Curtis Jere and Marc Creates (Brutalist and MCM Wall Art for Pennies on the Dollar)

Hello again!

Do you ever get a "when it rains, it really pours" feeling about vintage items? Sometimes it seems like I'll spend years looking for something, and all of a sudden in a short period of time, I find not one but two or three or four of the same thing that was scarce as hen's teeth before. Remember my $10 Curtis Jere from March? Well, buckle your seat belts, kids, Mama brought some siblings home for my now growing metal art wall collection:

Trying to find juuuust the right place to put this now. Cameo by Matthew's arm and Al Jolson.

I was minding my own business at work on a Friday afternoon, making my list of houses to hit on Saturday and combing through estate sale listings for suitability, when a picture caught my eye. Tangent: Do you fellow estate sale lovers look through the pictures on estatesales.net or Craigslist before venturing out into the wild for fun stuff? I always try and rank sales by what I see in the preview pictures, be it sixties' green carpet or a very Leave it to Beaver kitchen, to gauge whether or not I'll be able to find more goodies. All tools in a garage? Naaah. All contemporary furniture? Noooope. This house in Hendersonville looked to be from the late eighties' or early nineties', and nothing furniture or smalls wise really spoke to me. I usually flip through the gallery with my finger pressed to the right arrow key, giving me a split second montage of all the images, and I had to stop and go back for this one in the midst of all that maroon and forest green upholstery:

Well, well, well...what do we have here?I was pretty sure I was seeing a Curtis Jere Brutalist piece hiding in plain sight. As poor, beleagured Matthew was getting off work two hours before me, I sent him an SOS via text message of the above photo and an address. "PLEASE GO GET THIS, MUST BE LESS THAN $50", the distress signal read, and off he went out of his way to go grab it (because he is #1 husband of the year, in case you were wondering). About an hour later:

Me: Did you get it?!

He: Yeah! 

Me: [elated] Really?!

He: Yeah!! It's right here in the Cube!

Me: How much was it. It was like fifty bucks, wasn't it.

He: No, it was $25!

Me: What'd they say at the sale?

He: Well, I just walked in and went straight to it, took it off the wall, and then went up to pay. The ladies there were like, "I guess you know what YOU want!" And then said didn't I want to look around in the garage or anything, so I did, but they didn't have anything.

The poor guy didn't even get rewarded for his hard work by a secret stash of old video games or computer monitors. C'est la vie. The conversation continued:

Me: Can you look to see if there are any markings on the front of it? It'll look like a little CJ in a circle, or like someone wrote "c jere" on one of the squares in Sharpie.

He: Ok, let me seeeeeee...[pause]....yeah, no, I don't see anything like that, but it might just be a case of Bab eyes. [a medical term for when he's sent looking for something and I come in five minutes later and pluck in from directly in front of his field of vision].

Me: [a little disappointed] Yeah, it might just not be a Curtis Jere or whatever. Can you look on the back of it where it hangs on the wall?

He: Oh! Here we go! [as hope swells within my bosom] There's a little sticker that says "Marc Creates".

Me: [très deçu] Oh....well...that's ok, It IS metal, right? Is it heavy?

He: I mean, it seems heavy to me? But...?

Me: I'll just look at it when I get home. 

Was my usual acuity with antiques dulled by disuse? Had I been fooled? I was worried that I would get home and the piece might be some Syroco or similarly down market version of what I was looking for. Matthew brought the piece in from the car when I got home and I was pleased to see that it was real metal, and heavy! AND GORGEOUS! Get a look at it next to the C Jere Brutalist guy from earlier (and no, I'm never taking that $10 sticker off):

YES MA'AM. "Marc Creates, huh..." I says to myself, and started googling.

"Marc Creates" is the brand under which Marc Weinstein, an artist from St. Louis, MO, sold his own line of midcentury metal creations. His website mentions that he got his start in metal objets d'art in the late 1950's, when he started working in a scrapyard his father owned.  From the website:

Weinstein began experimenting with different welding techniques after learning the basics from a local handyman. Welding brought Weinstein's artistic abilities to the surface and by the early 1960s, he was transforming scrap metal into works of art.... He spent the next two years welding textured metal sculptures in a shed in the corner of his father's scrap metal yard. What started as an artistic release in his spare time, was now starting to consume his days. Weinstein said, "My Dad thought the sculptures were interesting, but was also concerned about running a business." 

On a whim he took a metal wall sculpture to a local furniture store to see if they would buy it. "The old guy who owned the place didn't like it, but his son stopped me before I left and said that he wanted it. He purchased the sculpture to sell in the furniture store and it sold immediately," said Weinstein. Shortly after he sold his first work, he was receiving orders at a slow but steady rate until a furniture sales person spotted his sculptures hanging in a store. The sales person contacted him to see if he could carry his artwork. The sales person used Mark's sculptures to accessorize the walls of a furniture show in Chicago. As a result of this exposure, manufacture representatives from all over the country began to inquire about selling his art. By 1967, the demand for Marc Creates metal sculptures was outgrowing the shed in the corner of his father's scrap yard. In need of a full-time production facility and showroom, Weinstein opened a studio in downtown St. Louis. By the early 1970s, Marc Creates was producing metal sculptures and furniture, shipping thousands of pieces of art throughout the world.

