Oscar Niemeyer Chaise Lounge

Oscar Niemeyer Chaise Lounge images via R 20th Century

Originally published July 6, 2013.

Oscar Niemeyer made cool furniture as well as buildings? Of course, he did. Seems like most architects are also budding furniture designers (Frank Lloyd Wright, Ron Thom). Niemeyer passed away in December 2012 - 10 days short of his 105th birthday.

The Rio Chaise Lounge was designed in 1978 with his daughter, Anna Maria Niemeyer.

Features a bentwood frame, woven cane seat, and leather headrest pillow with weighted straps.

The image shown is a 2001 reissue for sale on 1st Dibs.

1978 original for sale at $28,000 in 2013

1978 original sold at auction for $22,000 in 2008

1978 original unsold at auction $5000 in 2003

images © R 20th Century

Dining dilemma

I've had at least five dining tables in the past ten years. 

This is partly because I've moved six times in the past five years (and you've been with me for each one). What was purchased for one area only fits in one location. 

This is what leaves me torn. I need a new table - again. I want to invest and get something I can keep from this day forward, but seeing as we rent, who knows what will happen? 

Our last movers trashed our teak bedroom set, smashed most of my BC ceramics, broke my alabaster table, and gouged the top of my stump table with a six-inch crevasse. 

What do I do? Of all those tables, our card table was the most versatile, and the size was right for each dining room. I should look for one of those old wooden ones.

If I had 'my own' dining area, it would go something like this:

Florence Knoll's oak or walnut-topped table.

or the Wegner CH002 table

"Oh, hi, we just look cool."

Jonathan Adler's Sputnik chandelier

Hoffman for Thonet cane back chairs

mixed with Wegner's Wishbone chairs

It's not in my dining area, but the Womb chair would be there. 

Now I'm into the flax colour. 

Good thing I didn't get the purple velvet one four moves ago!

Here's one of those card tables I just found on Craigslist. 

Thirty bones and a "leather top" - too bad those fantastic chairs aren't included.

Terribly Planned Circulation

I'll tell you something about renting. 

You get to live in many different neighbourhoods and eras of dwellings - a pseudo-try before you buy. 

As you know, we were renovicted from the place we moved into just seven months into our lease (a long-term rental, my ass). 

We were turned down for about six or seven places we applied to rent - who knows why? Besides, I don't really care. 

We finally got accepted into one - we moved all our stuff over on the 31st, and within 30 minutes of stepping foot in the place - in the daylight - I gave our notice to get out. 

Our total stay was thirteen hellish nights. What a pen of filth. 

Viewings only after 6pm! 

After 6pm because it's dark and you can't see the filth. 

Anyway, this dump of a building was built in 2009; I hadn't lived in anything newer than 1965 since I was nineteen and living at home with my parents.

I'll never live in anything 'new' again. 

Speaking of such, how can people line up to buy condos that still need to be built? 

They've never even sniffed out the place. By sniffing out, I mean precisely that - smelling it. 

An educated nose knows the smell of particleboard and cheap flooring. 

An educated nose knows the scent of cheap. 

How do people put their trust in some developers they don't even know? 

Developers are business people. 

What do businesses care about in the 21st Century? The bottom line. 

What's the number one rule in business? Buy low, sell high. 

So, to all those people I saw lined up on 41st and Cambie today to buy an unbuilt condo on a major traffic artery - all the best to you and yours.

So, where is home now? 

Well, I had a Quebecois/Portuguese friend who used to like to call me a WASP; I adamantly disagreed - and even more so now that I looked it up. 

I don't have an Anglican or Protestant bone in my body and horses. 

Besides, horses and I have a mutual understanding - they don't like me, and I don't like them - but we're cool. Let's say I'm back at the beach (the other place was on 8th and Cambie). I haven't lived more than two blocks from the beach in eighteen years. 

What's that saying, once you leave, you can never go/get back?

squished

Here I sit with all my furniture from our place in West Van. Stuff bought for our place in West Van. How do you make things fit in a space you didn't intend to put it? I wanted to check out some of my interiors books to see what they had to say. That's what got me writing this post. Reading a chapter entitled Planning for Space*got me thinking about how all these new condos lack precisely that - a plan for a comfortable human space. Take these eight points on well-plotted circulation, for example:

1. Can you get to the bedrooms without passing through the major group area?
2. Can guests get to the bathroom without passing through a bedroom?
3. Can you move through the kitchen without interfering with the cooking operations?
4. Are hallways wide enough for two people to pass each other comfortably?
5. Are entrance areas large enough to welcome guests to the home without dumping guests straight into the middle of a party?
6. Are staircases wide enough to permit the passage of furniture?
7. Are doors well situated to allow for traffic flow and comfortable furniture arrangement?
8. Does the home have a "heart" - where people automatically congregate? Are paths to that area unobstructed?

 agh

Now, please memorize these points. Only rent/buy something after you ask yourself these questions. Landlords and developers - the same goes for you. It's in your best interest to keep happy, long-term tenants. That being said, although the layout sucks, I think the new place is going to be entirely satisfactory. You know I'll keep you posted.

