Luxe living on a budget

I have champagne tastes on a beer budget, as they say. I like the finer things, but can hardly afford expensive furniture, art, or food. So I improvise!

I have all that I need and more than I could want. But I still like the prettiness, craftsmanship, and feeling of fine materials. So what to do?

I seed my living space with luxe things. Instead of worrying about an entire living space filled with fine furnishings, art, or style items like throws & pillows, I seed it with a few good pieces here and there.

For example: I found this table at a yard sale for $2. It is hand-made and of a good wood. But there is a gaping hole in the top! It was obviously used to hold a bowl of some kind so a person could wash up. Unless the owner of the yard sale didn't have plumbing recently (unlikely) I surmised that the table was also old. But how to use with a hole in the top?

Elsewhere in the yard sale they were selling a thick and heavy polished marble slab as a cutting board for $2. Hmmm. I put it on top of the table, and voila!

Now it makes a nice end table in the living room-

Some years ago a friend made and gave me a Raku vase. Raku is a complicated and unique pottery method which results in the item having a patina that's rich and glossy, and changes over time. If I were to search for a similar kind of vase to buy they would cost between $75 to $150. Because it is a hand made and a unique item, I display it in the living room. There, I can enjoy it and also add to the seeds of luxury and fineness I'm building.

Below, one side of the Raku vase is glossy copper.

The other side is a muted gray.

I was shopping at a vintage estate sale store recently. Often you can find good items for a decent price there. When you shop at flea markets or tag sales or anywhere, if an item is on sale look at it and think about how to use it. Here is a hand painted tray for $2. Don't need a tray? How about using it for a frame, glue a mirror on it or a picture and hang it up? Here is a coat rack. Don't need a coat rack? How about using it for a towel hanger in the bathroom? Find some milk glass but don't need glassware? How about using them on your mantel with a votive candle inside?

I found this essential oil dispenser for $1. I don't use essential oils. Hmmm. I liked the item though. It was unique, priced well, heavy, and hand carved out of some kind of material that's probably soapstone. A similar one is selling for $20 or more online.

When you're shopping, look for things that are hand made, of an expensive or unique material, and/or priced well below what the market is bearing (or is what you can afford). I decided to use this as a pencil cup! I took the tape off, and if the hole on one side gets to be a problem with pencils or pens sliding out I'll just tape a small piece of cardboard inside and make sure that side faces the back.

If you can't buy a $1,000 leather couch, then put a couple of expensive leather pillows on it. Or a hand made quilt, or vintage throw of excellent quality. Luxe it up!

Tips:

• At tag sales, flea markets, consignment stores...look carefully at everything, Take your time. Half of finding good stuff is going slowly and carefully, the other half is thinking, as in the next tip-
• Don't disregard an item just because you can't use it for its original purpose. You can re-purpose it with a little imagination. Think of what else it could become.
• Look for things that are unique, hand made, and beautiful.
• Place them around your living space so when your eye rests on various areas, you will see or handle fine things strews around artfully.

Here is a tour of my luxuriously thrifty, or frugally luxe, living room:

Below, an art glass lamp I found at the dump. (Back in the day, you could dump pick. Townspeople would place their "good things" in what came to be known as "The Good Pile"). I found the lampshade the next week. Cost: $0.

Below, a dead space into which I put a plant stand I'd found at the dump and used it to display a vintage camera I found at the second hand store. Cost $7.

Below, a vignette of my reading spot. When I'm not using my vintage lace curtain tie-back I put it around the lamp. An old coaster, and an old book complete the spot. Cost, $2.

Below, a coffee table tablescape. This could be prettier or more imaginative, but I like books, so that is what is on the table. Also, Murray uses the coffee table as part of his "Manic Moment" running around the apartment, so I won't place a tray with glass items or flowers on it. Here, a vintage antique magazine and a hardback book with an interesting cover are currently on display. Cost, 50 cents for the magazine, and $10 for the book.

Below, the couch with the aforementioned small end table with marble top. The table, buffet the lamp is on, lamps, chair, couch, and rugs are all second hand. End table cost, $4. Along the back of the couch is a vintage hand-crocheted throw my great-aunt made me 35 years ago. PS- Why is there tape on the couch and pillows all across? Cats.

Below, wall art and the Raku vase atop the heater. I found the photo of the Colosseum at a yard sale for $4, it is from the early 1900s. The piece of art on top I found at a consignment store for $10. It is a piece of wood with a photo reproduction of a classic piece of art. When looking at art, turn it over and find a signature or ID somewhere. In this case, a sticker affixed to the back said "Fratelli Alinari, Via Condotti, Roma." I knew fratelli meant brothers, and Via Condotti is Rome's most fashionable street. It's like saying Rodeo Drive, or Madison Avenue. The sticker looked old.

