Oh, that’s such a good spot.
One interesting thing (among many) about moving into a house that you’ve only ever seen on a computer screen: you don’t really know what to bring. Will that lamp fit in the new place? How about that sofa? Where’s that desk going to go?
You don’t know, and so you guess. And in my case, I guessed wrong in the chair department. See, I happen to have really a lot of…I guess you’d call them “statement” chairs, if you were being fancy – just sort of one-of-a-kind, not-part-of-a-set chairs that I found, and loved, and went home with.
A white knockoff Eames rocker.
My grandmother’s Costa Rican rocking chair.
A massive orange leather thing handed down from my dad.
This odd-but-cool curved-wood midcentury-ish piece I found at the Salvation Army.
And my Mystery Arts & Crafts Chair.
And I don’t have room for any of them.
I’ve been particularly bummed about not having room for that last one, because god, do I ever love that chair. You might remember that I posted about it a long time ago: Kendrick and I found it in a thrift store in Nyack for seventy-five bucks, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where it was from, so I put up some shots of it…and the son of the man who made it ended up commenting. And since then, that post has become an odd sort of hub for people selling and buying pieces made by Howard Furniture.
But there’s nowhere for it in our place. I had banished it to the garage and was using it to sit on while I folded laundry – which was actually kind of nice, albeit a major waste of a cool piece of furniture – and then, a couple of weekends ago, we went to Pasadena and stayed in a 1950s trailer that had a front porch furnished with the most comfortable leather-and-wood armchairs and a stack of Mexican blankets to curl up with when the temperature dropped at night, and I thought, you know: how cool. And cozy.
Remember my show from a couple of years ago, Jordan In The House, where I went around to places I loved and tried to incorporate elements of those spots – a rockabilly bar, a pool hall, a comic book shop, whatever – into my own home decor? In keeping with that spirit, I thought I’d bring a little Pasadenan AirBnB home to San Jose, and stuck my beloved armchair out on our porch along with a blanket that I picked up in New Mexico, with a little tree trunk “table” left by the previous owners sitting next to it. (We obviously don’t really have to worry about rain, and the “leather” covering is actually basically plastic that’ll need to get recovered at some point anyway, so I’m not especially concerned about it getting destroyed.)
Every night after the kids are in bed I sit there and read and drink a glass of wine, and it is perfect.
Everybody needs a spot, and this spot is mine.