PLUS THE WEBSITE HAS A PDF OF HIS 1975 CATALOG. Color me thrilled. Check out the cover and some of the pieces from inside:

As in most of the vintage things I bring into the house, what I love about these brutalist pieces are how dramatic they are. Anything that catches your eye and holds your gaze is something I want in my house, be it a cow skull or a ventriloquist dummy or one of these characters. Also, that one on the left? That would be mine! :o I know it's goofy, but the wanna be archivist/ former librarian in me gets thrilled to pieces when I'm able to track down the provenance of something neat I've found. Nowadays, Marc Creates is sold under the name Curtis Jere thanks to some business merging, and I think that's actually a good idea as the two look so similar!

Speaking of Curtis Jere....

What you can't see in this picture-- how badly this thing needs another three nails to hold it up, or how sharp the edges of those leaves are! Caution, peeps.

Ta DAAAAAAAH.....

The day after Matthew brought the Marc Creates home, my parents and I ventured out into the sweltering heat to visit one of Michael Taylor's warehouse sales. I wandered around the unairconditioned space (there were fans going, but the air that day was so hot they weren't doing much but moving the air around), not really looking FOR anything so much as just looking. Michael Taylor is the KING of estate sales, and I regularly just hit whatever sales he has going on a given weekend-- this one happened to be a number of items relocated from other sales to his business location on Allied Drive. I had seen a few knickknacks I was interested in but resisted mightily light of our recent clean out efforts. Then, draped over an ottoman like "one of your French girls" was this gold leaves metal piece. Two in one weekend? NOT POSSIBLE. I shimmied through a bank of couches and chairs to where the glinting leaves lay. As a lot of the items at the warehouse sale are priced...how do we say this...competitively (read: sky high for a little pennypincher like me), I was worried that even with the half off discount running the dadblamed thing would be marked $200, effectively placing it out of my price range. Mais non, the postal tag attached to it read $45 in magic marker. 

"Oh, well then it's probably not an actual Curtis Jere, right," I said to myself, eyeing it for a signature. I turned it over in my hands carefully and squinted as beads of perspiration started forming on my brow from stationary activity. "OR MAYBE IT IS!" I thought, spotting the tell tale signature bold as brass across one stem.

So, a real C Jere for $22.50, bayBEE, quite a mark down from this 1stDibs listing at $725. YAHOO. I told friends I almost paid with my life as the line to checkout was long and fraught with credit card reader difficulties (side note: if I see one more person paying for items at an estate sale that total less than $20 with a credit card, I might just lose my actual mind), but in the end, it was worth almost heat stroke to add to my collection of knock-yer-eye-out vintage wall hangings.

The family all together, for size comparison.

All right, enough blabbin-- what do you think! And apologies to my Facebook/Instagram friends, I blew up soc'med at the time with my finds, but you know how I love to write things out longform here on the blog. :) Do you have any metal wall art in your house? How/where do you display it? Had any crazy "when it rains it pours" estate sale or flea finds lately? I'd love to hear all about it!

That's all for now, but more next week! Have a fantastic weekend and I'll talk to you soon!!

A House Fit for a King (Estate sale at a 1940 Tudor riverfront house)

Good morning!

Hope you all are staying warm wherever you're reading this, as it is positively glacial in Nashville, Tennessee! It's been a great long weekend for me-- I took Friday off to visit friends in Memphis, who showed us the BEST goldurn time the 901 had to offer. However! As I was going to miss a whole weekend worth of estate sales, I managed to squeeze in two just before I left Davidson County. One was a little forties' house off of Nolensville Road, chockablock with vintage clothes that were all about a size two (darn that dream), and the other....well, the other was this one.

(("Theme from Tara" here))

I had my mind made up to skip both sales in the interest of travel time, before my mom called me the night before. The conversation went something like this:

She: What time are you leaving tomorrow?

Me: Early-ish.

She: Like after eight?

Me: Definitely after eight.

She: You're gonna to want to see this one house before you go out of town.

Me: I am?

She: Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure you will.

Me: Where is it?

She: It's in Madison down by the river.

Madison? Down by the river? I scoffed. While I spent many of my formative years in this suburb of Nashville, lo-o-o-ong before the East side became popular, the idea of crossing over to "the wrong" side of Gallatin Road in Madison did not hold much appeal. Behind the commercial district is a labyrinth of sixties' and seventies' apartment complexes and houses on streets with weird fairytale names like Peter Pan Road and Cinderella Drive. It's almost like the subdivision people were trying to add insult to injury-- here, live in this shoebox of a fifties' house on a street you don't even want to print on a Christmas card. "You live WHERE?" This house had a nondescript, Perrault-less address, just beyond the apartments, and on a dead end street, the property line terminating in the Cumberland River. "Wouldn't hurt," I thought, and after appealing to Matthew's better nature ("Do you want to go? Well, I guess we'd better go then!" quoted my favorite partner in crime), we drove up past a pair of wrought iron gates and were already pretty impressed.

