Monday, February 27, 2012

snowGRADE.

I randomly found out about this event taking place in Minneapolis on Saturday... snowGRADE. It's a men's pop-up market. One of my favorite re-sellers of furniture, Golden Age Design, were going to be there and I'm on a hunt for a credenza for the living room. Anyways, we decided to go check it out....

It was held in the Architectural Arts building in Minneapolis, actually the same building where our wedding photographer has her studio. Architectural Antiques is in the main floor of the building and they hosted the event, so they still had all of their stuff everywhere, which made for an awesome space. But... it made for not a lot of walking space and certain people were oblivious that they were conversing in the middle of a main walk way, making it difficult to access some of the spaces.

Overall, there were some pretty interesting local companies that I had never heard of. It was great to "discover" some of them and some purchases from those companies will probably be made in the future... especially a certain t-shirt that fits the personality of a good friend *very* well.

As usual, here are some photos from the event...








Thursday, February 23, 2012

Rearranging the Living Room.

One day Bill and I decided to rearrange the living room... I can't really remember what sparked it, but I'm glad we did it. It may have been our awesome new lamp needing a place to fit in. We didn't have it yet, but I was planning on ordering it.

We don't have a very large living room and we have a couple larger pieces of furniture, so we had some working out to do. Bill used to be really good at making floor plans for his dorm room in college. We always tried to plan things out before we took on the task of moving the cumbersome lofted bed. So, I put him to work...


We for sure needed to get in the couch, two chairs, and TV. And of course our new lamp! Most of the other things were small and not as important.

This was our living room before we moved all of our stuff in... Old curtains (barf) and old paint.



Essentially, we just flipped the couch to the opposite wall. And moved the chairs (from where the photos were taken) to old couch wall. That way we had more of a conversation area and not just a "Hey, look at our TV!" area.



 



This sums up things in general at the moment, even though quite a bit has changed since these photos were taken. I've been adding to this post slowly and I'm now at a point where I'm planning to completely change the living room. So, I figured it would be fine to just post this at this point...

Things that have changed since these photos...
+ Awesome CB2 Big Dipper Arc Floor Lamp added
+ Painted the wall behind the couch BLACK (sorry, no decent photos, but I do like it!)
+ New, different pillows on the couch

I figure I could at least sum up what you're seeing too, incase something tickles your fancy.
- Couch: World Market. They don't carry it any more, but I honestly don't care for it. The fabric has not held up well...
- Chairs: Ikea Klappsta.
- Lamp: Ikea Orgel.
- Ottoman: Target.
- Curtains: Target
- Rug: Menards.
- Plant: Home Depot.
- Wall Print: Poster from Wollersheim Winery in Wisconsin.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

new chairs.

Over the weekend, Bill and I decided to take out the summer car and enjoy the nice day... We ended up going into Minneapolis to one of my favorite new places, findfurnish [facebook].

These two photos are from Bill. Look at all the amazing things...!




Really, we just went to look, but I sort of got caught up on a pair of chairs... And something must have aligned just right, because Bill was all "Let's get them!" Shock. The catch was/is that they match nothing... They clash with almost everything in my living room. So, it was decided, it is time to redo the living room... and we purchased the chairs.


They're so "pretty"... The picture is more orange than they are. They're more of a golden yellow color. And they swivel!

These chairs are my second purchase from findfurnish. I can't wait to go back again and find some more things for our living room --- credenza/sideboard/buffet for the TV, possibly a couch, side tables... 

So... because we drove the summer car, we had to go back to the house to get a bigger vehicle. Here are some photos from just driving around.


The Carriage House... findfurnish is on the back side of this building.



Library...




From a different angle the next day...


And once again... iPhone photos.

Monday, February 13, 2012

antiques. pt2

Of course I went back to hunt & gather...

I managed to talk Bill into going with me to check out hunt & gather. It really didn't take much convincing. I think he secretly also likes checking out antique stores. I guess the real talking him into something came into play when I was like 'hey, let's walk down to Dunn Bros for some coffee before we go in...' I do it a lot, so I'm certain he wasn't surprised. Before we walked in to Dunn Bros, I did notice another place two doors down that looked great. Piccadilly Prairie. Great place full of really great things. I didn't find anything I couldn't live without though... I do wish I had discovered it before our wedding. They had some really great things that would have helped with our "look." I will definitely be stopping back there at some point.

