Thrifty Find: Faux Bamboo Chairs

Over the past several years that I’ve been reading design blogs I’ve noticed that faux bamboo furniture has been popping up all over the place. I don’t really know where this trend began but I love it! I especially love a good faux bamboo chair at a desk or dining table.

via Better Homes & Gardens

via Southern Living

via Glitter Guide

via ColorDrunk

via Jonathan Adler

I’ve been hunting for inexpensive bamboo pieces for a long time, and with a few exceptions (like my awesome mirror), I haven’t had a lot of luck. Turns out that the Midwest isn’t the hotspot of Chinoiserie furniture, who knew?

But I finally had a spot of luck the other day when I came across a set of four faux bamboo Thomasville chairs on Craigslist for $300. I really only needed one chair, but the seller had another buyer interested in two chairs and would only sell me the other two. I didn’t want to lose this purchase so I went ahead and bought two of them, but I did negotiate the price down from $150 to $115 for two armless chairs. It may not be thrift store prices but I think they’re well worth it, especially because they’re in perfect condition. The previous owner had used a sprayer to repaint them and she recovered the seats in a durable black faux-leather vinyl. Plus it’s much less than you would pay for two new chairs, especially ones this stylish.

I’m using one as my desk chair and the other is hanging out next to the fireplace in the living room, although I may end up moving it someplace else. I tried it in the entryway but I missed the color of the dining chair that’s there now.

What do you think? Have you jumped on the faux bamboo bandwagon yet? Or have you found any other treasures on Craigslist lately?

The Brass Menagerie

Last week I blogged about my love/obsession for brass and I showed you how some of my favorite bloggers have decorated with brass. Today it’s time to show you my brass collection and how I’ve incorporated it into my house, starting with my office then going through the living room and finishing with the cute little nook in the kitchen.

Pretty much all of my brass collection was bought at thrift stores, consignment stores, or antique stores, with a few gifts from my mom thrown in. All of the candlesticks were really inexpensive: the skinny ones on top of the hutch are part of a set of seven that cost $9, and the big ones on the mantle were $3 each. Other cheapies include the pitcher on the lamp shelf that I bought for $3 and the brass and mother of pearl duck that cost $4. I think the most expensive item was the elephant which cost $19, but it’s really big and heavy and worth a lot more than $19 IMO.

I have a few more pieces that didn’t make it into the pictures but that’s most of my brass assortment. Anyone else into collecting vintage brass?

Brass is Back

Guys, I might have a problem. In the last year or so I’ve become obsessed with brass. Brass animals, brass candlesticks, any brass accent piece is fair game. I’ve found most of my pieces for next to nothing at thrift stores. My mom has also helped feed my addiction by giving me some really nice brass items she finds in antique stores or on Ebay. I’ll be back tomorrow with photos of my collection.

Like any good addict I don’t take responsibility for my own actions. I blame the blogosphere. Many of the awesome design bloggers I follow are also obsessed with brass trinkets. I think I first became interested in brass after seeing how Emily Henderson uses vintage items to style her and her clients’ homes, but there are a ton of other bloggers who are also into this trend. Take a look.

Tobe from Because It’s Awesome knocked it out the park with her One Room Challenge Makeover of her home office. All her vintage furniture is gorgeous, and I love all the brass accent pieces around the room.

Charmaine from My Best Friend Craig is another brass master. She is just amazing at scoring vintage furniture and decorative accents, and she uses them so well in her house. I love the brass pineapple collection on her fab dining table, and how cute is the elephant in her daughters’ room?

And of course I had to include pictures from the design genius that started my obsession, Emily Henderson.

Emily’s Bedroom

Emily’s Office

Curbly Bedroom Makeover

Make sure you come back tomorrow to see how I styled my house with my new brass collection!

Craigslist Crushes

It’s time to play my favorite game: Shopping on Craigslist for furniture I love but don’t need!