And that was before we went inside. Whoooo boy. Fasten your seatbelts.

Now, being a dyed-in-wool estate saler, I have been to a LOT of houses over the last ten years. Small houses, big houses....million dollar addresses in Franklin and musty four square Victorians in Belmont, cottages in Old Hickory and once a penthouse condo in Bellevue on the twenty third floor (though the elevator button was haughtily labelled simply "P"...didn't I get a kick out of pressing it, like I was on my way up to Franchot Tone's 1930's abode!). AND YET, I don't know that I have ever been so surprised by a house in all my estate saling days. It went on, and ON , and on, and each room was just as elaborate and extravagant as the last.

Remember how I want to live exactly as say our-Joan-Crawford-who-art-in-heaven did in 1936? Um, this is the house I would need to execute that dream to the fullest extent of the law (barring time travel and/or a six million dollar time capsule style house in Holmby Hills). Get Matthew an ascot and a pipe, let me slip into something bias cut, put some Fletcher Henderson on the phonograph, and LET ME DREAM. I can't even describe this next picture to you without bursting into tears, so just look:

THE SCONCES.

((Anguished cry)) IS NOT EXACTLY AS I DESCRIBED IT? I would axe the giraffe and replace the couch with something boxier, but are you seeing the lighted chandelier style wall sconces? The high, dark overhead beams and the dark windows leading out to the patio? The dadblamed arches? Judas wept. Let's take a closer look at the back wall there:

Yep, still perfect. Davidson County Webpro data (my go-to site for finding out about other-people's-houses) dates the building to 1940. I love thinking of the swellegant people who would have lived here at the time and what their furniture must have looked like. Even these latter day tenants were kind to the house, putting a kind of Hollywood Regency spin on the interiors. While, owing to the many treasures from the Orient and wild exotic fabrics in the basement rooms and an addition, this one estate sale attendee in track pants kept breathing, "Musta been some kinda foreign people lived here. Nobody from around here would have stuff like this...", he was actually dead wrong-- the folks who lived here for several decades were actually from a tiny rural town north of Hendersonville and (from what I could find) lived in middle Tennessee all of their lives! You don't have to have a dramatic lineage or origin story to have dramatic flair (see: yours truly). The woman of the house ran a relatively famous nightclub in the Madison area for many years-- and if the house is anything to judge its owners by, she and her husband had a lot of vim and vigor to them!

Missing: threadbare Persian rug, movie screen that is hidden behind a tapestry....me.

This is one of enclosed patios with a full-fledged view of the Cumberland. My dad mentioned while we were gossiping about how impressive the place was that a) that was a million dollar view of the river and b) the people who lived here must have loved to entertain, as there were probably forty chairs in ten or twelve different seating areas complete with wet and dry bars! Again, I want to be this person.

This room actually made me suck air through my teeth. OH. MY. GOD. It looks like something from one of those David Hicks books on interior design, maybe Decorating with Fabrics? Because that's exactly what's going on here-- the walls are the same fabric as the drapes, as the settee, as the accent pillows:

Perfect.

Something about the wood tones and the white, white ceiling with all this pattern is so jaw-droppingly gorgeous...at one point looking around, Matthew, impressed, stage whispered, "I wonder what they're asking for this place?" I guess he was given hope by the down-at-the-heels neighborhood that we'd been through to get to the riverside mansion area. That and my sweet Bub has no idea how much houses cost. Already having looked it up on my phone out of curiosity, I balefully rejoined, "Wellllll, it's $550,000, and it's already under contract," ((cue me singing "I Can't Live" by Harry Nilsson while performing a sorrowful supercut of all the wonderful times I would have had in this house)). Oh, it's cool. That's just like, over twice our reach price. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I'm still staying out of the real estate market this year, but good God, why can't I live here.

Here in the bedroom, I once again stifled a gasp. Ok, those ruched curtains, that brocade wallpaper, MORE CHANDELIERS, and a quad-fold baroque mirror in front of a dainty little settee.

Which leads us up to the main focus of the boudoir. Um, excuse me, while I start listing all my furniture on Craigslist in the vain hope that I can redo my entire room to look like this. UUUUGH. Do you see...I mean, where do I even start? Crystal-roped headboard thing, sconce above the bed thing, and those tall, thin mirrors? The little bombe chest/nightstands? My tears fell like rain (not really, I'm super brave, but this was A TRIAL) :

I've packed my bags, I'm #ready2livehere.

