Search result for: the-last-thing-you-aquired-
| # | Post Title | Result Info | Date | User | Forum |
| mine looks good | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | LRF | General discussion | |
| mine looks good no bowing on this one . i think it looks good no one is more picky then me, That web site for white on white sucks as far as i am concerned with that stupid process of down loading pics. and hard to read pics the first thing i did when i got the clock i measured to the vitra and it was the same, I am thinking of getting the kite black and white clock I did notice that it is reversed from right to left from vitra but simple enough just turn the clock movement and it will be perfect, If they were crappy fakes I would not buy them and I would tell my DA buddies that they were fakey looking, but these are really good for the price. as i own several vitra clocks and they are just like them and have the wood centers , I do not like this company white on white at all I feel there stuff is junk as I have seen some of their goods in a apartment in NYC and the couple that owned the stuff was real disappointed, I think they have a lot of stuff made up from China or Turkey, were the owners are from ,and this stuff is not Alphaville, I can't believe how expensive the Vitra clocks are as i buy 2 or 3 a year, i do like to collect the nelson clocks, the old ones, go for 800 to 1000 and they are just not worth it, as they do not run, I have the original orange from 1956 and gave 650.00 and it is just no big deal as it does not run at all, it is electric with a cord and is ugly on the wall, I will let every one in on the best kept secret Howard Miller reintroduced 2 clocks three years ago as they still own the original rights to the astrick clock in black and the Nelson ball clock in black and chrome, both marked Howard Miller you can buy them on ebay for about 55.00 each and still are as original as original can be, I called and talked to Howard Millers grandson about 6 months ago and visited with him about the clocks asking him if they were going to reintroduce any more of them, He said in 1982 they reintroduced several Nelson clocks with quartz movements, they sold very poorly as they were very disappointed, The widow of George Nelson I believe her name is Jacqueline made a deal with Vitra to allow them to manufacture Georges clocks in the late 90's and that is what you see out in the market place, but if you want to get two great clocks for 100.00 bucks together buy the Howard miller ones cause in my opinion they are worth far more than the vitras, as what could be better than the owning one from the original company | |||||
| Please Help Identifying 1930's 1940's Bronze Sculpture | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | keewee | Identification | |
| The older woman who consigned these said they had belonged to her mother. This was originally a set of three bronze sculptures. Sadly, someone purchased just one and broke up the set in the weeks before I found them. All three of these depict a figure with a large oversized mask. The missing figure had a large mask of just one eye. The female figure is a woman in a housedress with a mask of three triangles. The man in 40's style shorter pants and shirt , has a large gingerbread or golly mask. I feel like I've seen a drawing of the woman at some point. In a museum in Chicago maybe when I was little? Ugh. Or are these masked figures something like Magritte's Son of Man and just making me feel like I've seen them before?? When my better half saw them he immediately said the woman's mask symbolized the trinity-both because it was a triangle and there were three of them-father son and holy ghost. And maybe the man was a "cardboard suit" type mask of the corporate world. I then wondered if the third figure was a child and the eye had symbolized how children tend to see a lot but see just themselves??? Or maybe it was a third sort of religion-zoroastrianism? I'll never know because some greedy idiot gobbled up just one piece and the story won't be told now. In any case, ideas on the artist? They are solid bronze, no markings. Guessing 30's or 40's? Maybe some sort of WPA thing? Has anyone seem something like this? I bought them because they were gnawing at me and I was drawn to them. But I would love to know their story and finding the artist would help. It's also going to drive me crazy because I feel like I've seen a pencil drawing of these before. Where? Where? Thank you. | |||||
| So--I have mentioned redoing | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | Spanky | General discussion | |
