Doha

Local Specialities…Qatari Wooden Benches

With Qatar National Day fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to write about one of my favorite home-grown crafts – the Qatari wooden bench. Found everywhere all over town, but particularly in Souq Waqif, the main shopping and eating artery where we recently devoured the cheapest most delicious meal with some of our very best friends visiting from Japan (all while sitting on some of these benches)…

…and Katara, the stunning cultural village out towards The Pearl. The benches are charming, surprisingly comfortable and visually arresting.

It was a wonderful surprise to discover that they are readily available, customizable and very inexpensive to have made by local carpenters tucked behind Al Rayyan Road along Al Shagab Street – I’ll call it the “bench souq”. This is definitely a spot you’ll be hearing about in my “Doha Design & Decor Directory” that will be added to the blog in the new year, but more about that another time. With an empty back patio to fill and gorgeous weather for sitting outside, I have been desperate to furnish my garden space but didn’t want to spend a lot of money (nothing lasts in the summer sun for long) nor choose something out of context. The space is square, with lots of fuchsia Bougainvillea hanging over it.

Looking back towards the house I have started to find plants for my blue and white hibachi and planters (post on those coming in the new year as well). As this brick patio lines up directly with the living room/dining room, the view of what is out here is quite important.

On my first visit to the bench souq I saw numerous varieties of this traditional seating of varying style and quality. Most of the benches are designed to be painted and there is a large roster of bright colors. I am super tempted to go with a color, but worry that it will be too distracting from inside the house. Instagram friends have suggested going with blue or green for the benches, and even coral, all of which sound appealing, but I’m not sure I want to pull that much attention from the interior.

I left that first visit full of ideas while a friend here went ahead and ordered the simple benches above. They were finished within the week and when we went back today they were loaded up on a truck and delivered to her house.

Another carpenter had a few more unusual choices including this bench with finials similar to the green one I love in the top photo from Souq Waqif. This blue is also dreamy color!

But I fell in love with a more finished (and thus more expensive) bench featuring a traditional dowel musharrabieh (or moucharabieh or mashrabiya, the myriad of spellings is endless) the latticework so often used for window coverings in Arab architecture. It’s often said they are used to allow women to see out, but keep others from seeing in. I’m not sure that this is really true but I loved it as a decorative feature in these benches.

The carpenters are looking into getting me a white stain, instead of paint, as I think it is the paint that has trouble holding up against the extremities of the elements here. I have been planning on a lush blue and white backyard oasis for a while now, which was utterly confirmed when Vogue published Rebecca de Ravenel’s gorgeous NYC terrace recently. Ticking, Indian block prints from Brigitte Singh and blue and white porcelain. Need I say more? I keep finding inspiring things in her apartment (as in this post) and I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of it.

White with a bit of wood grain peeking through will be soft against the white garden walls and it gives me the perfect backdrop to mix blue and white with the bright pinks, greens and yellows found elsewhere in the garden flowers. It is pretty standard to get long cushions made to soften the hard seat of the benches, usually in a traditional red Arabic fabric. I decided to buck the trend and look for something a little more western for contrast. I think the cushions will only last a year or so, so budget was key. I could not have been happier to find this new IKEA fabric called Angsrutta for about $5 a meter. It works on so many levels!

Not to forget to mention that I am having a giant coffee table made to sit between them, much like this one, perfect for casual dining and hors d’oeuvres. This also gives you a peek at how bright the paint colors can be and the traditional red fabric used for the seat cushions.

So I bit the bullet and placed my order today. We will have to see what gets lost in translation – surely something will – but I can always have them repainted if necessary. Here’s to cocktails in the garden in the new year!

Dec 17, 2013 By tokyojinja in Doha Move, Furniture, Gardens 12 Comments Tags: benches, Doha, garden, garden furniture, garden seating, Qatar, Rebecca de Ravenel, Souq Waqif

Tokyo Jinja…in Doha

So I have been here three weeks now and settling in fairly nicely. The house is getting unpacked, albeit more slowly than I might like. There is not an inch of hanging room left anywhere and three wardrobe boxes yet to unpack. Amazing that my much smaller Tokyo house had much better storage, isn’t it? The girls have found their way at school and both are happy – even the teenager has admitted (in front of me no less) that she is liking it here. My sweet husband is just so glad that we are all together again and brought me such joy today by surprising me with reversing the refrigerator and freezer doors so that they open the correct way. Such a small thing can make me happy, especially in these early days. And everyone said it couldn’t be done so trust him to make it happen!

