From Julie:

Michigan-based Jebred Furniture recently launched an online site; the company’s painted poplar pieces are stylish, reasonably priced ($260 for the chairs; $390 for the loveseats, and $115 for the side tables), and come in a dozen colors, ranging from pale pink to hot lime. They remind us of a Rietveld chair crossed with an Adirondack.

I needed a little side table next to the chair in my Master Bedroom. Budget was an issue. Things add up after all. So I went hunting at the Sacramento Antique Faire the other weekend. I found this:

Cute huh? I thought a quick paint job would fix 'er right up.

I also found this:

After consulting my Mom, (who is a wealth of knowledge BTW), I found out that this company was producing high end quality furniture out of L.A. when she was a girl. So I did a little more digging. Apparently Cannell and Chaffin was/is a prestigious Furniture and Interior Design company started in Los Angeles in 1917.....and this is where my trail ends.

Does anyone have any more information about this company? I am quite curious.

I am planning to paint it gloss white with a pale turquoise top inside of the tray rim. I will show the "after" as soon as I can get all of the old lacquer sanded out of all the lovely little CREVICES!

Photo by wespionage

Have a lovely weekend!

It's not even Summer yet and I'm already looking ahead to all of the great Fall book releases. Crazy, huh? One book that I'm excited about is Jeffrey Bilhuber: Defining Luxury. In the book, Bilhuber explores luxury- what it means and why we need it in our daily lives. To Bilhuber, luxury can be found in small things like fresh flowers or in grand statement pieces. But more importantly, he writes that "Luxury is cultivated from the inside out, not the outside in." So true! The book features gorgeous photos of Bilhuber's work, including many projects that have not been published before. Here is a sneak peek of a few of Bilhuber's projects that made it into the book.

http://www.shopmoose.com.au

In Spring, there are iris and lambs ear, magnolias and cherry trees blossoming.

Most passers-by are fooled into thinking my neighborhood is just another pretty place to live. A place where the neighbors plant rock roses and iris around the stop signs. A place where the kids are picked up in carpools for school, and cars are given a wash on the weekends.

But they would be wrong........ We have a secret. We have people that are extraordinary here. And we have creatures that are strange and beautiful.

There are dragons here with red and golden wings, and cobalt scales. They breath fire from mouths agape with sharp white teeth.

We have white tigers with ruby red eyes that stand guard to protect us from any who would harm us.

There are fairies with gossamer wings of opalescent glass who look from the windows.

There are griffins and flying fish.

There are hobbits in holes.

And we have miniature gardens for the gnomes and brownies that gather here.

And the people here are artists and magicians. They can create new worlds from the clay of the earth. They can entrance and mesmerize the lucky few who chance upon their handiwork.

Not an ordinary neighborhood, this.

The owners of this house have been working to create handmade tiles to adorn their house since long before I moved here over 16 years ago. Every year there is some new treasure to discover. There is a glimpse of some scaffolding in the far left of the last picture indicating there will soon be more to capture the imagination.

Posted by Lisa & Rena

We are so excited this week at Rare Device because we just got a fresh shipment of tote bags from Transylvanian Images. They are a green company that imports hemp bags and other items made by Transylvanian villagers.

The totes are made from vintage grain-sack material that was hand processed, hand spun, and hand woven from organic hemp. The fabric content varies from a makeup of 100 percent hemp to a blend of 80 percent hemp and 20 percent cotton. Best of all, they are machine-washable.

The color options are wonderful. It is a tradition in Transylvania that each village woman weave her fabric with a different stripe color so that she will be able to find her sack at the mill.

Great for beach, farmer’s market, and general toting around, you can find our Transylvanian Images totes in our online shop.

Have a voyeuristic itch to scratch? We do — peeking into homes far more luxe than ours is both a pleasure and tease. Happily, we found a new source on line for some mighty swanky kitchens. Over at epicurious.com, they’ve posted a few video tours of some famous kitchens of people we’d love to have dinner with (especially if they were cooking). Our favorite is Isaac Mizhari, who gushes about all of his kitchen accessories, including bowls from Target, a chic (Alessi?) bread box and his espresso machine. Click here to hang with Isaac and see more.

“Don’t Leave Me This Way”

http://www.beholder-art.com

Maria Beatrice and Leonardo Ferragamo’s Villa Le Rose

Oh how I want to be Margaret Russell, the Editor of ELLE DECOR. In addition to her unparalleled editorial skills, she must have about 8,000 cocktail dresses that look fabulous on her. In the foreward to my new favorite book, So Chic: Glamorous Lives, Stylish Spaces, she defines what makes a space chic:

But what exactly is chic? Webster’s defines the word as “cleverly stylish; smart; a woman who adapts fashion to her own personality.” When it comes to interiors, chic is that and far more. A chic space can be razzle-dazzle glamorous or quietly unpretentious, seriously sophisticated or unapologetically bohemian. The unifying thread is indisutabley confidence, no doubt boosted by splashes of joie de vivre and flair.

