brass drum stool

A Little Bit of Everything from Barrie Benson and Others

I have a question for my fellow bloggers out there…What do you do when you find you want to add to or update posts and topics you have already covered? There is the classic, oops, I forgot about that photo and also the selective perception issue, where after you write about something you see it everywhere. Case in point, my brass drum stool…

April’s House Beautiful brought this one in a stylish bathroom by Charlotte based designer Barrie Benson.

I had already discovered that I forgot to include this photo from Schuyler Samperton‘s portfolio in my post.

Love the complimentary brass balls warming this icy cool bedroom from Plum Pretty Sugar.

And then I found this one at Milk and Honey Home while looking for spring flower branches.

In the meantime, Joni at Cote de Texas had recently posted this absolutely perfect room which I had never seen before. I have a pretty encyclopedic memory for any space, but this one is new to me, so I need to write to her and find out where it is from. But I am including it here both because I love it, but also because there is what looks to be a Japanese Seto porcelain garden stool sitting in front of the main sofa. Now that is something you never see!

Speaking of that Barrie Benson bathroom, here is the view across the room with its gorgeous campaign style vanity.

Which reminds me that I have been meaning to mention Jenny of Little Green Notebook‘s newest project. Remember the kitchen island she made out of a dresser that I showed in my repurposing furniture post?

Now she has changed it out for one she made from an old campaign dresser. Yowza, that girl is the best DIY decorator ever! Click here for the details…

I also ended up scrolling through Barrie Benson’s portfolio and came across these two old friends hanging on the walls…

And while we are at it, there is always room for more Japanese glass fishing float inspiration, whether it be subtle, as in this Scott Currie beach house (note the rope banister too)…

…or fairly over the top via The Enchanted Home! Floats with baskets, cut down altar table for a coffee table, giant planter and Madeline Weinrib rug, – gorgeous, no?

Don’t forget to click into my last post and enter the giveaway for the ZAK + FOX pillow! Simply leave a comment on my post and then hop over to Zak’s site and enter your name in the mailing list.

Mar 24, 2012 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Glass, Interior Design 2 Comments Tags: Ancestor Paintings, Ancestor Portraits, Barrie Benson, brass drum stool, fishing floats, garden stool, Japanese glass floats, Schuyler Samperton, Scott Currie, Seto

Identify This…Brass Drum Stool

While we are chatting about my recent brass finds, let’s look back at another cute vintage brass item sourced from a Tokyo area shrine sale. Remember this guy found here last spring?

Well, he is now cleaned up a bit and safely ensconced here in my living room, having become an extremely useful addition to our household, a perfect spot to rest a book or cup of tea and serving as extra seating in a party pinch.

This is a slightly different style of “Identify This” post as I am honestly the one looking for help figuring out the origins of this small brass stool or table. I had not seen one before mine, but this summer at Calypso Home in NYC they had a larger and brand new side table sized one in the shop. No one there had any insight into the history of its style.

I have only ever seen one featured in a home design spread.

(Addendum: On a funny note, it was only after I received the Katie Ridder book I wrote about in my last post that I realized I had just shown another photo featuring not one, but two of these stools in one of her interiors! There is a shiny brass one adjacent to each the chairs in the photo.)

So without much to go on, I dived in to my usual research sources…Currently, there are a few available on 1stdibs right now, including this one from Belvair…

and this pair from lawson-fenning. Both are simply identified as 1960s vintage brass drum stools or tables and are priced at $325-365 each.

Adam Bram Straus just had one for sale in his Tastemaker Tag Sale on OKL too. It and the one directly above on the left look the most like mine, although mine is in better condition than either of them and none have the repeated concentric circles on the seat/tabletop.

Less expensive new ones, which honestly have inferiors lines, seem readily available, like this one from Cyan Design for $247.

They even come in other finishes, such as aged bronze or this fancy polished nickel from Arteriors, the most expensive of the bunch at $458 for the small size and over $1000 for the side table size.

But I haven’t been able to find any additional information, or even proof that these are 1960s designs. One source suggested they are Italian, another art deco, but I don’t see any evidence of either, other than the usual problem in which someone wrote it on the internet once, so now everyone quotes it like it is true. For my eye, they have a real campaign furniture look, but as they don’t actually fold up or disassemble easily, that is not it either.

So I open it to you my readers – any theories or clues on origin, time period or even additional photos of these in use? I’d love any ideas, speculative or fact-based….And most of all, I wonder how it ended up in Japan?

Nov 25, 2011 By tokyojinja in Furniture, Identify This, Interior Design, Metals, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 8 Comments Tags: aged brass, brass drum stool, brass drum table, flea market, Katie Ridder, shrine sale