Windsor windfall

(This post was delayed for a bit, but the fruits of summer freestyle can be enjoyed all year long!)

Summer moving season is here, and with it comes the garbage-fruits of other people's apartment. Yay!

I spotted a pair of Windsor-style chairs in the discard section but initially passed them by because our apartment has plenty of seating already.  However, the very next day a friend with nearly identical chairs expressed the desire for more seating (and a willingness to take freebies). Quelle coincidence!  Luckily the chairs were still there.

Pair of chairs

The finish isn't perfect, and there are a few scratches, but this seems normal for a pair of chairs that are 20+ years old.  When I was turning them over to inspect the loose connector I found a stamp on the underside of the seat, "Made in Yugoslavia." Interesting.

One chair was solid, but the other required some wood glue action to get the cross-brace back in shape.  I don't have any clamps, so I used some bungee cord and books to hold things together while the glue dried.

After a short car ride this pair of cold-war castoffs finally found a new home and some comfortable green cushions.

Happy freestyling!

White, bright, and out of my sight

I had a wonderful pair of Ikea Urban chairs on my porch the whole summer.  They were lightweight but not flimsy, pretty comfortable for an un-upholstered chair, and apparently are made out of some reinforced polypropylene.  I think they look a little futuristic.

Whatever, they were nice for the price of $0.  With fall rolling around I thought it was time to do a little patio rearranging and increase the light transmission into the living room for the winter months in the hopes of keeping the remaining houseplants alive through the winter.  So the chairs went up for grabs and some friends with a large deck and a penchant for dinner parties snagged them.

Here they are on the patio, just waiting for a party!

Happy Halloween, and Happy freestyling.

Living room: Evolution of a corner and then some

Our living room is a long-ish rectangle, but not totally symmetrical.  Some of the walls are interrupted by doors, or angles, and the obvious traffic patterns must be considered.  One spot has a shorter wall expanse to work with, is out of the kitchen-bedroom-front door traffic flow, and is opposite the couch.  This wall would be ideal for a tv stand (we don't own a tv) or a loveseat - but the corner wall is kind of shallow and I don't want to block the path to the patio door.  Also the loveseat in our apartment is kind of 'meh' and doesn't mesh with the other living room furniture, basically I don't want to look at it from the couch. Over time this little spot has changed, here are some highlights.

Soon after we moved in to this apartment we found the tv stand, thus began the freestylings of this little corner.

Sometime during summer?

I gave away the multi-arm lamp and used the lampshade somewhere else, but the general setup stayed the same.

Below is the next version.  We boxed up the unused TV that had never even been plugged in after my roommate unpacked it and we had left it there for maybe 6 months.  Of course removing the tv freed up more space....FOR PLANTS!

Through fall into early winter...

The only constant is change, and so the little area changed one again.  The orchid in the red plastic pot went to the greenhouse in the sky, I gave away the fern, and in anticipation of a possible move I sold the tv stand.....

In the meantime I had found this 2-drawer chest (end table?  nightstand?) made of real wood.

Shocking..... in a good way.

Even more surprising is the possibility that is made out of American wood -- based on the little bit I found online about the original manufacturer.

 

 

Clearly it was someone's family hand-me-down no longer appreciated. I kick myself for not taking the larger matching dresser that I have no use nor space for before someone else snagged it. Oh well.  That little drawer set was acting as a plant stand in another part of the apartment until it got moved into this new corner to act as a plant stand for the palm tree and a changing assortment of succulents.

Early spring

This space will evolve further in future.  my plan is to introduce some other chairs -- after I repair them .....but that's a story for another post.

Happy freestyling!