apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My husband's parents have a bunch of old hotel furniture - his father works at a hotel. They have a couple of chairs that they haven't reuposltered. We "inherited" two nightstands, one of which recently got thrown out (bad condition), and the other we painted and brought back to life.

If it was the furniture from the SAS Radisson in Copenhagen I would love it as the Jacobsen "Egg" and "Swan" chairs were designed especially for the Royal Hotel and are placed in the Lobby and many of the rooms.

Plus there is a whole room that is kitted out in originals...the Royal Suite #606 where everything from doorhandles to furniture and curtains is designed by Jacobsen.

I don't much care for the clumsy intersection of the front & side rails of the Madison chair, but I really like the odd, MCM-meets-Empire vibe. Either way, I have no problem buying used hotel furniture--especially the older stuff that comes out of the public rooms. It's usually a great bargain.

My down-cushioned Baker camelback sofa came from a lobby at the St. Regis in NewYork, and when I got it, it was upholstered in Brunschwig & Fils' La Portugaise glazed chintz--a favorite of Mario Buatta & Mark Hampton, although probably not in this particularly garish orange-&-hunter green colorway--which I couldn't bear to look at more than a few days, but which I also couldn't afford to replace. So being in a hurry, and also being broke that summer, I got out the paintbrush painted this baby to mimic red leather.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a286/MAGNAVERDE/DESK--MAGNAVERDESPAINTEDSOFA.jpg

The chairs are lovely... and the cat is supercute! Does he come with the chairs?

Sandblast those puppies down to bare metal and they'd be really cool with natural Belgian linen upholstery.

I love those chairs - I'd have no problem having them in my home.

Furniture from the better hotels are much better built than anything you could get for the same money at IKEA. I'd have no problem with it at all.

I got a desk chair at the Park Hyatt DC sale a couple of years ago. I paid $40. It's not a particularly special style, but it's pretty high quality and it's very comfortable. I'll do something interesting with it one of these days. On another note, if you ever get a chance to go to a hotel sale, do it, even if just for the experience. It's wild seeing people running around raiding the rooms and looking like they're on some kind of looting spree.

The Madison Hotel was top of heap in its day and I wonder how it's doing now. I was born in DC in 1963 and my father was eating lunch at the coffeeshop at The Madison when he received the news of my birth. Not that this is relevant to the chair discussion, but it made me smile.

Hotel furniture scares me as 30% of hotels have bedbugs. Pretty and cheap, but at what cost?

I'd have to look at the upholstery under a black light to check for bodily fluids before I bought anything. And check for bed bugs. I think I've seen too many episodes of Dateline.