Search result for: the-last-thing-you-aquired-
| # | Post Title | Result Info | Date | User | Forum |
| Do you think the upholstery | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | Spanky | General discussion | |
| Do you think the upholstery was redone? It looks pretty fresh in the photos. Lucky for you it will be easy to pop the upholstered part off the frame if you want to refinish the frame. It looks like tinted lacquer to me, a very common finish on American furniture of that era. I think walnut was very popular in the US then, and a lot of less desirable wood species were stained or tinted with lacquer to look like walnut. But some pigments take on a slightly greenish cast with time, plus scratches make it pretty obvious that the color is not real. (I have a beautiful Danish lounge chair an ottoman made of beech with a dark walnut stain that has turned quite green on the side that was next to a window for many years. It makes me want to cry.) I saw a similar lounge chair where the frame had a fake walnut color that was really scratched up bad. The owner had it stripped and the resulting natural wood was a lovely light color! Very pale, very Scandinavian looking. I think that would compliment the burnt orange fabric better on your chair than that color that's on there now. The other thing I am wondering about on your chair is the button tufting. Usually chairs with curved backs like that do not having tufting. They don't need it because the fabric is glued to the foam directly to make a clean, smooth curve. However, a lot of re-upholsterers don't do it this way---maybe because adhesive seeps through the fabric of choice, or because they think they have to add a fluffy batting on top of the foam (which doesn't work well with glued fabric). When buttons are added exactly in the valley of a curve like that, I think it is because that's the only way the upholsterer could get the fabric to conform to the curve. If you don't glue it to the padding, it will just form a taut drumhead over the curve. | |||||
| Eames (wheel) Chair. | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | Modern Love | General discussion | |
| "designer david pompa created these design classic wheelchair designs for the vassal centre as part of his inclusive objects series. pompa questions why design icons are predominantly for an exclusive range of our society. to tackle this issue he added wheelchair wheels to a number of antiques and design classic like the lounge chair by ray and charles eames. while the design is only a concept, it makes you think about the design of chairs versus that of wheelchairs." I understand it's social commentary but I've always understood a wheelchair to be a vehicle, not furniture. The only thing it has in common is the word "chair", otherwise it's apples vs. oranges. With regards to exclusivity, people in wheelchairs are wholly capable of sitting and enjoying an Eames Lounge Chair or any other iconic chair. There are people in wheelchairs who are affluent, and pretty much live normal lives with the exception of having more challenging physical accessibility to some places. The argument falls flat for me. Did I miss the point? http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/7753/wheelchairs-design.html | |||||
| You have skillz! | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | Sterling_Cooper | General discussion | |
| You have skillz! And GuyinSF, you made my husband's day endorsing a light shag rug - that's what he has wanted all along, regardless of the furniture arrangement. I also love the look and the coziness. I'm sure it would be a PITA to keep clean; on the other hand, the cowskin is a PITA to keep flat and unwrinkled... What do you think about an oval shaped rug to define the pathway from the entry around the living room? We had a rectangular rug, and the corner in front of the entry definitely took a beating since you had to cross it; my thought was that an oval would "direct" one to stay on the wood floor - but I don't know if adding an oval shape would also add visual clutter. I love the idea of contrasting with the rug though. The only thing we can probably afford to upholster right now is the womb since it needs it to be presentable for guests - if we had a light rug, I'm guessing we could change the womb from cream to some color (I like mustard or brick... but I'm no expert) and it would work if the theory was to contrast furniture with rug - is that right? Cloudburst, I see what you mean re womb next to sofa. We had played with that configuration and I liked it because it filled the corner nicely and the ottoman wasnt floating around as much. My only concern was discrepancy the arm level of the pieces - the Womb's arms are 20"; the sofa's are 26"; the Papa's area 24" at the tip. I might have had them to crowded and close, however, which would have highlighted the height discrepancy. Or maybe that's not as a big a deal as the overall shapes working together? As for reading - it's sad but I no longer read much. I spend 10 hours a day reading for my job, which has made reading for pleasure is less enjoyable. My relaxation is either in front of the TV or outside walking with the dog (depending on weather!). I like the drum table idea too. So many possibilities, yet also constraints. I'm going to play with the furniture this weekend (and start looking at shag rugs...) Thanks! | |||||
