Mid-Summer at the Shore

Sometimes you just need a full on vacation. For the first time in four years I took one – from the blog, from social media (well, there was a bit of instagramming), from the kitchen renovation that’s just not quite getting off the ground, from everything. I took a physical one as well, traveling out to Flathead Lake in Montana with 27 other members of our family for a week of kicking back, riding horses and extraordinary sunsets. But the net result of the relaxing is that here we are at mid-summer and there is much to do and much to fill you in on.

An absolutely brutal winter here on the East Coast left gardens decimated. Mine fared better than most, but everything still suffered, most importantly the hydrangeas which bloom on the previous years’ wood. Unlike some neighbors, mine survived, but had very few flowers – no comparison with last year or even the year before!

The new Aleppo (Leila) inlaid tables from Serena & Lily (which arrived after we had left last summer) look amazing in the master bedroom.

A few local finds and a change of vintage duvet have been keeping things fresh.

I tried out a beautiful silk lampshade made from a vintage sari – Robert Kime style – from Xenomania in the East Village, but it was too big and matchy-matchy. By luck, I stopped into Just Shades on Spring Street on the day I was bringing it back and walked out with the perfect simple green shade instead, for about a tenth of the cost.

With my mind on the move to Doha, I never shared a few of the things that got accomplished right at summer’s end last year. The Bennison ticking trimmed valances in my elder daughter’s room, for example, which came out more beautifully than I could have imagined…

…or the sweet art wall developing in the blue hall bathroom.

It’s more than a year later and I am still kicking myself for passing up a $15 wicker headboard at a garage sale for my younger daughter’s bedroom. That’s all she needs, along with something like this Maine style pine painted cottage dresser. If you see either on Craig’s list or at your favorite shop, be sure to let me know!

Local antique stores here haven’t been as rich with goodies as normal and many have gone under, their land being redeveloped into condos or strip malls. I find it depressing but the truth is that the house needs very little outside of these few specific pieces so it hasn’t been a personal tragedy. I have stumbled into a new shop I quite liked, finding a great pair of 1855 Morris Gull prints (which will probably be added to the blue bathroom art wall)…

…as well as an amazing antique lidded Seto porcelain dish (because of course, as one Instagram friend put it, I need MORE blue and white porcelain)…

…and a salvaged mantel shelf that might be perfect for over the stove in the upcoming kitchen renovation (which hopefully will get started).

At the end of the day, the house here is so tiny that even an extra chair can’t fit. Found this diminutive charmer at my Brooklyn favorite Fork & Pencil, but it is going to have to make its way to a client’s house. There is simply nowhere to put it!

And speaking of chairs, I’ve seen a pair of bergères her in New Jersey that look like they might be worth shipping back to Doha to replace the ones so unceremoniously taken from me.

On a negative note, my vintage sink in the downstairs bath developed a rust bubble over the winter. I am in desperate need of advice on how I might repair/reglaze it. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

I’ll be looking for more input on upcoming posts, including major decisions needed on new exterior paint colors. I’ll also be having a giveaway for a beautiful book on ukiyo-e by Fred Harris. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying your summer!

Jul 29, 2014 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Gardens, Interior Design, Renovation and Decoration Report Tags: art wall, Bennison, Bennison Lilac, blue and white porcelain, hydrangea, inlaid, inlaid furniture, inlay, Japanese porcelain, lampshade, Seto, ticking, wicker

Beach Baskets…PaperGlueBamboo Sale and an Idea for the Ceiling Fan

Do you like your karakusa hot?

Or cool blue and white?

Your darumas bright?

Or modeled by the chef dressed in white?

Artist Lisa George of PaperGlueBamboo is having a sale this week of her new Spring 2012 line. For an extensive post about her modern take on the ancient craft of ikkanbari, take a look at Artist Spotlight…Lisa George and the Modern Art of Ikkanbari at PaperGlueBamboo. Her Tsukiji market shopping baskets would be great for toting stuff to the beach or having a summer picnic. Drop me a note at jacquelinewein[at]yahoo.com if you are interested in an invitation.

All this talk of baskets and ikkanbari has caused me to have an epiphany about a possible solution to the ceiling fan light at the beach house that I mentioned just the other day. Ceiling fans can be a necessary eyesore and I had been scouting ideas on improving them, finding posts over at Young House Love and Thrifty Decor Chick where they added a lampshade to give a fan light more style.

Those photos clicked in my memory with this photo from Kawagoe shrine sale last year in which a dealer had hung a basket upside down for eye level display. Even at the time it reminded me of a lampshade, but I didn’t put it all together.

Here’s another similar Japanese open-work basket, narrower and deeper than the one above, shown upside down to mimic a lampshade. It might just make a perfect lampshade for the ceiling fan, adding a bit of softening to the bright light and accessorizing the room. The basket has a great beachy feel too!

And if the open-work of the basket doesn’t camouflage the light bulbs well enough, we could always wrap it with a bit of washi paper ikkanbari style like this one…

George, are you listening?

Image credits: 1-4. Lisa George, 5. via Young House Love, 6-7. me, 8. via Lamps Plus

May 14, 2012 By tokyojinja in Artist Spotlight, Housewares, Interior Design, Lighting, Renovation and Decoration Report Tags: baskets, ceiling fans, ikkanbari, lampshade, Lisa George, Paper Glue Bamboo, washi

Quick and Easy DIY…Trimming a Lamp Shade with Ribbon

Before…

After…

Details really do matter. One of the quickest ways to bring a little pizzaz to an ordinary plain lamp shade is to trim it with ribbon, beads, tassels, you name it. I was quite happy with our sweetly gathered shades on our night table lamps, that is, back when I lived in New York and had gorgeous grey walls to set them off. Here in Tokyo, all the housing geared towards expatriates has this horrible textured white(ish) wallpaper and the idea that you might want to paint is greeted with horror and quite a bit of “air through the teeth sucking” by the landlord. So my off-white lampshades were left to blend into the off-white wall and I lived with them like that for quite sometime, being unable to find just the right trim.

Unlike America, craft stores are difficult to find in Japan and require travel out of central Tokyo. The mother lode of all craft stores is Yuzawaya, which stocks everything from knitting supplies, to fabric, to fake flowers, to jewelry kits, to you name it. I tend to visit the store in Kamata, but there is also a popular one in Kichijoji and others elsewhere. You can see the directory in English here. On one of our last quilting supply runs this winter I stumbled across the perfect grey grosgrain ribbon, with a small dash pattern in white. Best of all it came in multiple widths, so I was able to purchase a narrower ribbon for the top of the shade. Since the shades are small, I didn’t want them to feel top-heavy.

The rest of the materials were easy to get. I bought some spray adhesive at Yuzawaya too and everything else was basic supplies. I think the entire project took less than half an hour.

My big news is I have filmed a brief how-to video and uploaded it to YouTube. A first for me! Unfortunately, the camera didn’t finish recording the entire project, and once it was done, there was no do-over. But it gives a basic idea of how it is done.

The ribbon makes a big difference at night too.

Choosing the right style trim is a large part of making a project like this successful. Do you want a lot of contrast or a little? Is there an accent color elsewhere in the room that you want to highlight? In my case, I wanted the dark punctuation of the grey ribbon and I needed a classic material like the grosgrain to work with all the French furniture. Here are some other examples of ribbon trim on lamp shades.