Furniture Graveyard

Ever wonder where old hotel furniture goes to die?  If you have a taste for a bargain, and you can use your imagination, you have got to check out any Hotel/Furniture Liquidator -- every major city has one, or two or many.  

So it's not exactly high end shopping.  More like hold your nose, be prepared to sweat (this one has no AC), and try not to be too turned off by the dust and grime layering half the items. What you can expect are lots of $25 lamps, $50 chairs and sofas, $40 headboards, etc.  It is the Rodeo Drive of Cheap. (Again, only if you bring your imagination).

My eyes just light up at those price tags and all the nothings that I think I can turn into somethings. 

Here is a $40 chair from a Liquidator I reupholstered in Kelly Wearstler Sand Strie.  One of the most comfortable chairs I own.  

And bonus, when you buy something this cheap, you can afford to use expensive fabric.

$25 Artichoke lamps:
(I bought a pair now in my living room)

Thought about gold leafing them, but didn't need any more gold in the room, so I just gessoed, spray painted and added a new shade.

Excuse the mess on the couch. 

The moral of this story is some old furniture is like a cat -- 9 lives and all that.  Remember, it's not illegal to shop in this graveyard.*  Have fun!  *(I'm such a fool for a metaphor.)

Coffee/Cocktail Craze

Hollywood regency cocktail table via ebay.  Marbelized top and brass legs. 

While my love of coffee and cocktails is nothing new, I have a serious obsession with vintage coffee/cocktail tables lately (*see post below).  (What's the difference between coffee and cocktail table you ask?  Nothing, one just sounds fancier.) 

As always, thank you ebay for sustaining my habit, and for providing blog content.

More than anything, I just have an addiction to scouring ebay for great finds -- and lately its been tables for some reason (not that I need one).  So if you know of group therapy, or are looking to do an award winning Ph.D., just let me know. (I also have an oxymoronic, but slight infatuation with lamps-- just don't tell the doctors).

This is pretty glam/cool....(with glass top, oh la la):

Very cool cocktail table base for 245 that was on my ebay watch list, even though I didn't need it.   It's just so cool though.  If I had the space, I could be a hoarder of coffee/cocktail tables and lamps.
Cray, cray -- Kat?

Here's to a week of excellent coffee and cocktails (clink mugs and glasses)!
-me

Friday Finds

Here Kitty, Kitty....

Up for grabs on ebay: a fabulous Kittinger Mid-Century coffee table for @$800.  These are going on 1stdibs for anywhere btwn $4,000-$5,0000!  This one looks to have a few age spots, but you could perhaps strategically hide them with books, etc.

Here is one similar featured in Elle Decor:

Identity Crisis: Frankly, I envision this table in a more luxe/deco setting as opposed to rustic lodge.  But, hey that's just my opinion, and you know what they say about those...there's always room for a second one.

Have a great weekend!  

Humpty Dumpty is Getting Smashed

Do you think Humpty drinks SkinnyGirl cocktails?  Unlikely.

Everybody has one – that place in your house where the excess lives.  Sometimes it’s just a drawer, or maybe it’s a spare closet or empty corner cabinet filled with all the idle, perhaps unattractive, accumulations of life. 

Admit it...you have a room that needs to be Put Back Together Again too. 

These Humpty-Dumpty spaces should come with warning labels: Beware of Infestation.  Junk multiplies, and soon that one junk drawer becomes two (I have two in my kitchen alone), and the door to that cabinet/closet takes extra muscle just to shut properly. 

Take my advice: talk Humpty off the wall, before all his pieces clutter your house.

It’s time for an intervention when an unintended space, i.e. something that is not a closet, cabinet or drawer (a room per se), becomes your clutter receptacle.   

   

Clutter Cops Crime Scene:  Once a place to serve up high-balls, the functional but drab wet-bar space became my clutter recepticle in the recent redecoration.  I painted the cabinets and upgraded the hardware a few years ago, but its sat untouched since.

So on a whim and a spare moment, I decided to clear it out, mix my own color (that was interesting), and put it back together again in some fashionable manner. 

All the King's horses and all the King’s men (uh, me)….
and I sort of put it back together again.   

The color came out pretty well -- it's sort of a pinkish/purplish greige in a very high gloss.  I want to accent the space with gold (going for a Hollywood Glam Look).  The gold leaf wall sculpture was a $20 el-cheapo purchase from Michael's.  I used wire-cutters to snip off the dinky looking birds and other stuff and spray painted the leaves gold, et voila!

'Mr. T' -- our once lime green Foo Dog finally found a home, plus a light grey paint job:

Mr. T, our Foo Dog:  "What you talking abt. Foo(l)? Quit yo jibba-jabba!"  

Waiting on another gold framed pic and possibly a little bar stool to upholster
(in the fabric you see in corner).

Yes, I literally upped the bar this past weekend.  It still has a bit to go with styling etc., and I've got another picture getting re-framed.  I’ll post finished version soon!

Til then, at least Humpty Dumpty has a placed to get smashed, properly.   Cheers!