| So--I have mentioned redoing my kitchen but haven't posted pics yet of the finished project. Here goes! My condo was built in 1978 so I didn't feel any need to redo in a classic mid-century modern style. I just wanted to remove all vestiges of the awful late 70s look! I actually didn't give a whole lot of conscious thought about what label the finished kitchen's style might have but it turned out to be very Scandinavian, I think. Which is great---it is what I would have ended up with if I'd started out thinking that I wanted a Scandinavian look. I think it's just what is ingrained in me. I guess, I dunno. I will include a few before photos and all are taken from the same angle and vantage point, more or less. The condo had been rented out for at least 10 years before i got it and almost no updated or maintenance had been done (obviously). It was horrid and barely funcionable. I put in IKEA cabinets, 16" slate floor tiles, and beech butcherblock counters (also IKEA). The only thing I kept were the two glass globe light fixtures, though I did paint the metal parts and replaced the cords with B&W cloth-covered ones. Please excuse the clutter in the 5th photo! I need to retake that now that it's done---just wanted to include it to give an idea of the width and it shows the 5' glass sliders at the end. And the photo of the other wall--I have since put the missing doors on the cabinets. I'm not a total sloth. (haha) | |||||
| "original" or "fake" | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | SDR | General discussion | |
| "original" or "fake" Whew! Rough going, but still a use ful topic. Last night I slogged through (okay, so it was interesting) the entire two years of the Barcelona thread, and noted one mention of the comfort of the chair and one mention each of the issues of (1) curved back cushion and (2) angled edges of seat and back cushions (where they meet). On the issue of licensing and reproduction rights, a poster referred us to Gordon International, so I downloaded their statement: they claim that all of the classic designs they sell "are considered 'in the public domain.' This means that these pieces may be reproduced to the exact specifications defined by available historical notes. No single producer has controlling authority over the dimensional composition or distribution of these designs. They are designs which are ONLY produced as copies today -- no matter where you buy them." (I'm only quoting them, so don't get huffy) Then they give a long, heartfelt spiel about how great their quality and accuracy are, and then about how shoppers should carefully compare different sources and the materials used in manufacture, etc etc, emphasizing hands-on inspection. This from a mail-order house? Hm, I don't know, I guess you could always send it back if it sucks... As for chair comfort, does anyone have that wonderful book ( c. 1970?) called simply 'The Chair' ? Essays by and interviews with designers, a piece about Nils Diffrient's anthro-ergonomic work, etc. (my copy seems to be missing). One of the memorable comments therein is the observation that people of all sorts, including architects and designers (who should know better ?) continue to specify chairs BASED ON LOOKS RATHER THAN COMFORT. Obviously, some designs, like the Barcelona Chair, having come into existence, are just so 'perfect' for certain settings, that nothing else will do. If Mies hadn't come upon that particular solution for a formal 'structuralist' lounge chair, would we have to settle for the next best thing: Tugendhat? Poul Kjaerholm PK22? Corbu Basculant? Wassily? SDR | |||||
| I would vote for the chair's | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | Thomas North | General discussion | |
| I would vote for the chair's authenticity. It seems pretty clear the chair was originally purchased by JP Morgan--likely quite some time ago. The underside of the chair reveals that it has undergone two different JP Morgan inventory systems. The first inventory mark is in magic marker and the second has the metal label (clearly later in time as it covers over part of the earlier marking). JP Morgan would have hired a first rate interior architect or decorator who was likely familiar with the chair's "design provenance", i.e., it was a popular top end design chair in its early years, famous for use in the Kennedy/Nixon debates, etc. It would have been a suitable prestige chair for a major investment bank. Now, ask yourself this: What are the chances that JP Morgan (advised by someone "in the know" at the time) would have purchased a knock-off production? Next to zero, in my view. Say what you want about bankers, but it would not have been their style to save a few bucks on non-authentic chairs. As for the blocking, I think there are two possible explanations. First, JP Morgan would have ordered a large number of chairs. It is not inconceiveable that they could have "ordered" some minor modifications to the bottom to make it more sturdy. As Howard Moon indicated, this can be found in other Wegner chairs. Another possibility is that the chair was modified by the subsequent owner. (The current owner of the chair surmises that the prior owner was a woodworker). It seems also obvious that this chair has been re-stained (stain marks cover tpart of he metal inventory label) and the seat has been re-covered (it does not appear to be a "professional" job). It is also quite possible that the blocks were added when the seat was recovered. One of the first things I would do would be to unscrew the metal inventory label to see what is under it. It appears to be precisely where the manufacturer's stamp would normally be. The other thing I would do would be to examine very carefully the joinery where the armrests meet the rounded backrest of the chair. The picture posted here doesn't show that clearly enough; but, if you examine some of the detailed pictures of "known" Wegner Round Chairs on the web, you'll notice a distinctive joinery pattern. | |||||
