Something new!

New directions are coming to Petite Capucine! In the meantime, you can still find all the old posts right here. Stay tuned for the new stuff, coming right up!

Nautical-style vintage brass coat hooks

I just added this set of three coat hooks on a brass plate to my Etsy favorites - I love the weathered softness!For $35 at Lambrix Design Vintage.

Do-it-Yourself Chandelier Idea

All of our space is shared, except for one corner - I've fallen into the habit of applying my own taste to the laundry room. I'm the only one who spends any kind of real time there, agreement and compromise isn't required, nothing is on view to visitors, and I can experiment with ideas.

Which brings me to the out-there wish of wanting a chandelier, with crystals. This won't fly anywhere else in the house, but I want one because I love sparkles. One of the ones I 'visit' is this one:

It is $2,600.00 at Tonic Home. It will not be hanging in our laundry room. It occurred to me today that I could paint a birdcage black (like this one for $10)...
...and then wire wrap thrifted chandelier crystals (or the actual rosettes shown for .75 cents each, like these) to approximate a similiar effect quite happily:

Or I could spend more and do the same thing in a much neater shape on one of these ($225):

I know: The difference between doing and not doing is...doing. That is always the thing with DIY; I've learned the last couple years that every project is significant, so start with caution instead of enthusiasm!

How close am I to doing one of these? Well, the ceiling is pretty low so probably I won't do the second option. I think I want a little more dangle in my crystals, all in all.

Now I've given myself permission, I'm enjoying the hunt for the sparkling crystal thing. My fantasy is finding an old small gilt one at a flea market in France for 10 euros!

Vintage lotus chandelier

I posted today over on my blog and shop for families, Little Capucine, about an awesome vintage lotus chandelier for $80 - recently there was a brass one in a design magazine spread I saw, but the red one is so great it would work in any room...check it out!

Hooks for narrow spaces

Today, I'm on the hunt for some fun hooks for our laundry room, one of the last steps in our reorganization effort. And I'm enjoying the novelty of looking for really big hooks, since they are going on a wall out of the traffic pattern. Big, fat, colorful hooks, here I come!

The last time I was on the hunt for hooks, it was for our impossibly narrow entrance hallway. (It's the exact width of the front door, plus one centimeter.) I found out about flip-down hooks and they saved us from having nowhere to hang our jackets (we don't have any closets, either). Here were my final options:

This one would look at home in a Victorian-era apartment, and look at all the hooks you get for $30:

We have one by Harrit & Sørensen, from Denmark; the shipping was a fortune but we loved it so much we spent a year imagining it on our wall before we took the leap:
There are two at the Container Store in the same vein as the Danish one we have - this one and this one, both by Umbra and much cheaper:
We almost purchased these walnut wall tile hooks by Thout; they are beautiful if pricey - around $230 when I emailed with them, more than a year ago now. Ultimately we didn't get them because I wasn't sure the way they attached to the wall would work for us.

This one goes a different direction, straight out - if you've got more space that way than width-wise:

I have no doubt I'm missing some more options out there, but this was as much Googling as I could stand when I was on the hunt. The search terms I used were 'flip down', 'fold down', and 'valet hook'. If you find another flip-down option, send it to me and I'll add it to this list. Good luck!

Quick Post: Mining the Sundance Sale

I'm not really shopping much these days, because I'm not working much - so I just rearrange things at home a lot and set aside the list of stuff we need. For gifts, though, I'm pulling out the wallet the next few weeks since 75% of my list has their birthday the same month as Christmas (for me, if I decide on the perfect thing and scour the internet I spend far less than buying week-of).

Usually, I think Sundance is way overpriced and skip it, but I ended up on their site via some carved steel alphabet blocks today and saw a couple things in their sale section to share with you fellow gifters or lucky home furnishers:

The cotton 'Pavillion' throw, in really beautiful colors for $50 - I like the top one:

The 'Modernist' pendant, for $125 (and also a dead ringer for the ceramic pendant light at Shabby Chic for $180) - this pendant has made my final cut of three options for hanging over our sink, when we can afford to toss the plastic cheapy thing there now:

And several different styles of floursack pillows in hemp for $40. I want one like it in linen, real vintage, but they cost $$$:


Voila! Enjoy, and good luck with your list!

