one of the great pioneers of Danish art manufacture.

Happily, Kay Bojesen was far too curious to restrict himself to the work of refining metals, and he began experimenting with other materials. In the course of his exploration, he discovered wood as a material with very special possibilities for industrial treatment and styling. This discovery led to the classic guardsmen and a whole zoological garden taking shape between his hands.

Kay Bojesen’s premise in his work was a conviction that his objects should have life, blood and a heart. People should want to pick them up, and they should radiate humanity, warmth and vibrancy. The monkey was produced in accordance with Bojesen’s motto that lines should smile. In the early 1950s, it was so popular that it was exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Kay Bojesen

 

Here’s a lovely picture from the Rosendahl website.  I love all of Bojesen’s wooden toys.

Kay Bojesen Wooden Collection

Even if you don’t have children… these will definitely bring out the kid in you! It was a good day and a good find. And so the hunt for arms begins.
Hope you’re having a great weekend!

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Thrifty Finds – how’s your memory?

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My last post was pictures of the moon and to be honest I feel like I’ve been on the moon these past 2 1/2 weeks. I’ve been absent from all the things I love and I’m feeling out of sorts. But things are about to improve, as I am FINALLY off the air and our fundraising is over and now I just have to get through the jazz concert we’re hosting this weekend. I’m sure many of you feel the same when I say “I work to live”… never “live to work”. It is a necessity but I’m ready to get back to my normal but chaotic renovation life. Two more days!

In the meantime, I thought I’d just share some really small finds with you. Always on the hunt… we found a few things that made it worth getting in that gas guzzling truck and running around town. We’ve spent most of our treasure hunting years looking for large pieces to furnish our home and neglected to pick up small stuff. Smalls are fun so I’m always glad to find a few here and there.

First up… How’s Your Memory? Mine sucks! It seems like I can’t remember anything. Or rather I seem to remember things that don’t matter like songs from the 80′s. So maybe I should play this game and work on my brain a little. HA! I’m sure you all played memory in your younger years and we couldn’t resist taking this home because of the “version”. Charles and Ray Eames are two designers that we love, collect, and have enjoyed learning more about over the years. We have their tables, chairs, sofas, storage units, and now their memory game put out in 1974.
There’s lots of love there.

Eames Memory Game

I can’t really say much about these two that hasn’t been said before. He was a designer, she was a painter. They married in 1941 and in the years following they would design and develop stretchers and leg splints made of moulded plywood and in 1946 showed an exhibition of experimental moulded plywood furniture at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The Herman Miller Company in Zeeland, Michigan, subsequently began to produce the Eames’ furniture designs. In 1948, Charles and Ray Eames participated in the “Low-Cost Furniture Competition” at MoMA, and in 1949 they built their Case Study houses. Around 1955 they began to focus more on their extensive work as photographers and filmmakers. Vitra furniture manufacturer began in 1957 with the production of their designs.  Even if you don’t know much about them, you certainly have seen and know about their beautiful designs.

Charles and Ray Eames

So this was a fun find.  Ravensburger still makes the Eames version of the game… and you can get it online.  Of course the box and some of the pictures cards have changed but it’s still very cool.

Eames Game

Eames Memory Game

We also found a lovely serving set as well as a carving set.  These don’t appear to be anything collectable but for $2.50 they were too lovely to pass up.  They’re really heavy stainless steel and I love the very simple modern design.  It makes me want to carve a turkey immediately!

Stainless Carving Set

One last thing was my husband’s score.  He collects vintage clothes and wears NOTHING else!  He’s a vintage shirt-wearing, I’ll never-buy-anything-at-the-mall kind of guy.  He also collects vintage frames.  He loves the old horn-rimmed, “old man” (at least that’s what I call them) style frames.  He’s probably got 5 or 6 pairs and is always on the hunt for them.  Luckily he has a friend who manages an optical shop and pops his prescription in the frames for him.

Vintage frames

He found these just a few days ago so they still have the original lenses in them.  Somebody had a serious impairment.  I tried them on and just about fell over!
I think he looks so cute in all of them.  He has different colors and slightly different shapes to match his little vintage duds.  It totally fits his personality!

