Shopping

I bought a rug for my apartment this weekend (this is not it!). Actually, somebody bought me a rug, but I helped pick it out. In my head, I was envisioning something like this picture, but I ended up with something very different (and rather less exciting). While this whole blog might seem like a monument to consumerism, in fact I buy very little for my apartment and very reluctantly. I certainly can't manage that constant rotation and reinvention of furnishing that I see in many of the blogs I admire. I am cheap, cautious, and I want everything I buy to last for the rest of my life. That's not the stuff that brilliant rooms are made of.

Ah well. This is my 1,000 post at Roseland Greene. How'd that happen?

from Dos Family

Too much art?

I love these pictures of artist Nick Cave's art-filled apartment. I seem to have once again went out and bought more art, even though I long ago ran out of wall space (unlike Cave, I don't live in a 3,500-square-foot loft). I've reached the point of having to take something down to put something new up, and as I have a sentimental attachment to almost everything, it's damn difficult (none of the art is financially valuable). I tend to be super pragmatic and sensible about buying anything else for my apartment, but art is my weakness.

Silly decorating problems.

from T Magazine

Istanbul, hotels and shopping

I received a request this week to say a little more about the "commercial" aspects of my May trip to Istanbul (see previous posts here and here), and I always meant to do so, I'm just a little late! I stayed in two different hotels, in two very different neighborhood, and at different price ranges. First I stayed at the Hotel Nomade in Sultanahmet. And this was my view at breakfast every morning (OK, I took these photos at dusk, but you get the idea). From the rooftop terrace I had a beautiful view of the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya and the Sea of Marmara beyond. I think just about every little hotel in Sultanahmet boasts a similar rooftop terrace and that was a major reason I wanted to stay in the area. I can't tell you what pleasure it was to sit down to breakfast every morning and drink it all in (the breakfast itself was pretty great too!).

While the common areas of the hotel were very nice (they have redecorated since the web site's photos were taken), the little room I stayed in felt very much like a budget hotel room (which in fact it was). But the staff was helpful and all the major sites were just steps away (as were all the tourists and all the touts — the drawbacks of this neighborhood).

After five days at the Hotel Nomade, I crossed the Golden Horn and moved into the House Hotel Galatasaray. This neighborhood had a completely different feel — all galleries, antique shops and stylish little cafes. Very few tourists. The hotel was housed in a gorgeous old building that had been lovingly restored. Given that some of the area's noble structures were literally falling down, it was nice to see something preserved.

But the real draw for me was that the hotel was designed by Autoban, the genius design team behind this apartment and some amazing, expensive furniture (some of which is available stateside at De La Espada). Seyhan Özdemir and Sefer Cağlar are major players in the city's design scene and have designed a whole series of cafes (I ate at the one in Ortaköy) and hotels around the city. Needless to say, this place cost double the Hotel Nomade. (This picture is of the entryway. The chandelier is an Autoban design. I had two of them in my room!)

All of the rooms in the hotels are "suites" with an inner and outer room. I was just in a "junior suite," so both my rooms were pretty narrow, but I must confess, I thought the division of the space added some intrigue and glamour. As you can see, all the furnishings are super neutral, and the color palette is strictly limited. This is not a look that I would want in my home, but I def appreciate it in a hotel. It's a stylish cocoon.

There was also a shower in the bedroom. I don't really understand why having baths and showers outside of the bathroom is considered a luxury, but that's clearly the way of the world now, so I guess I have to roll with it.

And once again, there was a great view at breakfast (that's Galata tower in the distance). BUT, some caveats, considering the price of the hotel... First, the windows in my room looked out on a brick wall. I figure only two rooms in the hotel are so situated, so it's possible to avoid this when you book. Second, there was an outdoor cafe abutting the back of the hotel that was quite loud at night (the Hotel Nomade also overlooked an outdoor cafe and was equally loud). And lastly, there is no elevator in the hotel and the breakfast room is on the top floor. But I'm not too fazed by view-less rooms, noise or steps, so none of these things was a dealbreaker for me.