On a similar note, I went to park in front of one of my favourite little Vancouver houses today and noticed it looked neglected. Well, it's been listed for sale—$899,900.00. It's probably 100% original, and it's listed for its property only. I've posted photos of its amazing dark purple hydrangea bush on Instagram.



* Faulkner, Sarah. Planning a Home. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.

Don't you ask me to give you a song

Bruno Freschi for Erickson Massey, 1967, Chartwell Place, West Vancouver, BC. © stacy reynaud

What am I going to write about? 

I need to be inspired. I haven't seen any good design pieces or heard any original music at all lately - 

although I do listen to my 70s Dudes playlist usually three times a day. 

You know what, though? 

The nice thing about having a blog is that it's my blog, and I can write whenever and about whatever I want. 

It's been seven years now, eh? Seven years! 

I remember when I was seven. 

Elvis died. 

My family and I went and saw Star Wars on opening night at the Stanley on Granville I'm a Han Solo kinda gal. Although Lando and his cape did give Han a run for his money - but just for a bit - until Han was f

rozen, then I felt guilty. 

Grade Seven, I remember Grade Seven. Mr. Coleman was my teacher, and Amy was my best friend. 

My hair was long and feathered to the side, and I liked drawing. 

What else? Hmm, how about the seven months in Kits before we were evicted? Yes. Seven months. Nope, not going to go into the whole ordeal. 

One word - Vancouver. 

You can look it up if you're interested.

me 1998
Okay, so I finished my philosophy course at UBC. 

My last paper was, What is Death? 

I finished the course with the same GPA I had twenty years ago, so at least I'm not getting any dumber. 

It'd been a while since I'd last been intense, so I thought it was about due time. 

For future reference, it might be less painful to just Jiffy than on a Stanfield's to remember - Intense (in all caps). 

It's the academic writing style that's painful, not the thinking. 

I'd hoped that style had disappeared with the 20th Century but no such luck. 

Ah, but wait! The Writing a Romance Novel workshop I took! 

What a fun day that was. 

There were only three of us - me, an eighty-year-old woman, and the instructor - who, by the way, was awesome. 

I'd tell you her name, but it's packed in my books in a bedroom box. 

What I can tell you is that she's a member of the West End Writer's Club, wears blue eye shadow and used to live in the Caribbean. 

A Gen X'er, a Baby Boomer and a Golden Oldie. 

You need to remember, of course, that in your 20s, you're living the romance novel, so you don't need to know how to write it. 

I'm working on one in my head - or is it an autobiography? 

So, that Kim Gordon book. What did you think? I need to read it again. 

Not because it's so friggin' good but just so I can understand it better - then I'll let you know. 

Kind of like when I heard In Utero for the first time. 

Can you please tell me that Virginia Woolf isn't as pretentious as she's coming across in Moments of Being? 

She's Tumblr famous, you know. 

Oh My Cat, speaking of pretentious - you need to watch - no, no, you have to watch Schitt's Creek. 

Catherine O'Hara. Can she be any cooler? 

The coolest Canadian in my books (and Anne Murray.)

Oh yeah. We went to a cider workshop in Mt. Vernon a couple weekends ago. 

I stopped paying attention after an hour into it. 

I cheated off Brad's notes. Joking. 

Those people who cheat - they don't end up making it - they fail at life. 

Why? 

Because you can't cheat reality.

Sometimes my cat Tilley smells like a Cowichan sweater. 

Sometimes she smells like one of those sleeping bags from the 70s. 

That's what she smells like right now. 

I love those sleeping bags. 

The ones with the flannel lining with images of camping scenes or ducks and guns. Hey, remember going over to a guy's house, and he'd have one of those sleeping bags as a bedspread (or was it his only blanket)? 

Holy mackerel, what a trendsetter. 

The sun came out.

top image: Bruno Freschi for Erickson Massey, 1967, Chartwell Place, West Vancouver, BC. © stacy reynaud
bottom image: © Lucasfilm Ltd

my instagram
my tumblr
my facebook

An Untouched 1970s A-Frame Wonder

The Gienger Residence in West Vancouver is on the market for the first time. 

The original owners/architects have lived in the home since 1971. 

And what a beauty it is! Is that plush carpeting I see in the living room? 

Look at the beautiful, unstained cedar walls and exposed beams.

The original copper pendant lights and a burl bar.  I'd take the rope off the bar.

The original floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and hand-carved beams.

Spiral staircase and original brick kitchen. 

The floors may have been replaced with unfortunate laminate. 

However, nothing appears to have been updated in the home, so it could be the original hardwood floor. 

They're well cared for, as it looks like the rest of the house has been.

Are the burl table and chandelier included in the sale?

Sold me at the sunken purple bathtub! I'd rip that carpet out, though. Please, the carpet does not belong in the washroom. Gross. I'd put in a light-coloured heated stone floor of some sort.