We made our way back over to hunt & gather. Lucky us, there was Girl Scouts selling cookies! Yum. Of course we had to get some, I just wish I had more cash on had... to buy them ALL...

Anyways, I think Bill really enjoyed looking around. Unfortunately, the chair I wanted had already sold. I've learned my lesson twice now... Last time it was a free coffee table down the street. I had the thought of 'Oh, I'll just grab that on our way back home.' It will NOT happen again. This may have been a good thing, because although I really liked the chair and wanted it for my living room. I think I want two of the same chair... it may have taken quite some time to find another like it and at that point, reupholstering may have shown the age in the first one's reupholstering.

I did pick up a Brownie camera. Nothing fancy, a Hawkeye Flash Model.

And again, here are some photos of some of the great things there...

This is the far, back corner in the basement area. So much to see!




Photo credit for the image below goes to Bill. He found this gem in the above photo location. For some reason he didn't get it. I think it's awesome and am contemplating running over there to pick it up later tonight...




All sorts of vintage cameras! The one in the brown case is pretty sweet... I may have to pick it up the next time I'm there if it is still there...



I graduated college with a girl who has two Boston Terriers... I'm not real life friends with her, but facebook friends. I saw this and thought of her, but I'm pretty sure it would be super weird if I sent her a message saying "Hey, I saw this and thought of you!" So, I'm just adding it here to make myself feel better... It is actually pretty sweet/cool, but needs to be cleaned up.


For some reason, I think this is really awesome... It reminds me of all the art history classes I had to take in college...


And I love this... Matching dresser and nightstand. Fantastic legs, great condition. And sorta pricey. If only I could justify spending the money and had room...


This is back upstairs... I love all the letters.


Another one of upstairs. One of the greatest things about this place is the fact that it seems to be constantly changing. It's popular, so that there is new stuff coming and going all the time. The people that run it (?) are also constantly changing things around, so that things are different. There wasn't even a full week between my visits and it was very different...


Again, sorry for less than fantastic iphone pics.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

antiques.

Over the weekend, my sister and I went and checked out a couple of new (new to us, not new to existence) antique shops.

Our first stop was Loft Antiques. We spent a lot of time wandering around and making sure we saw every area. My sister ended up making a somewhat large purchase. They had it labeled as a "primitive" cupboard. It was a side table height cabinet. Nothing fancy, probably from the late 1800s - early 1900s. She plans on using it as a side table in her living room. I purchased a Tower camera from Sears Roebuck and Co. I know nothing about it and I've spend zero time tinkering with it, but I've been sort of looking into maybe starting up a small vintage camera collection...

1950s Tower One Twenty Camera

I'll probably throw the camera into the lightbox at some point and take some good shots of it.

After, we went across the street to Hunt & Gather. This might be my most favorite store ever. EVER. They have tons of fantastic things - old milk crates, succulent plants, tons of old signage letters, metal boxes, old chairs, and a fantastic bunch of old cameras... I somehow managed not to spend a single penny there. Mostly because I wanted to wait and grab Bill, go back at some point VERY soon, and make sure all of my purchases are ok. I tend to feel guilty when I think I spend too much money... My sister on the other hand grabbed a Brownie camera (that I was about to grab, brat), a random doll head (she's weird... it runs in the family), and a funky metal box.

I do have a small list of things I really want from there. There was a great letter "S" that I want, but at $48 and not knowing where I would put it, I decided to wait. They also happen to have this chair with great legs... I'm seriously about to run over there and buy it and have it reupholstered for my living room. I'm sort of holding back because they have a sale coming up and I'm not sure how much reupholstering will cost - I need to do some emailing around.


She has great legs and a nice over all shape... the fabric is too loud for me and has definitely seen it's better days. I'm thinking a medium grey...

I also have my eye on a couple cameras and plants... and some smaller, less expensive letters.

As we were leaving, I took a couple quick shots to show Bill and convince him that he needed to come back there with me this weekend... Can't wait to show him.



Sorry for the poor quality images... camera phone.