A brief word about a hotel I didn't stay in: the Splendid Palas in Büyükada (a view from the front porch in this post). The exterior is postcard perfect and the interior has this bygone charm that's been atmospherically preserved. Hercule Poirot would have stayed here. After I poked my head in, I told my friends, "next time I come to Istanbul, I'm staying here!" Büyükada would be a great place for an overnight escape from the city.

The reception desk.

Wrapping this up! Shopping! Go to Istanbul Modern! It's a great museum with a great gift shop, full of local products and interesting posters.

Before I left for the trip I toyed with the idea of buying a carpet or suzani, but ultimately I bought what I usually do when I travel: art! It's lightweight and flat! And I bought a piece at the Grand Bazaar. That turned out to be a much more low-key affair than the guidebook had warned about, but I think it's the carpet sellers who are really aggressive.

I'm very happy with my drawing (seen here in the gold frame on my art wall). I can walk by it everyday and remember a wonderful trip.

We now return to our regularly scheduled interiors blogging.

Guest post at Remodelista

There's a post about my super-cheapo framing job at the ever-fabulous Remodelista today. Go check it out!

Random art notes

One of my big Christmas presents this year was getting this Nigel Peake print framed. I own a number of his prints, but this is by far the largest. I'm still looking for a framer that has better taste than me, however (and that's not, sadly, a comment on my great taste). Leaning up against it is this beautiful Beatrice Alemagna book I bought in Paris. I love the book, but it's too big to fit in my bookcase. So I'm going for "the layered look," I guess.

While professional framers are always a little disappointing, I maintain a fondness for this cheap-n-dirty frame job, which somehow speaks to the '70s New York hippie part of my aesthetic. This is: a cheap store-bought frame, a mat cut out of black construction paper, and a trimmed paper bag (that once had a book in it!). I kind of love it, and if I wanted to ditch it tomorrow, it would have cost me nothing.

Not costing me nothing, was my sole purchase from my recent trip to Prague. I bought this little Pavel Janák box at the gift shop to the Museum of Czech Cubism. I think it was a visceral response to all the hideous souvenirs on sale in Prague. It's completely unnecessary, but awful nice to look at.

Apartment update

It's remarkable how easy it is to fall out of the blogging habit. Sigh. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things, because really — obsessing over interior design is no worse than a lot of the other ways I can waste time on the internet.

So... here's my new bookcase! Picked up on the street! Regular readers know that I'm a little obsessed with the idea of finding great things on the curb (which explains why I have a thing in my apartment). The sad truth is that I've always been very snobby about this type of bookcase — "books aren't meant to the stored on their sides!" — and yet here we are. The fact is that my existing bookcase was already completely double-layered and I hated that half my books were hiding. (Now I know I could get rid of some books — but I have bit of a hoarding problem, I think.) The opportunity of bringing my books back into the light, while not taking up much room in my little apartment, FOR FREE, was too much to pass up. Plus red lacquer!

The bookshelf was so heavy I had to carry it home in two trips (one for the base, one for the shelves). Aside from a big scratch on the foot, it's in pretty good condition. Still, I was nervous about it holding too much and so I just put my travel books (which are mostly paperbacks) in it. Art books would be prettier, I know.

Does anyone know who makes it? Is it from IKEA? I was completely stumped by these holes in each shelf, since they don't seem to correspond with any support mechanism inside. I just have to take comfort in the fact that I've had it for nearly a month now, and it hasn't collapsed.

Now that I've got my long-sought floor lamp, I've realized that the next big thing my apartment needs is a paint job, which is very hard to get excited about. People tend to talk about painting like it's the easiest thing in the world, but in a studio apartment that's packed to the gills, it's an intimidating proposition. If I ever paint (or get it painted) then maybe I'll finally rearrange my art wall.

Epic post over.

Thing update

In other apartment news, I spray-painted that thing black, making it the second black shiny thing to show up at my apartment this week. No question that I prefer the black to the faux-bronze look it was sporting before, but I'm still not 100% sold. In the meantime, it's keeping my Noguchi lamp company.

