Petite Capucine

Do-it-Yourself Chandelier Idea

2008-11-14T19:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

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!

Typography: Maharam Letters pillow

2008-03-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

Maharam has some fabric out that I love called "Letters", designed by Gunnar Aagaard Andersen in 1955. It probably costs a fortune per yard, I'm guessing, but luckily I stumbled onto Jamric's Etsy shop, where she has a pillow pieced together from this fabric that I'm really stoked on:

It is also available in purple, beige, pink, and green but I love the burnt yellow one shown here.

Design Within Reach has a pillow in this same fabric (not patchworked) for $250. This pillow is a deal! I personally prefer the patchwork one, anyway. It's mostly wool with some nylon, it would probably last forever. I think a white or grey couch would look great with this pillow hanging out on it.

$35 right here on Etsy.

Accessible Industrial

2008-03-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

You want an affordable industrial-style table that doesn't remind you of Frankenstein? Done:

The Ikea Vika hyttan/fintorp combo, for $139 and available online now.

I love those legs, way better than restaurant-supply industrial versions. This would be a great work table...sigh.

Bathmats

2008-03-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

I'm buying these cotton bathmats today - they look like they'll be pleasantly nubby and absorbent, I like the texture, and my current white bathmats have started the downward path to that grungey non-white shade no amount of bleach/hydrogen peroxide/blueing can chase away. These are perfect!

At Bitters Co., $40 for a set of two:

Rocking chair hunt

2007-10-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Update: This post has been cross-posted on my new family-focused blog, Little Capucine. All the baby stuff is over there now!

Finding a rocking chair that isn't hideous (gliders) or grandmotherly (everything else) seems like a fool's errand, for some reason. Enough so that suddenly these few options, found after a lot of web sieving, don't seem so bad:

This one was on Surfing Cowboys, a no-name Danish mid-century rocker that sold for around $600. They reupholstered it, and I found out why when I looked around for a similiar one and turned up this identical version, in truly hideous yellow fabric that is probably the reason it took so long for mid-century to become trendy again, on Ebay :

But the bids are already around $600 and since I personally would have to reupholster this puppy to want to sit in it at all, that would put it near $1000 when all was said and done and...uh...for a rocking chair?

Then there is this Hans Wegner (or so the description hopefully suggests) which is currently at a more-reasonable $199, but looks less comfortable and sort of short:

And in the department of new options, the Brigger rocker, also for something like $600 and vaguely 80s somehow and reminds me of the ugly ones a little:

And the only other contender, in the classic and ultra-deep department, the Thonet knockoff, which at least is only $150:

So? What would you pick?

Art: Clarence H. White

2007-10-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

When I saw this photograph (via Le Divan Fumoir Bohemian, so apropos for a rainy day), I was amazed to read it was taken in 1902. Some of the other photographs are obviously more dated, but whoever this photographer was, he really took a great photo with this one, in my opinion! It makes me want to run out and take the same one myself, with my favorite oversize fishing buoy, only I don't know any kids this age...yet!

Enjoy the rain!

Quick Post: Cutie Owls!

2007-10-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Today was my lucky day - my commute was blocked by an overturned semi so I got to spend the day at home cozy in the rain, and feeling humanly cheerful instead of queasy I even found a new blog to read while I was cleaning out my inbox. These little raku owls were right on top!
I like the philosophy of raku, and I thought the artist who created these owls had some sweet things to say about always creating 'families' of his little birds. (Family being more at the front of my mind than usual these days!)

Happy garage sale finds

2007-08-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

I like garage sales. The really good garage sales, where you find cool old stuff for fifty cents. But the truth is, at least in my neighborhood, those kinds of garage sales are what I hope for more than what I really come across.

But the last time I went looking, we lucked on an elderly couple cleaning out their garage in the dense fog. They were in a chatty mood, and going all out to convince us to buy some stepping stones the husband made himself with gravel and concrete.

I settled on taking home a large blue picture frame and an old yoke for $10, humming a happy I-found-a-good-garage-sale tune.

I scrubbed the frame to clean it off and distress the painted parts a little more. Now all I need is a piece of glass and cardboard backing!

I'm going to hang two flower pots from the rings of the yoke, outside on the patio. It must be really old - I can't even fathom how long ago it has been since livestock would have been walking around with yokes where I live - but it is in very sturdy shape all the same.

At first I thought geraniums, but now I think something trailing would be more interesting. It isn't a huge yoke, so I'll have to find smallish plants.

Those are my happy garage sale finds! It happens so rarely, I just had to share, because I still feel like humming a tune every time I see them!

Five months later...

2007-08-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have a tee shirt now that reads "I survived the last five months", sadly thanks in no small part to the many Air France air-sickness bags I pilfered from the seat pockets around mine.

Lots of people have advice on how to beat morning sickness, but if it worked it would be millionaire's advice. And I would be the first in line to buy the book.

So now things are, miraculously, thankfully, a little better, and I have three or four good days in a row and life is about like this:

I'm so glad the sunflower outside the nursery window is in bloom. It's only one flower, but it's big and cheerful enough to light up one whole side of our house!

