a new (vintage) idea

I know I've been absent from here. There hasn't been much work on the house - nothing much to report. To keep things semi-interesting what do you say we try something new? As mentioned before, we deal in vintage furniture/art/objects and have amassed a large collection over the years. I thought I'd post a story of two rare pieces, one we purchased to sell and one we've kept. Both have pretty interesting stories behind them. You are welcome to comment and let me know if you like/dislike this idea... because I have many more stories from the past decade of hunting.

Let's start with this piece:

Above is a vintage bar unit designed by James Mont. He and his matching larger credenza brother (both sold) recently came from an estate about 40 miles (not in NYC) from the Get To Fixin' house. What's so interesting about that you say? Well, upon speaking to the former owners, we were told that this cabinet and its mate originally came from Staten Island! The former owner said that her aunt had these pieces in her home (along with an entire matching dining set) and that her whole family lived on Staten Island when she was younger. She asked us where on Staten Island we lived and after responding St. George, she said, "my grandmother lived in St. George, on Stuyvesant Place!" To which we replied, "we know exactly where that is - we live on ________!" And she replied, "That's where my aunt's house was!" So yes, these two pieces were originally created by James Mont himself, for a house on OUR EXACT STREET! Crazy right?

And now, I'd like to introduce you to my favorite pair of vintage earrings:

These brass earrings were handmade by Harry Bertoia. I love their simple form and how they vibrate and spin with the slightest movement. I wear them from time to time, although they tend to get caught in my hair.

Bertoia is one of my favorite sculptors and furniture designers. I can't say I don't aspire to own a sculpture or two in the future but looking at my bank account I can certainly say it won't be happening anytime soon. The idea of two little Bertoia sculptures dangling from my ears thrills me every time I put them on.

I bought these 7 or 8 years ago at a tag sale in New Jersey. (Yes, that New Jersey. I love many parts of NJ [which I consider my home state even though I was born in and live in NY] and I've been seeing so much negative talk about the Garden State lately. We do not all behave like the people depicted on the that reality show ok? I think it's pretty obvious that being from one state or another doesn't automatically make someone a great person. I mean, I always thought everyone in Alaska must be awesome until I became aware of Sarah Palin.) Anyway, I was charged $2.00 for the pair. The woman running the sale looked at them in pure disgust (and flashed me a strange look too) after we decided that they were in fact made out of brass. She then ticked $2.00 off of the total after we tallied up all of our items. So in fact, they were free!

rambling...

Things have finally been happening around our house after a long pause. We've mostly been cleaning up the yard and planting some perennials around the house. At this very moment, we're having our upstairs hallway painted! I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to do this myself. I loathe painting. I promise to post some photos as soon as it's done - I'm not doing it so you know it will actually get finished! I can't wait to see it and to finally hang up the light fixture we bought for it many months ago.
New flowers in the window boxes:

New flowers in the hanging baskets:

My peony has buds on it this year. The roses are budding as well. The ferns are taking over everything in the front. Daffodils and tulips came and went - I planted huge white double tulips and they looked amazing. I'll have to remember to take photos next year!

I planted a few different varieties of allium last year: Globemaster, Gladiator, Drumstick and another that I've already forgotten the name of. I haven't seen the Globemaster or Drumsticks yet but I'm pretty sure that these are the Gladiator in front:

Oh and this crazy allium:

All of the bulbs came from my favorite nursery: Martin Viette.

Did I mention that we used to have a dirt patch directly in front of our house? Ever since the giant yew was dug up we've been wondering if we should plant some grass in front. I was against a lawn because I don't like all of the maintenance it entails - weeding, watering, mowing, etc. I finally gave in and allowed Fernando to put some seed down. This grass promises to use less water than the average lawn. It took a few weeks but we actually have a nice shaggy start:

So there's some dandelions and clover too. I hate the idea of poisoning the dirt with chemicals so when we can really start walking on it I plan to pull those out by hand. I do like the new grass (Fernando was right) - I wouldn't mind plopping down on it for a picnic.