The part that is taking longer is figuring out exactly how to start reinventing the Tokyo Jinja side of me – my blog, my business, my personal identity, so that I can grow but keep you all traveling with me. I’m not going to let go of the Japan side of things and if you pop over to the Shrine Sale/Antique Show Schedule, you’ll see that I have updated it. I’m timing this post so that all my devoted readers in Tokyo can wake up on Sunday morning to a fresh fall schedule. But as a shout-out to those readers – I can’t do it alone! I look forward to hearing from you about life at the sales, whether it be stories about favorite dealers, photos of finds or news on the ever-changing schedule front. You are now my eyes and ears and I am happy to spread the word. I’ve also updated the About Me page, which was long overdue.

On the shrine sale front I have to mention a few things, including what seems to be the closing of the beloved Oedo Antiques Market (more here, here and here) at the International Forum in Yurakacho at the end of 2013. Right now I don’t know if that is temporary or not and I will get back to you with the news as soon as possible. The smaller market in Yoyogi will still be taking place once a month on an irregular schedule and it is unclear to me whether all the dealers may flock there. Details in the new schedule, but let me know if you hear anything please!

Before I left Tokyo I had a few chances to visit one of the newest sales in central Tokyo, but never got around to writing about it. Mid-way along Kotto-dori a small and very decorative market has opened.

It is mostly European and American vintage goods and collectibles, but sometimes you need a fix of those. You all know how I feel about vintage luggage…

…not as hot for the antler craze, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t.

So in many ways nothing has changed. I’ll continue to be out there at the forefront of the search for the antique, the handicraft, the artistic and the artisanal. Tokyo Jinja is a state of mind no matter where my body may reside and I hope you’ll stay with me along my journey.

Sep 14, 2013 By tokyojinja in Antique Shows, Doha Move, Expat Life, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 14 Comments Tags: Doha, Japan, japanese antiques, Oedo Antique Fair, shrine sale

A Clean Slate and a Lot of Volume

Sorry to have been MIA, but you can imagine the chaos of the last week. Today is Day 6 (I’m still counting) and I am coming up for air for the very first time. Since I can’t seem to think about anything else other than getting the house in order, I’m hoping you might like to come along with me this week and give me a hand.

For any latecomers, we have just moved to Doha, Qatar after 9 years in Tokyo, Japan. As international locations go, they are as different as night and day in every way, including housing, and in particular the actual houses we chose. Where my Tokyo house was small, with low ceilings, as you might expect, it was also wallpapered and carpeted (like absolutely every other expat dwelling) with an off-white/beige color that was simply unchangeable. As the urban density is so great in central Tokyo, houses are tightly packed, thus dark, and while my deep brown wooden floors were lovely, they positively absorbed light. Now there were plenty of houses in Doha that matched this same description, but we held out for a house in our favorite compound – an older one of course, it is me after all – with high ceilings, gracious lines and a very white palette in lieu of beige. I had 24 hours to pick paint colors and I have to say I did pretty darn well!

A quick photo tour of the house just prior to the movers arriving will give you a sense of what a lovely clean slate we had. The house features arches everywhere, from the front doors and entryway…

…to hallway pass throughs. Tile floors are de rigueur here because of the heat and I am enjoying the luminescence they give the interiors. Ours is actually whiter than it appears in these photos.

I think it was the arched windows that sold me on the house. I can’t wait to take down those curtains and hang new ones up at the ceiling’s edge. Thank goodness I chose the Benjamin Moore Balboa Mist for the living room/dining room. It is the perfect gray, with no shading in either color direction, although ironically this photo of the living room makes it seem blue…

…while this photo facing the opposite direction towards the dining room looks green. In person it is utterly perfect. I can’t say that enough times – perfect! If you have been following along, you’ll notice the can lights have been changed to small frosted glass covers and I am not actually sure I like them any better in terms of looks, although they are definitely an improvement in terms of function. You can see the small walled garden patio is an absolute clean slate as well.

The master bedroom has the most charming windows…

…and an arch leading to the dressing area and bathroom.

