Thursday, April 26, 2012

MY TASTE IN HOME FURNISHING

DINING ROOM TABLE: Fortunately there are lots of good tables on the market, including vintage hardwood tables. If I were buying something new I might look for a thick, heavy, square (with extender), natural wood surface with a clear, not very shiny varnish...something like the one above, if it had legs. I'd change the lamp, though.

For dining room chairs...I can never decide what I like, so I'd have lots of different kinds of wooden chairs at the same table: a Western sheriff chair, a Van Gogh's Bedroom chair, a New England spinster chair, etc. 
LIVING ROOM CHAIRS: Danish Modern, of course. Mike has a couple of these and they look great.  You can get cheap ones made out of fabric and pine, or expensive ones made out of leather and hardwood. I like the cheap ones best because you can abuse them without feeling guilty about it, then replace them in a few years with something new and different.


I think Urban Outfitters is still selling this Danish Modern sofa for $200 on sale. That's a good price, even if it turns out to be a little flimsy. 'Better get your order in fast.

Urban outfitters also sells this Danish rocking chair (above). It's hard to find rocking chairs that rock the way they should. I'd want to try this out before buying it.



Of course, if you're going to have Danish Modern furniture, it would help to have a house like this (above).


Or this (above).



BEDSPREADS AND SHEETS: A nice dark quilt or Indian blanket or Guatemalan spread goes well with modern rooms. In the winter I like a down comforter. The sheets should be of good quality, ironed, and be super white. Good sheets are expensive, so be prepared to lay down some serious dough.



WALL DECORATION:  I'd put up framed art of all kinds and cartoons of course, but also pictures of space. I like the lure of the unknown, and I find it comforting to know that, while the rest of the universe is freezing and barren, that I'm on a warm, verdant world...in some ways a paradise.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Eddie! This has nothing to do with the post, which I apologize for, but it's really important. Basically, my mom keeps coddling me and treating me like a baby and I don't think she's able to accept the fact that I'm going to be 18 in a few months and that I'll have to start making adult decisions by then. She's just so afraid that something bad might happen to me in college so she's using her housing problem as an excuse to argue with me about going to an out of state school. My dad and sister are 100% supportive of my plans. What should I do?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Roberto: Aaaargh! I couldn't answer that without knowing the people involved.

My kid did his first four years in a local college, right here in town. I still hardly ever saw him, except for part of the Summer and at Christmas. You might go to an instate college and still not see your parents much. If you're not going to see them much anyway then you may as well go to the best college you can afford, even if it's far away.

I feel for your mother, though. You're lucky to have somebody who cares about you that much. College will corrupt you, but that might be unavoidable, even if you stay home.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That's an amazing response, even if you didn't feel like you could answer it as well without knowing my parents. I just didn't find any of these Georgia colleges, even the flagship school here, The University of Georgia (the school Jack Davis attended in the 1940s, pretty big following in the state and throughout the Southeast, mainly for the football team), attractive or viable to what I want to do with my future, though I am doing summer classes at a college in Downtown Atlanta for transfer credit, since I have a three month vacation when I graduate next month.

It must be a Northerner thing on my part, but I just wasn't convinced that they would give me any networking advantages. Besides, the college I'm going to gave me a lot of financial aid, well over half of it (in-state it would have been well over two thirds of the tuition with the kind of money they gave me), so I can definitely afford it overall.

Adam Tavares said...

Mid-century modern furniture is where it's at. I love simple designs made to last with all the right ratios.

Have you seen that documentary about Charles and Ray Eames that was released recently? I saw it a few months ago. You might like it... Here's the trailer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMzmuBBBzo