Please.....
I could understand if you exclaimed you hate beige or almond, but what's wrong with purple...and why do you feel the need to exclaim it??????
I'm no snob; I like almost every color, except for all of the beige and almond I've had to live with over the years...talk about boring.
Oh yea, I HATE oak!!!
You guys can be so funny sometimes.....
as a life-long junk shopper, and now an eBay buyer, I have always looked with my own preferences, but have been OPEN MINDED to be happy to find anything of superior design quality. I have learnt to enjoy the color schemes that I find.
When I started to build my living room furnishings, I started out with some inherited George Nelson Compreshensive Storage System pieces and a white Saarinen Tulip cigarette oval table I junked at the Salvation Army in New York City for $15.00 in 1993!
When I still had my old small house, I first started looking for a nice lounge chair and ottoman. I did not want to be obvious and go for the Eames 670/671...partly because I wanted a stationary chair and partly because I wasn't sure I could tell the difference between the real thing and a fake Plycraft, or some such thing.
I was lucky to bid on and win my Saarinen Grasshopper chair and ottoman for a heck of lot less than the Eames chair could've cost. It was in creme colored nude silk with vertical ribbing, which I didn't care for. When I discovered that the chair has structual issues, it was recovered with a grey and blue geometric fabric I found on eBay. Nice colors and I was happy.
Meanwhile, I found an orange Saarinen Tulip stool, which also needed refoaming and new fabric and my reupholster friend happened to have some red wool hopsack material that turned out to be perfect.
So far, two happy accidents....blue and grey and then red.
cont.
Then....
I actually moved to my new (old) house, and started looking around for more tables, lamps and the "perfect" sofa.
I started collecting Rimini Blu Italian pottery off eBay. I spent over a year looking around for a sofa that was affordable (I has considered the Hoffman Kubus and the Knoll loveseat clones, but I was hoping to find something authentic).
Lo and behold, I found my red, orange and purple (yes, Virginia, purple) Milo Baughmann loveseat on eBay and nobody bid on it so I got it for $495.00 (opening bid). The fabric was original and was a custom Boris Kroll high quality fabric. I had to pay a bunch to get it shipped from Cincinnati to Minneapolis, but it was heck of a lot less than buying anything new and it was up to the standard I wanted.
Along the way, too, I had to the chance of buying my zebra fabric Alvar Aalto tank chair for 1/2 of the standard selling price (it was a store prop), so another nice happy accident!
I also won 4 hopsack blue Eames EA127 dining chairs (for less than $75.00 each) and then my upholstery friend sold me his matching Eames dining table for $75.00....more happy accidents.
All of my furniture go nicely together and nothing sticks out as being inappropriate.
I then found a nice Russel Wright Conant Ball breakfront that fits perfectly in the dining room, as well as a neat Arthur Umanoff slat wood and wrought iron tea cart.
Finally, I bought two 72" Nelson benches for $125.00 ea. from Office Designs because they both had tiny marks.
With all of the talk of matching the perfect chair to the camel sofa (another thread) and this one about how someone hates purple, etc., just shows me that if you are opportune, lucky and fairly careful, you can furnish a house with beautiful stuff that all goes together, regardless of whatever rules you think were essential at the start.
...and finally
I have received many compliments on the pieces I have found and I did not spend a fortune, either.
All of my collected furnishings were carefully selected, but I struck when the iron was hot and hot deals all around.
So with all this talk about hating purple and the other thread where the person is being too anal about what lounge chair goes with his/her camel sofa, I just look at my stuff and realize that it doesn't really matter...it all looks good so long as it's all good design and you like it.
That is...unless you feel it necessary to hire a professional interior decorator!
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