beach house

Form Versus Function…Apothecary Chest in the Kitchen

Although I am back in Doha there are some summer things I can’t seem to get off my mind. Work on the beach house, mainly the exterior (more on that next week), will be happening while we are away this year. I figured the unexpected outside work would use up all the kitchen renovation money we had been hoarding, but in that magical way that bundling multiple projects tends to make each individual project much less expensive (at least in terms of the contractors’ fees) I find it may just be possible to do both. On that note, I saw a beautiful apothecary/shop/printers cabinet at one of my favorite local antique stores this summer. The color and the patina were just lovely, the size was right and even better, so was the price. It had just the kind of feel I want for the kitchen, evident in past posts and a few Pinterest boards (here and here). The only problem with it is a lack of functionality. Thirty-two tiny drawers don’t hold much, now do they?

There are a host of kitchens out in the stratosphere that feature an apothecary style or shop counter style piece as a center point in the kitchen. A few spring right to mind, including this one…

…and this one. Both have been pinned endlessly and would be perfect spaces in our beach cottage. But what both of these kitchens have going for them that you can’t tell from the photos is that they are in very large rooms and offer just adjunct storage and workspace. It doesn’t hurt that the drawers are actually quite a bit larger and somewhat useful.

The same holds true for one of my be all and end all kitchens, written about extensively before, that belonged to Peri Wolfman and Charles Good. Their Soho loft kitchen (and eponymous shop) sparked a revolution in kitchen design. They used a large shop counter as a divider, but as you see, space was never an issue.

This grainy photo from Pinterest gives you a closer view. Sorry, my scanner is down, so I can’t offer a better picture.

So back to my cabinet. Here it is in all its simple glory. Yes, I know the knobs are not original (you can see the old tack holes of the original handles) but they have certainly been on there for quite some time and I think they are adorable. Yes, I know the bottom left hand drawer is painted a darker color, but that seems to be part of its charm.

In order to get opinions, its important to see the space where the cabinet would go. Voila! We had been planning to get rid of a piece of cabinetry in this spot in lieu of a small island, but the chest above is narrow enough that it could work. We could also put a larger top on it and use it as the island itself. I think to truly understand the space it would probably help to read earlier posts on the kitchen renovation, like this one and this one, but imagine dark wood floors, gray, white marble, natural brass.

So? What say you all? Form or function? Should I just buy it for insurance either way? I will tell you I have a very large pantry in the kitchen and some of the existing cabinets are not at all full.

For an incredible look at one of the most creative uses of an antique shop counter used in a kitchen, be sure to click over to Steve’s blog An Urban Cottage. Some of the best posts can be found here, here, here and here, but his whole blog is terrific!

Sep 5, 2014 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Interior Design, Kitchens, Renovation and Decoration Report 13 Comments Tags: antiques, apothecary, beach house, kitchen islands, kitchen remodel, kitchen renovation, kitchens, New Jersey Antiques, Peri Wolfman, shop counter

Countdown to Summer with Michelle R. Smith

“If you buy something you love, there’s always a place for it.”
-Michelle R. Smith

There is a spring breeze blowing in the design world, courtesy of Michelle R. Smith. With numerous features on her NYC apartment and Sag Harbor home appearing over the last few months (here, here, here and her closet! here), this is a girl after my own true heart. She thinks interiors should be a bit “almost accidental looking” and is clearly no fan of the color red either. Ironically, what feels fresh is that Smith has her feet firmly planted in the past, using both beautiful antiques and flea market finds to ground her lovely interiors. That’s not to say there aren’t quirky modern pieces, but they are used to activate the spaces rather than as a list of big names of design giants past. Frankly I’ve been a bit exhausted with some of the design press lately in that sense. I even find myself being pulled from what I really love because of the difficulties in sourcing here in Doha, but she has gone and truly reminded me. All of this, plus the 100+ degree weather here, is starting to make me ache for our little Victorian beach house at the shore.

She has “make artwork look more valuable than it is” down pat, stacking and layering small pieces low on the walls. Artful but not overly styled vignettes are another signature.

Mellowed rugs and actual wooden antiques that aren’t painted. I feel like its been ages since we have seen large case pieces used in simple settings and she has many of them. Perhaps its just the New Yorker in me – there is never enough closet space – but a tall secretary or armoire just makes a room. Hers is one just peeking out on the right in this shot, a great vertical counterpoint to the built-in bookshelves.