Jaouad Kadiri’s Moroccan Country House

Kenneth Jay Lane’s Stanford White Designed Park Avenue Townhouse

This is a really good way to describe ELLE DECOR. They offer a wide range of styles in their spreads unlike any other magazine, from over-the-top opulence of say, Kenneth Jay Lane, to the lived-in rustic look of Ralph Lauren; from the eclectic vibe of Anh Duong to the elegant Grey Gardens-esque decay of John Derian; from the vintage but modernly crisp Thomas O’Brien to the exotic shapes and textures used by Jaouad Kadiri. This book culls the best examples from the magazine’s archives, and the range of styles is remarkable. The common thread is that they are all, undoubtedly chic due to the designers’ individual styles, whether they be influenced by the Ottoman empire, mid-century modern, vintage, Hollywood Regency, Morocco, the eclectic mix, et. al.

Ranjana & Naeem Khan’s SoHo Loft

For example, I took note of the different wallcoverings in the book. There were crisp white walls, classic murals, antique Chinese wallpapers, grasscloths, ethnic tiles, genius artwork arrangements, mirrors, bold stripes and luxurious printed fabrics.

Muriel Brandolini’s Upper East Side Townhouse

Tamara Mellon’s London Flat (O.K., I want to be her the most; she has every Jimmy Choo shoe in her closet!)

Sheila Bridges’ Harlem Apartment

Thomas O’Brien’s Wall of Inspiration

Delphine and Reed Krakoff’s Southampton Home

Anh Duong’s West Village Loft

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Hamptons Home

John Derian’s Lower East Side Pad

It was impossible to pick favorite photos from this book, but I thought these were some great examples. Here are the photo credits, in order, from the elite group that shoots for ELLE DECOR:

• Pieter Estersohn

• Henry Bourne

• Pieter Estersohn

• Simon Upton

• Pieter Estersohn

• Simon Upton

• William Waldron

• William Waldron

• Reed Krakoff

• Simon Upton

• William Waldron

• William Waldron

From Julie:

Los Angeles furniture maker Cisco Brothers has just introduced a new line of locally made handblown pendant lamps inspired by vintage wine jugs. Priced from $395 to $495, they are available at Cisco Home’s stores in LA (440 N. La Brea Ave.; 323-932-1155 and 474 S. Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena; 626-584-1273). Via the LA Times.

Posted by Bluelines

Ideal for city-dwellers and garden neophytes, here's some easy and out-of-the-box (er pot) ideas from our favorite gardener.

Guest Blogger: Margaret Roach

What’s going to fill those pansy and viola pots once the weather heats up and they go by? For season-long color in containers, true annuals (like petunias or coleus) aren’t the only answer.

What I’m using for “annuals� in some tough low-light areas of my garden made their way to my pots from points as diverse as the shrub department of the local garden center; from my vegetable garden beds -- and even from my favorite mail-order houseplant nursery. The best part: All either were recycled from prior garden use…or will be recycled into another spot indoors or out when I’m done admiring them.

These baby fancy-leaf begonias just arrived from Logee’s Nursery in Connecticut, and are perfect for pots for a location in filtered light -- like under a tree. How many annuals for shade offer this kind of nonstop color? Come October, they’ll move inside with me as permanent members of the family (and summer outside again next year).

Begonia ‘Little Brother Montgomery’(below)

and ‘Marmaduke’ (above) are two of my favorites for their leaf color and texture among Logee’s many choices.

To add some structure to my grouping of pots in a semi-shaded spot with the begonias, I bought this little-leaf evergreen holly or inkberry, Ilex glabra. It is hardy in my zone, and I have a spot in the garden for it…but not till after summertime service. I’ve also potted up some small trees trees, like Japanese maples (below), with pansies and creeping perennials at their “feet.�

I always keep a few choice hostas ready to do duty as pot plants, carrying them over from year to year in the vegetable garden when it’s empty all winter, then lifting the big clumps out and popping them into shade pots. You can also buy some hostas for this use -- or one of many other perennials. It’s easy, showy, and the hostas don’t seem to mind being put on display. A favorite for this purpose: the classic vase-shaped blue ‘Krossa Regal (above)’. Variegated hostas are especially ornamental, too (like Hosta fluctuans ‘Sagae,’ below).

I plug in extra bits of golden moneywort, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea,’ that have outgrown their place in the garden, or snippets of the gold Sedum called ‘Angelina’ (detail, above) to cascade over the rim. Little-leaf ivy (perhaps snatched from a hanging houseplant?) would be great, too. The salvaged snippets of Lysimachia don’t look like much now, but wait: Soon the top pot, about 30 inches wide, will be spilling over. And I didn’t buy a thing.

Heucheras, another perennial, make great potted subjects, and I love using the newer Euphorbias, like ‘Helena’s Blush’ and ‘Efanthia.’ Both would be showy all season at the base of taller things like my maple trees. Use your imagination: Curley parsley would make a similarly great edger below a taller plant, and the whole herb department is filled with good choices…and you can cut off bits for supper, too. Like I said, recycling at its best.

Pottery Sources:
Great mossy, old-looking terra cotta from Campo di Fiori; lead and stone lookalikes of wonderful quality from Campania. In both cases, these are wholesalers; use their dealer locator to find the seller near you.

today’s second before and after is a great example of what a little paint and fabric can do. natalie hansen of steamed artichoke studio sent in this great lamp makeover project that cost her only $12! she found the lamp base and lampshade at a thrift store in san francisco and then spray-painted the base and wire with high-gloss white paint and covered the lampshade with amy butler fabric and ribbon from peapod fabrics. all it was required was paint, a hot glue gun, spray mount and a little elbow grease. thanks to natalie for sharing!

[have a before and after furniture or home makeover you’d like to share? just shoot me an email with your photos right here.]