Giant Balls Of Light

Snow? A recent memory.

Now that is has receded the yard is cleaned up and patio set up. The grass is becoming greener by the day. 

Mme T acquired these lights to brighten the night when the sun is needed elsewhere.

Skywalk

We've had so much snow this year that The Girl discovered a new place to play...

On top of the hedges. Of course The Dog had to check it out as well. He'll follow her anywhere.

More than a few cars slowed down in wonderment.

There Is a Lotte Light That Will Never Go Out

Well not again anyways.

Ok here's the totally true story.

The weather (snow) was moving in so I left for work a bit early this morning and as such the traffic wasn't bad nor were the conditions. As such I had some time to take a look around. Cruising past some town homes what do I see poking out of a recycle bin sitting curbside? Naw, can't be...yep that looks like a Lotte Bostlund shade.
Car quickly into park, I jump out and I find that shade is attached to the rest of a beautiful little lamp. Lucky! Lucky!
Back in the car with my lamp find now riding beside me I let out a resounding Woo hoo! to rival Damon Albarn on Blur's Song 2.

Who throws out a be-you-tee-full lamp like this?

It's not my problem
It's not my problem
Woo hoo!

Börk Börk Börk!

A beooteeffool Svedeesh drup leeff teek desk veet ooek legs .

It ves cufered in 50 yeers ooff greeme-a. Nutheeng a leettle-a Moorphy's ooeel sprey und medeeoom steel vuul cuooldn't hundle-a.

Zee bunk ooff drevers sleede-a in gruufes su thet zeey mey be-a puseeshuned oon zee lefft oor reeght seedes. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

Toonz

 

The Boy strums while his pal belts it out at the school dinner.

Jacks!

Jacks! No not the Japanese psychedlic rockers. These knucklebones right here.

 Kids love 'em, adults love 'em. Whether you use them as doorstops, bookends or just as an object sitting on your table these giant 6 or 9 inch iron numbers garner attention.

Bill Curry fashioned them in the 60s for his company Design Line. They say (who are they anyways?) imitation is the best form of flattery so Bill (rest his soul) should be flattered as they've been copied a number of times in the decades since.

Old Shred Sleds Club

Just added a 1991 Kemper Freestyle 165 to the lineup.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Paintings came down or move around. Sofas change rooms. A constant game of musical chairs played by actual chairs. Teak replaces walnut. Teak displaced by rosewood. Danish pendant fixture by Italian sputnik.

Some people move houses. We change furniture. 

Here's a couple photos of the main living area of Vingt circa January 2013.

Best Seat In The House

Well, best chair beside the fireplace anyways.

Designed in 1958 by Soren Georg Jensen who was a talented sculpter, silversmith and later creative director for his father's company. Thankfully he tried his hand at furniture design because this little rocker is a gem.

We came upon it in a state of poor repair

but knew that it needed nothing more than a little TLC (well a bit more than a little) and some new fabric.

Insider's tip: If you have buttons on your upholstery job get them (the buttons) pressed by a pro upholsterer. A heavy fabric will pop apart the regular buttons found at a fabric shop in no time. Then you have to redo. A real pain when your seat is hand stitched like this one.

Bing Dreaming

The last few years have been touch and go but Christmas 2012 was awesomely white.

We strung lights but they're buried! You can faintly see them at night.

The hedges are covered in melted marshmallows.

What Is The Light?

We were decided to make a whirlwind trip to T.O. on boxing day (December 26th).

Prior to the trip Mme T perused the local kijiji's along the way because well, you never know.

She lucked out, made arrangements to meet along the way and a beautiful mid century Italian chandelier passed from previous owner to us in a snowy restaurant parking lot.

Later in the week we lowered and retired our Danish pendant

And polished and hung our new beauty.

Mme T did a little digging and discovered this cosmic explosion was designed in the the 1960s by Gaetano Sciolari.

It looks amazing with silver bowl (chrome top) light bulbs to direct the light back on the fixture itself.

Peter Piper Picked

A Quistgaard peppermill to add to our collection.

Monkeying Around

Cute little guy isn't he? I found him lying on a workbench in a dimly lit basement at an estate sale.

This monkey is a Japanese cousin to Kay Bojesen's timeless original from his Zoo Series.

For now he's sitting quietly and happily in the dining room but if he disappears we'll know where to look. He'll prolly be up to some sort of hijinx with The Girl. She took a hankering to him as soon as he came through the door.

Loungin'

As Guru said "Everybody knows they have times, When they wanna just lay back, Kick their feet up, y'know Listen to some good music and just lounge..."

We recently found a pretty perfect lounge chair for that at a Vacating My Condo Sale.