Love: Bunting

These aren't new, I know, but I'm about to own some of my very own so I can't resist sharing!

For years, I would see the word 'bunting' in British novels and think 'crepe paper', or maybe a baby wrapper of some sort. And then, thanks to the internet, I finally learned that bunting was essentially those awesome Tibetan prayer flags, only looking like they were made by Cath Kidston and without the praying. (OK, to be totally type-A about it, bunting is actually the fabric the flags are made out of. And also a teeny little bird.)

I bet these are what the original British ones looked like:


My favorites, at PB Teen:

A quirky and tiny version that could stay up year-round without looking leftover from a party (like, say, Christmas lights totally do):

A creative take that I find pretty irresistible - the play on 'bird on a wire' here is pretty clever, you must admit:

Growing up, we decorated for birthdays with those chinese accordion-style paper garlands, which I still love but now I'm wondering if I could get away with stockpiling bunting for birthday decorations, too. So festive! Practically speaking, a tiny house doesn't require many streamers to be decorated, but there is always the garden! And the porch!

If you search for more bunting options, my hot tip is including the words 'garland', 'banner', 'pennant' and 'flag' while you're at it. Clearly I am not the only one with terminology issues, and it always helps to have some extra terms up your sleeve when you sit down in front of a search engine, eh?

I'm cross posting this at Little Capucine, too, because bunting is so happy for a kid's room.

Another example of verre églomisé

At first I thought this very gold-glam creation was a mirror, then realized it is actually another example of that interesting verre églomisé technique, without the glass part.


The texture is lovely, if you zoom in on the website - I think it is what keeps getting my attention, since I usually am not into blingy stuff like this:

There is something about this technique that consistently catches my eye; I think because it seems like a textured way to light up the gloom of hall corners. This one, for instance, if it was an 1/8 of the size, would go a long way to adding a little glow.

Textiles: A typography ironing board cover

I don't like to iron. When I say I don't like ironing, what I really mean is I don't like ironing boards. They are hard to open and hard to close and collapse without warning, are difficult to store away and tricky to drag out when you need them.

I bought a fancy new ironing board, with an appealing plasticized lavender cover included, before the in-laws came to stay with us for a month. I had a tabletop version before, that worked fine for me but would never do for daily iron-ers. They used the new one after they unpacked, and then were unable to close it, as were any of the rest of us. It stood open in our living room the whole month they were here, and after they left we devoted a ridiculous amount of time to trying to collapse it. I would be embarrassed to admit we never succeeded, if there weren't five other people who failed beside us. It could not be done. We ultimately had a great time demolishing in enthusiastically on moving day (that was back when we had a garage to store things like uncollapsible ironing boards until oh, moving time).

Looking back, I think it probably wasn't as fancy as I thought, and had some sort of defect. That lavender cover was probably what convinced me it was the newer, better, ironing board.

Which brings me to this, which comes separate from an ironing board and therefore can't influence a purchase, but if it did come with an ironing board I WOULD TOTALLY BUY IT, even if it was guaranteed never to close again, because...well, look:

Typography on an ironing board cover. I think it might have been designed just for me, to convert me into the sort of domesticated being who irons her bedsheets (I now know one other person beside my mother-in-law who really does that. Really!). It might even look kind of good, open forever in the middle of the living room, if it came to that.

All that for €59, in pink or green, at The Collection (under Accessories) - pricey even without the exchange rate and the international shipping and all, but having something that inspires me to iron? Probably priceless!

New Baby Blog

I started a separate blog this month for baby and child-centered posts, called Little Capucine. Petite Capucine will remain all about inspiration for cozy homes, while Little Capucine is about inspiration for life with children (and the zillion product decisions they require). Some of the latest posts over there:

A review of Imps & ElfsInspiration for a neutral child's roomWing hooks in pink, silver and whiteSo if you want some ideas for cozy homes with children in them, head on over!