Some more pretties from Martin Viette waiting to be potted:

We've also decided to replace some of the wood on our front steps. Last weekend, we sourced some boards that would be a good replacement and hopefully we'll get working on that with my Dad in the near future. I'm excited to have freshly painted stairs and not the multicolored mess we currently have. We just need to decide on house colors.
Another doorknocker:

The other one I had posted about just wouldn't fit. I can't wait to paint the door and hang this guy up... if he fits. It reminds me of the one at 10 Downing Street (spotted over at Katy Elliott):

How nice is that glossy black door? I like the idea of black and near black for trim on a brick house. Just like this one:

Anna over at doorsixteen posted this interior by Stephen Roberts a while back and it reminded me of how much I wish I could stack up logs like this in my living and dining room fireplaces:

I'm afraid that will never happen (without some crazy chopping, hammering and glueing) because our fireplaces are way too shallow. So I'm settling for some logs in the fire ring outside:

Winston chopped those for us from a tree in our backyard. What of the bamboo you ask? I've resorted to stomping on it as new shoots pop up out of the ground. We will never be rid of the root system. I'm hoping to keep it from receiving needed sunlight and that maybe it will eventually die off underground. I'll just have to keep that up for the next 150 years.

Introducing Merit + Worth Collection

Have I ever mentioned that Fernando is a vintage dealer?

Well, he has decided to set up a blog storefront over here: merit + worth. He'll be updating the blogshop weekly with all of his latest finds. Stop by and take a look to find unique vintage items.

lights! photos! but not much action.

I will be a very happy person when I don't have to look at primer covered walls anymore. As you can probably guess, our dining room is still not painted. The reason: the plaster crown molding still needs to be repaired. I think I've found a place that can replicate it, now I just have to trace it and order it and have it made and have it installed - one of these years. In the meantime we've hung some things on the walls and just most recently installed the ceiling medallion and new vintage light fixtures (so much nicer than bare bulbs.)

Cracked molding:

Hey, it's a little better than this:

"New" 1970's Barbini fixture and medallion:

Here's the newly refinished dining table (we still need to find chairs we like, so we're making do with these:)

A close up of the "new" fused glass sconces:

I would love to hear your color suggestions for the upstairs hallway - what's your favorite light to medium grey?

I'm taking color suggestions for the dining room too. At first I wanted a mossy, olive green - but it's a big commitment and I want to be sure. There are three landscape paintings hanging in there as well - all with gold and olive green tones. The adjacent living room is painted Benjamin Moore's Iced Cube Silver , so something that doesn't clash with that would be great. Or maybe it should just be the same color as the living room?
Iced Cube Silver:

And finally: if you're an admirer of vintage design you may want to check out Fernando's new blog storefront. It will feature a mix of furniture, art and decorative objects and it will (hopefully) be updated more regularly than Get To Fixin'. We'll be introducing it on Monday... so keep an eye out!

JUMBO post!

I wanted to share my lastest project - my newly wallpapered linen closet. Here it is without its shelves:

The walls in here were in less than nice condition and needed sprucing up. The "wallpaper" was actually made via Kinkos on a blueprint copier from vintage wrapping paper. I found the roll many months ago, when it was still cold out (February?) and joked about using it to wallpaper the little bathroom downstairs. When I opened the roll and actually saw how amazing the paper was, I knew I needed to use it somewhere.

I used the same wallpaper paste here that I did with the Woods wallpaper in the foyer. If you ever decide to do something similar I highly recommend using very little paste applied directly to the wall. I ended up rolling it on and wiping most of it off, after I ruined sheet number 1. I made a lot of copies so ruining a sheet or two didn't really matter and I have leftover to use as gift wrap. This paper is super thin and gets pretty wrinkly the second it gets wet. The finished product has some ripples but I still love it. Also - the trimming is best done when the paper is dry. The shelves are back in now; I had painted them white a hundred months ago after stripping a hundred years of contact paper off of them. Now, I think I'll paint just the front edges with the same paint I used on the closet trim. The paint (BM French Beret) was leftover from the bathroom (right next to this closet.)