There you have it. For more images, check out the realtor's website. 

It would be a shame if the home was bought strictly to be torn down and replaced with the ever-popular West Van Baroque Craftsman.

 

Remember these little guys?

images © North Shore Realty 

Hunky-dory

So, how are things? Keeping yourself occupied and sane, I hope.

You know those, What I'd tell my younger self, posts you see everywhere? I won't do one of those because there's nothing I'd tell my younger self not to do. I had a very awesome time as a younger self. Yeah, there were moments I felt like I'd been thumped in the head by the cross-section of a large halibut, but whatever. 

No regrets here! None. Zippo. Zilch. 

That was my life, and I think it was awesome.

Remember back in the winter of 2013 when I was working with the doctors at the UBC Mood Disorders clinic? Well, I wasn't sold on their diagnosis (they actually couldn't determine between three), so I sought out a second opinion. After seven months of waiting to get in to see a specialist and four months of weekly appointments, which required I bring in some 'collateral' (my report cards from elementary school and high school), I was diagnosed with ADHD combined with a few episodes of major depression. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar back in 2013. I didn't think I was bipolar. 

Apparently, it's common for bipolar and ADHD to get mistaken for each other. I never went on the drugs (lithium) the UBC doctor suggested. My family Dr. didn't feel the diagnosis was concrete enough either, so she didn't push it and helped me seek out a second opinion. 

I'll tell you this, though, my ADHD was making me feel like I was going crazy because I had so many things going on in my head. Seriously, your mind really doesn't stop thinking. I've been taking Wellbutrin since 2009. My Dr. prescribed it for depression, and it slowed down all the talking in my head, which has helped me focus. Now I only have between six to eight things going on in there when it used to be between fifteen to twenty. 

I'm still going to be working with the specialist (doing cognitive behavioural therapy) every week for who knows how long. My main concern is working on how not to fall back into depression or at least how to cope if I do. That's a dark and frightening place. Read H.P. Lovecraft's short story The Outsider; in my opinion, it's a good unintentional metaphor.

The thing about ADHD is you get bored quickly. Agh - so bored! One of the challenges is trying to remain 'responsible' when you just want to fuck off somewhere and do something new! I'm trying some new things for fun  - strictly fun. Being responsible shouldn't have to eliminate fun. Ever notice it really pisses some people off when you have fun? Lighten up, for fuck's sake.

My fun things planned so far for January - April:

1. philosophy classes at UBC - okay, I dropped one already - Metaphysics and Epistemology. I dropped it nineteen years ago too! Now, I'm taking one - Philosophy of Mind with Evan Thompson. I'm taking it because it's in line with my train of thought over the past year, and I want to write about it. I'm thinking about going on to do my Masters but who knows. I already have a UBC degree in History.
2. check this one out - a creative writing workshop this weekend, How to Write a Romance Novel. Haha! Might as well! Think of the people I'll meet! I'll tell them my genre is Space Erotica.
3. spa day at Willow Stream with my friend - how normal? Not really - not for me, at least! I don't like people touching me, so I'm strictly using the steam room, sauna, hot tub and cocktail menu. Shit, I just realized I don't own a bathing suit. To tell you the truth, I'd be more comfortable nude than in a bathing suit.
4. short story - I'm pulling together something around quantum consciousness, the macabre and utopia

Okay, I will tell my younger self something. Don't make one of those stupid lists of things to tell your younger self when you're older.

Live well and live now.

West Vancouver Home Demolition Before and After

 

Do you remember this beautiful old gal with solid bones and amazingly restored hardwood floors? I posted about her back in November 2013.

Well, this is what replaced her. 

And to think, the contractor told me the new home 'wasn't going to be that big.' 

Quote of the Week - H.P. Lovecraft

image stacy reynaud

I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams and of the obscure world to which they belong. Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Suggestions For The Business Wardrobe

I was recently contacted by a gentleman who is changing careers. 

He's confident in his decision but not his current wardrobe. 

He asked for some suggestions on where to start. 

These tips are gender-neutral!

Let's start here:

1. Know what you like and what you don't like—what suits you and your style of living. This particular individual didn't want a baggy suit. He liked the mod suits from the '60s but not the super skinny trousers. He told me he liked Diplo's suits, Booth's suits from Bones, and Terrence Stamp's suits (see my post on his classic look here).
2. Know your clothing's priorities and each day's sartorial demands. Meetings, luncheons, golf (an unfortunate part of business, my apologies to golfers), and the cursed casual Friday. You want to be sharp and dressed appropriately for each. What are the corner offices wearing? Take cues from them and notch it up by one.
3. Versatility. Maintain a flexible wardrobe. In my retail days, we were taught the foundation of the fashion equation, 2+2+2+5 (Men = two trousers, two ties, two jackets, five shirts. Women = two skirts, two trousers, two jackets, five tops).
4. You want to be known for your unique ideas - that being said, limit it to one unique idea per outfit.

Originally published December 20, 2010.