My mom really didn't like the kitchen but I thought it was charming. Plus, who besides me do you think can reach those toppermost shelves with only a little help? I'm not sure what color I would paint them but some color, or maybe a less oatmeal, more white shade? If you thought you were impressed with the wallpaper reaching to the ceiling, in the words of Al Jolson, you ain't seen nothin' yet:

See, I could hide Christmas presents in the higher up cabinets. I hope our
kids are smaller like Matthew so I can retain my vertical advantage...

BAM. This room is fully committed to that wallpaper and it's so wingding it works! Update the appliances, lend me a couple hundred thousand dollars, and I am ready to move in!

Again, if this were my house, I would lay Spanish tile in this room and have it be the ballroom. A bantam sized one, sure, but how swank would it be to throw parties and instruct guests to "follow me into the ballroom for dancing and light refreshments." And with a house like this, it wouldn't look one jot out of place. Pappy kept mentioning Sunset Boulevard in his descriptions of this house and he's not wrong-- what an old world charm and new world verve the place must have had in 1940...and still has some almost 80 years later!

Have castanets, will travel.

One of like eight places you could eat dinner...again, a house after my own heart.

There were plenty of rooms in the bottom of the house where the basement was finished and a catacomb of bedrooms and sitting rooms and an office set up, along with a newer addition, but the top floor of the house was really the heart of the house. And was it ever still beating. I hope the new owners have a lot of happy years in these to die for rooms!

Want to see what I got at this sale (or that matter, things I've been hoarding up since the last)? I'll do a swag post soon! In the meantime, here I am via the She Was a Bird Instagram in one of the lady-of-the-house's many out of this world accessories, a hubcap sized vintage [Incan? Aztec? Meso-American?] pendant, which I am loathe to take off for how much I love it:

I both looked and felt that tired after a day at work, but I can't
resist a selfie!

                   

Anyway, let me leave you with Fats Domino telling you how I feel about this house! I hope you're having a wonderful 2015! Any crazy estate sale finds? If you're a Nashvillite, did you go to this one? Have you ever been to a sale that you stepped back and went, "OH WHY do I not live here?!" Which room in this house is your favorite? Tell me all about it!! I'll be back before you know it with more vintage tips and quips. Stay warm!! We'll talk soon. :)

                 

New Perspective on Color (1952 Interiors)

Hi-ya, folks!

Sorry to have been MIA most of today-- I've been snowed under at work! At one o'clock, some fellow library employees and I moved the nonfiction desk to its temporary home a couple hundred feet from where the old one was on the third floor, and I'm telling you, the calamity and clamor of it all. Plus, we were internetless for about two hours (which is the same as saying we didn't have oxygen to breathe in this, our twenty-first century)...anyway, "there was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!" but I'm here now, and don't I have a delicious little slice of the 1952 interior decorating pie to share with you. 

Come! Look! Let's start with this Dorothy Draper hunk of GORGEOUS:

Caption: "Feminine bedroom in nostalgic colors"

Yep, I was sitting at the desk without my internet, flipping through the March 1952 issue of your-favorite-magazine-and-mine, House and Garden, when spots appeared before my eyes-- and not just because I'd slugged what felt like a tureen of coffee just before reporting to my post. We've talked about Dorothy Draper before, because she's in my top five all time greatest decorators hall of fame, but if she wasn't already, this room would nominate her for that prestigious list. This article, awkwardly entitled "This Spring, It's the Light, Bright Look", features eight designs by world-renowned interior design experts of the time on how to use C-O-L-O-R to spruce up your digs for spring. I, for one, now want to put all the furniture out on the lawn and start from scratch. Isn't that what a really beautiful living room or kitchen does to you? Just makes you want to live in that picture of what your life could look like?

Draper is well-known for her splashy, feminine, whimsical designs, and as you can see, this room is no exception. From the text:

Dorothy Draper likes... cherry-bark, forget-me-not blue, heliotrope, white. She suggests a white chintz with cherry-bark polka dots for curtains and upholstery, forget-me-not blue ceiling, and heliotrope carpeting.

And I suggest that I drop everything this weekend to make my own bedroom look like this, however tiny it may be in comparison.  The colors again:

As I start singing some mournful, aching love song in the Otis Redding school to this palette. YES.

But the celebrity designers don't stop at Draper. Look at this sunny, rambling, just-so room, and guess what former silent film star designed it:

"Ranch living-dining room in western colors"

For your information:

William Haines likes... "natural" colors, beige, gray-green. He suggest a raw wood ceiling, polished brick floor, sand-gold walls, beige curtains. Against this background: eucalyptus chintz, gray-green accents.

Yep, my best friend Joan Crawford's best friend Billy Haines, from their days in silent pictures on the MGM lot, designed this room. I really love the mixture of prints and shapes and colors. Just think of the well-heeled young professional couple looking to build their indoors-outdoors modern Southwestern house and incorporating both the masculinity of the cowhide rug and raw wood ceiling with the garden-party pattern of the eucalyptus print sofa. Can you just see me stretched out reading my spooky comic books on my stomach on that rug, listening happily along as Matthew writes a brilliant new tune on the piano? I can! That would be the life, right there.