The paper states that the engravings were taken from Dr. J(ohn) Jonston's (Joannes Jonstonus)
"Description of the Nature of Quadrupeds, Fish, Bloodless Aquatic Animals, Birds, Coiled Creatures, Snakes and Dragons" Amsterdam 1660 A.D. I love the way the drawings on the paper are arranged to interact with each other; like the baboon (?) catching the ostrich egg. I especially like this man faced bird thing with his old school wig hair:

John Jonston (whose name is a perfect example of when something is gained in translation) is also responsible for this piece of incredible:

And this piece of amazing:

Yes, I realize the man needs his own post.
Other things have been happening around Chez Fixin' too - like COUNTERTOPS! Teaser:

Alas, the kitchen is still not finished yet. There is a lot of painting to do, the trim needs a lot of help and yes, we need drawer hardware. I'm hoping to finish up around Christmas.

A new light fixture was purchased for the upstairs hallway. I'll be happy to not have a bare bulb hanging around anymore. That whole area needs some wiring help before the fixture can be mounted. We chose this:

See how nice it looks in the product photo hanging against that grey background? I want to paint the hallway area a similar color. The fixture is by Artemide and is called Logico. We chose the largest size (standard) in the ceiling version. It reminds me of an Alvar Aalto Savoy vase - just upside down. It weighs about a ton and a half and is still in the box for now. I hope that we'll be able to hang it up this weekend.

I also finally ordered a fixture for the living room too. It's not a Mouille fixture but I figured that I should have some light in the living room while I save up $6000+ for a light fixture (yes, I am joking.) I don't have it in hand yet but it looks like this only upside down and with a much thinner neck:

We also bought this vintage (Poseidon?) door knocker that I hope fits on our front door:

What else you ask? Well, the found wooden bench has moved upstairs to our bedroom where it fits nicely against the wall that was formerly a fireplace:

The foyer got a new Kagan style bench with green upholstery that fits exactly where I had always wanted a bench:

We also put a white laquered linen tray top table from Jonathan Adler next to the living room door to use as a catch all for keys, cell phones, glasses, owls and anything else Fernando tends to misplace:

The office has a new case piece where a pile of junk used to hang out:

We also added an IKEA FADO lamp to the back bedroom on our "rid the house of bare bulbs spree." Oh and I'm working on a guest bedroom. We changed the fixture in there to another white IKEA KULLA pendant lamp and just bought a new mattress and box spring. I have a great headboard over at my Mom's house that I have to pick up and few other things planned... but that's all for another super sized post.

i guess we could always slice it up and make some more benches?

I could use many excuses here as to why it's been so long since I've posted - we've been sick with the flu (swine flu?,) I've been taking a jewelry class over at FIT, last weekend we did the flea market so we could clear out some of the attic... etc. Really, there hasn't been much to blog about lately.
I had started a post all about the beach. But now it's Fall and totally irrelevant. Maybe I'll save it and put it up one day when we're freezing this winter. Yesterday we had our storm windows put up so that we hopefully won't freeze to death again this winter. We wanted to get the trim all painted before we popped in the windows but it looks like the trim work isn't happening this year. We'll most likely do it next Spring.

The person we hired used this incredibly long ladder and actually said that he was scared of heights!

I like the four paned windows much better than the two paned windows that are on the house - the third floor storm windows are just two paned.

So far we've noticed less noise from the street and less wind howling through the house. On Wednesday, when we had 50 mile an hour winds in NY, this happened:

If you guessed that that's a fallen tree from our yard that fell over into the neighboring house's yard, you are correct. We are very happy to report that the tree did no damage to our house, the neighboring house and (unfortunately) the icky chain link fence around our property. The only thing it did in our favor was take out some of the bamboo. Anyone need some firewood?

I keep saying "neighboring house" because currently, no one lives there. It is for sale and has been for a while. If you would like to be my neighbor - now's the perfect time. The price has been drastically reduced and the seller is selling for much lower than he paid. The house is huge, at 3 stories and it's around 15 or 20 feet longer than ours. I've never been inside. The seller had tried to flip the house when the market was good but his team of workers ditched him, he ran out of money and had to sell the house. Up until recently, the realtor with the listing had a non working phone number on the sign and when you called the office you only got a full voicemail box. People stop by all of the time and ask us about it because they can't get hold of the realtor. They finally added a working contact number so I hope it will sell soon. I feel really bad for that house.

