apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Our current apt. has a high percentage of these items. After we move into our first home (house) later this summer, I have a feeling our taste (mostly mine) and tolerance for silly items will change (as in, diminish greatly). We have one of those electric moving waterfall pictures (with sound effects). We bought it off the side of a van, at night, in the parking lot of an auto shop. Ah, city living, how we will miss your quirks!

item? you mean only one? I hide them from my daughter who is an interior designer. Luckily she lives in Philly so does not just drop in and I have time to stash them out of site.

I have a "wonderful" decanter and shot glass set that were made by some distant relative.

The decanter resembles a tree, complete with bark and "branches" that grow out of the sides of an old wine bottle (I think) and the stopper (cork). T

Each of the tiny shot glasses is envolped in this bark material up to about a quarter inch below the rim.

The color and effect are more red stuco than tree, but for some unknown reason I love the thing!

I have an oil painting of a magnolia in a vase, with a Holy Bible lurking beneath. A gift of my Great Aunt Ella Pearl, who fancied herself quite the patron of the arts in rural Mississippi. She bought dozens of works by the artist and distributed them to family members with great ceremony. It reminds me not to get too full of myself with my fancy degrees and art museum job.

I once saw one of those electric moving waterfall pictures in a restaurant - on a bright orange wall, across from a hanging Christmas decoration, between a couple of Buddhas and a shelf of dishes, it actually looked appropriate. They had another one in the women's bathroom.

I have a plastic Buddha which used to light up, a Last Place bowling trophy my father acquired from somewhere...my kitchen witch, which freaks out my roommate...and an inordinate quantity of lime green. Oh, and the lawn flamingo (who is hiding modestly in a clump of ivy).

I have a set of $10 still life paintings from Ross that I really like. They're in these fancy frames and everything. I have a red chicken from Long's Drugstore, as well as many other animal figurines which some people might find goofy...like the plastic ones for kids from Target and Wal-Mart!
I think my boyfriend finds everything in my apartment inexplicable. :-)

I collect Fiesta; obsessively. Need I say more?

I definitely have way too many, but I'm all about tongue-in-cheek so I guess it's my 'thing'. My favourite are the plastic S&P shakers I got from Chinatown that are basically Alkatraz convicts. Who thinks of that?

Moon Man was the toy in a cereal box when I was a kid and he's been with me ever since. He's a very small, lime green, friendly-looking alien-type creature, and he's adorable. He lives on a shelf in my living room, and is welcome to stay for as long as he likes...

Wallace and Gromit coalport figurines in my kitchen.

Ceramic Polar Bears
Vintage Lamps
Vintage Bitossi Pottery
Repeat-cruiser tiles and inaugural plates from the Holland America Line.
Heath Moonstone Dinnerware and Wedgwood Flying Cloud China.

my large collection of gnomes. :)

my name is jonathan.. and i too am a addict

My 8 track tapes

My cats, not the live ones, but ceramic, plastic, fabric, brass, etc., that are displayed on my bookshelf

My collection of milk glass

My concrete Buddha in the patio area...he always gets comments

I love those little deer. Where are they from?

A "set" of ceramic S&P shakers that consists of a cake slice on a plate and a pie on a stool. They'd lost their true mates at Pottery Ranch, but I thought they'd work together -- and they do.

I have a ceramic 3-D plaque of a dog that is glazed in a pearlescent white color in my kitchen. My husband is always trying to get rid of it, but I can't do it. It was my great grandmother's and it is so awfully good.

I don't have anything like that. I feel horribly lacking in character.

I am obsessed with round lacquer trinket boxes. Can't get enough.

My apartment is filled with these things. There's the loon carved out of some kind of bison horn, the bookends that look like a lounging dog cut in two, the "touchdown buddha" that guards my bathroom sink, one of those turtle shaped lamps with the glass shell that lights up, a battered wire birdcage rescued from the dumpster at my old apartment, a sculpture of a giant gun my fiance made from plastic bottles, a ceramic fish, swords, mismatched antique teacups, a little wunderkammer filled with shells and other seaside objects... People that come over are endlessly examining all these little curios. I love how kitschy little objects bring back the awe and enthusiasm people lose when they grow up and create "adult" living spaces.

As much as I love to look at ascetic rooms with clean, modern furnishings, I could never live in one.

I covet my friend's rustic painted bottle opener painted with an odd little figure and this:

NO MUSS
NO FUSS
JUST OPEN
WITH THIS
LIL CUSS

Love it. Decoratus Absurdum.

t8
www.strangeclosets.com

When design takes priority, the result is often strange closets.