She has the fancy meets rough equation down perfectly.

A dream of a New York City galley kitchen – with a giant window no less – and quirky repurposed industrial egg beater light fixtures. Be sure to note the candy molds hung next to the window, reminding me of kashigata. Wondering if I should be considering this very neutral Farrow & Ball Charleston Gray for my beach house kitchen?

An absolute mix of metals – copper, nickel, brass and a bit of tarnished silver.

The simplest of bathrooms with unlacquered brass hardware.

Without sounding too scandalous it’s in the bedrooms that I truly fall in love. Antique bedsteads, marble-topped night stands, fluffy white linens and old-fashioned lampshades…

…aged Persians again and big antique mirrored wardrobes. It’s all just a little bit granny but not.

The guest room has a similar feel…

…with stacked works on paper and a giant campaign chest.

As much as I like her NYC apartment, its her house in Sag Harbor that has me dreaming of home (or home-home as my girls would call it). Maybe its the vintage cottage vibe, but somehow so many of her choices are familiar to me.

European sideboards with gargoyles make the best drink stations.

Most of the house has been painted Benjamin Moore’s Woodlawn Blue, the kind of neutral historic color that plays well with everything and seems just right for an old fishing village. These kind of soft grayed colors are found throughout our beach house, some Benjamin Moore and others Farrow & Ball.

A familiar view, with a dining room side chair, resting quietly under a piece of artwork.

Is this a gently tweaked original kitchen? I’m not sure but what I would give to have had something like this to work with!

The bathroom in Sag Harbor is making me the most homesick…

…and I am wondering how much ‘oldating’ she had to do here and how much was original. Wait, just got my answer – the bathrooms were gut jobs and have been completely reimagined!

Old houses always need quirky solutions to small spaces, like back-to-back beds in the guest room, and vacation ones need to sleep as many guests as possible. We know what that’s like and have managed to squeeze bed space in even unlikely places.

But more than any of the other spaces, I’m back to the dreamy master bedroom, with its blush pink walls, four-poster, white lace…

…gleaming wooden dresser and smoky antique rug. It reminds me of the prettiest pink bedrooms ever and makes me want to be home-home to sleep in mine.

Just forty days and counting!

Image credits: All images via Lonny, NYC & G, One Kings Lane or Studio MRS.

May 6, 2014 By tokyojinja in Expat Life, Interior Design 5 Comments Tags: beach house, interior design, Michelle R. Smith, New York, Studio MRS

Inlay All Over the Map…A Peek at my Collection

I was thinking about writing a post to show the variety, similarities and differences of inlay work from around the world when I realized that my own collection was pretty diverse and readily available for photographing. Now that I have rounded it all up here it seems as if I have a lot of inlaid pieces, but because they each seem so different to me I just hadn’t noticed. Every piece has its own story, which is what I love about them all.

When we lived in Hong Kong in 1997 and 1998 I was cautious and slow to make purchases. There was a lot of bad “antique” Chinese furniture at the time, although much less so than today. Besides my 18th century bamboo altar table, my blanc de chine and some Japanese porcelain, I didn’t buy much. The only other item to catch my eye was this late Ming Dynasty lacquer, sharkskin and ivory inlaid box. Yes, real Ming Dynasty, as in the one from 1368–1644. It was, of course, way out of my price range and my sweet husband, while very kind and generous, was like “you want to spend what on a box?!?” So I bided my time and worked a lot and saved and negotiated hard with the dealer, while simultaneously bringing him lots of customers (As one of the best dealers around he did have very good merchandise, so no real ulterior motive there). By the time we were ready to move home, he knew the box had to leave with me. As a side note, it’s not uncommon for very fine antique inlaid boxes, lap desks and the like to be more expensive than much larger pieces of furniture as the finest detail and workmanship went into them as well as the highest quality materials.

I’ve never seen a piece to compare with this one. The lacquer is so incredibly soft and silky and the ivory inlay is so fine. I can really see and feel the difference from my bone inlaid pieces. And before some of you get all bent out of shape about the ivory, do remember how old this box is! There are a few small inlay pieces that are green and while I don’t think they are jade as some have suggested, I’m not sure what they are. The edges of the box are wrapped in sharkskin or shagreen, a pebbled leather. There seems to be a four seasons theme, with flowers from each represented as well as the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism.