| Newbie introduction, with an I.D. question (Drexel). | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | KPL392 | Identification | |
| Hi, My name is Keith, from L.A., CA. I am not a dealer, or even a hobbyist really. I just signed up because I am frustrating myself with fruitless Google searches regarding some of my pieces of furniture. I'm moving into a new place, and I can finally use the Drexel furniture I grew up with, which I have kept in storage for almost 10 years. I have a matching dining room table and pad, cocktail table, and step table. My grandparents bought this stuff brand new, so it has always been (and always will be) in our family. The sad thing is that there used to be two matching step tables. But one of them got separated from the set by my uncle, so my grandmother could use it in her apartment. Unfortunately, it got left behind by my inattentive uncle during one of my grandmother's later moves. It is long gone now; there is no chance of getting it back. I'd really like to replace the piece, but I can't seem to figure out what exactly it is. It's a very simplistic, boxy Drexel style – probably the most so of anything I've seen in my online searching – and I can't for the life of me find a single matching example online. No swoops, curves, roundovers, or anything so stylish. It's dead boxy. And the leg supoorts are contiguous with the body of the table, i.e. there are no "struts" per se, which would have air space between them and the body. Numbers on the bottom have provided no Google hits either, although I think they might be saying that the table was made in '55 (the year of my dad's birth). The model number and name seems to be 2496-5 STEP TABLE. Any help identifying this line would be most appreciated. If you know where I can find one, even better! But I'm not really there yet. I am just hoping to find out what to look for at this point. Another question: Are these pieces finished with nitrocellulose lacquer? I am actually quite practiced at using it, being a guitar repairman and builder, so I was considering doing a few touchups and then respraying the tops of the pieces. But I want to use a material that would be appropriate for the pieces. Thanks in advance! Keith P.S. I will get better pix up in a bit. Thanks for your patience. But for now, here is a group shot of all the furniture I'm restoring at the moment. The cocktail table in the background is from the Drexel set I'm talking about. (It has a drawer on the other side.) | |||||
| Interesting! | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | Olive | General discussion | |
| Interesting! First of all any bartender who doesn't know how to make a Harvey Wallbanger is not much of a bartender, thereby supporting DCWilson's premise. I tended bar in college and have gone on to make a thorough study of the science of the mixed drink. I've even got some very old recipe books that tell me how to make things like 'Flips' which are rum or whiskey and egg white whipped into a foam. Nowadays, I make excellent cocktails. The reason is simple. It's not that I can flip the bottles in the air or pour cascading fountains, that stuff's just silly showmanship, it's because I use the best ingredients and I pay atention to the details. A good vermouth does indeed enhance a Martini, but it's got to be the good stuff. I recommend Via by Quaddy Vineyards. It's superb. I make my own pickled green beans to garnish with. The sweet/salty/tangy flavor of them works wonders with the vermouth. I love olives, but I won't use anything from the grocery store. I get Divina's which are sweet plump and delicious! I've been know to garnish Bloody Mary's with slivers of leek. (I agree DCW they are far superior to onion in many applications. Spanish Tortilla Batata comes to mind) Good tools make all the difference too. A shaker needs to be big enough to let the ice do it's thing and aerate/hydrate the booze. There's no substitute for the proper glass. A chilled cocktail glass (commonly mislabeled as a 'martini' glass) is the only civilized way to pour. A cloth bar napkin and a stainless steel skewer (so as not to flavor the drink with wood, plus they're reusable) to complete the ritual. And it should be a ritual, something that was understood by the 'Eames Era' folks. That cocktail hour is special, a time to reconnect after your day and to stop and smell the alcohol to savor it slowy. Like with coffee, I am far more satisfied with one drink if I take the time to make it memorable! DCW, if you ever find yourself travelling to Santa Fe, let me know...we'll have you over for cocktails! | |||||
