Some of you may remember that my mother (Connie, for those of you who follow our comments) is undergoing an incredibly painstaking home renovation this winter. Since she is overhauling her entire house she and my stepfather are being forced into the basement for 4 months (ha ha). Don't worry, though, the basement comes equipped with a window, a bathroom, a refrigerator and, most importantly, a wet bar. The renovation hasn't had much impact on me as I'm able to suffer through the torment of picking new tile from a safe distance of roughly 1,500 miles. I have had the misfortune, however, of losing most of my office space to make room for boxes and boxes of family "heirlooms." Hey, after almost 50 years, and 3 generations of families, that basement has accumulated more than it's fair share of crap-ola. When my mother called me this weekend, going through more stuff, I wanted to hang up the phone and change my number, instead I allowed her to send pictures of the items I was to pick through:
I call this piece "meditation on cut glass." My grandmother's love for cut glass was exceeded only by her affinity for rust and avocado, and for some reason, 21 years since her passing my mother still has it in her basement. Those beautiful yellow linoleum counters are probably the youngest item in this photo. Sad, sad.
I sifted through - oh, this is only the tip of the iceberg, i really spared you kids - and picked my poison: that bust statue, for example, was a keeper. However, I probably would have been a more enthusiastic participant if my mother's offerings had looked a bit more like this:
Jaime hayon has teamed up with Baccarat, designing his Crystal Candy series of whimsical vases that recently debuted at MAISON et OBJET. Now, other than a sad fabric design commision for Bernhardt Design with disastrous results, this Spanish design superstar continues to prove that he really can do no wrong...minus the one time. Let's take a closer look:
Sorry I got a little carried away with the pictures there, I couldn't pick a favorite. Now, raise your hand if you think that this would have been a better selection for dear-ole-ma to share with me. I mean, really, she didn't even need that fancy backdrop from photo 1, I would have settled with this:
Of course, after her renovations are complete (will it ever end??!!) I expect to see something more like this:
Feeling overwhelmed, Ma? Don't worry, I dug up some sketches to get you started:
Ok, let's see, a little cut here, some honeycomb pattern there, and, yes, a splash of red. See ma, easy! What else are you going to do while you're hanging out at the bar in the basement? You can't cook in that easy bake oven I got you all the time.
P.S. I would like to stage a preemptive strike: No mothers are allowed to leave comments that allude to any of the following:
"I didn't have to send you anything, I could have sent it all to (blank)"
"Fine, then I won't bother asking your opinion on my tile selection anymore"
Or
"What easy bake oven?"
+++++
Update for Raina, why did I leave this one out before:
