Dining room mock-up

Clockwise from top center: PH5 pendant lamp, at DWR; Modern drape rod, at Pottery Barn; Wool panel with grommets, at West Elm; Norden dining table, at Ikea; Rona stemware, at CB2; Ikea 365+ dinner plate, at Ikea; Spin napkin, at Crate & Barrel; Strand flatware, at Crate & Barrel; Fiberglass shell chair, at Modernica; Wegner Wishbone chair, at Room & Board

After Thanksgiving, I've really had the desire to make my dining area look more put together. Our dining room shares space with my painting studio and it has worked out, for the most part, but it can get pretty cluttered.

I'm tossing around the idea of switching our dining room and our living room, although if you want to get technical, we'd be moving it into its properly designated room. I'd still share the front room, but this time with the boob tube. Imagine painting and watching some Gossip Girl, my semi-secret guilty pleasure! All of my paintings will start being of Serena and Blair.

Don't fret Cardboard! You will always be my muse!

My one big reluctance is that we'll go through the trouble of moving all of the heavy furniture and end up not liking it - only to be forced to move it back (and having Hardwood not too pleased with this hair-brained scheme of mine).

To get the creative juices flowing, I made a mock-up featuring a few items we already have (table, shell chairs, dishes/tableware) and a few Scandinavian classics that I've always wanted. We have three Eames shell chairs in yellow ochre, so I'd like to round out the set with a few more. (I'm currently scouring eBay.) I feel the black wishbone chairs at either end of the table would balance out all the lighter colors, as would the dark curtains and rod. And I'd give anything to get rid of our '80s chandelier. (Also scouring eBay for a good deal on the PH5 light.)

So how do you think I should propose these suggestions to Hardwood? Anything you'd add or subtract from the mock-up?

Berlin pumping station + Two Artists = Awesome Home/Studio

Hardwood, sweetie. The next time we see an old pumping or power station for sale, let's buy it and convert it into a fabulous home/music & art studio. Okay?

Drool-worthy images of Berlin home/studio courtesy of New York Times

West Elm's modular coffee table

Modular coffee table, at West Elm

I've been unhappy with my coffee table since the second Hardwood and I carried it out the door of IKEA. It's my own dumb fault. While carrying the hulking box of particle board to the car trunk, my end slipped out of my hands and one of the corners was smashed in. The damage was relatively minor and it is probably something that only I see but it bugs me.

There are aspects of it that I do like: it's big and the perfect height for eating 98% of our meals off of. It's not easy to find these requirements in the style I gravitate towards. Most of them are residents of Chunk City, USA and Pottery Barned up the wazoo! The West Elm table seen above almost meets the size requirements that I want and I love the combination of rich wood and industrial metal. Plus Hardwood has given it the golden seal of approval.

Making my life easier: Mini food processor

Mini-Prep Plus 4-cup food processor, at Cuisinart

Hardwood and I use our mini food processor a lot. It's great for buzzing up a bunch of onions, making a small batch of pesto, or blending a few bananas for a delicious cake. We still would love to get a full size food processor for making our own bread and pasta, but this mini version works great for our two-person household.

Cute cabin lighting

Hardwood and I stayed at a hip, renovated cabin in August (special post coming soon). Above the dining table were a trio of lights that really charmed me (above photo). Polka dot perforations added a nice retro, mid-century touch and the shadows were fantastic when the rest of the cabin was dark.

I happily stumbled upon the same fixture on Rejuvenation. It is available in 12 different finishes, all except white, which is what the cabin had. A trusty can of spray paint can easily fix that situation.

Cove ceiling fixture, at Rejuvenation

Onion storage

Hardwood and I cook with onions a lot! We always have a bag or two laying around ready to be used in making vegetable stock, sautéed to put over a few pierogies or thinly sliced for a sandwich. Our current storage situation is rather pathetic. Behold!

Onions on a "festive" tray on top of our cat food storage (old litter container).

It's rather unsightly. Martha Stewart, we are not. So we've been looking around for other options - something that won't take up much space and that will allow some air flow.