| Thankfully, my clearest | 1 Relevance | 10 years ago | Spanky | Off topic | |
| Thankfully, my clearest memory of 1976 is of the 4th of July in NYC on the upper west side. I was still in college and had an apartment with a roommate on 108th and Broadway. That morning the tall ships from all over the world were sailing down the Hudson River just a few blocks from home. The weather that day was perfect---sunny but breezy, not hot, and for I think the only time in my 8-9 years in New York, everyone seemed to be in a buoyant, happy mood. (Is that redundant? Buoyant and happy? Whatevs, it was nice across the board. And strangely and pleasantly quiet, too. I guess all business traffic had the day off.) My roommate and I walked over to Riverside Park and watched the ships for awhile. Growing up in landlocked Illinois, I'd never seen anything like it so it was quite thrilling---plus on some of them the sailors were all in a line on deck, standing at attention for us! They looked so handsome! Well, from a distance, anyway. All things seemed possible. Later we went down to Battery Park and watched the three identical fireworks displays shot from barges. I grew up seeing fireworks shows that consisted of one firework shot off every five minutes ("It takes them awhile to reload the cannon," explained my mom) over a small lagoon, with maybe three in a row for the grand finale. I think the entire thing lasted 30-40 minutes at most. So this show was pretty great! Since then I've seen even better displays but at the time it was really something. I don't know how many people were there but it was a LOT---hundreds of thousands? When it was over, everyone walked quietly and calmly in huge crowd north towards the subway stations and buses. There was no shoving or pushing or rudeness, at least not that i saw. Later I read that no crimes were committed on that day in NYC, but that was probably not quite true. Still--it was pretty perfect as far as I could tell. | |||||
| A great, albeit expensive... | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | 201 | General discussion | |
| A great, albeit expensive... A great, albeit expensive option is to try to find an ADA tank (Takashi Amano). Very clean and supremely minimal, no cheesy faux woodgrain trim, simply 5 pieces of beveled tempered glass siliconed together. They're quite heavy, as the glass is much thicker than that a standard Petco tank, to absorb the bowing stress from the lack of a top support brace. Definitely the tank du jour when it comes to glass; I'd go so far as to say they're seen as the Knoll equivalent of aquariums, with a price tag to match. They even have a cool sticker. I also had a full blown reef tank and had kept them for over 20 years. Not anymore though, as it became a terrible money pit, especially within the SPS realm, and I could never leave home from more than a week - very high maintenance. Noise is definitely a huge factor; heat and humidity were big pains as well, not so good in close quarters with paintings and sculptures in the same room. But those annoying factors are decreased significantly with a freshwater tank, and can be just as beautiful and therapeutic as anything you can put in a glass box filled with water. In any event, I'd try to stay away from older tanks. Inherent scratches, inferior materials, yellowing plastics, decreased clarity, etc. Also, from what I remember, the adhesives used at the time were supposedly guaranteed for 50 years. Now, whether there have been advancements on silicone rubber in the last half decade is beyond me, but the last thing you'd want to deal with is a failed seal. Coming from experience, it is a horrible feeling coming home to a half empty tank and an inch of water on your floor. | |||||
| SDR.. | 1 Relevance | 20 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| SDR.. If we define postmodernism as achieving complexity and contradiction through introduction of ornamentation and other features like varied window forms integrated into a basically modernist building form and space program, then it would seem to me no more reaching to say sullivan anticipates post modernism than to say he anticipates modernism. If on the other hand, we insist on including in the post modern definition above the notion that post modernism refers back ironically to modernism, then, it is an impossible reach to say Sullivan anticipates post modernism. But here's the thing: we do not dismiss Sullivan as a foreshadower of the modern, because his work lacks modernist references and reactions backwards to whatever modernism was a reference and reaction to. We say Sullivan's buildings anticipate modernism, because some of his building vocabulary is rather closer to what came after him in modernism than what other architects before him had done. But if we concede this, then if we take an unfettered look at Sullivan's buildings we see, IMHO, something much closer to post modernist interpretations of the office building than, any of the modernist, international style office buildings that came between. I am not trying to be argumentative here, nor am I trying to be abstract in my thinking. I am looking at a picture of a Sullivan building, comparing it to a Mies high rise, and then comparing that to say, Michael Graves post office in Portland and saying, Sullivan's buildings seemingly have more in common with Graves buildings than with Mies' buildings...at least to me. Put another way, postmodernists have a recent formal predecessor and Robert Venturi did not need to go all the way back to Michaelangelo's building on the square in Florence to find it, though I'm grateful that he did that too. Perhaps Venturi discussed Sullivan in "Complexity and Contradiction," but I don't recall it now. Anyway, I'll stop. 🙂 | |||||
