Todays Obsession: Vintage Bar Cart

Okay, you caught me. Today's obsession is something I already own. But I was obsessed with it (and it's various $3,000 sisters on ebay) for months before I found one that I liked and could afford at Hunted House on 14th Street. Walking into Hunted House is like stumbling onto the set of Mad Men. The store is set up in staged rooms on the top floor of an old row house, and each of them is an ode to Mid Century Modern furniture, but at prices I've never seen before. I checked the price tag on the bar cart (gasp: $150), looked away, blinked, and checked again. It's oh-so Mrs. Robinson. And now it's mine.



I have visions of a daily 5 o'clock cocktail hour, which will only happen if Chris tugs the bar cart behind him on a 15 block walk downtown and mixes me a drink while I yell "leave me alone I'm on deadline!"

I still have to set it up with some vintage wine glasses, linens and gourmet-sounding bottles like "cognac."

The Living Room

I'm trying to finish up the house tour, so here's the living room (at Jen's request), which I've been avoiding posting. We've got some work to do on this room, including painting the walls, getting a real coffee table, replacing the old K-Mart cabinet that we're using as our "media center" and deciding if we want to keep the armchair.





I got some paint samples last night (six actually -- those things are expensive!), so the walls are about to get a light-gray makeover.

Today's Obsession: Modern Wallpaper

We seem to be in the midst of a wallpaper revolution. Vive la Reforme! From designyourwall.com:



Fit for an elegant Parisian apartment (but at a bargain price):



This one might make a cameo in our entry hall next month:

The Balcony

Note: If the lady at the garden center says you need three bags of soil, you need six. She may be a nursery expert with a thumb so green it's gold, and I may be a dilettante with a ficus plant that has been dying for two years, but trust me on this.





Also, if you decide to try going somewhere closer to home to get the three bags of missing soil after work one night and call ahead and press "1" to hear the store hours, don't assume the urban hipster garden store will be open during above mentioned hours. It may decide to close at any hour, really, citing "heat." In July.

But don't you just love my whiskey-barrel planters? They were free!

The "Second Bedroom"

It's ludicrous to call this 6'11" x 8' closet a bedroom, but that's just what Castle Development did. We opted in, and now we're stuck with it.



It's clearly much better suited for an office, but I'm stubbornly insisting on making it a guest bedroom/office, because I just won't feel like a grown-up if we continue to make our visitors sleep on the L-shaped sectional in the living room (no matter how many times they proclaim it's "so comfortable" and that even if we had a bed they "would choose the couch anyway." I'm looking at you, Maggie).

How will I cram a queen-sized bed into the closet, you ask? And how could I possibly keep the desk in there if I did? Luckily, Nicole from Making it Lovely turned me on to this ingenious flip-out daybed from CB2, which she ordered for her slightly-less-closet-like guest room. I'm expecting it August 5th, in the Rust color.



If you were thinking the black monstrosity of an office chair doesn't really fit with our compact little West Elm desk, you're right. We originally brought home the white T-back leather chair in this West Elm catalogue picture, but it was marked up and the wheels did that thing that old shopping carts do when they try to pull you in several different directions at once.



So we asked for our $200 back and we're on the hunt for something equally sleek, comfortable and space-conscious. Suggestions welcome.

Today's Obsession: Vintage-Mod Chaise

Imagining this yummy, old-Hollywood style chaise in my living room perched cheekily next to my new vintage bar cart (subject of a future love-letter post) is making me a happy woman today. That, and my dinner plans. Happy Birthday, My Man.

It's Small, But It Sure Is Shiny

Our little kitchen might be the site of my very first DIY home decorating project. But not until we're able to walk in the front door without getting that sinking feeling that we are never, ever going to find storage space for the junk in the boxes that are languishing all over the Condo (notice how all of my posted pictures artfully conceal any hint of the surrounding rooms. Move junk out, take picture, replace).





But once we catch our breath, I'm playing with the idea of installing a modernish backsplash in some shade of red, or maybe dark gray. This one is just glass tiles placed over a painted wall -- love it.





I've been trying to find a picture of a backsplash that uses the small, red subway tiles that I noticed in one of the final episodes of Top Chef Season 4, when the chefs had to prepare their own recipes for diners at Taramonto's Steak and Seafood (does anyone else think the producers left Lisa in the running as part of some perverse viewer endurance experiment?). I loved that red and stainless steel kitchen. Here's a picture of the restaurant's seating area, which has the same dramatic-but-warm feeling as the kitchen.




This is the type of tile I'm talking about, but in a color that wouldn't work with our black granite countertops.




Of course, the whole thing could just be a pipe dream. My Man and I aren't really do-it-yourselfers. He even suggested hiring people to paint our walls (I'm tempted). But I can dream...