I spotted the Grom storage containers in the new Ikea catalog and think they might be perfect. They can hang on the bottom shelf in our pantry and since they are so cheap we could grab a second one for some potatoes and other wintertime tubers.

Gorm, at Ikea

Wish List : Eames Rocker

Fiberglass shell rocker, at Modernica

Earlier this month Hardwood and I celebrated our 4th Wedding anniversary! We celebrated by enjoying a leisurely morning and a late brunch. We then spent the afternoon browsing around a couple of antique stores in our neighborhood and later treated ourselves to an amazing meal at Green Zebra.

At one antique store, Hardwood spotted an Eames Rocker and proclaimed his love. I knew we were meant to be together!! We checked out the price tag and were stunned to see $1600!!! WTF?! Seriously?! We grumbled, but then I remembered that Modernica allows you to build your own chair. So when we got home from our walk we started messing around with the shell, runner, and leg colors. Our favorite combination is the moss shell, zinc legs and walnut runners. Maybe on our next anniversary we'll get this!

Bonus Bone: Summer Vacation reading

Porcelain's reading vacation reading list

Hardwood and I are jetting off tomorrow for a week of chillaxing around Lake Michigan (on the Michigan side). I love laid-back vacations cause I can spend of a good chunk of my time with my nose stuck in a book and not feel one ounce of guilt.

For these reasons, I, Porcelain, declare this a Design Boner.

Bonus Bone: Colori Paring Knives & the Courage of Hardwood

Colori Paring Knives, at Delight

Last night, at a lovely, casual dinner party (Thanks, Tate & Dean!), Hardwood told us a comical (yet scary!) story about the time he was forced to pull out a knife.

Long story short: Hardwood had loaned out his mace but didn't feel safe walking around unarmed so he was carrying a paring knife in a homemade paper sheath and good thing he was (!) because he encountered a few car thieves one late Uptown night and had to whip out his kitchen tool when they ever-so-sinisterly stepped to him.

Had he brandished one of these playful paring knives, the thug, instead of slinking back off into the night, may have said, "Damn, that's a great color. What you think 'bout CB2's new palette?"

For these reasons, I, Cardboard, declare this a Design Boner.

Vegetarian holiday feast

Hardwood and I are vegetarians. I've been a vegetarian for 11+ years and Hardwood has been one for close to 20 years(!). So we've had quite a bit of experience with creating a veggie menu that is very satisfying and one that even my meat-and-potato brothers like. Here is our menu from Thanksgiving, which we will recreate parts of for Christmas.

• Puff pastry shells stuffed with bean pie mixture (a combination of beans, diced tomatoes, cheese, and sauteed onions, celery and herbs)
• Mashed potatoes with Shittake mushroom gravy (I could drink a glass of this gravy!)
  
• Green beans and cashews (Hardwood's ultimate comfort side dish)
• Cranberry jelly (It's not the holidays without cranberry sauce with can ridges)
• Arugula salad with walnuts, currants, apples and a Balsamic vinaigrette

Have a very Merry Christmas!! And happy cooking!

Photo courtesy of Gourmet

Thanksgiving preparations: Before & After

Hardwood and I are celebrating Thanksgiving with his family. It will be the first, big holiday we host at our home. We have a kick-ass vegetarian feast all planned out. But there was the little matter of carving out a spot in our apartment to serve it. I was tired of eating all our meals at the sofa and I'm sure Hardwood's 99 year old Grandmother (That's right 99!) wouldn't find it all that comfortable. Plus six people sitting around our coffee table eating a massive feast would be really tight and awkward. So a month ago I snapped up a giant Norden table at one of IKEA's Seize the Day sales.

The table is in our front room, which acts as my painting studio. I just needed to convert the room from crazy, messy art studio into a clean and comfortable dining room. That's how I spent my Monday night. I thought I'd show a few before and after shots of the space. Behold the Madness!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I think it turned out pretty good. It's still a little cluttered with the canvases and books, but there was only so much I could hide.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! And good luck to all of those cooking and cleaning the next couple days!

Happy Birthday Hardwood!

Today is my love's birthday! Happy birthday Hardwood!