Welcome home baby

My new floor lamp has finally made it to my apartment. It's a Jieldé Loft floor lamp in shiny, shiny black. I've had my eye on this lamp for a long time and even featured one in my second-ever post here at Roseland Greene. I am very happy with it!

And I was able to find someone to adopt my old lamp, so I don't have to worry about it crying on the curb.

The thing...

My hotly anticipated new floor lamp has been delayed, so I thought I'd dredge up another apartment-related issue. And that's ... this thing.

What is this thing? Well, this is a thing I picked up out of a trash can in Brooklyn last year. I've long been seething with jealousy at those people on Design*Sponge who are always finding Knoll credenzas and Finn Juhl chairs on the street and I can't help wondering why that never happens to me. Perhaps this sense of inadequacy made me overly eager to pluck this metal branch from its fate and carry it home (plus, it was easy to carry). I had this idea that I would paint it a super high-gloss black and it would be this cool sculptural thing in my apartment. But the months have passed and I haven't done anything with it (I know this photo is really old because it predates my CD organization project).

So, I ask you, my few readers, to give me your opinion. Is this thing hideous, tacky and useless — and should be returned to the ash heap immediately? Or, if I were going to give it a black lacquer makeover — how exactly should I go about it? All responses welcome.

ETA: I've now learned it's a jewelry stand from Urban Outfitters (thanks Grace!), but my question still stands. Worth the effort?

Big news!

Well, big news for Casa Cassie, anyway. After despairing of ever finding a floor lamp that I liked and was in my price range, I've gone and bought one. My new lamp should make it home next weekend. The source was the late, great Conran Shop, which is closing its 59th street store and moving into ABC Carpet (a move that fills me with suspicion, but that's a different topic). So I trudged uptown, not really expecting to find anything worthy at the promised "75% off!" But I did. I bought a lamp, by a classic name, for 75% off. And it's a new lamp, not a floor model. This stuff never happens to me! Now I have to find a way to make the rest of my apartment worthy of this very stylish new addition.

But why the Ikea ad? Well, because I can't help but feel bad for my cheapo old lamp, which has been holding fort for at least ten years now.
Arts and Crafts isn't really my style, but I will miss the warm glow of the glass shade. And the two bulbs cast more light than their usurper (which only has one bulb) will. But I will not miss the way the whole thing wobbled and clanged every time you turned it on and off.

On the whole, I'm pretty confident the new one will be "much better."

My Thanksgiving project

First off, a warning! This is NOT a beautiful interiors post. This is a warty real life post. I might have mentioned on a few occasions my quest to find some good-looking CD storage. That was because I have a bit of a CD-buying problem (yes, I know. I'm an old-fashioned girl). Here's the dire result:

BEFORE. Two teetering piles dwarfing my little stereo! I thought that what I needed was pretty simple, yet I couldn't find it anywhere. But then I finally decided that what I needed was so simple, I could build it myself! Now I know that's an obvious conclusion in the DIY blogosphere, but I'm really not a DIY sort of person. I'm just not that handy. Plus, I live in a studio apartment and have no room to work on anything. But the Thanksgiving weekend brought me out to the suburbs, and my aunt has a workroom in her basement, so I was able to build this:

Considering I hadn't done any wood shop since Junior High, I'm quite pleased with the result! Originally, I was just going to leave the wood natural, but my aunt produced some spray paint and varnish, and I ended up with this two-tone look. I liked it better in my aunt's basement. The black sides get lost here, and the wood doesn't match the lightly stained piece below. All the same...

AFTER. Considerable improvement. In fact, the CDs (alphabetized, that's what was going on in the top picture) sit so nicely in my new shelves, that now I think I have to build a shelf into the unit I have underneath. So, we're not quite shelter mag-worthy, although I tried a classic shelter mag trick and had a houseguest pose with the new look:

She was unimpressed, but I'm happy.

It has arrived.