My favorite view is the side with bamboo, cherry blossom and chrysanthemum.

At the absolute other end of the price and quality spectrum, this small round-topped table, with its collapsible octagon base is typically Indian by the style of its foliate carving, although such a common form could be from elsewhere in the region. It is not particularly old nor valuable. I found it at Yaskuni shrine, not long before I left Japan and it seemed like a cosmic signal that the move to Doha was a good next step, being somehow regionally appropriate – a rather broad reading of “local”. It has turned out to be the ideal size and height for between my two antique slipper chairs and thus extremely useful and quite decorative.

The bone inlay on this piece is almost irrelevant – literally besides the point – and clearly not secure as much of it has fallen out. It is the screen-like carving on the sides that catches the eye. Pieces like this are sometimes inlaid with brass in lieu of the bone or a combination of the two.

Indonesia is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking about inlay, but it does exist as a local handicraft both historically and currently, in particular on the island of Lombok, situated just east of Bali. The term used to refer to the mother of pearl inlaid furniture and accessories produced there is cukli. Without having any documentation, there is no doubt in my mind that the art of inlay arrived in Lombok either via the Dutch, who first visited in 1674, before colonizing the region or hand in hand with the introduction of Islam in either the 16th or 17th century. The Lombok pieces are referential to although simplified versions of the North African and Arabic patterns. You’ll see similar pieces in museums made in Burma or the Philippines too, which also had their origins through trade and colonization.

My trunk is gently vintage, no more than about 30 years old and in my possession for 15 of those. It is a fairly crude piece, the pattern typical of the work and clearly hand carved and individually glued with small pieces of mother of pearl. It does have a lovely patina which the newer Lombok pieces lack, having often been shellacked to within an inch of their lives.

Since I arrived in Doha, two new pieces of inlaid furniture have made their way home with me. Just after moving in, I spotted this inlaid Syrian table at one of the few antique stores in town. It caught my eye immediately as I was hoping that there would still be finds to be made here as I was already missing my shrine sales.

I absolutely loved the checkerboard-like detail and the fanciful carvings – it was a much more unusual piece than I’d seen in person before. Since then I’ve seen other even more elaborate museum quality pieces similar to this, but they have had a shiny formality and a stiffness to their design that this piece, with its lovely patina and cheeky pattern, does not.

I have been moving it around the house as you can tell from the photos, but there isn’t anywhere truly ideal for it here so I am planning on boxing it up and taking it back to our beach house in the US this summer. It would be added into the textile mix of this…

…and this. Pretty perfect, no?

My newest addition was unexpected although very needed. As I mentioned in a recent post, the overhead lights here are glaring and I just don’t have enough lamps. I stumbled across this bone inlaid Syrian beauty lying in pieces at a junk shop – it was so inexpensive that it was well worth the risk of buying. One of the charms of Doha is all the very low-priced services – the antithesis of Japan – and for about $12 the electrician rewired it (he came to my house to get it and drop it off) and then for another $12 the furniture repair guys put it back together (they came to my house to get it and drop it off). Add an IKEA lamp shade, which still needs a bit of jury rigging, and it is spectacular (if only I could stop by Robert Kime for a lampshade – then we’d be talking off the charts spectacular!) Clearly 20th century – it is electric after all – but nicely vintage based on the brass lamp fittings.

The lamp has a typically Syrian detail, the fine wire running through the pattern that in a truly valuable antique piece would actually be silver, brass or another metal. In this case it is also bone.

My pieces of inlaid furniture aren’t limited to the house here in Doha. The beach house has its own share, both with the table headed there from above and this set of stacking tables. These lovelies are Anglo-Indian – they have a traditional European shape with bone inlay. They were an incredible find in a very run down mixed dealer antiques mall on the Jersey shore in the very first summer after we had just moved in. I spotted them in the corner and knew their petite size and lines would be perfect for the house. After I dug them out, I could feel the radar of every person and other dealer in the place turn and fix on us intently (a comparison I would make to Sauron’s eye in ‘The Lord of the Rings’). I wanted to finish browsing so I turned to my sweet husband and said “do not let go of these for even an instant!” He thought I was being a bit crazy but as the sharks started circling he realized it was no joke. He is nowhere near as experienced as I am in shopping object envy and the way it can make others behave.

