Today is...

Well, it looks like today is "Sofa bring your kid to work day"!

Oh this old thing?

File this one under WTF?

This artist creates wearable sculture. Its an interesting kind of conceptual art.

I find the street clothes of the models distracting enough to make the whole thing laughable, but that's just me. What do you think?

Do you speak bench?

If I had, say 10,000 square feet to play with, I would certainly employ the use of a bench or two.

The iconic Barcelona by Mies van der Rohe would be my first choice.

I do like an x-bench too. In pairs, of course.

This one is for keeping your friends from copying your test answers, no?

 

Not all benches are created equal.

This one is boys who wear tights and like to jump and flip around.

There is also the category "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" and the bench below wins the prize for butt ugly (teehee) in that category.

Pinterest hilarity

How did anyone pin this at Rejuvenation without out noticing?

HERE

Dare to caption it?

Drake-faces and other things that should be outlawed

I'll get to the faces in a minute.

I am in week two of a gluten-free, vegan experiment and I am a bit hungry and grumpy as will be evident in this post. I need a chili cheeseburger.

Have you ever had another design blogger come to your house and have the overwhelming urge to apologize for all of the ugly crap in your house that you haven't gotten around to changing?

That was me Saturday morning at 10 am.

I had already joked about my ugly kitchen floor and the still unpainted walls in some rooms and somehow found the strength to avoid total dorkdom by commenting on all of the orange wood in my house.

The suburbs just wouldn't be the same without orange wood and the economy might collapse entirely if all of those 50 gallon drums of the stuff were suddenly outlawed.

Have you ever wondered who picked this for the standard builder wood stain? 

Usually wood is stained a color that it might actually turn if oiled and left alone for 100 years.

The other thing I have decided to hate is ceiling fan /light combos.

I am not thrilled with ceiling fans but they are a necessary  evil in some parts.

I have the ghastly builder version.

Just because fans and lights would both be useful on the ceiling does not mean they should be combined.

A toilet and a bidet...useful in the same place...not good to combine.

It doesn't make it any better to make it look all space age.

There should be a $300 fine for using them.

Now I should explain the term "drake-face". Drakes are the name of a male ducks.

Just when I thought that Restoration Hardware dominated the man -duck-face in print I saw this...

iphone photo

Its an ad in Elle Decor. I laughed out loud and still can't look at it without smirking.

That guy and his mustache just said, "We have this Indie-barbershop quartet and it was so hot that we took these bedazzled inner-tubes on our electric scooters to the ironic swimming hole." Then he made a drake-face and now the water is cooler.

Karen very kindly featured me in an interview with her 2013 Artist Series. Be sure to stop by.

The co-founder of black is at it again

My mailman is pissed.

Restoration hardware, and all of its ludicrous iterations, sent me this bundle.

I'll give that RH has some rather tempting offerings but the prices and questionable quality really turn me off. 

I love Gary Friedman for his preposterous claims that make me laugh 'til I cry but, Dude! Wipe that smirk off your face! Its creepy.

Gary thinking real hard about the wheel

Let's talk about their latest discovery in the world of quantum physics.

Yes, tableware. 

The catalog gives us a synopsis of the creative vision and genius of Albert Einstein as a prelude to the introduction of their tableware collection.

"That is the philosophy we embraced to imagine our new tableware collection. Beginning with a quest to develop the perfect plate, one that would inspire us to replace our existing ones, we reconsidered every aspect - the material, the shape, the size the weight and the glaze - developing prototype after prototype until we explored every possibility and exhausted every option."

Guess what they came up with? Round. Wow, Gary my plates are just circles how the hell did you come up with this?

" The result is our rendition of the perfect plates (we developed three shapes, round rimmed, square and coupe), made of authentic porcelain. "

Groundbreaking round plates

If you are concerned about the word "coupe" its just round with no lip.

The other bits of ridiculousness include "Objects of curiousity"

Its a catalog of fake antiques  

concocted by "the Reimaginists" AKA big fakers who pose with silly expressions like this...

I'd love to work there inventing the old but I have not perfected my self-important pompous duck face. I tried but I couldn't stop laughing.
You really must read the original RH snark at WTF, Restoration Hardware?