"Living room in earth tones"

William Pahlman is another big name in midcentury decorating, and he designed the room above. It's funny that this looks the most dated of the bunch, but to more like 1966 than 1951. So technically, far ahead of its time! 

William Pahlman likes...oyster white, Mustard, Driftwood. He uses a plaid that combines these three colors for curtains and a chair, picks up the Driftwood for another chair, the Mustard for carpeting. Deep oyster walls, pale oyster ceiling.

That last line sounds like something from a Jim Morrison spoken word poem. Isn't it interesting how matter-of-fact paint colors used to be? While my eye can differentiate between Sherwin Williams' "Everyday White", "Simple White", and "Gauzy White", I am irritated by the fact of having to. Shouldn't that name be descriptive of a thing in the world that that color corresponds to? Am I asking too much? Oysters, mustard, and driftwood all have colors! I love the potted cacti and the way the furniture is arranged with regard to but not around the fireplace.

"Lanai room with quiet background"

 Do you know somebody actually called the library about two weeks ago to ask me what a "lahn yay" was? I hadn't heard of the term and couldn't find anything to save my life, until she added that it "was what the girls on The Golden Girls were always calling the patio". Ahhhhhh. That google autocorrected me to "do you mean Golden Girls lanai?", which led me to this message board (note to self: explore Golden Girls message board at length later), which led me to this definition: "la·na·i (ləˈnäē,ləˈnī), noun. a porch or veranda." At least I know how to spell it now. What this guy says you should do with it:

John B. Wisner likes...gray-beige, white, and Bitter Green. In a glass-enclosed lanai room he uses gray-beige for walls, ceiling, and rug. Curtains and floor are white. For accent: Bitter green sofa.

Speaking of bitter, I am still feeling that emotion over the fact that my parents took down the wrought iron supports and covering over our 1954 back patio  lanai sometime in the mid-80's. Maybe I can convince them to put it back up again now that their vintage loving daughter lives there! If wishes were fishes...

"Town sitting room with bold colors"

This is one of my favorites from this spread. The gold, white, orange, and pink remind me of something a thirties' star would have in their 1960's city apartment they bought with their television appearances money. It's elegant at the same time as it's loud and glamorous.

Melanie Kahane likes...orange, pink, and black plus white. She uses the first two as striped carpeting under a pink ceiling. Upholstery is tweed flecked with orange, black, and white.

Why don't people have rugs or carpets in solid stripes like this anymore? I didn't even notice it until it was mentioned in that passage, but it's a really fun, funky kind of floor covering choice. Sign me up! The couch and the throw pillows may be the star of this set-up for me, though.

"White dining room with sharp color"

Judy Garland's outburst over her Parisian friend who drags her to a hairdresser, in that adorable little monologue from Judy at Carnegie, is a good description for this room. Replace "woman" with "room" and keep all the emphasis:  "A woman who is so chic! She's so, chic, you can't stand it. She's a darling, marvelous woman, she's just so chic." How she feels about that native of France, so do I feel about this room. Black candelabras and lavender candle sticks and crystal for miles! Green and white dining room chairs! That wall planter above the sofa! Well, let's get a look at what we're talking about here:

Stedman-Harris likes...lots of white with sharp accents. They suggest white walls, ceiling, curtains, and slip covers. Accents are in malachite green, magenta pink, royal blue. On the floor: Chinese matting.

Bust. My. Buttons. Chinese matting, huh? Even without the grand proportions of this room, I may have to institute the same in my den, if it can be recreated on the cheap. Wow!

"City bedroom in pastels and bright accents"

 How do you like that headboard? And the pink peeking out from stage right?

Tammis Keefe likes...grays with cerise and turquoise. She matches the walls to a pale gray cotton carpet, adds an ink-gray bedspread. Turquoise and cerise point up this scheme.

Those turquoise curtain and that palette are really neat. Again, if they could just show me a few things in a normal ceiling-height room, I would appreciate it. Outside of a cookie-cutter McMansion or a prewar brownstone, where are you getting these ceilings, people? I'll forgive you if you let me have that 10 foot lacquer Asian cabinet over to the side there, even if I don't have anywhere large scale enough to put it.

Last but not least:

"Country library in bright hues"

And the award for most eccentrically named decorator goes to:

Zelina Brunschwig likes...persimmon-red, grays, and yellow-green. Against deep gray walls, pale gray ribbed carpeting, she suggests orange tweed upholstery. Curtains are a yellow-green flowered chintz.

The picture I took of the magazine illustration doesn't show it very well, but this is a really neat room, especially with those revolutionary soldier red, lipstick red, whatever you want to call them red sofas (I guess I defer to Zelina from now on and call it "persimmon"). At any rate, lovely!

