Alright so i know its like blog suicide to let one of the best bloggers with one of the best blogs do rad posts for you. But the content is so good, that i can’t help but post it.
So here you are:
Another post by Morgan from The Brick House. And y’all know i’m not a big endorser of things i don’t like, so listen up when i say its in my top five favorite blogs. Always original content, and totally inventive designs, with hilarious and very smart writing.
Take her away, Morgan:
Going out thrifting during the crazed weeks around the holidays is just asking for trouble. Donations are low, low, low and stress is high, high, high. Plus all the good furniture space is filled with fake Christmas trees and half glittered broken Santa statues.
In other words, pickings have been slim. Fortunately I did spot a couple of pieces at the Salvation Army that were just wackadoo/awesome enough to inspire a pretty funkified design scheme that’s a bit out of my normal colorless mid century comfort zone.
First up was this pair of elaborately embroidered wing back chairs. While the shape is definitely yawn worthy parlor schlock, the elaborate embroidery read much more psycho Anthropology. Someone else must have agreed with me seeing as they were already sold.
The goose down blue velvet sofa made me immediately think of Don and Betty’s old tufted headboard in time period, color and texture.
It had just enough of that good ol’ 60’s regency charm mixed with a healthy dose of repression. At only $60, a rolled arm didn’t seem so bad (and it was super cushy).
Emily herself owns a pretty incredible blue velvet sofa, but I pulled a couple of other rooms that incorporate an eclectic mix of vintage pieces with some lux velvet sofa action.
These chairs are almost wingbacks. Almost. The brass Platner style coffee table makes my knees weak.
Here’s what I came up with:
Using my thrifty psycho embroidery wingbacks and the plush velvet sofa beast, I threw together what I’m thinking is a Stella meets Regency meets Travelers delight sort of vibe. Mixing it all up in these decades and styles.
Lighting wise I’ve been kind of dying to throw one of those long capiz shell drapery chandelier lamps off to the side of a sofa while a Stilnovo brass fixture takes the central ceiling spot and a pair of chrome Laurel lamps get relegated to the top of a campaign style dresser. Multiple points of light making it all dramatic in here.
A chunky redwood slab would be the poop as a coffee table. I know, I know, something all lucite and glass and brass would be the typical choice, but the organic wood mound is a curve ball to the regency mafia.
Chuck in a vintage spindly leg Moroccan style table and this room gets all sorts of weird. Layered more with a shaggy white rug for cozy feet, a mix of modernly planted cacti and some Turkish graphic pillows and we are winding this thing down.
Art of course makes a room, but come on, a real Frank Stella painting from the Protractor series isn’t in any of our price range. But guess what, sometimes you can make your own art. I know! Sacrilege. It’s true though, I’ve been known to make a few knock off pieces from artists I love but could never afford. There is a wicked David Shrigley drawing in my kitchen and a real fake Luc Tuymans in my living room…
A stretched canvas, some tape, and a bit of acrylic paint and you can make a DIY Stella. One of the Black paintings would probably be the easiest; I’ve been considering making one for my office. Trying to bring in a bit of modernist class to that joint.
So yeah, it’s a tad all over the place, but I think it could be a great room to sit back with friends turn on The Clash real loud and stay up way past your bedtime.