| RE: Genuine or not? NV45 by Niels Vodder | 1 Relevance | 5 years ago | leif ericson - Zephyr Renner | General discussion | |
| Those were very early chairs that had buttons, so no the 45 was not produced in any significant volume with buttons. It is really hard to find many photographic references for Finn Juhl’s furniture until probably 1952 to 1953. There are some, but back then Niels Vodder was basically a small bespoke cabinetmaker. One thing that is to be said about the buttons is that historically and in Denmark in 1945 they had a function. Finn Juhl may or may not have designed them in explicitly. But functionally in a fiber filled cushion (perhaps horsehair) the buttons kept the fiber isolated, not clumped into a ball. So on some level the button question was up to a contractor. There has historically been the idea the 4 button chieftains are early because the Guild Exhbition chair was a 4 buttons chair, and while I can’t prove why 4 buttons chieftains reappeared later in the 1950s and in through the 1960s simultaneously with 3 button chairs, I can state factually that the chieftain was originally drawn without buttons. So the 4 buttons originally were likely the upholsterers decision based on necessity of keeping the fiber fill in place. And I am guessing that the later 3 and 4 button chieftains had to do with some difference related to the upholstery or upholsterer. Then by the mid 1960s Niels Vodder switched to foam padding and buttons were no longer a technical necessity but they had become an expected part of the design so, as best I can figure, so they were retained and this remains true today. By contrast the 45’s seat cushion did not retain those buttons for long and therefore we do not expect to see a tufted seat cushion on it. There were however multiple ways that the seat cushion was stitched over the years. | |||||
| Why does everyone's house look the same? | 1 Relevance | 13 years ago | tick | General discussion | |
| Just found this article on mainstream vintage design trends and thought others might be interested. The article is a lighthearted look at the cliche and ubiquitous design objects that have arguablty become predictable props in what can only be described as a retro decor fad. What started as an exercise in individuality, sustainability and aesthetic appreciation has quickly mutated into an impersonal look that perhaps speaks more about personal insecurity and a slavish desire to adhere to fashion trends rather than an ability to do your own thing. Is it sad that some people lack the confidence to decorate their homes in a manner that reflects their own style and taste, or even lack of? For many, these designs are merely a collection of signs, visual cues that communicate to others that they are 'design savvy' and up with the latest hipster trends. What home is complete without a fake Eames lounge chair and Arco lamp. Companies selling cheap knockoff classic designs are making billions out of a trend that is focused on simulacra rather than substance. It seems ironic that authenticity seems to be a vintage concept that is yet to achieve the popularity it deserves in these times of personal uniformity and mass consumer consumption Someone famous once said "If you can't please your soul, you can't please yourself". Anyway, read the article. http://offbeathome.com/2012/03/decor-trends | |||||
| This is done, Starcat | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | crankyd | General discussion | |
| This is done, Starcat Starcat Well, I'm just tiring of all this, so I'll be very short and to the point. My "beef" with many, (not all) Christians is that they have put their "belief" into "action." "Christian" action, by THEIR account. Yes, if I wanted to categorize this as a "yet-another-example-of-the-dumb-things-Christians-believe-and-do", I do believe that this would solidly qualify. In my opinion, many Christians (and others of various groupings, including homosexuals) believe and do dumb things of varying /lockstep rigidity, more or less. But my concern is that this "dumb thing" affects ME, a non-Christian. I'll break it down to this; "Because THEY started it; that's why." If all of this is too broad a generalization for you, then I really don't care any longer. You simply come across as a instigating smartass, looking to pick a fight over minutiae; and I believe that you damned well know it. And as far as all of this from your last post: "You last wrote: [...] Clever? Witty? Smug? Childish?" My last comment wasn't primarily directed at you--it's why I changed the pronoun, but my fault for being too lazy to slap a couple of carriage returns in there--but regardless, I don't think my comment was any of those things (especially clever or witty). I've had plenty of opportunities to take cheap shots or draw extremely unflattering parallels, and I haven't resorted to any of them. As I mentioned above, I don't get your epilogue at all. " Thanks for mentioning all the chances you DIDN'T take cheap shots at whoever it is you are referring to. How very noble of you. Your stance that you are above such behavior just doesn't bear out in the tone of this, nor any of you postings. Whether or not others feel as I do, I am not sure. but it seems that you have riled up many of the posters here to varying degrees; so I'll let that be my guide. My civility has quite obviously worn thin; but not the truth, clarity, nor righteousness of any of my statements. Haughty? Smug? Tough stinking sh*t. Starcat, I'm very through with this entire discussion with you; so if you feel the need to respond, please feel free to do so in a way that is no way directed towards me. | |||||