Lookalikes: Recycled Wood Mirror at Anthropologie/Viva Terra

2007-05-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

This post is like internet insurance: online stores stop offering something I've loved and been saving for with heartbreaking regularity, so finding the exact same thing for sale in more than one place is like backup. Not to mention the handiness of seeing something styled differently on two different sites, to really help you decide if it is love at first site.

I like the thin profile of this mirror; I think it would fit near an opening door pretty smoothly, and it has a simpleness that could be friends with the funkyness in our tiny old house, with the hundred years of paint and mismatched angles. I like how it is a bit driftwoody and not your grandma's mirror. We have our tiny space in constant rehab when it comes to grandma fussiness; one grandma mirror in here, and POOF! Out she comes to play with us!

First, the Prahya mirror at Anthropologie, for $248:
Then, the Natural Edge Reclaimed Wood Mirror at Viva Terra for $195:

I don't know if the $50 price difference would come out in the wash once shipping is rolled in, but Viva Terra seems like a good company to support with their green-mindedness (before An Inconvenient Truth came out, even).

These are on my short list for a landing-strip mirror, what do you think?

Typography: A happier workspace

2007-05-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

I saw this photo in an article about the Lladro factory (they make those porcelain figurines - you know the ones), and the large, happy text in the background on the workspace wall really caught my eye:

I'm assuming the environment is kind of industrial where the painting goes on, so I liked seeing the cheery wall backdrop added in as a kind of inspiration. I can't tell from the photo what it says, but I imagine it to be a great quote that makes for nice company on days when the work gets long. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself, but I'm definately going to try it in my home office!

Art: That photo

2007-05-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks back, I posted about an imperfect photo I saw in a magazine spread years ago that started my interest in photos the way they were in the 60's. I finally tracked down the original image that caught my attention in my magazine clippings; here it is:

It was from now-defunct Organic Style magazine, about five years ago. The photo was unattributed; I've looked for similiar photographs and few of the ones I found are listed in my post on imperfect photos.

Lighting: Pantop Floor Lamp

2007-05-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

I like this floor lamp because it looks like it has a sense of humor. Like someone wearing a lampshade, or one of those mushrooms from Fantasia. And (I can't believe I'm saying this) it is one of the more reasonably priced items at Twentieth, for $599.

I can't believe I've reached the grim reality where $599 for a lamp sounds reasonable. I had no idea when we removed the hideous faux-brass plastic trimmed variety of ceiling lamps in our tiny house that nice replacements would run into the hundreds. Or, say, thousands. The paper lanterns we have until I find nice AND cheap replacements are really growing on me, actually, but clearly so is reality.

Voila, a 'reasonable' floor lamp!

BLOGGER ISSUES

2007-05-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Blogger is having issues resolving custom domains today. Hopefully it will be fixed soon; in the meantime, you might not be able to access this blog at www.petitecapucine.com; instead try www.petitecapucine.blogspot.com for now.

Art: Do-it-yourself Block Prints

2007-05-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

As you probably have guessed, I'm a big fan of block printing. I like that it is obviously handmade, and I recently did a post giving props to the artisans (often in India) who create fabric in such a labor-intensive way.

Well, if you want to find out exactly what is involved, I found some directions for doing it yourself at Le Journal des Femmes.

The directions are in French, but a pass through Babel Fish would probably get you the gist of it, given that the photos are pretty descriptive. (If you're really stuck on a step, email me and I'll give you my translation.)
Image Source: Le Journal des Femmes
I think theirs turned out really well - I'd like to think anybody could get results like this, but I'm a bit suspicious of pro crafters vs. the rest of us:

Image Source: Le Journal des Femmes
If you try it, send your thoughts on the outcome!

Mini-post: Weathered Letter "R"

2007-05-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

I can't guess what the story is with this vintage letter R - maybe it came from a sign? Maybe it was practice work? Who knows? The letter vaguely reminds me an uncial form; it's more calligraphy-inspired than typeface-inspired, I think, which is an added bonus.

Just one vintage letter, available for all you R-initial people or alphabet collectors at Bluebell Bazaar on Etsy for $24:
It is an old lettering style - R is for Renaissance, maybe! The description says it is about 8 inches high - perfect for a windowsill, like the Routemaster Numbers!

Bird Vases

2007-04-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

If you're going to exchange your mirror for a view, you'll need these little bird vases. After I posted about the philosophy of 'going without' a mirror, the little glass birds attracted attention as much as the idea did.

I've found similiar ones on the internet, should you need to bring a little of the outside in:

Now you're ready to just throw that mirror away!

Rope drawer pull

2007-04-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

Geraldine Omarini customized this little cabinet; it's quite cheerful, but what caught my eye was the rope drawer pull. I've seen it before, but seeing it on this cabinet reminded me it is a good alternative to knobs. I've got a beat-up old cabinet that would be perfect for this, it already has the holes where knobs used to be.

The best use of rope I've seen was as a handtowel holder in a bathroom, threaded through two brass loops (if I find the photo again, I'll post it!), an ingeniously soft space-saving way to hang a towel within reach and without risking bruising.