The other bedrooms are all bright and sunny and their paint colors are perfect.

You get a real sense of the tremendous sun coming in all the windows from these photos – I have not played with the exposures at all – and the need for cool colors inside.

What these empty room photos don’t demonstrate is the huge volume of the space. If you are sitting reading this in a giant new house in the USA, it won’t seem like a big deal at all, but I have never had space like this. The TV room downstairs has this nook, which didn’t seem that big…

…until we unpacked this antique shop tansu. It took up almost an entire wall and almost reached the ceiling in my Tokyo house and in my mind’s eye I had imagined it would fill most of this space.

I ran and unpacked some silkworm trays and baskets (the movers thought I was a bit wacky!) to help deal with the volume, but you can see that even they don’t fill it. I am excited and a bit daunted by the opportunities this creates. It certainly will make the fabric bill big – the curtains need to be very looooong!

The real compromise in choosing this house (besides the through the wall Japanese air conditioners – Argh will I ever escape them?) is the kitchen. Older properties are designed with the assumption that kitchens are for maids. We can’t imagine why the ceiling is dropped so low or why it has to have panel flourescent lighting, but it does. The dishwasher is out because it is getting replaced (yay!) as are the washer and dryer. At least this compound seems to be very responsible about making repairs. A plus is brand new white cabinetry (some of it illogical) and black granite counter tops, but there are the most awful terracotta-ish tiles on the walls, which ruins the space as far as I am concerned.

My sweet husband tried to fool me into thinking the tile was only really on the back splash – not! – and thus inconspicuous.

You can see that is not the case. So as I stew on the conundrum of what to do, I ask myself WWJD?

Before you go and think I’ve gone religious on you, it stands for “What Would Jenny Do?” as in Jenny Komenda of Little Green Notebook. She has just left NYC and moved home to Arizona where in the space of less than two months she has already radically transformed her house mostly doing all the work herself in such a fashion that I cannot imagine she ever sleeps for a minute. She took all kinds of uglies and made them fabulous – as she always does – especially when it comes to doing impossible things like painting tiles!

She turned this faux brick floor to this in her laundry room…

and this same floor to this in her kitchen.

And I know Steve at An Urban Cottage painted his backsplash tiles, from this to this. Steve, if you are reading this, how did the paint hold up?

So the question is what should I do? Paint? Wallpaper? Re-tile? Unlike Japan I think there is some flexibility in what you can do to the houses here. Something has to be done and I have a visual idea that would tie the space together with my antique pine table and Hitchcock chairs, but no sense of how to accomplish it. I think that will need its own post!

Please bear with my self-centeredness in these coming weeks. I do have upcoming posts on porcelain hibachi coming as well as a new Provenance post on bone inlay over at Cloth & Kind. I’ll be updating the shrine sale schedule and have a few new spots to tell you about. I’ve already found my first great antique shop here so there will be a new Shop Talk coming too. And while we are at it, remind me that I need to update the About Me page on this blog!

Aug 27, 2013 By tokyojinja in Doha Move, Expat Life, Interior Design, Kitchens 29 Comments Tags: Doha, moving, paint, Qatar

It’s a Crapshoot…Picking Paint Colors Long Distance

I’m a hard-core believer that paint colors have to be tested on the wall before selection, but unfortunately that’s not possible for our house in Doha. I’m actually ecstatic that we can paint at all as our house in Japan was covered in an off-white textured wallpaper that could not be changed. And better yet, we have just discovered that there is Benjamin Moore to be had in Qatar! So if I can give my husband the paint color names and numbers in the next day or so, he can leave the paint for the painters in each room and that is what will go up on the walls in lieu of the ugly yellowish beige they would normally paint.

I always tend to choose a cool color palette for my own projects – it’s just my instinctual nature – and my plan for the house is to have it be a seamless assortment of pale grays, with a bit of pigment in some rooms where a color is called for. Gray is by far the most difficult tone to get right and there are thousands of posts and even entire blogs devoted to the color. Since I have such limited time, I’ve constrained my search to my own tried and true colors and decorator favorites. I routinely recommend Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter HC 172 and more recently Balboa Mist OC-27 to others, but I never use them for myself as they are warm grays, not cool. After quite a bit of deliberation, I’m positive I don’t want cool blue tones in the living room/dining room or in the entry and hallways, so I am pushing myself to use the light and warm gray Balboa Mist. These kind of warm grays look awful to me on the chip – very beige which you know is like a four letter word to me – but lovely on the walls.