This is a 1959 Svend Langkilde designed recliner for SL Mobler. We tightened it up and gave the teak a little spit shine and it's now tip top again.

 It's got a classic look with it's curvey arm.

With a simple lift of the seat back it slides down and latches into a more reclined position.

Which is the perfect position when paired with music spun on this.

 

Got Someone Else To Do Our Bidding

We saw this little chair in the listing for a local auction.

But it was on a Sunday, and there were so many other things we would rather be doing than sitting at an auction all day to bid on one chair.

So we called in an absentee bid.

And we won!

We picked it up and as suspected it was pretty cool and was well made but who was the designer? Who was the maker?

As The Girl would say "It's a mystery!"

Maybe it's time to call in these guys...

Or maybe a quick google image search will suffice.

It took a little digging but finally it popped up at the VintageFurnitureGuru.

It's a little teak and oak number designed by Borge Mogensen and produced by Soborg Mobelfabrik Denmark.

It needed a couple cords tied and a quick Murphy's oil and steel wool scrub to get rid of the Pearl Jam (grunginess).

Then we made it glow again with Howard Feed-N-Wax.

The little chair cleaned up nicely.

 

It's a keeper.

Stressless

Check out this awesomness.

Upright

Reclined

It's a first edition Ekornes (eh-korn-es) Stressless leather and chrome lounger with matching ottoman. It's super comfortable and now, after the complete spa package, it looks like a million bucks.

Billed as the original TV chair, it was designed in 1971 as the first recliner to meet ones body's need for movement and support when seated.

It's headed to the hometown to replace Dad's terribly uncomfortable yet loved (by him only) rocking chair that Mom's been trying to get rid of forever.

Too bad he didn't have it yesterday...it might have helped ease the pain from the (Cin-e-cetti as The Boy used to say) Reds loss yesterday.

How To: Make Old Leather Look New Again

Pictured above are the ingredients that made our worn leather chair in the previous post take on a showroom fresh look.

The first step is the leather preparation. Apply this to a clean and lint free cloth. Rub it all over your cushion, chair, whatever to remove all the built up wax, condtioners, dirt or what have you. Don't be too rough but no need to baby it either. You have to get the gunk out. Let it dry for 45 minutes or so.

 Next, using the sponge on a stick paint thing, paint your leather. Always go in the same direction, left to right and right to left.  Let it dry for 30-45 minutes. Now your going to paint it again, in the opposite direction (top to bottom) to better insure full coverage. Again, let it dry 30-45 minutes.

Now your leather should be looking good and it's time for the top coat. This will seal the dye into the leather, protect from spills and grime and give you the finish you desire. We choose a satin but glossy is available if you're into that. Pour the bottle of top coat into a container and with another paint sponge stroke it on.You've got to be quick here because it tacks up fairly fast.
The stuff we used went on like skim milk but becomes clear when fully dry. Only one coat is required of the top coat. Let it dry for 45 minutes to an hour.

Lastly you apply a leather conditioner. It's basically a mosturizer for leather to keep it soft and supple. Ours smelled like marzipan. So good!


That's it, that's all there is to it. It's an easy job which made for a dull (yet informative!) post.

Leather Living

Hans Olsen designed this chair for Vatne Mobler in the early 1960s. Rosewood and leather.

The curled arm detail is amzing and overall the wood is mint. The leather cushions on the other hand look like Fonzie's old motorcycle jacket.

On a tip, we visited a shop here that's been in business since 1890. The fine people at Zelikovitz were able to help us out with a four part process which involved a cleaner, a dye, a sealer and then a conditioner.

It turned out amazingly well so we moved it up to the living room.



 

Well worth the effort n'est-ce pas?

Back In Black

They're doing a complete reno to the floor above me at The Office and I was able to score a nice set of cabinets to replace the mish mash of grungy white upper cabinets and the flimsy dresser that were previously in the garage.

The brass knuckle style handle pulls are pretty tough.

Having the extra storage and work area is amazing and the best part is that it perfectly matches the tool box!

Bones Brigade Video Show

We made a spur of the moment trip to Montreal hoping to catch the Bones Brigade: An Autobiography premiere.  It's an epic flashback focused on some of the top dudes from back when I started rolling around on planks of wood in the 1980s.

 Tickets were free (and limited) so we arrived early expecting a crowd. We beat the rush and scored these.

These guys were cruising around.

Montreal's own PLG stopped by to check out the show.

Tony Hawk? No big deal.

Rodney Mullen was hanging in the lobby.

Afterwards, BlkTop Project (Ray Barbee, Chuck Treece and Tommy Guerrero) took to the stage and played into the wee hours.