Author Archives for black oak vintage

expanding the shop

expanding the shop

One of the greatest opportunities that getting a separate showroom space has afforded us is the ability to work with more furniture pieces and projects for the shop. We love working with wood (as you might gather from our Black Oak Handmade shop) and vintage, so getting to expand and work with vintage furniture is a dream. Today I’ll be in the showroom organizing and cleaning up a few pieces that we’ve picked up recently. Among those was the dresser above that we decided to keep for ourselves ;) But suffice it to say, we hit the Mid Century Modern furniture jackpot this past week and found some amazing deals on some incredible furniture that we can’t wait to share with you!

We’ve been going through some major changes lately and this blog has suffered some from those distractions. I’m sorry! My intentions are to soon get some steady posts back up and running now that we can photograph our projects and finds from a better location. Hold tight, friends.

sunday reading

sunday reading

There’s just something about Sundays that always make me want to sleep in late, lounge around the apartment with a fresh pot of coffee and read by my window. Yesterday at a local flea market, I was tempted by so many beautifully designed covers of old books and it reminded me to find more today. I’m loving this piece designed by Josef Čapek in 1922.

Happy Sunday, friends!

join us this saturday

ImageFor any of those in the Philadelphia area, please join us this Saturday April 13th for a great event being hosted at our showroom space and studio building! Not only with our vintage shop be open to the public for the first time, but some of our other building-mates will be sharing their own local crafts and wares. Food and drink and good times to be had!

shop update

mod hand bookendswoven hot padsgold highball glasses50s chairsgold and amber tumblerspineapple trivet

We’ve finally been able to add a few things to the shop after a too-long hiatus from our studio! It was undergoing some rearranging and messy decorating, but it’s back in order and we’re ready to work. More items will be going up this week, and hopefully I’ll share a few images of how the space is coming along — including our new beautiful kilim rug.

the flower show

Today in Philadelphia begins the week-long Flower Show held in center city’s convention center, where every year a new theme is chosen to showcase what’s new in the gardening world. I have never had the pleasure of going because I work at the nearby Reading Terminal Market, and this is easily the busiest week of the year for us. So while it sounds like a lovely convention, I’ll have to sit this one out again this year and fill the void but looking at these pretty vintage botanical prints. Even though these have gotten a little overplayed in the design world, I still think they are so beautiful and would love to have a few framed.

I can’t say for sure how likely it will be for any new posts from us to pop up in the next week, but I do hope you’ll stay tuned for some post-convention shop updates! We’re looking forward to the end of this, though I’ll happily wear as much floral print as I can in the meantime ;)

vintage kilim rugs

plant stand

One of the biggest challenges of decorating our studio to become a showroom for our shop is making it a warm, inviting room. With its open ceilings and concrete floors, we’ve had to get a little creative in our attempts to keep everything vintage. And since both Adam and I have long loved kilim rugs, we’ve been considering one as an option to liven up our floors. In our current apartment we have several of these kilim covered pillows around, but as lovely as they are, I’m excited to get a larger and hopefully brighter rug version. There’s a great dealer who’s always set up at one of our favorite flea markets, so I’m trying to hold out for a warm Sunday to take the trip out and look at his pieces. But in the meantime, I can’t help digging through the thousands of options online.

Of course, these beautiful rugs can cost a seriously pretty penny so it may be for the best that I’m only browsing Etsy for them at the moment. We seem to have no shortage of gorgeous runners in our possession, like the one hanging in our hall and a great Persian runner that’s already made a home in our studio. It’s the larger area rugs that will make the best impression on our guests and the largest impact on our wallets. Time to get saving!