My Noguchi lamp from the Conran shop sale was finally delivered, and I've set it up. No question it's an improvement over what used to be there, but it does feel like it needs a little something. We'll see.

Here's the lamp on the other end table. I bought this lamp over 10 years ago at Bed Bath & Beyond for $30. Black wooden base. Woven shade. Switch under the bulb. It's held up pretty well! And I never saw such a nice lamp at BB&B again.

Art question

So, on my epic trip to Buenos Aires, I bought some original artwork (unframed) in a gallery. It's a pencil drawing and a portrait, but upon getting it home, it looks very pale to me. In the gallery, the artist's works were all set in white mats in white frames. They looked airy and beautiful. However, I've pretty much made a commitment to black and dark wood frames in my home (an outdated photo of my art wall here). So should I go with a wood frame and a brown/beige/taupe mat? A black frame with a white mat and a black bevel? A black mat? Decisions, decisions. It's a quality piece and I want to frame it right. Any thoughts?

Photo above is not my home, unfortunately, but it does have some pale artwork. (And what looks like a Christian Dell lamp over on the right.)

from Patric Johansson

The Garland light

I enjoyed this Door Sixteen post about hanging her Tord Boontje Garland light (shown above looking lovely in its daytime and nighttime incarnations at Anna's house). I well remember becoming so obsessed with this lamp via British decorating magazines, and then triumphantly bringing one back from a trip from England. Of course, six months later, they were selling it in the States and it didn't seem quite the coup.

Oddly enough, I don't actually use it as a lamp. Instead, I wrapped it around "George" — my perpetually rusting garden statue that was the first slightly extravagant purchase I made for my apartment (before I actually moved in!). He's a bit tacky, I guess, but I maintain an affection for him. And I like to think that the Garland makes him a little more modern and a little less retirees-in-Florida.

Here are a couple old pictures that show it with sunlight hitting it.

Goodbye

Yes, goodbye my television, you worthless relic! And goodbye my VCR and DVD player! You are heading to the ash heap of history. But I'm not buying any stinking converter boxes, and I'm not getting lousy cable. I am going to live TV-free!

(Well... actually, I am going to rely strictly on my computer (which has a bigger screen anyway) for all my television needs. But TV-free sounds more noble!)

But what does this mean in decorating terms? It means that I have cleared up some valuable space in my little apartment, and I can buy a table lamp!

I can go for the cheapie place holder: the LYKTA from Ikea ($12.99).

I could support a designer from my 'hood (even though he's dead) and try a Noguchi Akari Light Sculpture ($105).

There's the superslick Miss K by Philippe Starck ($288).

Or the fun, yet timeless Jielde Signal lamp ($450). But not in turquiose. Actually, I'm just including it because I think it's such a great lamp — it really wouldn't look right in my space.

And then there's my longstanding obsession, the Bestlite ($549). The table lamp is actually nicer than the floor lamp, which I've had my eye on forever. Plus it's almost $300 dollars cheaper!

Unlike the Arne Jacobson ($812!). I'd rather pay $882 and get a floor model, thank you very much.

So there are some options. I'm thinking about it.

Neisha Crosland

I still maintain a fondness for Neisha Crosland patterns. See a paler version of "Merlin" in a previous post here.

I own a pillow made from "Rosa" (see below).

Goodness, my own humble apartment looks especially sad next to the pictures I like to post!

top shot from Jac De Villiers

New antiques

I've bought two antique frames!

Here's a clear picture (I just liked the color quality of the flashless shot above). I replaced the photo that came in the frame (not as old as the salesman said, I'd wager) and with a picture from the bottom of a cardboard box of old family photos. My mother (owner of the box, pulled out of basement storage) isn't sure who the men in the photo are, but she knows the dog's name is Shep.

Here is the second frame. I slipped in a little print I'd bought from Nigel Peake. I like the combination. This frame has no glass or back, however, so I have to decide exactly how much I want to spend on this little project.

I'm predicting big changes in my art wall. Woo!