So! Tell me what you think about these rooms! Which do you want to bring wholesale into your own home? Which color palette appeals to you the most? Should I adopt a 10 foot lacquer cabinet and polka dot drapes and Chinese matting into my current home? The heart says yes, but your input is always welcome. :)

Well, kiddlings, I have to scoot! This is the latest post ever!! I have about another hour here at the book farm and then we're off to dinner at a friend's-- I am excited about having after work plans that don't involve my ongoing war with the fitness equipment at the downtown Y (it wants me to get in shape, my body wants to continue being out of shape, I want to get in shape...surely the majority will prevail!). Have a great night, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Til then!

Mid Century Magnificent (1951 Interiors from "House and Garden")

Good afternoon!

How's tricks today? Same old, same old here at the biblioteca. Like I told you, I'm still slugging my way through House and Garden's 1951 issues in my idle moments, and that oversized tome sure does pack a wallop page for page. While I thought 1947 was my all time favorite hands down year (and it may still be), 1951 is giving it a run for its money in terms of outrageously gorgeous interiors. I've been snapping photos left and right in my cubicle of illustrations, advertisements, and pictures of finished rooms that are as visionary as the twenty-first century while firmly planted in the twentieth.

Come take a look at some of the rooms that make me want to buy a house so I can just start from scratch in my new surroundings! There is so much to love in all of these...

I was looking at some house for sale in Inglewood online not that long ago whose current owner/tenant was a backdrop and mural painter by trade-- and boy, could you tell (in a good way) by his house. The whole living room featured this enormous, brilliantly done still life in the style of the old Dutch masters that took up an entire long wall-- so much more dramatic than even a wallpaper mural, an actual canvas hanging of items blown up to 1,000 x their size. I feel similarly about this gigantic textile hanging behind the sofa...while I might choose something other than this abstract peacock for my subject, I am all about the format and style of this installation. And how about the room? The texture of the squiggly-line rug and the curtains made in matching fabric to the chairs, all with that beige and green accent and then POW, red couch. I can't get over how fifties' Hollywood this looks to me-- a little outsized-bordering-on-garish, but SO much more fun than the miles of beige and "linen" colors that are in expensive houses today! Also, that Chinese-style figure lit from behind like a religious vision...I VOTE YES ON PROP THIS.

This room was not near so dark in the print version, but the overcast reference floor workroom seems to have leant its drab lighting to the tableau...mea culpa, peeps. I wanted you to see the single-bed attached to a queen size head board, but outfitted with racks to create a floating bedside table. Do you love that? I also like how the triad of pictures are lined up to the one edge of the bed, and the combinations of shaggy white carpet, tile flooring, and the yellow/turquoise contrast. They just don't make 'em like they used to! That's why we have to study these old publications so we can replicate the design process-- I love how clean and yet how fun it all looks.

Speaking of fun, lime green, emerald green, and pink, working together in perfect harmony:

I feel like paraphrasing Audrey Hepburn in Charade to tell you about how I feel here: "You know what's wrong with this room? Absolutely nothing." Things Cary Grant and this room have in common: unimpeachable perfection in line and style. The one thing that could make this room better would be to have Cary Grant in this room, fussing over the newspaper and coffee in an red ascot and perfect casual grey suit. Dream life, fulfilled. At any rate, I love the spindly, atomic legs of the chairs, the fact that two of them have arms and are captains' chairs (!!), the diminuitive side board and moderist china cabinet, and that single panel of tropical wallpaper. Adventure, glamour, excitement... this room has it, and how.

I have a green couch in my green den next to a green lamp (see this photo for details), and I was wondering if it was too matchy matchy until I saw this room. Same situation-- slightly lighter than the walls sofa chair here, apple green walls, and this guy even threw in green mats on gold frames to match the wall. So he's more guilty than I am of matchy matchiness! I wish my room was a little less Kermit-colored, but I haven't decided what color it should be instead-- this room seems to vote for no change at all. I just wonder how much less cramped the space would look with white walls and all those colorful accessories and furniture. What's your take? Also, someone please give me that wall clock.

Look how elegant this living room in the same palette is. Maybe I'm wrong to want to change! I love how low backed the couch is and how enormous the side lamps and main picture are-- a study in Billy Baldwin (the decorator, not the actor) like balance of  proportion. I forgot to take a snap of the caption-- for all I know, this is a room he did:

Hate to spoil it for you here in the middle of this post, but this is my vote for best best room. UGH. IT IS LIKE A SYMPHONY OF COLOR. I love the wood paneling and Kentile Corktile flooring (which, believe it or not, was all this room was an ad for-- there's so much more to it), the pairing of midnight blue and robin's egg blue with the sky blue of the curtains...the weird side table with built in planter/lamp, the bench/credenza to the right, and OH MY GOODNESS THAT GLOBE. Somebody on the dang Midcentury page on Facebook had one of those the other day and I was jealous....now, seeing it in its correct 1951 setting, I am even more jealous.

Take a closer look at the bench/credenza's vignette, which is like a way calmer version of something in my house already:

Do you see the Indonesian puppet hanging to the right of the map? Just like the ones I bought last weekend? How do you like that! The wall map of Central Mexico and the carving on the wall tie for second as "thing I like the most" in this spread.

