Showing posts with label Stickley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stickley. Show all posts

Friday, November 7, 2008

Weekend Shopping Tip: Stickley Sale

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Photo card from Louis Shanks

If you live in the Houston area and are looking for quality Arts & Crafts (Mission) furniture for your bungalow, plan a day this weekend to visit the Stickley Truckload Sale at Louis Shanks. The Bunny Bungalow has several Arts & Crafts reproduction pieces that were real bargains at Stickley's Louis Shanks sales (see the fall-front desk in the photo at the bottom of this web page.)

Louis Shanks
2800 Fondren, 713.780.9770
235 FM 1960 W, 281.893.0800



Monday, September 1, 2008

New Blog

Barcelona Chair (1929) Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; at DWR, Houston, Texas

My new blog, My Ranchburger, is named after my other home, a late fifties haunted (more about that later) ranchburger in Houston, Texas. I wanted a place in which to post about what I call modern minimalism.

In both of my homes many of the furnishings are from the early twentieth century (either original or reproductions of designs from that period.) In The Bunny Bungalow, most pieces are arts & crafts antiques or reproductions from Stickley; whereas, the pieces at My Ranchburger are modern, such as Le Corbusier or Marcel Breuer designs (reproductions from Cassina). These seemingly disparate styles surprisingly have in common the time period in which their designs were originally produced. With arts & crafts, the designers were looking backward, to a time when things were handcrafted. The designers of modern style, however, were looking to the future, so embraced industrial production. In spite of having been conceived in the same time period, the two styles seem to be in opposition to one another, yet they have in common a minimalist purity. Therein lies the reason a minimalist heart can love both styles.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Reflections

Reflected painting, "Howling Hat" by Linda Hickerson-Hofheinz


Metal window frame, cum mirror, from an 1820's-1850's German brick factory.


The reflected bed is a Stickley reproduction of a Harvey Ellis design.


We have been searching for the perfect mirror for our bedroom at The Bunny Bungalow and we finally found it. I saw a mirror on Installations Antiques' website that looked promising but when we walked through their door, Tall Husband saw this one. We both knew immediately that this was "the one." The patina from the elements and age give it just the character we love. It's an old metal window frame from a German brick factory, around 1820's to 1850's, that Jur of Installations Antiques transformed into a mirror. His work is always artistically and functionally exquisite, with just enough edginess to make each piece interesting. The manner in which the mirror fractures images imbues it with an air of mystery.