The advantage of thrift shopping for luxe items in this day and age is that you can google. If you have a phone you can google right then. I didn't but I knew the quality of the piece was good and the vintage sticker on the back was significant. I bought it and when I got home I got online and I discovered according to Wikipedia:

Fratelli Alinari is the world's oldest photographic firm, founded in Florence, Italy in 1852. Its archives contains 5.5 million photographs, ranging from daguerreotypes to modern digital photos from around the world.

Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert commissioned the Alinari brothers to reproduce Raphael's designs, according to the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Cool. I have two Alinari pieces. Fratelli Alinari pieces are are not hugely expensive because they are not exceedingly rare, but are part of a photography history that I am pleased to be part of and display. And the pieces of art that are reproduced on the Alinari prints are beautiful.

A great throw, nice material like art glass and marble, unique art, and hand made pieces complete the seeds. So that's it! Lifestyles of the not so rich and totally obscure!

9/11/2001

On 9/11/2001 I was a weekly newspaper publisher/editor. Passionate about America and free speech, right to assemble, etc.

Tuesdays were the big day putting the paper together. At 8:30 my graphic designer hollered to come to the TV in the front room. She never hollers.

The 1st plane had just hit the 1st tower. We looked at each other with wide eyes. What did it mean?

The second plane hit. We knew.

We watched it unfold in horrible living color, our guts hollow, our minds jumbled.

After a while, we went across the street to the hardware store and bought the biggest flag they had. Then went to the bank & withdrew $$.

While we were at the bank, the plane hit the ground in PA. Our world turned upside down. Was anywhere safe? Would it be, ever again?

No terrorist was going to stop me from putting out the paper. We plowed on. In tears.

The worst moment, when we realized that all the lined up hospital gurneys would never be filled. You either survived…or you didn’t.

Then the towers fell. Life changed forever.

I was unsaved. Was there a God? Why does this happen? Why such hate? 3 years later, I knew. Man’s depravity, our sin. God’s grace.

God's grace to save a worm such as I, and Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Gentiles...all he appointed to life despite our depravity. GRACE.

Kinfolk Aesthetic: Hipster overkill? Bland Monotony? Pure Genius?

I finally clued in to the Kinfolk movement. This is a design aesthetic that has saturated and influenced interior design and photography for the last 7 years. It's spare, it's minimalist. It's full of lattes with creamy swirls, dreamy young women wearing calico, knit berets and bearded hipsters. If you see one photo of a Kinfolk aesthetic, you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. More on that in a minute.

But first, its history. Wikipedia:

Kinfolk was created by Nathan Williams, his wife Katie Searle-Williams and their friends Doug and Paige Bischoff in July 2011. Primarily a lifestyle magazine aimed at young professionals, it focuses on home, work, play, food and community through photo essays, recipes, interviews, profiles, personal stories and practical tips. The writers, photographers, designers and chefs who contribute to Kinfolk are drawn from a largely international pool of creative people, often featuring more than 50 individual contributors an issue.

They started the magazine in Portland, OR because it was easy and cheap to do so there. Now spanning several countries, annexes located in Copenhagen Denmark and translated into four languages, Kinfolk would seem to have a large circulation commensurate with their breadth and influence. But no. It currently has a circulation of about 86,000, which seems like a lot but then not so much when comparing to Architectural Digest, of 818,000.

Kinfolk aesthetic seems to inspire heated opinions on both sides. Some love it, some hate it, hence my title. Summer Allen writes in her article Wood, Citrus, Lattes, Feet, Twine, Repeat: The Kinfolk Kinspiracy Code:

Every account cultivating that Kinfolk look seemed to follow a specific formula. Every account had a photo (or several) of the following: A latte with a foam leaf design, a fresh piece or two of citrus, a glimpse of a pair of small feet—often in a well-worn pair of boots—an ice cream cone, weather permitting, some glasses here and there, twine, the occasional fixed-gear bike. 

See:

Latte, usually on reclaimed wood but this one on blue tiles:

Source

I like minimalist, vaguely Scandinavian design. In the 1960s when I grew up Scandinavian style and Danish were popular. Despite the neon colored psychedelic fonts and wild flowers you remember from concert posters, there was also a movement toward minimalism.

Kinfolk's trademark wildflowers artfully arranged to look casual on a spare table here is preceded by House Beautiful's 1962 kitchen.

