Home Sweet Home

111 Archer Avenue, by Maxim Dalton

Well, we're back and it is raining. I suspect the rain has not stopped since we left.

I hate to confess this but as we still have not sold our apartment I am *GASP* meeting with a 'stager' today.

Can you sense the disdain in my voice?

The suggestion that I, with an aesthetic inclination and decades (okay- one decade) of experience decorating for the who's who of here and there, would not be able to stage my own apartment is absurd. Right? Right.

Well, my agent threw it out there and, after swallowing my pride, I thought why not? Fresh eyes are fresh eyes and I know that I am not the target audience for this newly constructed former bachelor pad blocks from Wrigley Field.

I am reminded of my first apartment in Chicago in a wonderful vintage building steps from the lake and Michigan Avenue

I never completely decorated it but furnished it with vintage finds and furniture passed down from my grandparents and parents and one or two random pieces I literally picked up off of the street. This wonderful chair upholstered in pink velvet with cabriole legs and this vintage bar cart/garden caddy that I salvaged from a dumpster down the street.

It was collected.

With wonderfully low, minimally-stuffed old school upholstery.

Sparse and a perhaps a little worn, but never shabby.

I even had this old TV with wood panelling, to blend in with the floors, surely. It recalled my parents first station wagon. And the beloved Woody.

(Ford used real wood through 1951)

And an age when wood paneling on everything to walls to cars to, yes, TVs, just felt right.

A friend told me he felt like he was on the set of the Royal Tenenbaums. Could you give me a higher compliment?

You could not.

The Royal Tenenbaum's Ballroom

And again at night. When I moved into my apartment the walls were pink- but a fleshier, beige-ier pink. Not okay. I painted them this pale blue/green/grey from Farrow and Ball:

Pale Powder 204.

I always put a swatch up on the walls before buying all of the paint and F&B sells paint pots in-store and online, here.

One more. Well, this room was inspired by the movie and created for Domino for their Jan/Feb 2006 issue. Check out this detail from the above painting of the Tenebaum's house, available here:

And the still:

You know I am not the only one obsessed with this Scalamandre paper- see a great post on it here.

(And this post by Apartment Therapy highlighting 20 great film interiors, including TRT. I am so on-trend.)

AND- this article from House and Garden, January 2007:

(My copy is in storage. Read more here.)

Anyway, while I would not have kept it this way forever, it was the perfect rental for a 23 year old me.

And I loved it.

I remember when my younger brother first came to visit.

He took in my artfully placed furniture, unique lighting with colorful shades, threadbare antique rugs and smartly arranged art and said, in all seriousness: "What you really need is a big leather sectional sofa and a huge flat screen. Then this place would be cool."

A dagger- I tell you- right through my heart.

Some people don't just get it. And I suspect those people might be my target buyers.

We shall see....

So I will let you know how it goes.

Xoxo,

Jenny

*I just heard that they are remaking Dirty Dancing. So soon? And yet, are we not surprised? Let's let this one sink in...