Friday Night Follies, This Friday, April 3rd, 6-8pm.

This Friday, April 3rd, 4 antique/vintage furniture shops (including, of course, yours truly) will be participating in a joint sale/walkabout/wine&snackfest that I have dubbed, in shockingly original fashion, "Friday Night Follies"! Participating (in order, south to north) will be:

Bernadette Breu Experience, 1336 SE 6th Ave (corner of 6th & Madison, www.bernadettebreuantiques.com) featuring an endless array of fabulous antiques and decorative items);
Denali International (1338 SE Grand, featuring imported Chinese furniture, their new line of handmade industrial furnishings, and every now and then a vintage piece or two);
Janus Home (1324 SE Grand Ave, www.janushome.com, featuring World Class Vintage Furnishings) and
Simply Grand Antiques (1226 SE Grand Ave, www.simplygrandantiques.com featuring 10,000 SF of 19th-20th century European antiques).

For my part, everything in the store will be 20% off, with select merchandise up to 50% off! I don't know the exact specifics of what everyone else is doing as far as discounts go (although Bernadette mentioned 50% off lots of stuff), but regardless, it will definitely be worth your time to come down and come see what we all have to offer (and...um...drink some wine. On us. Not that we're bribing or anything).

The '80s Ain't Always Such a Bad Thing - Burl Bedroom Furniture by Hickory

Yesterday, I bought these two lovely pieces of bedroom furniture, produced by the Hickory Manufacturing Co., likely sometime in the 1980s. Hickory is one of those "Grand Old" American furniture companies along the lines of Baker or Thomasville that have been around forever (or since 1911, in Hickory's case) in one form or another. Today they are owned by uber-mega-conglomerate Furniture Brands International (which, incidentally, also owns Thomasville), but they still put out a very high end, quality product.

These dressers are a testament to the quality of furniture that Hickory produces, even in the "dark days" of the 1980s, when even many major "high end" furniture makers were turning out loads of processed particleboard crap. It should be noted that there is not a bit of particleboard in these pieces - they are made of 100% solid wood (veneered, of course, but solid wood under the veneer). It should also be noted that the long dresser, despite its lack of particleboard (which is much heavier than regular wood) is INCREDIBLY heavy, easily 200 lbs if not more. If the current prices of Hickory's furniture is any indication, these pieces must have cost thousands of 1980s dollars when they were new.

The finish on them is good - but boy, would they be stunning if they were refinished. I can see the wood bleached and clearcoated, and the hardware darkened, or perhaps have the hardware chromed and refinish the wood dark. Either way it would be worth it, as these are stylish, attractive, bombporoof pieces of furniture that will literally last a lifetime any way you cut it.

Pair of Hans Wegner for Johannes Hansen folding chairs

I knew these chairs were good...but I had no idea HOW good! I figured the pair was good for a few thousand bucks, maybe a little more...turns out that two pairs have sold in the last two years at the Wright 20 auction for $22,800! Odd that both sets should sell for the exact same amount, but there you go. Interestingly enough, there's ANOTHER pair set to sell at Wright this Tuesday! The estimate is $10000-15000, I'll be very curious to see what they actually go for. Here's a link to the listing on my website, and here are some more photos of the lovely specimens.

Before and After Stories

I think that the most fun part of my job is taking burnt-out husks of vintage furniture that just happen to have great lines, and breathing new life into them, readying them for another 50 years of life on the planet (and diverting them from clogging up a landfill)! I've collected a few "before and after" stories for your perusal here. The first is a pair of Hollywood Regency style slipper chairs that I picked up at a local consignment store. Many times when I buy pieces "as is", I don't really have any grand plans for what they will eventually turn into. However, these chairs were an exception - I pretty much knew from the get-go that I wanted to refinish the frames dark and reupholster them in a fancy high end fabric. I went through a few options, but the Italian cut velvet that I picked seemed to be the obvious choice (you can even see that I had a swatch of it laid out on the chairs before they were reupholstered). I was really happy with how they turned out, and they sold pretty quickly.

Next up we have a pair of Danish chair frames that I bought in Austin, TX along with a bunch of other stuff. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with these. However, I figured that since I hadn't paid much for them, I wanted to go a bit out on a limb and do something a little "different". I had them lacquered white, and awhile after that, I found this Clarence House linen on deep discount at an online fabric retailer, and thought "that would be PERFECT for those white chairs!" I hadn't really counted on the fact that they would end up looking like beach balls, but what the hell. I still think they're pretty cool. My designer friend/client Martie Accuardi said "I would totally buy those if I had a beach house project!" Taking Danish modern to the beach - what will they come up with next?

Looking for Partners to Feature on janushome.com

I'm looking for local PDX retailers who sell things that I don't sell, but that would fit in with the Janus Home design aesthetic (clean, modern, sustainable) to feature on the Janus Home website. The idea is that we would do a photo shoot at Janus Home using Janus Home's furniture, and integrate these other things into the shoot to round out the look. There would then be text explaining where the pieces came from, and a link on janushome.com leading to the vendor's website.

We will be shooting four different "rooms", each in a different style. We are planning on shooting the following looks - "clean" modern, "family friendly" modern, industrial loft, and Hollywood Regency - but nothing is set in stone. There will likely be some intermixing of the looks as well, just to keep things interesting.

I hope this makes sense - if there is confusion, please feel free to shoot me an email and I will try to explain further.

Stravacado Salsa

OK, OK, I know this is not a food blog...and I'm not trying to make it one. I'm just so fired up about this salsa that I had to share it with the world (or...er...the 7 people following me). Anyway, this all came up because I had to go to the store to get lentils and diapers. So I went to New Seasons, which is pretty much the best grocery store one could hope to live 3 blocks away from. Sometimes they have a little sample treats stand set up near the entrance of the store, and this evening they were sampling a Strawberry-Avocado Salsa. I tried it. It was yum. I tried it again just to make sure. I was not mistaken the first time. I remembered that we had a bowl of strawberries at home that looked like they were on there way out and were just dying to be turned into salsa...so a plan was made.

This stuff is amazing, I can't stop eating it. The recipe below will make enough to feed a small army. I made 1/4 the recipe (using 1 avocado instead of 4), and made a decent sized bowl that would probably be enough for most small gatherings (I thought about it for a minute, and, well, I DID get this recipe at a grocery store, so OF COURSE they want you to buy 3 pints of strawberries and 4 avocados). Anyway, without further ado, here is the recipe:

3 pints of strawberries
4 ripe avocados
1 red onion
2 limes
1 jalapeno
1 bunch of cilantro
Salt to taste

Mash your avocados in a bowl. Chop your strawberries, onions, cilantro and jalapeno and mix in with the avocado. Squeeze the limes in there. Salt to taste. Dig out your favorite bag of tortilla chips. Prepare yourself for an addictive snacking experience.
*DON'T* do like I did and make up the salsa while you're waiting for dinner to finish cooking, and then eat so much of it that you don't want dinner anymore.

Thank You John Birch

Sold the desk chair less than 24 hours after I listed it on eBay. Thank you John Birch (if you don't know, and there's no particular reason that you should, John Birch runs a shop in NYC called Wyeth and is one of the top dealers of high end mid century design in the country). This means that either he just liked it a whole lot, or I screwed up and it's some rare design from someone important. Whatever, I sold it fast and made a nice profit, that's what counts.