You can see how fine the detail is in comparison to my newer rougher pieces like the Lombok trunk and the small Indian side table. At the same time, these tables have plenty of nicks and wear, which adds to their charm. They are so flexible and useful, although most of the time they sit just like this, housing the library books in a lovely custom-made market basket by PaperGlueBamboo.

And I do actually have another inlaid piece at the shore – a pair of contemporary bone inlay and resin pieces, although I haven’t actually seen them in situ. I ordered the Aleppo side tables from Serena & Lily as my master bedroom night stands at the beach house just as I was leaving at the end of the summer. For some reason they seem to have been renamed the Leila table in the interim and are so popular that they are back-ordered 3-4 months on the website. I’ll have to let you know what I think of it once I get back to the USA for the summer.

They are going right in here.

Funnily enough, I just realized that don’t have any Japanese antiques or objects that I consider true inlay. My lacquer pieces are surface based and not inlaid. Odd don’t you think?

If you have any inlaid pieces you’d like to share, please drop me a note and photo!

Mar 27, 2014 By tokyojinja in Design Motif, Doha Move, Furniture, Interior Design 9 Comments Tags: beach house, inlaid, inlaid furniture, inlay

Beach House Kitchen Diary Part 1…Before and Currently

We are finally ready to tackle the main big project here at the beach house – the kitchen – so I’ll be posting all week on the subject. This was the original photo in the real estate listing and certain things were clear from the very beginning, including the fact that the kitchen was not very big at approximately 9 x 12 feet but that it was bright and sunny. In addition to 4 windows, the pair you see here and the larger pair over the sink, it had 3 doors, one in from the dining room, one leading back to the small side room we converted into a TV room and another door out to the porch which you can see open on the left of the photo. That leaves a fair amount of wall space challenge. Add to it the yellow paint and child-like wallpaper border, old linoleum floor, faux butcher block counter, grody uncentered sink with one of those tiny side compartments for the disposal and 1970s style laminate cabinets and you can see we have our work cut out for us. It doesn’t help either that the base color of all the appliances is almond which is definitely not my cup of tea.

A photo on the day we took possession does reveal the lovely french doors into the kitchen from the dining room. Unfortunately, the refrigerator sticks out so far that it is all you really notice when looking in from this angle. I’m going to take you on a tour, counter-clockwise as you enter.

A left turn through the door brings you to this cabinetry, which effectively blocks the door out to the porch. Note the aforementioned laminate cabinets and counter in all its glory.

Pivot 90 degrees to the side wall which had a table shoved against it in the real estate photo which would have kept you from opening the porch door or the oven. The curtains obscure a pretty shaped pair of original windows and are not at all necessary for privacy.

Pivot again and you are facing the back wall which has the stove on it. You can see a vintage kilim I brought from my house in Tokyo in the hopes that it would be a good color for the room and cover quite a bit of the grimy floor. Note one of my absolute favorite features of the kitchen (not!) – the side by side appliance look of the stove and dishwasher.

The sink has beautiful windows as well, also obscured by very unmatched curtains. The sink itself is made of some awful material that never looks completely clean and is an ugly pinky beige. The faucet isn’t centered on the window and the disposal side of the sink is almost useless.

Pivot again and you come to the wall on the right side of the kitchen as you enter, blessed with the behemoth fridge. As it sticks out so much, it basically renders this corner unusable.

And sliding your eye along brings you to the two remaining doors – the first one straight on being the original entrance to the now TV room, and the door frame mostly out of view on the right heading back out to the living room. Take note of the double door space leading into that extra room as there is a fairly deep vestibule between the two door frames that will eventually prove useful.

Now we have certainly managed to make some basic improvements since we moved in, including painting the kitchen Benjamin Moore Linen White – perhaps this post should really be called “The Magic of a Coat of Paint” – which has made the kitchen very tolerable. Linen White is not one of my favorites, but it is my mother’s long-term go to color (and thus a fixture of my childhood) for all things almond and a very close color match to the cabinetry. The other instantaneous change came after we took down all the curtains. The kilim really does help too, especially now that the bright yellow and primary colored border is gone. I’m doing a matched tour below, photo by photo, and just this view alone gives you a sense of how much has changed (although that fridge still is a behemoth!)