| Pt. 2 | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Pt. 2 Now, I'm not saying this is healthy, or the best thing for society. What I am saying is that if this is an indication of the zeitgeist of the times, well, it makes a kind of sense to me. Society, in the digital age, in all fields, is movin rapidly toward a new economic paradigm. It is for lack of a better word: its cheaper to change the software than the hard ware. This paradigm shift can be noted in most fields if one thinks about it. Take for example the field of car engineering and design. Increasingly, not decreasingly as some early forecasters of digital effects on the auto inustry, the game in car design is to design mechanical infrastructures with longer and longer useful lives than need repair only in terms of plug and play component replacements and software rewrites. The idea of creating an engine now is to create a basic design that can be varied as much as possible through the alterations of software to achieve varied use among different types of cars and to achieve yearly incremental improvements in power and performance, rather than by slapping on new hardware. Software alteration is a much cheaper and faster means to achieve product variation than is hardware change. On the more modest level of Ludysigns, we could express this in less sophisticated, more cynical ways. For instance we could call this good old fashioned substituting of marketing spin for actual product redesign and innovation. But I think that would be doing Ludysigns, and perhaps many others like it, a disservice. The software aspect of design is just as legitimate a form of design as is hardware design, if it is done ethically and honestly and with the intent of making profit by improving the standard of goods and services available to persons. The whole retro modern movement is underpinned IMHO by a judgement in the minds of many, many persons (designers, producers, consumers, collectors, etc.) that there just was something better about the modern designs, and the potential future of modern design, than about much of what preceded and followed modernist design. | |||||
| dudette here | 1 Relevance | 20 years ago | NULL NULL | General discussion | |
| dudette here The first chair I reupholstered had the welt sewn to the seat cover. I tried to re-do it that way and it was VERY difficult to get it all just right. The welt has to be alligned with the edge of the outer shell and that's just too hard to do! Stapling it on separately to the inner shell gives exactly the same look when finished but is way easier to get perfect. What kind of arm rests does your chair have? Are they single plane platforms or do they have two planes? Both will have leather over foam with the leather wrapped around the edges and stapled underneath. They are then screwed to a plywood base (usually painted black, I think) which covers the staples. But you still will see a lot of little tucks in the leather underneath. I have not altered the single plane armrests, though I've considered it. I've done two of those chairs and just redid them as the originals were. It does look cheap, though, even when done neatly with good leather. The other chair I did had the 2-plane armrests. I added 1" thick firm foam, glued with 3M spray adhesive to the curved plywood base, then cut a top and side piece out of leather, plus two pieces for the underside. I planned to do it as a welted slipcover type thing that would then be stapled to the curved plywood armrest base. However, this was just way too difficult. It had to be fitted just right and it had to be sewn exactly right the first time because the needle leaves perforations that don't close up, plus they weaken the leather. I gave up on that and instead just did the top welt, wrapped the sides around to the underside of the curved plywood base and stapled them. Then I stapled welt to that edge and covered the underside with pieces of leather cut to fit exactly up to the welt and glued them in place with rubber cement. It looks great and you'd have to get under the chair with a good light to tell that it's cut and glued. Are you going to make the welt yourself? You'll need a sewing machine with a strong motor (mine is a Bernina but there are other good ones), a leather needle or two (they do break) and a welt foot. I use the standard 5/16" welt cord and I cut and overlap and glue any seams in the welt that are necessary. Let me know if you have any other questions! Oh, and check out kysonleather on ebay. Luscious stuff! | |||||
| cont. | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | koen | General discussion | |