It’s not always about the items… sometimes it’s just the fun of going out and hunting.  When we first started “looking” it really freaked me out and made me sad to go through someone else’s stuff.  It was their whole life just sitting on tables and in boxes.  I’ve learned to get over that and think of it as “giving them a new life”.  It helps me, anyway.

What you have found lately?  Do you like to go to estate sales and bargain hunt?

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Designer: Jens Risom

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Renovation is S-L-O-W. At least it is at my house. My father-in-law told me over the Easter weekend that I could have built a new house by now. (sigh) Of course he was joking and he loves to tease me because I’m a perfectionist. I enjoy his teasing… it’s love in the most fun way! Here’s the thing, though…. slow is not really a good thing in the blogging world. But who cares, right! So lets just say screw the renovation talk for now and lets talk about a designer we love – Jens Risom.

Jens Risom, who designed the first Knoll chair in 1941, received his education in Denmark at the Krebs’ School, St. Anne Vester School, University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen’s Kunståndvaerkerskolen. He worked as a designer of furniture and interiors in the Copenhagen office of architect Ernst Kuhn. After moving to the United States, he became the design director of Dan Cooper in New York and also designed for Georg Jensen. Many of Risom’s furniture designs are considered modern classics, and his furniture is on display at the Museum of Modern Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum.  His beautiful designs are still produced today by Knoll.
Jens Risom Chairs

It is with such appreciation that we have this house and even more incredible that we’ve been able to furnish it with some really amazing pieces that we’ve collected over the years. I don’t think mid-century modern homes look right without a decent amount of the “right” stuff. A lazy boy, overstuff rocker, and flowered wallpaper would not look right in a house like this. (and I have nothing against either of those in the right house) But I also know that finding designer modern furniture is almost a thing of the past. It’s so expensive to buy and the vintage stuff is more and more difficult to find at a decent price.  We’ve been lucky… because this isn’t a passing fad for us. We’ve been collecting for almost 20 years and we’re super proud to have every single piece.

I randomly found this picture online a few weeks ago and I saved it. It made me think about the chair we have and the story behind acquiring it.

My husband was born and raised in a tiny town about 20 miles from where we currently live. We’re talking … it takes maybe 5 minutes to drive through it.   Yes, it’s amazing he turned out to be who he is.  Weird things happen.  Anyway, the hospital he was born in over the years ceased to exist and the building just sat there and began to deteriorate.  They experienced a pretty bad flood and … well, you get the picture… it had to be demolished.

Jens Risom chair

At that point we were serious “hunters” and didn’t miss an opportunity to go into any building or estate sale.  Richie heard about the hospital and hauled ass to go through the building.  I’m not sure if he even paid for it.  I don’t think he did.  It was one of those “take it before it gets trashed” situations.   There it was… a Jens Risom side chair.  The webbing was all torn up and the chair legs sat it flood water for a long time.  You can see the bottoms of them still have water stains. We sanded the chair as much as we could but then decided we liked the stains and the whole story behind it.  We kept them.

Jens Risom Side Chair with new webbing

I can’t even remember what color the webbing was, but it had to be replaced.  We ordered new webbing for the Risom chairs online from Knoll.  There’s many colors to choose from and it was really easy to tack it all back together.  (pull tight!)
So it now sits in a small corner of our guest bedroom.  It’s super comfy, very compact, and I think it’s beautiful.  Not to mention that it came out of the hospital that my husband was born in.  Priceless! They still produce this chair and I’ve found it online for between $500-$600. (OMG!… thank you flooded hospital and dumpster diving husband!)

RIchie is always looking out for one of the armless side chairs (see top pix).  He always has one marked on ebay but never takes the plunge.  I think he’s always hoping that “he’ll find one and score big” one day.  He’s been pretty lucky so far.  Who knows.

DWR and then Dwell Magazine both featured Risom and I really enjoyed their video.  I loved hearing the correct pronunciation of his name.  I always think I have those danish cats names right and I never do.  HA!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/39894715 w=400&h=225]

So if you ever find any of his designs, hold on to it… or send me an email. (yes, I’m serious) And don’t ever pass up a chance to go through the old hospital that you were born in. You never know what you might find.