We removed the upper cabinet on this wall soon after moving in as it made the room feel very closed in. Being here for just the summer means that we just don’t need that much storage, so it was no loss. We also took out the lower cabinet planning to get rid of it too and float a small island instead, but we made the unexpected discovery that there is a hole in the linoleum underneath so for now it has to stay. The good news is the hole confirmed our belief that there is good wood floor under all that linoleum. That’s a check in the plus column for sure! I’m looking forward to restoring the transom above the porch door too.

This is what I meant about these windows having a lovely shape. And the trellis outside provides privacy. Don’t you think it would be charming to have small flower pots hung European style on the trellis so when you look out you have a pretty view?

Only recently, the faux tile behind the stove came loose, so I am pulling it out tomorrow and painting behind there too.

And a pretty half sheer may be necessary here if I can’t get the neighbors to hang their beach chairs lower!

Copper, baskets and no more ugly wallpaper border here.

The most major change came with our renovation of the TV room and downstairs bathroom in which we sealed the entrance from the kitchen and turned it to open into the living room/dining room. A full post on that renovation can be found here. The net benefit in the kitchen besides the improved traffic flow is the gaining of a pantry.

So this is where we stand today. Plain and functional but not my ideal. In the next few days I’ll be showing you what I wished was here and my ideas – both high and low – of what we might do.

If you are interested in seeing more of our beach house progress, earlier posts can be found in the Renovation and Decoration Report.

Jul 16, 2013 By tokyojinja in Kitchens, Renovation and Decoration Report 7 Comments Tags: beach house, kitchen, kitchen remodel, kitchen renovation, kitchens with rugs

A Possible DIY…Painted Inlay Vanity?

If you didn’t follow my bathroom re-do last summer, you might want to read this post, before starting this one. As a quick recap, my master bathroom at the shore went from this to this…

…and this to this, for almost no money and a just lot of sweat equity, including me personally hand stamping an Indian block print for what felt like a million times.

The thing that didn’t get finished and thus does not appear in the photos is the vanity which was not changed out. One of the choices I was really interested in was using some kind of mother of pearl or bone inlaid chest or table as the sink vanity. It was complicated, because I couldn’t find one the right height or size and many were absolute budget busters anyway. After I left at the end of the summer, it went on the back burner, but still simmered all year. Well, in this month’s House Beautiful, Rebecca Minkoff did just what I was talking about, converting an inlaid dresser to a vanity by adding a sink. It got me to thinking…

A number of favorite bloggers – all master DIYers, though, unlike me – have painted the most extraordinary trompe l’oeil inlaid pieces lately using either stencil kits or in some cases painting free hand. Camille at The Vintique Object painted and stencilled this small chest after practicing on a small stool first. She used a stencil kit from Cutting Edge Stencils, designed by Kim Myles, who also has a great how-to on her blog. Would you ever believe this piece wasn’t actually inlaid?

Jenny over at Little Green Notebook free-hand painted this dresser for her girls room. It has a more relaxed look, but still that great Moroccan vibe. Visually, she used the same technique, with scrolling floral pattern inside borders.

Marian at Miss Mustard Seed goes even more free form with this hand painted art deco era dresser (you would never believe the before photo!). If she can convert that dresser, then I have to be able to do something with my vanity!

So I am wondering if I might accomplish a few things at once if I try this on my vanity. One, I won’t have to look at its ugliness anymore until I find the right thing to change it to, and two, I can check out and “practice” having an inlaid piece in the space to see if it is worth the splurge to get a real one. Now, mine has more of a bombé shape, but I am thinking there is potential!

What say you all?

Master Bathroom Related Posts:

Renovation Report…The Finished Master Bathroom (Almost)
Renovation Report…Vanity Dreams or Vanity Reality?
Renovation Report and a DIY…Using Indian Wood Blocks to Create “Wallpaper” in the Master Bath
Renovation Report…Do You Throw Good Money After Bad? Thoughts on Fixing My Master Bathroom
A Day Too Late…One Perfect Bathroom Photo
Renovation Report…Pocket Door Progress

Apr 3, 2013 By tokyojinja in DIY, Renovation and Decoration Report 7 Comments Tags: beach house, DIY, inlay, master bathroom, mother of pearl, vanity

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