This is the photo that inspired the use Balboa Mist in my Chicago client’s living room…

…and it has been a great success. The room is still in progress and quite neutral, but we are finding that it can handle any color thrown at it.

And the most important decision for my new place is how the color will serve as a backdrop to my silver leaf and pine byobu and the rich color of my bamboo altar table?

Inspiration photos reveal it to be a wonderful gray with greens and medium toned woods.

So I have convinced myself and it will be the main color in the house. Wish me luck as this would be my largest mistake if it is wrong!

The den will get much of my existing living room furniture and rugs so it should ideally be a blue-green gray. I’m going with Nate Berkus’s favorite Pale Smoke 1584, which is very close to the now discontinued Benjamin Moore color (from three color wheels ago – I’m dating myself!) that my New York living room was historically painted.

It is best known for his use of it in Katie Lee Joel’s Manhattan townhouse.

That’s not to say that I’m not still considering going dark and dreamy in the TV room, using something like Farrow & Ball‘s Hague Blue like I wrote about here, or even F & B‘s Claydon Blue, but those kinds of decisions will have to wait until I’m there.

My bedroom has been an easy pick – Harbor Gray AC 25 – and my only struggle is that I almost want to change the living room and dining room to this purer gray. In my heart I know it’s not the right thing to do, but this is the kind of gray I like best. It nudged out Stonington Gray HC-170 by a small margin as the Stonington has a touch more blue.

I just happened to stop by and visit our tenants in our New York City apartment yesterday where the master bedroom is still painted my (also discontinued) dream gray, a color by Sherwin Williams called Windham Gray. I dug up old photos of our bedroom there for you (you’ll recognize much of the furniture from our Tokyo place here and here) and I was able to match the paint chips to the wall. I’m feeling impressed with myself that the Harbor Gray I had chosen before going there was as close to an exact match as could be!

My elder daughter is lucky enough to be having her room entirely re-conceptualized and re-done when we get there. Blue is her unquestionable favorite color so I am going with a favorite of designers Steven Gambrel and Vincente Wolf called Iceberg 2122-50. This is the first digital chip that doesn’t do a good job of representing the color – it is much bluer and less seafoam than it looks here.

And I am cheating here as I don’t know for sure that this Jeffrey Bilhuber bedroom is actually Iceberg, but I can’t resist using it as it has some of the ideas we are planning on, including tons of one textile and accents of black. For more of her ideas for her room, she has started a Pinterest board here.

My younger daughter is getting a consolidated group of her things and her older sister’s including that divine painted armoire. For her room we are choosing a soft French green called Silver Crest 1583.

It has a very shimmery quality. She will also have deep raspberry as an accent color, but I couldn’t find any inspiration photos with that kind of colorway.

I’m also planning on using this wonderful wedding noren, which is less blue in person, as a bed hanging on a four-poster.

The guest bedroom needs a twinge of a yellow-green so it will either be November Rain OC-50…

…or Silken Pine 2144-50. I’m worried that the November Rain is too putty and the Silken Pine to literally green.

The color needs to set off these antiques – an old Tabriz and a lacquer tansu.

The bed is white iron and the bedding is all white, with a bolster made from and antique velvet pelmet.

And I think I am going to paint the office Gray Owl OC-52 just because I love the color and I want to see it on the wall. It’s a gray with quite a bit of green in it, which is why it wasn’t quite right for elsewhere.

Joan used it in her kitchen and I love it and everything she does.

It’s an option if the Balboa Mist turns out to be a fail and looks beige, which is my secret fear. This room is so seductive because it reminds me of the arched entryway into our new living room.

But I’m sticking with my Balboa Mist as my gut says it is the right choice. Opinions? I know you have them! I figure if I even get 50% of the rooms correct, then it is well worth it to just have it be done before the container arrives and the unpacking begins!