You can see more Asian influence, as in the first room in this post, from the above room-- the so-low-as-to-be-almost-backless couch grouping is filled out with a set of pillows, and I LOVE, LOVE that there are two tiny coffee tables spaced apart instead of one large one. You could push the two together to make a large square one if you wanted to, or pretty much pick up most of the things in the room and rearrange them. Fluidity in a room or at least the ability to change things around without working a whole day slinging furniture is one thing I'm going to think about if I ever move. The wall decal or paper mural is not my favorite but the windows and the furniture make it totally not worth mentioning that I'm not 100% into it. Move me into this room, I do not object, it's lovely!

This is a good example of what I was saying about white walls-- I think this room looks way more contemporary with white walls and colorful everything-else. I really like the tree branch in what looks like an umbrella stand...it cranks the whole set-up to a 10 from maybe a 7 or an 8. And that rug! TRY and spot the juice stains on this baby...clever and stain-camouflaging.

My folks have a similar brick-wall-o-hearth and the former owners of the house took this panel's suggestion of painting the brick white to have it blend better with the interior. Not bad, not bad. I appreciate the gallery-style pictures and clock over the couch and wish I could show similar restraint in my wall-hanging proclivities. Someday, someday, I'll learn. I usually don't like dark shades (very TGIFridays or TJ Maxx or , to continue with a trend, just plain "tacky"), but these look nice in their similarly stately surroundings.

Besides this built in tv with its tiny, 1951 screen, doesn't the orange combined with the white in this next one look like something from 1968-1969? The red rug and the LEGS on that table are so cool. And you thought color coordinating your books was something Apartment Therapy thought up (I did too, no lie, but we were both wrong!).

I like the tiny, wonderful, Tony Duquette-esque touches here, like what I am really hoping is an antique Pierrot automaton to the right of the mantle, the star burst clock, and the tortoise-shells on display on the mantle itself. And those enormous candle sticks.

Last but not least, toile, toile, and MORE toile:

I should be opposed to this as I am always telling myself I am not a fan of toile, but I guess it's capri pants and button up blouses of this material to which I chiefly object. This on the other hand, is GORGEOUS. The matchiness! Against that dark, dark purple and black iron furniture and those gold framed pictures! The outdoor style glass table as a breakfast table! This room is everything to me right now, it's definitely my second favorite after the globe room.

So... I didn't get this in any earlier than yesterday, shame on me! But let's dish anyway-- which of these rooms is your favorite? What are some key decorating tenets you tend to stick to when feathering your nest? Do you have any vintage interior design or decorating books you hold dear to your heart? Inquiring minds want to know.

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow for Photo Friday! Have a great Thursday night (we're almost to the weekend)! Til then.

Weekend Finds: Oh, The Places You'll Go Edition (Plus Bonus Interior Decorating)

Good morning!

Well, I hope you had a fabulous fourth of July! In spite of my YMCA ambitions, Matthew and I spent our afternoon and evening in slothly splendor, watching the Billy Crystal HBO special 700 Sundays (uh, yeah, I actually cried three separate times in the course of two hours...damn...you...Billy Crystal...), drinkin' shandies, and talkin' trash. It's a good life! I will say I felt somewhat productive that morning, however, as I picked up my dad around 9 to go hit the estate sales. Who would have thought they'd have like four sales on a holiday weekend? And four GOOD sales? Not me! But I would have been wrong!

The biggest draw of the sales this weekend were the houses they were in. Two in particular were knock-your-socks-off gorgeous, and had real estate listing photos so I could oogle and ogle them ahead of time. Let's take a look at the tied-for-first residences:

1) Mid Century Marvelous (1966 dream house):

This house was waaay out on Highway 70 in Nashville...on your way to the Loveless, you would pass the Ensworth private school's high school campus, a couple of friendly looking horses, green grass as far as you could see, and this house. At a listing price of $350,000, it ain't exactly cheap, but my Lord, the parties I would throw in this house if someone would go ahead and sell me the winning Powerball ticket. Patterson and Fox, who were a midcentury construction outfit in Tennessee and apparently built "Tynewood Estates" (see this "air conditioned home" ad from Life magazine in 1960, that was the most I could dig up on them), also built this house, and the lovely details of the structure itself bear out its professional provenance.

See the spacious front porch? The fleur-de-lis wrought iron railing? Then you step inside:

And I start raving ad nauseaum about the faux-stone, probably-actually-marble foyer, the octagonal cut outs in the door, the baroque little light fixture in the entryway, and how completely at home I would look in my Alfred Shaheen best, greeting guests at the door as they file in for my cocktail party. I love this entry way so much I made a Polyvore of what it would look like with little old me in there:

My Mid Century Entryway by shewasabird

Wouldn't that be life?! I digress. Here's what the actual owner put in the house. You may be surprised at the 1880's furniture at odds with the 1960's building, but to each their own! Some of the stuff down in the basement dated back to the eighteen twenties. "No one was alive then!" you might say, but honestly, I was impressed...the oldest heirloom in my family probably goes back to the 1930's and is beat to hello to boot. Could you actually die over the wallpaper mural of rolling, nineteenth century hills and foliage? I've been trying to look up "wallpaper panels decorative scenic" and every other thing I could think of, but haven't spotted any non-applied-to-wall-already examples. Le sigh.