First up, these lovely velvet chairs:

Pair of Aubergine Tufted Wingback Chairs, $150 each

A velvet wingback in the wrong color can look really dated but I think these chairs are so cute. They’re the prettiest shade of purple and they look like they are in great condition. I’d love them in my office on either side of my hutch, or maybe I’d use one as my desk chair à la Emily Henderson.

Vintage Mid-Century Magazine Rack, $10

This is a much more stylish option for storing my magazines than my red storage basket from Target. I wish it were a little bigger though because we got a lot of magazines.

Mid-Century Bookcase Shelving, $65

I really like this Milo Baughman style shelf and I’ve seriously considered buying it for the landing at the top of the stairs, but the metal looks pretty scuffed up. What do you think?

Vintage End Table, $80

I’m obsessed with faux bamboo right now so it’s no surprise that I love this table. It looks like the paint is perfect so this piece would require no extra work to make it useable. Too bad my husband doesn’t approve of me buying random $80 side tables that I don’t need/have a place for  

Vintage Lane Altavista End Table, $55

Another side table! I’m a little on the fence about this one but I think the brass legs are really cool, plus it’s a Lane table which is a very well made brand of furniture.

Glamorous Craigslist

You guys, you have to see this table I stumbled across yesterday when I was browsing Craigslist:

It’s a brass peacock coffee table!! I love it so much; if only I had an extra $150 laying around to spend on a glamorous/kind of gaudy coffee table that I don’t need. Maybe one day when I have my own design studio I’ll deck it out with finds like this.

If you’re interested click here for the listing.

Or if you want an even more glamorous new peacock table you could buy this Jonathan Adler version:It’s only $3695 at Zinc Door. I think I’ll take the vintage one for $150.

My Perfect Fall Weekend

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a terrific weekend and that you got a chance to enjoy the fabulous fall weather. Ben and I certainly had a wonderful time!

Friday we went to the West Bottoms for First Friday. There are always a million interesting pieces in those vintage shops; I could have taken pictures of just about everything.

Brass eagle champagne flutes. They were pretty amazing.

I kind of really loved this little retro lamp.

I’ve been on a major brass kick lately if you couldn’t tell, so of course I wanted this awesome brass tray table. It was a much better price than the one I found in Illinois.

This super colorful patchwork sofa is not my style, but it is definitely a showstopper.

Some of the shops had amazing one-of-a-kind antique furniture. Case in point: this massive hardwood cabinet that came from a castle in Germany. I think it was $8500.

Besides the shopping, what I love about First Friday weekends in the West Bottoms is how they become this big event. This week they had fire baton twirlers, performers dressed in Day of the Dead garb, and lots and lots of food trucks!

Since Ben tagged along with me he kept me on a strict budget. I saw a lot of things I loved but didn’t really need, so all I came home with was this cute little brass tray (I told you I’m loving brass!) for $5.

It needs to be cleaned up but I think it is pretty great.

After we were done shopping we drove a few blocks over to Amigoni Winery. We did a wine tasting and then grabbed a glass of their Cab Franc (for me) and Boulevard’s limited edition Foeder beer (for Ben).

The wine was fantastic, as was their building; I was kind of obsessed with this chandelier:

Saturday we headed to Columbia for the Missouri-Tennessee football game! This was our first time at a Mizzou football game and we both really enjoyed it. Tailgating was a lot of fun, and the game was really great until the cold started getting to us. Luckily the game was a blowout from the beginning so we didn’t feel bad leaving after halftime.

 

 

We stayed the night in Columbia and Sunday morning we stopped at Sophia’s for brunch before we left town. They had so many amazing options on the menu that it was hard to choose just one meal. Ben had the bacon and walnut pancakes and I had the tiramisu french toast. It was incredible, although I think I did go into a little sugar coma on the way home.

By the way, the drive through Mid Missouri is really gorgeous right now.

All in all it was a really fantastic weekend!