Image credits: All paint Benjamin Moore paint chips via Benjamin Moore, Farrow & Ball chips via House Beautiful, 3. Buckingham Interiors, 6.via Apartment Therapy, 7. Lindsay Reid in House Beautiful June 2011, photo credit: Amy Neunsinger, 9. Nate Berkus, photo credit: Evan Joseph, 15. Jeffrey Bilhuber in Elle Decor, photo credit: Simon Upton, 17. Beth Elsey in Atlanta Homes Magazine, photo credit: Mali Azima, 20. via Design Sponge, 22. via Decorpad, 26, via For the Love of a House, 27. via CCG Interiors. All other photos mine.

Jul 10, 2013 By tokyojinja in Color, Doha Move, Expat Life, Interior Design 35 Comments Tags: color, Doha, moving, paint, painting

Ja Mata Japan…Hello New Beginnings

So it rained pretty much the entire time of our last week in Japan and the weather on the day we left was a good indicator of my feelings. Since we’ve been home I’ve had no time to post or even lie low and sulk in the whirl of doctor’s appointments and quick visits to long-missed friends. I’m definitely in a state of denial – it doesn’t feel like I have left Japan forever – as we always spend the summer back in the US. And I know I’ll be back as I already have work visits planned for next year, but that is somehow different. For now, a chapter in our life story has finished and we are on to the next adventure, but I am continuing to feel a bit ambivalent about it all. I’ve said ja mata (see you later) but not sayonara (goodbye)!

Here at the beach things are mostly looking good. The boardwalk has not yet been entirely rebuilt since super storm Sandy, but our town was hit much more gently than some other shore villages. Although I lost a few things in the garden which is expected, the hydrangea report is excellent – to compare with the last two years, click here. I’ve still got the crazy variegated thing going on which causes people to stop and ask me how I did it, but honestly, I’m not sure.

I’ve got lots of projects up my sleeve, one including this amazing vintage sari trim. And get this, after all that crazy work on the bathroom last year, the shower has a leak. If we can’t just re-grout and re-seal, I may end up having to rip out the tile after all.

Managed to hit up a few of our antiquing spots and picked up a steal on a pair of chairs with fabulous lines for my Chicago friend and client. These are going in her living room…

…reupholstered in John Robshaw’s Lanka Oyster.

On the new horizons front, it looks like we have found a house in Doha. From my very first visit there I preferred one “compound” (think housing development) to all the others, both because I liked the architectural integrity and middle eastern lines of the houses and the very white (not beige) palette of the interior and exterior, but also because there seemed to be a sense of community centered around the pool and restaurant inside the gates. Of course everybody else likes this development too, so it was full, but my sweet husband went every week to see the managing agent to remind him of our existence on the waiting list. As luck would have it, one has become available and they are renovating as I type, which you can see by the load of construction materials out front. It’s as different from my Tokyo house as it could be.

I am an absolute sucker for all the lovely arches – door, openings and windows in the downstairs rooms. Ignore somebody’s old crib!

And the row of tiny ones in the master bedroom is divine too. The interior shell is very pure, especially when compared to some of the other places we saw.

Less exciting are the protruding can lights (how to fix those is still unresolved in my mind) and tile floor, but tiled floors seem to be de rigueur there. At least these are quite white and not brown/tan based.

I’ve had numerous inspiration photos filed away for a while, but none so apropos as Sarah Davison‘s lovely Tamarama apartment. The windows are incredibly similar, although obviously my floor can’t compete with her unglazed Moroccan terracotta tiles.

Her apartment in Sydney is in a 1920s Spanish Mission-style building, so in many ways, not that dissimilar. The living room boasts a few pieces quite like those I will be working with – Japanese screen, bamboo, and big glass bottles.

Along with the green, some lavender will be sneaking its way in there, much like the pillows on her sofa.

I have plans for a long-stored amazing piece of Chinese embroidery, an antique bed valence…

…as well as a piece of vintage silk ikat gifted to me by friend and designer Maja Lithander Smith. For more on Sarah Davison and her beautiful home, take a look at her website or the Design Sponge Sneak Peak.

Bittersweet to move on, but I am trying to roll with the excitement change can bring. And if anyone has a solution idea for those can lights, please let me know!!!!!

Jun 27, 2013 By tokyojinja in Doha Move, Expat Life, Gardens, Interior Design, Textiles 13 Comments Tags: antique textiles, arched windows, arches, byobu, Doha, hydrangea, Japan, Sarah Davison, sari trim

1 2