A spare table setting in 1961 House Beautiful featuring interesting cutlery (Danish-inspired wood handles) with citrus is decades older than Kinfolk's arrangements.

From The Art Story

Minimalism emerged in New York in the early 1960s among artists who were self-consciously renouncing recent art they thought had become stale and academic. A wave of new influences and rediscovered styles led younger artists to question conventional boundaries between various media. The new art favored the cool over the "dramatic": their sculptures were frequently fabricated from industrial materials and emphasized anonymity over the expressive excess of Abstract Expressionism. Painters and sculptors avoided overt symbolism and emotional content, but instead called attention to the materiality of the works. By the end of the 1970s, Minimalism had triumphed in America and Europe through a combination of forces including museum curators, art dealers, and publications, plus new systems of private and government patronage. And members of a new movement, Post-Minimalism, were already challenging its authority and were thus a testament to how important Minimalism itself became.

Where art went, design and photography followed.

Minimalism was preceded by Mid-century modern which was preceded by Bauhaus ...Here is a cool guideand description of various design trends of the last century. There is nothing new under the sun.

So what makes Kinfolk so identifiable, so immediately arresting, so opinion-splitting? Why has Kinfolk and its imitators spurred a visual conformity rampant among photographers and bloggers? The IF:Gathering blog ladies' photos are obviously inspired by Kinfolk. Any blogger older that 20 and younger than 40 tends to the style. Perhaps the negative criticism is a backlash on the conformity and ubiquitousness of the design. Overdone, minimalism can tend to be bland. But with a good eye for composition, isn't it also beautiful? Kinfolk's photos are beautiful. And beauty is never overdone, it's never out of style. Rough wood is beautiful. Flowers are beautiful. Flannel and calico and other fabrics are beautiful. Serenity captured in photography is beautiful.

Perhaps they are a victim of their own success. The Magazine was launched just months after Instagram, and the two are blended into one seamless, long-lasting design trend. Still, the question remains,

Kinfolk: A Magazine for the Ages or a Passing Hipster Fad?

Kinfolk is perhaps one of the most divisive magazines on the market right now: while it obviously has a devoted fanbase who love it for its beautiful imagery and dedication to promoting a wholesome, aesthetically pleasing lifestyle, there are others who find it pretentious and smug, outraged that for all its emphasis on living a simple life, the magazine has no problem shilling pricy artisanal goods.

Architectural Digest was founded in 1920, almost 100 years ago. Kinfolk is a mere 6 years old. A bit too soon, methinks, to be mentioning a magazine for the ages. Not to mention Vogue, founded in 1892. Kinfolk has a ways to go. Meanwhile, all those farm food shots and reclaimed wood tablescapes are continuing to charm and delight, and outrage and offend others.

The real question is, have I been influenced by the particular minimalism Kinfolk presents? Or was I already ahead of the curve loving what is obviously beautiful anyway?

Dinghy, bike, logs, car...

Also these-

Oh, well, pretty is pretty!

What do you think of the Kinfolk phenomenon movement?

A Bug Reaction

Yesterday after school I laid down for 20 minutes for a quick nap. The air was so fresh and the bed so inviting. I woke refreshed after some minutes and headed to the kitchen. On the way over I was scratching, I sat down with some spring water and scratched some more.

Now, my skin both inside and immune system inside is extremely sensitive. The skin at the wrist and elbow were raising up in huge red welts. It felt like a thousand fire ants were marching under my skin. Literal. Fire. In. My. Skin. Welts getting higher. And redder. SOMETHING BIT ME! This was the arm that laid on the bedspread. Oh no! Something bit me IN BED! This calls for immediate war.

I am so terrified of bed bugs (and any other bugs in my bed, like spiders) that after washing the wrist and elbow with sugar scrub I went to the bed and closely examined the bedspread, which is white. I saw nothing. I tore off the spread and examined the top sheet. Nothing there. I yanked off the top sheet and examined the bottom sheet. Nothing. I ripped off the bottom sheet and examined the mattress pad. Nothing. I pulled the mattress pad off and examined the mattress. Nothing. I lifted the mattress and looked at the box spring. Nothing. I got the flashlight and examined the seams. Nothing.
I gathered the bedding I’d torn off, went to the garage and put it immediately in the dryer to kill any bugs that had escaped my minute attention. Then I remade the bed. After a hot, frenzied hour. I sat down to my now warm spring water. I saw the bug.

It was a mosquito.

Well at least the sheets are changed.


#vividimagination #overreactionperhaps