Keep on rockin' your heart out!!!!!

Happy Anniversary Hardwood!

Maxim's tip plate

Today is my 3rd wedding anniversary. Over the weekend Hardwood and I were killing a little time and popped into Edgewater Antique Mall to browse a little bit. Just before we were about to leave we spotted this little tip plate from Maxim's. What a happy accident! Hardwood and I had our wedding at the Maxim's in Chicago (an exact reproduction of the Paris location). We felt it was fate and bought it. We were giddy for the rest of the day.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart! I love you more each passing day!!!

Bonus Bone: French Hermetic Terrines

French hermetic terrines, available at The Container Store

For the past couple weeks Hardwood and I have been battling an ant problem in our kitchen. We keep a pretty tidy home, so this made us super paranoid that we were dirtier than we thought. And it just seriously grossed us out! It took us awhile to find where they were entering our unit (from the basement), but knock on wood, we conquered those suckers thanks to Terro!

One night when we just couldn't take it any more, we stocked up on ant bait at Home Depot and swung by The Container Store to buy a bunch of glass containers for some of our dry goods. We hadn't noticed any ants in the pantry, but we really did not want to take any chances. We already have several glass containers storing spices, herbs, flour, sugar, etc, but it was nice to finally get some more containers for random bits. After filling the jars, I got a total Martha Stewart-high from the beautiful organization. No more garish boxes, just the beauty of glass and food stuff.

For these reasons, I, Porcelain, declare this a Design Boner.

S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G: RAM, Mode & re.

Earlier this month Cardboard and I, along with our two friends, Formica and Hardwood, visited Ravenswood Antique Mart and Mode on Damen Avenue and the brand spanking new store re.revival on the corner of Irving Park and Southport. Our mission was to help Formica find some new goodies for her apartment, which we are currently helping her redecorate.

We oooh'ed and ahhh'ed over shiny chrome lamps, squealed in delight over a painterly horse print, and lusted after a set of Marimekko-esque mugs at the friendly Ravenswood Antique Mart. Formica scored a fantastic round white metal plant stand for $48.

RAM’s stock focuses on mid-century modern and Scandinavian furniture and accessories with occasional bursts of Art Deco items. The furniture is in good to very good shape, but prices are a little high (at least for our budgets).


Porcelain's favorite mugs @ Ravenswood Antique Mart


Ravenswood Antique Mart


Ravenswood Antique Mart


Ravenswood Antique Mart

Still on Damen Avenue, only a block further south, we got dirty trudging through the mountain of items at Mode. Shopping at Mode required quite a bit more work than Ravenswood Antique Mart. There were no artfully crafted displays making us drool and causing us to whip out our credit cards. This store required us to lift up lamps, paintings and globes to get at something we spied between the cracks. Sometimes we were lucky, sometimes not. If we were lucky, we had to raise the item above our heads and bellow, "How much?"

The owner gives somewhat fair prices, but always a little more than the items are worth, considering that one has to sort through a mountain of junk in order to find treasures. Haggling was created for stores like Mode. But it is an adventure and worth checking out, but remember to wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty.


Mode


For those of you who love minimalism! @ Mode

Our intrepid antique shopping team had planned on stopping at another antique store along Damen, but Mode left us tired and our eyes sore. We decided to change gears slightly and head over to the newly opened re.revival on Irving Park and Southport. (After checking out their web site we're not sure if this is a 2nd location or if they’ve moved here from their South Loop spot.) Re.revival had the best displays and arrangement of furniture and accessories, but the store left us somewhat cold. We were used to conversing with the friendly and chatty owners at both Mode and RAM, but at re.revival we got very little attention (not that that is bad, but we really felt ignored). Perhaps it was the absurdly large wheels and ceramic columns, or "Found art sculptures," that left us scratching our heads and wondering who really buys that kind of stuff. Or maybe it was the raw, sloppy plywood flooring (which made total sense as far as being able to hold weight but still looked a little rough). Either way, we left empty handed and called it a day.



Re.revival


Re.revival


Re.revival

For more photos from all stores, check out our Flickr photos.
All photos taken by our colleague Hardwood.