| That chair doesn't look | 1 Relevance | 9 years ago | Spanky | General discussion | |
| That chair doesn't look particularly dark to me, but it does look very dull. I've restored a lot of teak chairs in this condition or worse. I used to use Murphy's Oil Soap on them because it cut through grime very quickly, but it dried the wood out a lot and I'd have to do several coats of oil to restore the luster. Also, the soap has to be rinsed off completely or it can cloud the oil finish (though I think when this happened I was using a teak oil with added varnish). Now I just do straight Star-Brite teak oil with #0000 steel wool. It loosens the grime plus it breaks down old oil, which also dulls the color of the wood. Wipe it off with rags or paper towels, let it dry for half an hour and buff once more and you're done. Those water spots will disappear with this treatment or will be so faint that you will have a hard time finding them later. The only thing that won't come off with this method is hardened sugary residue--or at least I think it's sugar-based. It has a very dark reddish brown color, almost black, and looks like a drip of something or other--I think maybe wine and/or juice? I once redid a bar cart that had a lot of these spatters, and also one particularly filthy set of teak chairs. No amount of oil and steel wool would remove it, then I figured out that all that was needed was a damp rag to dissolve the crud---and only the slightest bit damp, at that. I do not recommend polyurethane ever on teak and I don't know anyone else who does, either. Here are some before and after photos of chairs i've restored with just oil and steel wool. The 2nd and 3rd are not the same chair but are from the same set (got them mixed up because of the similar grain pattern on each). I thought the one with severe water staining was a goner for sure but all it needed was oil---no sanding, just oil. I think the only times I've ever sanded teak was to smooth out teeth marks from puppies. Why do you want the chairs to be a certain color? Are you trying to match them to the D-Scans so you can use them as a set? Or do you need them to match a table? I'm just curious. | |||||
| I almost feel like I should | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | teakhound | General discussion | |
| I almost feel like I should not interject myself between Lief and SDR – you two communicate on a different level than I. But alas, I thought I would share some of our more recent finds: 1) a sibling for our Arne Jacobsen Swan chair, Fritz Hansen c. 2001 (white is not my fav, but beggars can't be choosers); 2) Veranda sofa by Vico Magistretti for Cassina – originally supplied to Oracle HQ; 3) Challenge sofa by Martin Borenstein for Croyden – the upholstery dates to the '80s, is perfect, and actually looks pretty good in person; 4) a birch wine rack in our basement cum celler cum furniture storage, courtesy of my wife's uncle; and 5) a few cases of some really decent local wine, discounted to $5/bottle on account of a mishap with the labeling machine – about the only way we'll ever afford to fill this thing. Been an interesting month for picking. Maybe some day I will stop spending money on chairs and instead get some real flooring in our house. Now would be a good time, given that the wine cellar is not two weeks old and is already full of our overflow.... | |||||
| DCW | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | Olive | General discussion | |
| DCW It's taken me 3 days to read and reread your posts to begin to get your points. I'm still not sure I've followed you into all the dark corners of your fertile mind, but, I do come away with one point that really resonates with me. Current design is not relevant to the world around us. Not like MCM, was for example. Wanders's new stuff (see cover story in this month's Dwell) tells us old is the new new. The Bouroullec's seem to be saying the same thing. And meanwhile back at the ranch our culture is going to h*ll in a handbasket. Politically, socially, musically, artistically, etc. I spend so much time in people's homes with my organizing business and I am thoroughly digusted by the quality and quantity of the crap people keep in their houses. How can anyone grow or develop in spaces so filled with mindless landfill-producing junk? Or maybe that's the problem in a nutshell, we're not supposed to grow or develop anymore, just work and work and work with no joy in our efforts so we can pay for little Billy's soccer uniform and meet the health insurance premiums. Yeah, I guess I'm feeling caustic too. I sometimes think about clearing out my home to see how it would be to live with the basics, but to have those basics be the best and most functionally designed things I can find. A utopian thought, but it tickes my imagination. Oddly, the things I know I would keep are old designs, a melior coffee press, down duvets, a cast iron skillet, waiter's cork screw, japanese paper lanterns, clogs. I could go on, but why is it that I think of my self as a modernist, but what I can't live without is quite old?It seems to me that our current world is so depressingly out of touch with itself, that I flirt with the idea of trying to 'live off the grid' and go all hermit-y rather than look at another gadget easily clean my floors. Ok, enough depressing blather... | |||||