The most impressive part of the house, bar none, was this den, which wound its way around this massive central fireplace. I am deeply in love with the idea of hanging baskets from the rafters, as it reminds me in a good way of costume designer Edith Head's hacienda we were talking about just a little while back.

I am disappointed the people didn't take better advantage of how tiki-rific this room could be with a couple touches. The baskets are something, but why not kick out the jams? Here's what I thought would look tacky perfect in this room:

Mid Century Tiki Room Fabulousness by shewasabird

Am I wrong to want a cowhide faux zebra skin rug as badly as I do? I'm thinking about committing to one at the flea market next time I'm there and just hanging it against the wall if I can't find anywhere good for it to go on the floor and/or if I can't bear to stamp my undainty feet on such a beautiful thing.

See the whole shebang here, including a long vanity-sinked bathroom I'd love to call my own, and more antiques, antiques, antiques.

I picked up a couple things here, and then Dad and I moved on to this sale on Ensworth Avenue (weird the connection, right?) in the heart of Green Hills:

2) To the Manor Born (1918 mansion in the heart of Green Hills)

Ddddddang, right? I always say one of my favorite things about estate sales is how many different houses it takes my dad and I to-- if you figured we've gone to at least three estate sales, pretty much every weekend, for the past seven years, that's roundabout a thousand houses we've been inside...everything from tiny condos to sprawling ranches to...THIS gorgeous thing. Built in 1918, this house was owned in the latter half of the twentieth century by a succession of doctors as their personal residence-- note to self, in next life, become and/or marry a doctor. Because truth told, I could get USED to coming home to this:

Ugh! Eleganza extravaganza! In my mind's eye, I'm imagining some Lily Bart like character making her slow, two-step entrance down that staircase, taffeta and bustle rustling. THIS is the kind of place I would cuckoo gaga for tricking out in 100% antiques. My taste running more towards the absurd (act like you didn't know that) and my hypothetical bank budget running more towards the unlimited, I would go for something like this in the entryway:

1920's entryway by shewasabird 

It is so difficult to find the kinds of antiques I wanted online! Everything on Google Shopping doesn't have a clear enough background to put on Polyvore (the achilles heel of the program as far as I'm concerned). Know that I would add a brass rubbing of a skeleton and maybe some kind of oil portrait to this tableau if given the opportunity. However! Overall, I thought the house looked magnificent. All those built-ins, and all those windows! The house was all elegance and light. I really like the gold and red in this study off the entrance, if not that couch and ottoman. Again, to each their own!

The wallpaper in this room had a very faint metallic to it, and was vintage to the sixties', I would say, which was a nice thing for them to leave intact when the new owners took over in the 1990's. How about that chandelier and the matching (HUGE) wall sconces? I APPROVE, THANK YOU, GOOD WORK. Isn't this lovely? We were trying so hard throughout not to do our usual mouth breathing in the face of stately surroundings, but gee-hosephat, you would have been doing the same. I kept thinking how you could have two million dollars and build some gross subdivision house in Brentwood, or you could spend two million dollars on this. Guess what my vote is?

The neatest part of the house doesn't appear in the real estate listing, but my dad and I know it's there! On the second floor, down a hallway between two bedrooms, there was a cupboard-like door that lead to (no joke) a tiny, twisting staircase that went both up and downstairs. Down would take you to the back kitchen, which was not a dine-in at all-- what, are we farmers? Who besides the staff of the house eat in the kitchen, asks the 1918, Stanford White-esque architect? At any rate, up would take you to a raftered room that had been set up in recent years as an attic, but could have been any kind of catchall space in its original incarnation. Verrry spooky. There was a plastered up part that Pappy pointed at and went, "I bet they sealed somebody in there, like that Edgar Allan Poe story." Me: "Sure, 'Cask of Amontillado.' " Dad: "I knew what it was called, I just didn't know how to say it. I think they made a Night Gallery episode about that..." We are obviously related by blood.

Oh, and there's a tennis court. #ofcoursetheresatenniscourt PS, that's what the BACK of the house looks like. Isn't it gorgeous?

Well, tomorrow I'll round up my goodies and let you see what loot I lucked out on in these beautiful houses (and two other that were nice but more or less unremarkable-- how can you compete with these?!). What about you? Did you see any magnificent houses this weekend? Gone to any sales? Which house appeals to you the most? How would you furnish it if you could get in there and get your grubby hands on the furniture? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with my weekend finds. Take care, have a wonderful Monday! See you then. :)