Weekend fun

I never thought I would say this, but thank god its Monday!? I hope your weekend was every bit as lovely as mine and all of the mommies had a great day.

Our party was smashing success.

 I can safely say that it was the best party we ever had.

Thai chicken

The key was having the kids bouncing happily away in a bounce house and keeping the adults well lubricated and fed. We had crabcakes, salmon and lobster phyllo cups, lamb chops,and these amazing Thai chicken hors d'oeuvres that were a new thing for us.

Mini cupcakes meant that there were no half eaten slices of cake all over the place.

My croquembouche was a bit lopsided.

Last time I made one was for a New year's eve party and it was great. The caramelized sugar did not like the humidity.

The whole thing was exhausting and I ended up wearing bunny ears.

Sunday was a great day to share with my little girl. We saved the present opening until her actual birthday.

THEN, I got to open my mother's day gift!

My husband and I were in an antique shop months ago and I mentioned loving those canisters. The man went back secretly and hid these in anticipation of Mother's day. He gets a gold star.

I also got a handmade card from my 18 year old son that read:

Happy Mother's day

Guess what?.....

Chicken butt.

Awesome.

Tell me, tell me

Amanda Nisbet

This Amanda Nisbet fabric, "Positano" got me thinking. Trouble is so did a bunch of other stuff. Today I am going to tell you about a few of my inspirations, cravings etc and I want to hear yours too.

The fabric made me want to make a wallpaper for my little girl's room. then I thought, "Duh just paint it".

Whaddaya think?

Also in the little girl world realm, is this fantastic shared space for blogger, Elizabeth of  Little Black Door's daughters. I am crazy about it.

ORC Little Black Door

My little girl's favorite color is green but it is not mine. I am really digging these green pillows here though. I already have mostly white bedding, pink and black velvet bolsters and a painted (ASloane graphite) dresser in her room. I really need to leave matchy-matchy world and incorporate some pattern and color.

Elizabeth did a bang up job of it.

One thing I love is is cheese grits. I am absolutely not allowing myself to eat such things at the moment but Oh how I would love to dive into that. It is so easy to make and comforting. 

I make them with regular Quaker grits following the directions and add as much or little Colby Jack cheese when the grits are done. Plus a sprinkle of garlic salt. Don't even think about using instant grits or fake cheese.

One reason that I will not indulge in such deliciousness is that I would like to wear this.

 If I can't wear a skirt in the next few weeks that Groundhog is in a world of trouble. Snow in March!

So tell me:

What are you dreaming of changing in your space?

What is knocking your socks off in blogland?

Made anything yummy lately?

Any fashion love to share?

Do you also want to kill that stupid groundhog?

Craigslist- the intangible edition

As promised, I picking on other places than my hometown today. Actually just one person with some magically funny listings, living in a rural, hilly area, that happens to be in my home state.
I swear on everything sacred that I did not make these up. I copied the text from the listings in red.

Can't touch this

The listing for this table made me laugh out loud.

This is rather new table, by new I mean made by modern means of particle board and such. It is in decent shape. It has three tables with it that are all in rough shape. They could be stained if you wanted them to go back to being nice. It would make a great intangible table.

WTF is an intangible table?

The listing reads:

This is an antique wood desk. It even has the place where the liquid ink would go so that someone could dip their quill pen in the ink so as to write

Just in case you want to tell Ma and Pa about the injuns you saw on the way home from coon huntin'

I am not making this next part up either!

This is a listing by the same person for a "retro recliner"

 This is a retro recliner in good condition. It is yellow, with an orange-ish brown color. Very retro. I don't bargain.  

Stain. He meant to say "stain" after "orange-ish brown color" but there was a critter making a racket out back and he got all flustered.

Same guy...again.

A portion of the listing for the $100/never cleaned ever once sofa, reads:

  It is a little dusty and has some dog hair that could easily be removed.

I see no damage to the recliner other than smelling like smoke from a wood stove and being dusty.

Smoky Green recliner... a fragrance for... uh...folks and furniture.

I don't know. I am just shaking my head at this crazy old coot selling the filthy contents of his house.

How do I know he is a he?