| cont. Building is very much a technology centered on the capacity to put standard components together in an assembly of different scales but basically with the same functions. The size of the building, even when it is a one family home is such that transportation of the total assembly will always be an expensive component of the costs. To ?assemble? is generally not considered a task that requires high skills so it is usually easy to find a local workforce that is as skilled as any trained work force in a assembly factory. Contrary to most assembly work of smaller products, the high cost of very low tolerances can easily be offset by assembling on the spot. Plumbing components for instance could, and are in many cases pre-cut. But in order to fit the measurements of the building have to be so accurate that it is often cheaper, just to cut on the spot. Large industrial products like busses, airplanes etc. suffer from the same inconvenience: very small tolerances are exponentially expensive and so a large part of the assembly and cutting of components is done on the spot. I am not very familiar with architectural software but we use so called parametric software that will automatically adapt all components that are linked within the parametric frame to any change to that product. I presume that there is architectural software that does the same thing and upon the increase of the size of a wall it will just add studs and anchors to the drawing and to the component list. My expectation is that because it is an assembly and not something cut out of a solid bloc, buildings will be standardized through there components and not in their totality. That is what we have seen since WW2 and I think it will continue toward larger integrations (complete kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, solar or wind energy generating systems etc. but as far as the other spaces that will link them together are concerned, the way we build them right now, is a quite rational way and proposals like the one in Dwell are not very convincing that bulging walls in curved corridors are adding in any way to the quality of life of the inhabitants?unless being featured in Dwell is such a quality. | |||||
| Like, Part Two, Man... | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Like, Part Two, Man... Moral outrage, marching, and voting, haven't changed a thing, just like they didn't prevent the maddness of the Cold War, or the slaughters of WWI and WWII. Current economic melt down triggers no more compassion than the Great Depression did. Judging from the inner cities, we probably already have as many unemployed now as we had in the entirety of the Great Depression, man; its like the cats in government just decided to index it away, so all the hungry, destitute cats simply go uncounted. Remedies? Oh, man, they are as trivial in the face of this rising tide of suffering, as they were in the first few years of the Great Depression. W is proposing the kind of irrelvant fixes that that Hoover proposed. And all the while no one mentions that the decisions of central bankers triggered the whole weary gig in the first place. Its all planned, man. There ain't nothing improvisational about it, man. That's why you got to play jazz in the face of it, man, cause Jazz is all improvisation, man. I feel sorry for all these, uncool cats. What are they gonna do in the face of this? They can retreat to the digital fantasy world of PCs and iPods and Nintendo the way so many retreated into dark theaters in the 30s and 40s to escape the nightmare outside. Or they can grow impossibly cyncial and die of bitterness. Or you can keep a stiff upper lip, experiment with various coffees and teas, maintain as many of your ordinary rituals as you can and hope you build a kind of bulwark against the nightmare. Oh, man, if Beale Street could talk, you know what it would say, man? Like the fire next time, you dig? If you are a neocool cat, like, you gots to go NeoCool. To those who say, "We are all African Americans now," in the face of a world being folded into derepresentative European Unions, North American Unions, Asia-Pacific Unions, and Middle Eastern Unions, where economic warfare called demand destructions are waged by the leaders on their own people in order to scale up markets to deal with China and India coming on line, well, man, a Cool Revival may have considerable appeal. You dig? | |||||
| Isn't Herman Miller's current LCW a knockoff as well? | 1 Relevance | 22 years ago | NULL NULL | General discussion | |
| Isn't Herman Miller's current LCW a knockoff as well? I agree that the repro LCWs are pretty crappy. But I don't agree with the assumption in some of the comments that Herman Miller currently makes a good version -- by which I mean one that accurately reflects the original Eames design -- of the LCW. This assumption is false, I think. Compare an original LCW (ie, one made between, roughly, 1946 to 1957 or so, when HM stopped making them) with one of the current HM LCWs (re-made beginning in 1994, I think). There are some significant differences. First, the veneering on the current ones are just OFF. The new chairs, especially the ones in ash, look cheap. Many of you know much more about veneering than I do, so may be able to explain this better. But to my eye, the veneering on the new ones just look cheap and hastily done, with little consideration of design factors. Second, the inner layers on the spine / back support are different from the originals; in the originals, there's a very subtle darker "vein" that runs in the midst of the numerous layers, which thickens & thins at various points of the spine depending on, I think, the need for additional weight support. This is a beautiful and brilliant detail. No such thing in the current version made by HM, if i recall. Third, the obvious difference -- one oval shockmount on the old ones, two