Wednesday, August 20, 2003
The things folks throw away
I don't think there's much furniture in my apartment that I've actually purchased. Other than the antique upright piano I bought from Justo's church, a chest of drawers I bought in Rochester, a couple of Arts and Crafts chairs, and the old Vitanola I've had since I was, like, 12, I think everything else has been found. So far, the biggest pay dirt for finding things has been this past year in the neighborhood I live in here in Cincinnati.
I live in Prospect Hill, which is an older neighborhood overlooking downtown -- It's listed on the National Register, and looks like most of the buildings are from the 1870s, but there's some earlier housing, maybe late Greek Revival, and my house is a duplex built in 1914.
It's a mixed neighborhood: I live across the street from public housing, and we're within walking distance of the riots at Over-the-Rhine. But, we also have ferocious white yuppies of the most insidious kind -- Saabs, cell phones, mocha lattes AND babies. We have sophisticated old preppies (think Nantucket meets New York), and vestiges of the gay population that apparently got it all started 15 years ago but have mostly moved on to redo other, uglier neighborhoods. We still have a high concentration of Lesbians Who Drive Land Rovers (or TT4s or Boxters) -- and, like Henry Ford, love any color as long as it is black.
When I walk Grace in the evening, we've been stopping at a little park that overlooks the downtown skyline -- the lights of Carew Tower, the "Dolly Partons" of Proctor & Gamble HQ, the halogen of the new stadiums. In the morning, what seems to stand out during the walks are entirely different views -- the early city's church steeples, narrow needles stabbing heaven, tarnished copper and gilt, clock faces and muddy chimes. There is also the Ruskin mass of Music Hall (memories of the Opera), and the surrounding hills -- most notably Mount Adams, where there is the art museum and some convent or something looking like it fell right out of the Italian hills.
Tomorrow is trash day in my neighborhood, and so the "night before" is usually a great adventure! While Grace goes nuts over all the smells, I go for the Big Tag items. The project folks are always moving or maybe getting evicted and so there's always tons of great kitschy stuff outside their apartments. The ferocious yuppies and old preppies (not to mention those Land Roving Lesbians) represent the best of American hyper-consumerism and so, likewise, are always throwing out cool things. I've furnished most of my apartment with these objets de trouves.
So in the past year, I've found a chrome and wicker high-style 1970s dining room chair, a chest of drawers, a 6-foot-high 5-panel screen with a basket weave pattern, and a side table. A couple of weeks ago, I painted the chest and the screen off-white, and I purchased some sleek aluminum knobs for the drawer pulls. It looks great, and wow, Amy Daczycyn and all those other Frugal folks would be jealous I bet! Maybe you read my earlier Blogaboo about having financial problems and thought I ran up a bill at Pottery Barn or Williams Sonoma, filling my home with accent lighting and puffy pillows? Nooooooooo! (No doubt I'll investigate and ponder the source of my money troubles with another Blogentry.)
Tonight, I found a King-sized bed headboard in the alley -- the ugliest French Provincial 1960s kind -- it has two high-peaked backs, like a camel, with that trendy 1960s/1970s "cane" trimming with wicker insets. I don't have a headboard, so as soon as I put Grace inside, I went and hoisted it back without a moment to spare. Its original finish was semi-antiqued white/gold with green hints, and covered with nicotine grime and cigarette burns. I say "was", because while it was still light out, I painted it with one of the paint returns I bought for the duplex, an oil ("alkyd") off-white. I think I'm going to paint over it with latex paint, a light green, which should crackle when it meets the oil base and make the whole thing look cool.
I'm sure the producers for Martha Stewart Living or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are getting a busy signal trying to reach me. *sigh*
I live in Prospect Hill, which is an older neighborhood overlooking downtown -- It's listed on the National Register, and looks like most of the buildings are from the 1870s, but there's some earlier housing, maybe late Greek Revival, and my house is a duplex built in 1914.
It's a mixed neighborhood: I live across the street from public housing, and we're within walking distance of the riots at Over-the-Rhine. But, we also have ferocious white yuppies of the most insidious kind -- Saabs, cell phones, mocha lattes AND babies. We have sophisticated old preppies (think Nantucket meets New York), and vestiges of the gay population that apparently got it all started 15 years ago but have mostly moved on to redo other, uglier neighborhoods. We still have a high concentration of Lesbians Who Drive Land Rovers (or TT4s or Boxters) -- and, like Henry Ford, love any color as long as it is black.
When I walk Grace in the evening, we've been stopping at a little park that overlooks the downtown skyline -- the lights of Carew Tower, the "Dolly Partons" of Proctor & Gamble HQ, the halogen of the new stadiums. In the morning, what seems to stand out during the walks are entirely different views -- the early city's church steeples, narrow needles stabbing heaven, tarnished copper and gilt, clock faces and muddy chimes. There is also the Ruskin mass of Music Hall (memories of the Opera), and the surrounding hills -- most notably Mount Adams, where there is the art museum and some convent or something looking like it fell right out of the Italian hills.
Tomorrow is trash day in my neighborhood, and so the "night before" is usually a great adventure! While Grace goes nuts over all the smells, I go for the Big Tag items. The project folks are always moving or maybe getting evicted and so there's always tons of great kitschy stuff outside their apartments. The ferocious yuppies and old preppies (not to mention those Land Roving Lesbians) represent the best of American hyper-consumerism and so, likewise, are always throwing out cool things. I've furnished most of my apartment with these objets de trouves.
So in the past year, I've found a chrome and wicker high-style 1970s dining room chair, a chest of drawers, a 6-foot-high 5-panel screen with a basket weave pattern, and a side table. A couple of weeks ago, I painted the chest and the screen off-white, and I purchased some sleek aluminum knobs for the drawer pulls. It looks great, and wow, Amy Daczycyn and all those other Frugal folks would be jealous I bet! Maybe you read my earlier Blogaboo about having financial problems and thought I ran up a bill at Pottery Barn or Williams Sonoma, filling my home with accent lighting and puffy pillows? Nooooooooo! (No doubt I'll investigate and ponder the source of my money troubles with another Blogentry.)
Tonight, I found a King-sized bed headboard in the alley -- the ugliest French Provincial 1960s kind -- it has two high-peaked backs, like a camel, with that trendy 1960s/1970s "cane" trimming with wicker insets. I don't have a headboard, so as soon as I put Grace inside, I went and hoisted it back without a moment to spare. Its original finish was semi-antiqued white/gold with green hints, and covered with nicotine grime and cigarette burns. I say "was", because while it was still light out, I painted it with one of the paint returns I bought for the duplex, an oil ("alkyd") off-white. I think I'm going to paint over it with latex paint, a light green, which should crackle when it meets the oil base and make the whole thing look cool.
I'm sure the producers for Martha Stewart Living or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are getting a busy signal trying to reach me. *sigh*