Category Archives: Furniture

a new friend…

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Guess who I found sitting in the rain with a $10 price tag stapled to his side? (it’s obviously a ‘he’). There has been some debate about whether I just filched him from a sidewalk, but indeed I did legitimately buy him from my thrift store, and laboriously dragged to my car before driving home with it hanging out of my trunk (I think my next car needs to be a truck :s)

I don’t have room for any new furniture but I couldn’t pass up such a gorgeous tufted piece… I’ll at least take off the ridiculous office chair swivel foot and replace with some legitimate Queen Anne legs… maybe someone will get a nice christmas gift, or maybe he will live in my garage until I can think of a better use… how hard would it be to re-upholster it myself I wonder?

Owl House

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There is a darling old house here in Davis that I want to show you, it’s called the OwlHouse*.
There are wonderful plant pathology parties and wonderful people here.
And of course  there is wonderful furniture.

* I’m not sure where the name comes from, I assume there are owls roosting in the old tree out back…or were at one time, I haven’t spotted any yet.

My friend and I fell in love with the old girl’s paned windows, tufted velvet arm chairs and mid-century baby blue kitchen last year when we first attended a department party here. I still drool over the assortment of vintage furniture whenever I get a chance, so I broke down last week and asked Margaret (who lives at the Owl House) if I could take some pictures of it. Luckily she obliged my quirky request and here we are.

I love the old picture of Kennedy on the floral wallpaper in the kitchen. I don’t know if it’s a spunky decorating decision, or one of those aspects of the house that hasn’t changed since the 60′s. Either way it always makes me happy when I see it.

The back yard has a chicken coop, a flower garden, an outdoor lounging bed(!), a trampoline, and a little covered patio featuring a garden table and a collection of really comfortable and eclectically mismatched floral chairs. Oh, and did I mention the basement is often converted into a mini dance club with live DJ? It’s like a page out of Pippi Longstocking’s Villa Villekulla, a beautifully furnished after-hours playhouse for those of us who fancy ourselves adults during the work day, but really just want to sleep outdoors on the trampoline on a warm summer night.

Check out some more photos below. Thanks again to Margaret for letting me invade her home!





(finally) the living room

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So after weeks of half-heartedly unpacking, splashing around with wood stains and rearranging furniture, I’m calling my living room presentable enough to blog about it. The highlight of the whole ordeal being my new ebony/jacquard stained couch (which you might remember in its unboxing state). I bought a World Market Indonesian Bench and played around with it in my garage for a few weeks, staining, sanding down, and re-staining until I got sick enough of the pattern to just drag it into the house :p (it started as an awful light gray teak color that doesn’t really come across in the photos…) I got a variety of pillows from West Elm and IKEA. There is also an ottoman still in the works to match… more after the jump!

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what have I gotten myself into?

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Remember my to-do list? well…meet the new additions. Comments such as “wtf are you getting yourself into?!” and “don’t you have enough to do already?” would be appropriate at this point.

That’s a to-be ottoman made of a wine crate.

This mystery friend is… well, you’ll just have to wait and see. At the moment it’s not going very well so I don’t want to get your hopes up about anything yet. It’s a bit late for me, I’ve spent a few nights already bemoaning an awful mahogany stain choice!

The September List

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Ok I’ve got to spill some beans. I’m working on some projects that I’m really excited about, and I can’t keep quiet anymore. I’ve gone a bit overboard racking up the to-do list recently, here’s what I have on the boards:

1800′s Hutch

My mom’s boyfriend has had this old girl in storage since his antiquing business days, and he’s kindly letting me manhandle it into some kind of useable shape. Over the years someone has repainted it (to this…erm…lovely green) and changed out the door hardware, but we’re guessing the base hutch is from the 1800′s because it’s held together by wood pins!

I’m really tempted to turn it into something very similar to this Terrain Folkloric Hutch, don’t kill me if I end up being that unoriginal… would just be nice to have that piece of furniture for less than $2.5K! More after the jump :D

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