Weekend Update

I've been tagged by Hello Gorgeous AND Juxtaposition Design, so here I am, baring my soul, divulging 7 weird and random facts about myself. Here goes nothing: 1. I took Kung Fu for five years and the best thing I learned was to kick my assailant in the nuts and run.

2. I took Chinese in college and the best thing I know how to say is, "Son of a turtle." It's the verbal equivalent of kicking someone in the nuts. Running is optional, but highly advised.

3. If left to my own devices, I will listen to the Old School Rap channel on digital cable nonstop. Everyone else hates it. I also like Disco. You got a problem with that?

4. I watched Can't Buy Me Love last weekend and it was AWESOME. Through various scientific means, I have ascertained that Patrick Dempsey had a nose job. Wow.

5. Hunny Bunny and I moved in together after our first date -- when I was but a dewy eyed 19 -- and we've been together ever since (13+ years).

6. My brother and I were born on the same day, exactly 12 years apart. So we are both Leos and Dragons. And self righteous and controlling. (And occasionally very generous).

7. I really want this rug from Overstock, even though it matches NOTHING in my home. I just can't stop looking at it. It's so effing amazing.

I'm supposed to tag 7 other bloggers, but is there anyone as of yet untagged? Hello out there???

Industrial Chic Part Deux: Non-Lighting (and Also Some More Lighting Because I Said So)

Ok, wonderful readers, in my quest to bring back that bright and shiny feeling of hope and growth and prosperity, I'm taking our bandwidth to the max to present a day of industrial inspired furnishings that evince the streamlined yet utilitarian perfection of yesteryear. I have so many pictures that it may be a miracle if I don't find myself babbling in a rudderless sea of despair somewhere around the middle of this post, but right now I feel GOOD, so let's capitalize on this moment and get started, shall we? Come on in!

These fantastic Art Deco doors welcome you to a tour of machine age simplicty, of Bauhausian form and function, and obviously of scintillating surfaces sure to dazzle the eye.

Yesterday I showed a lot of kitchen pictures because it seems so easy to integrate the industrial aesthetic into a space devoted to utility. Let's review with this image from Desire to Inspire:

Apparently the lighting, cabinets and stools, are of the vintage medical/dental persuasion, and given the sterility of those environments, it's easy to see how those pieces work well in a food prep space. I'm not normally a fan of bar stools, but I like that pair.

Here's a homier set up courtesy of I Suwannee's lovely blog, and while I adore the articulated lamp, I'm really fixated on the stools. Actually, it seems like vintage laboratory style stools have been cropping up everywhere lately:

Clockwise from the top left: Super cheap industrial stool from School Outfitters, Alchemy Stool from CB2, Rollie Stool from AvroKo (via the fabulously Nerdy Fashionista), and Modern Times Stool from Sundance.

If you're looking for something a little less curvy, you could always pull these stools from Crate and Barrel up to your farmhouse table:

I'm guessing that you savvy readers saw the home of ersatz director Roland Emmerich in The New York Times. If not, I'll skip the craziest rooms and go straight for the highlights:

Love the webby wire chairs with the wooden table, the gorgeous stainless cubby, and holy moly, yet another bank vault in a home!

This room is kind of Captain Insano amazing... check out the lamp, the vintage dental chairs, and the repurposed airplane desk (and the chalkboard wall that totally makes this room happen).

Continuing on the wartime industrial magical mystery tour, this bed has a custom headboard made from a plane parts. Do you think he dreams of flying? (Also, I think the headshot on the nightstand is of him, which is kind of... different. But the GI Joe is hilarious!)

If you want your very own piece of a plane, check out LA Designer Voila's booth at the recent SF Art and Design Expo, which Leah from More Ways to Waste Time so elegantly documented:

Lo and behold, Voila carries all kinds of recycled sheet metal pieces, which have found new uses as homey aesthetic anchors:

This desk looks like it's primed for lift off!

For those of us with slightly less adventurous tastes, these pieces from Sultana (formerly known as X21) could easily blend with contemporary rustic and vintage 70's furnishings.

The desk is a little, tiny bit expensive, and ok -- the bookcase isn't much cheaper, but I can honestly say that Sultana is THE GREATEST STORE I HAVE EVER BEEN IN. The top floor is crammed full of 1st Dibs caliber pieces, and the bottom floor is a labyrinth of of the most amazing "castoffs" you have ever seen. Deals abound. I found a sweet Milo Baughman chrome base couch for $400 bucks, people. Plus the guy who runs the store looks exactly like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. If you are ever in SF, go there. You will find something.

My friend and I were drooling over the vintage industrial stainless cabinets, kind of like these:

The one on the left is designed by Piet Hein Eek, available through Cibone, and the one on the right appears courtesy of the Ferm Living blog. When I used to live in Hawaii, they had tons of those at the State Surplus, and I even saw one or two (sadly, already sold) at the Austin State Surplus. So if you have access to your local surplus, it may be worth a look.

Warning: the next image is so powerful that when I saw it on Miss Raina's awesome blog, If the Lampshade Fits, I nearly wet myself.

Yeah, I'm busting out with 70's architectural modern, but it works as industrial, right? I'm not going to split hairs when I can't stop staring at this hot number from Jeff Andrews Designs, who has hereby earned a spot in the Design God Pantheon with this room.

Plus it inspired me to think outside of my tufted box and check out these fancy furnishings:

Gorgeous hunk of burning chair from the previously mentioned AvroKo:

The original gangsta Brno chair reissued through Room and Board was designed in the 1930's by his majesty Mies van der Rohe (and you can ditch the tulip table. Really. It's ok):

I'm getting tired and punchy... told you this would happen. Know what always makes me feel better? Coffee (tables)!

