Furniture

Furniture
01/05/09 1:19pm

The Sensabaugh Sensibility: A Dolled Up Duplex

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Home Decor, Interiors
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He’s the display coordinator for Anthropologie in Highland Village. He has a degree in mortuary science, but his art makes frequent use of old doll parts and other objects he finds in flea markets and dumpsters. What does Brian Neal Sensabaugh’s home look like?

In(side) the Loop blogger Courtney gives us a tour of his “downtown” duplex. Sensabaugh, who’s from rural Arkansas, calls himself a “Ouijist”:

Found objects play a very important role in my work. Things cross my path for a reason. I am fortunate to be able to listen and bring these objects together in a harmonious balance that is agreed upon between the objects themselves and me, the artist.

A few scenes from Courtney’s photo tour, displaying some of Sensabaugh’s unique interior touches.

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Furniture
09/10/08 12:55pm

A Cheaper Way To a Desk

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Interiors, Quicklink
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A CHEAPER WAY TO A DESK A tip on furnishing that home office, from the desk table of Joni Webb: “For a desk I went to Pier I and bought a 6′ dining table with an X base, stained dark brown. The table has proved to be a wonderful desk: with its large surface, I can spread out floor plans and fabric samples and still have room to work. Perhaps the best advantage to buying a dining room table instead of a desk is price. For some unknown reason, put the label of ‘desk’ on a product and the price goes up.” [Cote de Texas]

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Furniture
07/16/08 1:36pm

The Furniture Bank’s Upscale Neighbor

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Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail, Senechal
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THE FURNITURE BANK’S UPSCALE NEIGHBOR The home-furniture-for-the-furnitureless nonprofit has opened a new store called the Bargain Bazaar — on the north side of I-45 near Scott, down the street from its new warehouse on Hussion Street — to sell “slightly used” furniture to the public. If all goes well, the Furniture Bank will buy the building someday. [Greater Houston Weekly]

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Furniture
06/25/08 5:29pm

Going National: Lose the Dead Animal

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Home Decor, Interiors, West University
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Joni Webb’s Guest Room As Seen in Houston House and Home Magazine

Having survived the ordeal of a home photo shoot for a local shelter magazine, Houston blogger and interior designer Joni Webb graduates to the big leagues. A “national magazine” liked what they saw of Webb’s West U home in Houston House & Home, and asked her if they could photograph her Family Room and Guest Room for two separate upcoming issues. Webb’s response?

After last year’s physically tiring and mentally exhausting photo shoot, I swore I would never do it again. But, somehow, here I was, less than a year later, again welcoming strange photographers into my house. Of course, nothing is ever easy.

Exactly one week before the big photoshoot, I received news from the local scout. She had a list of things the editor wanted changed for the shoot. Oh? Really? The editor and art director wanted a new window seat cushion (made out of the Bennison fabric, no less!) The zebra rug HAD to go – apparently their readers object to zebra rugs, the suzani on the chair also had to go (suzanis are too bright) and the neon orange pillows must also go to be replaced by other pillows (like what other pillows, I wondered?) Now understand, I had known this shoot was going to happen for about three months – three months that I could have gotten all these changes done with no problem. Instead, the editor gave me one week to get the new cushions and pillows made.

More details of Webb’s quick-change artistry, after the jump!

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Furniture
04/25/08 1:04pm

West U Home Stalker Reveals All

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Home Design, Interiors, West University
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Wheat Residence, West University, Texas

Cote de Texas author Joni Webb comes clean about her obsession with a recently constructed home in West U.

. . . whenever I drove by the house, I would slow my car to a crawl, craning my neck to try to see inside the white stuccoed home that had so captured my imagination. Through their windows, I could make out some of their furnishings – first, there was a screen in the living room, and then I could see an oversized mirror. Next – I noticed the dining room’s antique light fixture which furthered my suspicions that this was a house I would love – inside and out. By the time the sheer, linen curtains were hung – the deal was sealed – I was an official stalker and somehow, I had to finagle my way into the home to see it first hand.

This must have been tough for Houston’s highest profile design blogger, because Webb is usually obsessed with French design, and the design in this particular home was clearly more . . . Belgian.

After the jump: The stalker gets in!!!

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Furniture
04/01/08 1:18pm

Dunlavy and West Alabama: The Fiesta Antiques District

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Home Decor, Interiors, Montrose, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
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Dunlavy at W. Alabama, Houston

Design blogger Joni Webb identifies Houston’s latest “hot pocket of stores selling reasonably priced, yet very chic antiques.”

Where is it? At the Fiesta Mart!

Or more accurately, in and around the shopping strip that includes the Fiesta — on the southeast corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama. Webb’s Cote de Texas blog runs through items available at Antiques and Interiors on Dunlavy, the Country Gentleman, plus the latest shop to open: Boxwood Interiors, a second store by the same people who run Foxglove Interiors on Alabama, a few blocks to the east. Boxwood

. . . immediately called to me when, through the window, I glimpsed freshly laid seagrass matting stretching from the front door to the back. It’s amazing what spending a few extra dollars on seagrass will do to an old and ugly mall space.

