DOMESECTRATE

There are certain things I find myself doing and wanting, that I never understood before this apartment; Napkins, cooking, and coasters all fall under this category.

1. Napkins

 I don't often use napkins. I'm much more likely to wipe my face on my hands and my hands on my pants.  As a 30 year-old man, I think it's time for this to change. Actually, I should probably back this up to childhood memoir levels. When I was really little my family used paper napkins. They were pink or light blue and I sometimes would wad a few up and shove them in my mouth. Flash forward to when I was seven or eight and learned where paper napkins came from and about amazonian deforestation; I cried about it. My mom was so moved by the expression that she went out the next day and bought cloth napkins which she uses to this day. Flash forward again, I'm a disgusting teenager and I stop wiping my mouth-hole all together.

How are we going to fix this, buy napkins? Maybe it will come to that but I have a different plan. Brandon and I are going to the fabric store this weekend to buy clothing for our new chairs, kitchen windows and dirty faces. It will probably prove too time consuming for lazy fucks like us but whatever, we will give it a go.

Chairs: Green or teal velvet
Curtains: Op art print or sheer somethings
Napkins: ????? I dunno!!!!!!

2. Cooking

We've been cooking a bit, mainly soup and homemade liqueurs. The liqueurs and soup have inspired us to make more low effort/high yield foods like cured, canned and pickled stuff. After all, our new apartment is on the east side of the river and we have to start assimilating to the local culture some time. I bought THE PRESERVATION KITCHEN by Paul Virant... I can't wait to try curing meat. It sounds really stinky.

3. Coasters

Coasters are for old people so I just ordered a load of teal agate geode coasters off of the internet. I kind of doubt this is going to help cut the boho vibe in our kitchen nook but it should help bring in some color. 

New Chairs

 We bought a couple 1970's vintage Thonet armchairs off Craigslist last night, both for $30. It seems like a great deal since I found this group of four on 1st dibs for $2400. Does this make me a craigslist genius? Ours were recovered in the late 80's with some sort of hideous airline print in a dowdy colorway so we are going to try our hands at reupholstering them. But what should we cover them in?

 

We are thinking of covering them in leather or velvet and I'm really drawn to the idea of malachite green with the chrome steel like in this picture. We are also talking about teal or nice, light cognacy tan leather. Since we just painted the kitchen black I think black leather might not be an option...Which feels utterly wrong when acknowledged. 

I'll be posting some before and "after" pics tomorrow.

Color and Contrast from Elle Decor UK

Kitchen Obsessed

I can't stop thinking about our kitchen so I created this hideous moodboard. Obviously we haven't painted yet but we did choose a color(shade). I threw up samples of Farrow and Ball's Railings and Downpipe. When I got the samples I was sure that we would opt for the less extreme Downpipe but because our kitchen gets light from both Northern and Southern exposures it's reading too Brown. Railings ended up looking so cool and relaxing and I can't wait to get it up on the walls. We will be leaving the moldings, ceiling and cabinetry white so that, with the white tiled floor , should keep the room from feeling too dismal. Although, there is a voice in the back of my head that's looped "paint the ceiling black, paint the ceiling black". 

The table pictured is really close to the table we have in there currently so I'm trying not to fantasize too much about switching it just yet. It's made of walnut, it's in good condition, it's absolutely was not stolen from a restaurant's basement the day we moved.

We've also been considering moving the Antelope head into our kitchen. Brandon's grandfather shot that thing in the 50's or something and I'm pretty sure they ate the corpse afterward so that's cool. The antelope head could really use some refurbishing since plaster dust falls out of it's nose making it look like a forgotten soul from Studio 54.

While shopping around our apartment we have considered moving in a 70's tan painting of waves. It's signed by an artist called "LETTERMAN".  From what I've been able to gather online, Letterman was a fake artist who's painting were mass produced by a now defunct company called Melting Pot. Apparently the fine folks at Melting Pot  had assembly lines of disabled artists that would churn out these things. Ours is different than the one pictured. The one in the mood board is a San Fransisco sailing scene. The one in our apartment is graphic waves 70's weirdness with a penisy texture on certain parts. I think it will look handsome next to the dead goat. If anyone has any information about Letterman art or Melting Pot please shoot me an email so I can amend my brain and possibly the internet.

We also have a vintage Dora Maar  vase in the livingroom which might look nice in here. The one pictured is the reproduction by Johnathon Adler. If I was going to buy an Adler pottery I would probably go with this tits jar or the classic Banana.

We still need to find some chairs for in here. We are currently using a couple vintage chairs from around the house. Right now I'm really liking these blue Supernatural chairs but they are fucking expensive so we are looking at the green knockoffs called "Marzipan chairs" from ZGallery Amazon. 

Oh and don't think I forgot about that stupid ikea pendant. I will switch that out if it kills me. 

First things first: ORDER SOME GD'D PAINT, HOMES!

Thinking about our Kitchen

Brass lighting that looks like a mess of security cameras? YES PLEASE.

When I imagine Angels, I imagine them like these lights by Stilnovo

These Joe Colombo Chairs Make me want to own a slot machine.

Manikin Piece
Gregory Joseph Gillespie
1980

Sottsass teapot. Fuck me, I love this thing.