So, do you want to see what I found recently? Yes FOUND! Would you throw this away?

I know these photos are a little dark but they were taken at night. It's a signed studio piece by Roy Sheldon.

It was a curb find. Someone put it on the curb! I almost hit the curb when I pulled over to grab it. It does not fit where I wanted a hallway bench but I'm using it here for now, until I find something that fits by the door. Then it will travel upstairs to our bedroom (no, you won't see it on the curb again anytime soon.)

what goes up and never comes down?

You know how people usually just wallpaper one accent wall in a room? Now I know why. This was hard. Really hard. There are 4 doors and a window in the area, lots of trim to cut around, some really uneven areas and of course the curved wall. Luckily, I had my Mom there to instruct me and help out along the way.

After the first mishap - applying the paste to the back of the wallpaper - I did my research on how to put it up. I settled on Roman's Golden Harvest Ultra Clear Adhesive Pro 880 paste. Cole and Son recommends using their own paste or a "pre-mixed wheat paste." I can't remember why I settled on the Pro 880 but it is recommended because it makes future removal easier. This is never coming down (at least for as long as I live here anyway.)

I'm not completely finished yet (this is around 15 hours of work, over two days!) I'm waiting to give the banister and newel post another coat of stain and some poly before I paper that area. Then I'll get to the finishing touches like above the door here:

We also finally hung our freshly painted Arteluce sconces. The ceiling fixture in here needs some adjustments and a special part to fit properly. No different than the rest of the ceiling fixtures in the house!

Yesterday we stopped in at the DWR store in Roslyn. I became smitten with the simple lines of their Shaker Settee. I would love it for underneath the sconces. The problem is it's 5 inches too wide for the space.

So, I guess I'm back to hunting around. I would really like to find something vintage since most of our furniture is vintage. We only have that chair in the corner at the moment to have somewhere to sit down to put on and take off our shoes.

In the slowest kitchen remodel ever news: we decided on a ceiling fan over a light fixture. I had a great vintage light fixture for the kitchen but Fernando thought we'd be better off with a ceiling fan since there's no circulation in there. I did a lot of hunting around to find something reasonable and not gross looking. I usually hate ceiling fans. I found the Minka Aire Concept I fan to be exactly what we were looking for:

It's up and installed already as of last weekend thanks to my Dad (who also bought it for us as an anniversary present.) I would definitely recommend it - it looks great, it's very well made and comes with anything you could possibly need to hang it up. It also has a remote control that we mounted inside the pantry. I'll post some photos soon when there's a little more progress in there!

do something pretty while you can...

It didn't rain on Saturday.
My Dad came by and hung these two window planters up for us.

I couldn't wait to see them with something in them so I packed them with some annuals - mostly pinks and alyssum.

I hope they fill in and get really lush. My favorites were these dark purple salvia:

I also popped the string beans I started from seed into the ground near the basement hatch.

Fernando did more toiling in the backyard, digging up bamboo and removing a huge rock pile by the fence. I should have taken a before and after photo of the rock pile. Here are the highlights: the before was ugly and the after is much, much better.

Our bamboo is doing really well (too well) and popping up all over the yard. I tripped over an overturned cobblestone from our patio on Saturday - there was a new bamboo shoot underneath trying to get out! Upon taking a closer look I realized there were four new shoots trying to get through the patio. We have huge runners running throughout the entire yard; this was a 5 foot length:

We have an accumulation of bamboo stakes and some pretty purple flowers blooming under one of the trees. Any idea what these are called?

There is a huge bunch of wisteria in full bloom too!

Fernando dug these up from the ground under the rock pile:

He came running around the front (I was planting the window boxes) when he found the first one. A few minutes later he came back with the other!

We think they might have originally sat on top of an elaborate iron fence but are not sure. I love them. I think they might end up on one of the fireplace mantels in the near future.