After the jump: seagrass magic! Plus a few of Webb’s Fiesta-area finds.

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Apartments
01/21/08 11:54am

Free Eighties Furniture at Colonial House!

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Furniture, Gulfton, Houston History, Interiors, Real Estate Marketing, Renting
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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnLsrK5Tjs 400 330]

The brave work of Southwest Houston and Houston Apartment Renaissance scholars has been rewarded — a second mid-1980s Colonial House TV commercial is now available on YouTube!

No it’s not quite as iconic and over-the-top as the one with the VCR in the pool, but look at that fabulous indoor-outdoor furniture! Almost a quarter century later, we know Michael Pollack is alive and well, but does anyone know where that living-room mandala and dining-room set ended up?

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Furniture
11/13/07 11:00am

The Armoire Glut

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Hotels
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Want To Buy an Armoire, Cheap?

As hotels around the globe redecorate their rooms with slick new flat-screen televisions, the inevitable has happened: the market for entertainment armoires has become saturated. Juliet Chung of the Wall Street Journal reports on the sad fate of the unwanted furniture pieces:

Industry analysts estimate that as many as 40,000 armoires could be looking for new homes by the end of the year.

The rejects are ending up in some unlikely spots. Some are retiring to the Dominican Republic, where they’re being used in bed-and-breakfasts and private living rooms. Craigslist and eBay have hundreds of postings by people trying to unload the units. But most are gathering dust in warehouses from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The result: price drops. Chung reports one hotel-liquidation company is unloading armoires for $50 each; Hotel Surplus Outlet in Los Angeles has been refusing to accept any more for several months now.

“We don’t want to have a warehouse full of buggy whips,” says Michael Grimmé, owner of AMC Liquidators in Fort Lauderdale, where unsold armoires from luxury properties are piling up. Mr. Grimmé says he has cut prices by about 25%, which has attracted buyers who need to outfit lower-end hotels and motels.

Plenty of used old-style 27-inch televisions are available too, but of course that doesn’t make for as interesting reading. If you’ve still got one, or want a place to put one, or want to convert a former entertainment armoire into a computer desk or a nightstand or even — what a concept! — an armoire you can actually hang your clothes in, now’s your chance. The article lists four sources where you can buy used armoires for cheap:

Photo: Doug & Michelle Smithwick, Country Cottage Chic

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Furniture
11/12/07 1:22pm

The Messy Truth About Those Shelter Magazine Photo Shoots

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Interiors
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Joni Webb’s Den, from Houston House and Home Magazine

Ever wonder how come all the folks featured in shelter magazines get to live in such perfect, pristine interiors — when your place is such a wreck? Well, maybe they’re not really so different from you.

Cote de Texas’s Joni Webb, this month’s Houston House & Home magazine cover girl (well, actually — her dogs are on the cover; she’s on page 50) gives a picture of what really goes on behind the scenes:

I had exactly one week to get my home “photo ready.” I was totally overwhelmed by this news, but my family was ecstatic and promised to help me clean it up, which I knew would be a lie (it was.) . . .

The list of rooms that couldn’t be photographed was growing: my office is such a disaster even I hate to go in there, my daughter’s room is a typical teenage mess, the kitchen, with it’s outdated appliances, has new pewter hardware clashing with the brass plumbing fixtures which are awaiting their turn to be replaced. This same problem affected all the bathrooms. My decorating crises didn’t leave too many rooms “photo ready”so I had to get the rest of my house in tip top shape and fast. Like most people whom I sure don’t have “photo ready” rooms, my house is filled with the clutter of everyday life: piles and piles of unopened junk mail, back issues of unread magazines stashed everywhere, an overcrowded garage — not that they would want to photograph my garage, but after the grease-stained headboard cover story, who knew? In other words, my to-do list was very, very long, so long that I dreamed of calling the magazine to cancel. My suddenly publicity hungry husband threatened me with divorce if I did. And so, I proceeded on to d-day.

After the jump, what to do with junk mail and electrical cords: A Houston design blogger reveals how to make your home ready for its close-up . . . in a jiffy. Plus: more pics from the shoot!

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Furniture
10/11/07 10:57am

What You Missed at Round Top

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Interiors, Tourism
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Swedish Antiques at the Lone Ranger in Warrenton, Texas

Couldn’t get out of town last weekend? Francophile designer Joni Webb features a photo tour of Round Top’s semiannual antiques extravaganza on her Cote de Texas blog:

Once, the Round Top Antique Festival meant Americana and Texana antiques. Today, French, Swedish, and English antiques have overtaken the prominence that Americana and Texana once enjoyed. Now highbrow antiques share space with the very lowbrow: vintage, bric a brac, and just plain junk are plentiful in areas where the rent for stalls is cheap.

After the jump, more photos of vintage junk!

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