This is puzzle by Sottsass. I want to keep dog treats in it.

I don't know who designed this and I don't care. All I care about is learning the rules for pinochle and playing footsie.

Sweet Christ, these are awesome. How Clockwork Orange are these chain pendants?

http://www.1stdibs.com/furniture_item_detail.php?id=529221

Gucci Camera Flask

OMG the Lens a pair of shot glasses

http://www.1stdibs.com/furniture_item_detail.php?id=460996

 The 1stDibs website has a curated search for Italian Design of the 20th century which is making me lose my mind. Specifically it's making me want our kitchen to feel super 70's. It should look like a casual place to snort a few rails of some designer drug who's side effects wont be known for another 20 years. It should be the kind of place where a Gucci flask doesn't look out of place. It should look like the sort of place where you could throw malachite plates against the wall in order to get your point across.

HAUSPLANTS

We gotta get some plants up in this mother. I want something that looks extraterrestrial and hopefully in tree form... but the search is not yielding a lot of fruit. Trees tend to look like trees and some of the weirder plants I have come across are cool looking but have unsavory attributes like carrying the stench of rotting flesh. There's also no shortage of succulents which I'm pretty bored of looking at. Why can't nature or scientists surprise me with something new or not even really new but super extreme. Like that Lady GAGA fellow; her music is sucks and her look is nothing new but she's not boring because she is extreme. Now that's what I want from a houseplant.
Brandon thinks it's unreasonable that I want species that do not exist, so even though he is wrong, I'm thinking about his suggestion. He thinks that we should have functional plants that we can eat. This means we could put something fruit-baring in our livingroom, herbs in the kitchen and something for the office that will keep the air quality...um...breathtaking.... Here are some uninspiring photos of potential plants:

Herb planters from West Elmikinz?

Herb planters?

Herb planters?

Foxtail Fern? Look at the way it glows against black paint?

Foxtail Fern for drinking Turkish coffee with Bronzed monks?

This thing is called "Princess Earing" which I hate but the flowers look like graphics from a Korean rave flier which I love.

Yucca...Although I like these better in tree form.

Layered pots inside or is that just too candle-party-fagamatron?

ORANGESORANGESORANGES

Clementines R EZ PEELZ OHKURR?

Does indoor citrus look too grandma's panties?

Olives? This could be good because they hate water or whatever.

Miniature Tuscan olive

Banana? Maybe but sans "sexy baby with wings" or the rest of this cluttered nightmare. Also, checkout how many garbage cans these people have.

 So far I'm liking the citrus or olive tree ideas for the livingroom. I'm not sure about the herbs in the kitchen deal. I think that's going to take some more planning after we get the black paint up. As far as plants in the office or downstairs go...I have no idea.

THE KITCHEN: The one that made me cry

The quaintness of this kitchen may very well give me erectile dysfunction. Everything is shabby chic, white and gross.

 I'm glad we have a dishwasher but look how stupid and little it is. It's about half the width of a standard dishwasher and 100% more likely to shatter our wineglasses. Also the soap tray lid thinger exploded off of it so who knows if it actually cleans anything. I'm thinking the detergent just melts away with the first spray of water.

Nice to see someone spent so much time cleaning before we moved in... The inside of the cabinets are so nicotine stained that it looks like someone was hosting AA meetings in there. We will have to paint these, I guess. I was really hoping not to because I think that means we will have to paint the outside of the cabinets, which means we will have to paint all the molding and the doors and probably other shit I haven't realized will need to be painted...Which I hear landlords hate. Oh well. Fuck the landlord.

The kitchen is outfitted with hideous light fixtures. I especially hate this one from Ikea because it looks like a pile of fingernails or as Brandon described it "like shrimp having a circle jerk or gangbang orgy". God, I love him. For some reason it's hard to take a photo that really captures how FUGGED it looks.

  Look at the nasty hardware. It's dirtier than anything and has been painted over many times. I saw a post on http://www.doorsixteen.com/ once that showed how to fix this. It looked tedious and annoying but if I don't do it I might die. I'm going to try...eventually... most likely when I end up repainting all of those saltlick-bastard cabinets.

First things first:

We want to paint this kitchen blackish as I mentioned before. This is the fun exciting part. The part where people have come over and told us we are crazy and even "retarded".  I'll show that bitch she's wrong. I'm liking all this Farrow and Ball reference I found.   Farrow and Ball paints are super expensive though so I will probably just buy the sample cans and have them color matched somewhere local once I make a decision.

I'm thinking about a Petrol Blue color like Farrow and Ball's Hague Blue...I like it but it may look a little weirdzies in our kitchen. Perhaps We can think about that color in the guest bath?

Maybe black is too extreme and we should consider a Deep Gray like Farrow and Ball's Downpipe or Railings.

\

But damn I love pitch black.

We also need to have some colorful chairs up in hurr. I think we want something old and awesome like these bad boys...

...or these vintage deals by Joe Colombo

...Or these supernatural chairs by Moroso...(but you know... in that miraculous don't cost more money than god sorta way...

Or we will just give up like everyone else and go to Ikea...Wait no. No we wont. At least not for furniture. Ikea furniture is not allowed any more.