| Actually... | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | Olive | General discussion | |
| Actually... I hate the sliders. They are very impractical, I end up with 'dead zones' that are inaccessible cuz the doors won't slide open enough. The face frames are a particular peeve as, first I find them ugly, and second they are dust/dirt catchers. So all of it will go. Additionally the drawers are hidden behind the sliders on the lower level and I find if irritating to have to open the door then open the drawers, even if the goal was a smooth minimal look. The architect who built the house selected all the wood used here most carefully, he's responsible for the lovely use of the graining. We have exposed support beams that are finished with Doug Fir and there's no knots visible across 12' lengths! The house is loosly based on a shinto temple with a big helping of FL Wright thrown in. We have lots of built-in and most finishes are natural materials. I intend to remove all the birch and put up the Bamboo ply (available from 1/8' veneer to 7/8' panels) as tighfitted overlay doors that have no molding or edging and use hidden hinges. I'll take the top cabs up to the roof line to get rid of the dark alcove and add storage. I'm keeping the steel bar hardware, I put those on recently. I will most likely open up the shelving over the range for some better visual interest, glass probably. And yes, the the tub was an amazing thing to watch unfold or mosre correctly-fold. It was assembled on site using marine epoxy. Took the guys 14 hours to do it and the counters. I thought the process was awesome to watch, they are very very talented folks. The finishes they are capable of are will blow you away, so if you ever go back to the Miss Florenece (yup, still there) go to Stone Soup's show room. | |||||
| Poul Volther Frem Rojle model #370 FAKE??? | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | WaywardVintage | General discussion | |
| Today i purchased a danish modern chair at a yard sale for 5 dollars. I figured it would atleast be worth 50 or more so i purchased it. after some research i was convinced that it was a poul volther frem Rojle chair. it is stamped Frem Rojle on the bottom. http://www.scandinavianmod.com/c028.htm The chair i purchased looks exactly like the 370 chair however, instead of 4 spindles there is 5...and the back rest is a bit slimmer profile. I am very concerned that this is a replica or fake from china but honestly the quality looks up to par. But i have been warned that fakes these days are hard to tell. The chair looks right down to a T but the 5 spindles thing makes me feel it is more than likely a fake... either this is a fake or a rare 5 spindle model 370... Do you guys know if its real.... (i know with eames chairs some times the 5 prong base means it is real and the 4 prong base means that it is a replica...) any information would be greatly appreciated!!! -Austin http://www.scandinavianmod.com/c028.htm | |||||
| I try to practice a minimalist aesthetic with varying degrees... | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | Big Television Man | General discussion | |
| I try to practice a minimalist aesthetic with varying degrees of success. Is my space stark white like the Kanye space, absolutely not, although I did cover all of my books in white book covers to make a monolithic wall of books. We have books out the wahzoo and have always collected them. All of the various colored dust covers though made for a fair amount of visual "noise" and thus the shift to a monochromatic display. It's the first thing people notice when they walk in and it was for us also when we first did it, but over time, they've just disappeared into the wall. We also have used color in various parts of the house, like the wall that travels the whole depth of the house, right down the center is painted in Behr's "Corn Husk Green, all the other surrounding walls are a cool white. Does this make us minimalists in the strictest sense of the word? Probably not. But we are constantly striving to eliminate clutter and let architectural details or furniture details stand on their own with out a lot of visual distractions. The kitchen is another place we try to achieve this, instead of having the granite countertops covered in all manner of gadgetry that may be used once or twice a week, we try to keep the countertops absolute clear with all gear stored in cupboards so that we can enjoy the rich pattern in the granite, while allowing the eye to sweep across the open expanse. We also have polished concrete floors throughout, and a little white dog, so our Roomba and our twice weekly housekeeper is kept busy, but what we've eliminated in clutter to dust seems to balance the maintenance issues out quite nicely. We constantly fight off the pack rat urges, and sometimes it's a struggle, but it does clarify the mind a bit. | |||||
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