He also claims in yet another listing that he is gettin' hitched and his fiance already has her own gross stuff a dining set.

Each ad ends with "I don't bargain". I guess it is pretty obvious that cleaning is frowned upon also.
Bless his heart!

Hillbillies are hilarious.

 

Your weekly dose of CL snark

You keep loving the snark, I'll keep writing it.

I usually start these fun little trips to bitchy-land with daily perusal of the "furniture" category of my local Craigslist. Most of it is boring ugly stuff but sometimes there is something to take note of.

Pick up the tissue, Slob!

Generally speaking, I am sufficiently grossed out by the faceless cooties of strangers lurking in upholstered furniture. Thanks to this listing I at least have an armpit AND a face to go with the pestilence.
$50 is way too much for couch cushions full of that guys stinky gas, don't you think?

I simply must show you the text of this listing.

Do you have family gatherings but never enough seating? Are you also drawn to bright dramatic colors? This is the table for you! It's your statment piece. Get the family talking about something besides themselves : ) The table top has a hand painted quote from English novelist Dodie Smith. About the family- " That octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts ever quite wish to."
The table has a formal feel but very casual at the same time. $150 or best offer 

 If you buy this table the family will definitely be talking about something other than themselves.

 

Me Tarzan, you Craig.

This is a listing for jungle decor with a plethora of pillows depicting animals, an oil lamp with no oil (above) and two coconut monkeys. The listing explains that one of the monkeys is missing an eye.

Now we all have to resume our search for a pair of coconut monkeys with intact eyes. Darn!

Last week's CL post poked fun at a less than appealing listing for a daybed and the accompanying yucky mattresses.

Oh Dear! Did they read my post?

Here is this week's tidy listing for what appears to be the same bed (in the same area too) minus the squalor and stains.

I'd love to clean up Craigslist, one snarky post at a time.
I think I will pick on a different city next week. I like it here and I don't want to get kicked out. But, seriously that octopus table!!!!!

Craigslist for dummies

I got a great response to last week's post  "Craigslist fun" where I said mean things about items posted locally. I have more mean things to share. Craigslist for dummies, meaning if you are looking at the Fredericksburg, Virginia Craigslist you are dumb.

Lucky for you, I am dumb.

Here's how flushed away an hour of my life looking for a fantastic brass and glass coffee table.

Hand restored? To what? Its non-original F-ugly color apparently.

Second floor suite 208, I was in that psychiatrist's office. Birds are gone though.
Honestly the chair is not awful but it is not MCM either.

 I have no idea what makes the lister think these are French. Maybe they smell funny.


I was starting to feel guilty about saying so many snarky things and figured I would end on a nice note. I found this metal daybed that looked like it could be romantically styled with linen or toile.

Two things about the listing stopped me in my tracks. Was it too much to ask to tidy up that 20 square feet? I mean really...if you are going to virtually invite the whole world in to your little corner of squalor, at least put on a show of decency.
The second part was that in the text of the listing, they graciously offer the nasty stained box spring and an even nastier mattress that they did not photograph, but they assure buyers that it is totally gross.

OK here it is the really good thing!

 

$300 bucks HERE and they didn't turn it into a kegeratoror or offer anything weird as a bonus.
Wish I had a spot for it

Craigslist fun

I have come to the conclusion that my local Craigslist is 98% useless to me.

Most things I wouldn't even want in my basement. Occasionally there is something nice for a million dollars. 

I moslyt troll the listings hoping for that 2% jackpot. Usually the nicely priced, cool item is something that I do not need so I keep watching and waiting, giggling at the listings.

OK, its mean to laugh at someone that can't spell but there are legions of people that do not know how to spell "MIRROR".

I looked up the word "Antique" and and none of the synonyms were "Gross". I cropped out the enormous dog cage pressed against it.

This one cracks me up every time! Listings for a "sitting" chair, is there any other kind?

5 large? Really? The listing says that it was originally $10,000. I wish them the best of luck with that listing.

If the word "beautiful" is used in the description, I have to look. Its like a car accident. I know I should just keep moving but I look anyway. It is almost always an item that that I would choose a very different adjective to describe.

Call me a snob but I can't help but wonder what this person would call ugly.

How is your Craigslist?