round shockmounts on the new. Finally, and perhaps most importantly to the aesthetics of the chair, the curvature of the spine on the new one is different from that found in the older one, which has an additional bend or curve to it. This is hard to see unless you directly have the two chairs side-by-side. This seems a small pint, but the devil is, as always, in the details. And once you see the original one, with its curvature, you'll see that this subtle differnce, well, makes a difference. This might all seem highly nit-picky -- but i'm among geeks, right? anyway, regardless of what i think about these changes, i don't believe that the Eameses would've approved. And that's because these changes are the product not of additional tinkering or thinking in the hopes of improving the product (well, maybe they would've approved of the 2 shockmounts vs 1 shockmount, on performance grounds), but of HM's current cut-the-corners approach on a good part of its product line. my 2 cents, anyway. | |||||
| kdc | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | LRF | General discussion | |
| kdc I think you are right , I was half joking but i do think i am OCD and have been for a very long while thanks for the advise ... I have collected stuff for over 35 years my whole working career, as long as I have been making my own money. I start these big expensive collections, and collect till I get tired of them, and go on to the next , The mid century modern phase has been going on for a solid 5 years with buying all the time, and changeing things around all the time, although i have liked modern for 30 years MCM for 5 years, I have just made it my full time hobby, My real life and business is the oil and gas business that my brother and I have owned for over 35 years. ( yes Oil will be at a 100.00 a barrel next week and no gloating here) as I do have empathy for my fellow man and I know it hurts everyone in the pocket book, but the real story, and who do thank that oil is now 100 bbls? and your old design buddy LRF and his brother are keeping real busy producing oil ? and selling it for big bucks a question i am sure is on all mines yes? , It is not the Arabs, George Bush, the war in Iraq, It is China, the same people who make cheap MCM furniture and every thing else,in the world they have created the biggest boom of the Industrial world in over 50 years, They are consumming all of the oil every day and OPEC can not keep up with the Chinese demand . They are putting 2 thousand new cars a day on the streets when 20 years ago it was bicycles, You don't hear of communism over there any more? The oil that we produce, yours truly and his brother goes to domestic consumption and of course we get the same price as the rest of the world as it is call NYMEX spot. It is our family business which was started over 60 years ago, and my twin bother and I own the company ,Yes there is another one just like me but has no interest at all in MCM or furniture he likes Clothes and expensive clothes and he is real OCD with his clothes, shops like a woman and loves the finest suits and shoes, so yes the twins have OCD and more than likely we also have had A D D all our lives but we, still run a very successful oil and gas company. I am sure most of you thought how could a upholster own all this stuff? Retro Redo was was just a fun company, I started it then bought people in and it has turned into something ..... a vehicle to find cool furniture,at first but now a full fledged successful company . .. | |||||
| Olivia Wilde on the Stahl House | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | Caco | General discussion | |
| So I'm waiting at the doctor's office and had nothing else besides me but an Elle Magazine. I picked it up and flip through it to find the Case Study House #22, aka Stahl House by Pierre Koenig. Photographed by Dusan Reljin. I really wasn't aware of who was Olivia Wilde. She's an actress but who cares? I just saw the Stahl house and thought I'd share with you guys. I believe it was a February 2010 USA Issue. So quite late on this but I don't read that magazine very often. On a side note, perhaps someone could clarify this. I've seen numerous pictures from the Stahl house taken by random people through the tours and what not. But every time the furniture changes, sometimes I've seen thing's that I think don't belong in that house e.g. IKEA. But why can't they keep it nicely decorated? I know the money from the tours goes into the maintenance of the house. There's also gatherings and it's also been featured in films etc. I also know that DWR recently shot photos there for their catalog and donated some furniture as well. Anyways, I'm not complaining. The family can decide to do what ever they want with the house. I've heard they are really nice people. I'm just curious. I'd love to see that house with furniture of the period at all times. Enjoy these photos if you haven't seen them. http://www.elle.com/Fashion/Fashion-Spotlight/Fashion-Spotlight-Olivia-Wilde/Olivia-Wilde-Models-Spring-s-Sexiest-Trends/%28imageIndex%29/0/%28play%29/false | |||||
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