Clockwise from the top left: Spool table by CB2, vintage red firehose table that I desperately want at Sultana, crazy 1940's coffee table at 1st Dibs, Bradley Hughes coffee table on casters (via Raina at La Lampshade).

Nope. Not done yet. Perhaps you already have some ladderback farmhouse chairs, but you really want to mix them up with a more modern dining table?

Below: 70's chic Rivet Table on left by CB2 (if their lighting was better, they'd be my one stop mid-price interiors shop), uber hot 40's metal table on casters at 1st Dibs on the right. You know, I think I like just about anything on casters...

Above, tables on a smaller scale: Lime green desk at left by CB2 (on casters for under $150! Use it as a console table, perhaps?) and stainless table on right by Ikea. It's for a kitchen, but who cares? Why should they have all the fun... use it as a console table or desk. For even less than CB2's version, you can buy two.

Ok, we're almost done here, but I'm throwing in a couple of home porn pictures via Desire to Inspire that show the most amazing industrial lights (I know, I know... I already did that post, but I think you'll thank me for this anyway).

Don't you LOVE the eclectic mix of things in this room? Mix and match eras at will, just keep the color and pattern minimal if you're going to wildly vary shapes, textures and scale. One more:

This is probably the kind of person I'd be if Hunny Bunny would let me. A freaky pack rat with a penchant for 40's lighting and a row of bald mannequin heads to watch over me. Yes I would.

Is that an ice pick in my skull, or are you just happy to see me, Top Design?

Sorry for the late post today everyone, I had quite the whirlwind evening last night.  After trying out a new Indian restaurant and going to see the Yelle concert, I made my way home to watch a late night taping of Top Design.  Despite the fact that I didn't have a drop to drink, I still feel like I blacked out through the lobotomy inducing design show.  Let me try to remember what happened. Yes, yes, It's coming to me: Opening montage of the winner and looser for the week so that we can start to feel their story.  The challenge is given:  take an ugly office, use some recycled crap and green standards (read:  something we can pretend you messed up later when the producers decide that you are no longer entertaining) to make a small office that our cameras can't quite fit into look nice.

Step two:  Once you've planned your design and are SO SUPER EXCITED to prove how great you are on your own, abandon ship and take over someone else's project so that there's virtually no hope that anything will look good and everyone will have hurt feelings about taking credit for other people's ideas (more on that later)  Let's stop with all the paragraphs and look at the design train wreck (drain wreck?)

Abort, Natalie!  Abort!

she never listens.  And pray tell, why are the judges just now picking up on her lack of sophistication?  Everything she does looks like it was made for a homecoming queen's self decorated bedroom.

OH NO!!!  It's the room that (stomping feet) Eddie totally stole from Nathan.  Gosh, darn, it's just not fair. 

Calm down now, let's get a few things straight:  the producers are working overtime to villainize Eddie, pitting he and Nathan into an imaginary tete-a-tete to which we are respond with screams of injustice at our television set. Ok, seriously though,  Eddie is kind of a bitch, but, what do you expect, he's got a big fancy design job that many would kill for.  And he's good at it.  Wouldn't it be SO MUCH WORSE if he were phony squeeky clean nice?  

Plus the whole point of last night's event was to take credit for someone else's design, a sad attempt at inducing a blood curdling rage in our otherwise bored hearts.  In 5 years of Project Runway, there has never been a "take over someone else's design" challenge.  You know why?  Because that would be stupid.  

I'm sick of writing about last night show, it's making the hole in my skull bleed.  Let's just look at the pictures and get it over with.

Oh, Preston, Preston, your room was so great.  I think you're so wonderful, HOW did you ever think of painting that bookshelf.  Ok, seriously everyone? Lame.

(side note, according to our stats, several people end up on our site after googling the following:  Is Top Design Preston Gay?)

YES

Next

I didn't totally hate what Ondine did with Wisit's table scraps.  I kinda like that chair.

-Holy Crap my computer is going slow today, this is really just fueling my Top Design Rage-

Oh, Andrea, I REALLY REALLY want to root for you.  Despite how annoying it is to CONSTANTLY hear you talk about your (shhhhh) secret marriage to childstar Ricky Schroder, there's something about you that I kinda like.  Now GET. IT. TOGETHER.  And, listen:  no more desk chair cozies.  Got it?  Got it.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nathan, did you hear what I told Andrea about the chair cozies?  

Since we don't have Kelly to disect this week, we'll have to make do with India, who's outfit I was oddly drawn to, even though it reminded me of this Debra Messing get-up that I've never really loved.  I think it may have been the colors.  OH!  now, a room in that pallet may actually be a contender for Top Design, but sadly, nothing this week even came close to vying for the position of Medium Design.

One last thing before I go:  you know, I'm really starting to blame the production for this crap that is getting tossed across my screen once a week.  Would you please just stop trying to squeeze every last bit of drama and name calling out of this event and give these designers a chance to really do something great.  If they each had, oh, I don't know, say, a budget, and time, and a clear direction, not only might we finally see some good work, but I'm willing to bet that the level of jealousy and insecurity might raise to such a level that we would actually get to watch REAL drama, not this phony crap that you keep peddling. 

+++++++++

On an entirely different note, it is a little cooler in austin today (woo-hoo!  74 degrees!) so I treated myself to a hot chai from starbucks.  It is magical and is making up for my top design sadness.

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Ha Ha, I just checked weather.com and it's actually 87 degrees.  I think I'm so used to the insane heat that I thought it was in the mid 70s.  Plus, my thermostat says 74, so, you know, I assumed.  Anyway, just a nice, crisp, cool 87 degree day.  Why am I telling you all this?