Welcome to Lemane Vintage! Any excuse to use 'Fecundity' more often.

Hoo boy.  Who would have thought that a year of absolute awfulness would have been punctuated with a fascist exclamation point?  Did Mercury retrograde itself directly into the Sun?  Did I verb a noun one too many times and now we're here?  

Most of 2016 was just a series of unfortunate events - everything broke just when I needed to use it, I hemorrhaged money, technical difficulties, you name it, tragedy happened.  But I was really proud that no matter what random daily shit storm that was served to me on a silver platter of awful I didn't lose sight of my goals and I'm not going to do that now.  We can't let the terrorists when. Even when the CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Rather than wait even longer until our world isn't on fire anymore - both figuratively and literally here in TN - I'm officially announcing the opening of my Etsy store of fabulosity.  Squeee!  

So welcome to Lemane Vintage, online pusher of eclectic finds and vintage soul.  And that's Luh-mane.  Bonus points for how many syllables you can drag the 'mane' out to be.  More than two and congrats, you're Southern.

The shop is all about vintage decor and accessories (and maybe some clothing soon)!  Finally I have a real excuse for spending so much time at those estate sales.  IT'S FOR BUSINESS, MOM!  And despite this year's atrocities, I've had so much fun gathering all kinds of goodies and finding them new friends to hand out with in the studio... 

...until they come to live in your stylish home!  I'm essentially opening a rescue mission for vintage decor.

But all this is happening because of the renovation I told you about last time.  Welcome to the home base of Lemane Vintage, my new studio.

It went from room of shame to workroom of smiles with only all my savings and a bucket of tears!

All of these shelves are lined with my wares which I've been collecting over the past year or so.  Turns out I'm much faster at shopping than taking pictures.  

Not only is this my craft room, art studio, online workshop, laundry overflow and sometimes yoga room, it's gonna be a jungle too!  All the plants that were suffering in other parts of the house have been moved in here for more sun.  A ficus was even donated to the cause.  

I love hanging out in the space because of the light but also because it's constantly in movement.  Friends are coming and going and new items come in and move around... just good positive vibes all around.  More homey than fussy.  That should be my shop motto.

We got your wall hangings and your boho brass and all the mid century glittery things your heart (and mine) could desire.  Seriously, some of these things are hard to let go.  Please give these good homes before they wander back into my living room...

I honestly felt a little guilty launching a personal venture during our country's time of crisis but if I've learned anything recently it's that ACTION is key.  Just gotta add activism to our hobbies.  Your Tindr profile better say you like homebrew and social justice.  

So once I realized I could multitask and both fight injustice AND start a passion project, I got serious with setting up the shop.  Self care to facilitate service.  Embodiment for empowerment.  Fecundity against fascism!  Damn, I obviously should have opened a pithy tshirt business instead of a vintage store! 

And I have a framed picture of Lagertha so a warrior can watch over me and kick my ass when I need it.  I will have her bless every item with badassery before it heads out the door.

Both this room and setting up the shop took a long ass time to happen but it's 110% worth it and I'm loving it.  I'm having a lot of fun and sending these rescued items out to their new homes is the best feeling!  

This handsome Bauer casserole and server needs macaroni and cheese in it ASAP.

Come hang out with me on Etsy at Lemane Vintage and on Instagram.  And since y'all have a special place in my heart all ModSauce readers get 15% the rest of this month using the code ModernSauce15.  I heart y'all and will try to set up listings for lots more items for y'all to choose from.  The sun is such an asshole and sets at 3 pm so it's cutting into my photography time.  Ugh, thanks astronomy.

Lemane and Lagertha and Lacy 4eva.

Chindi Rug Hack: Crafting for Masochists!

I accidentally fell into a time warp of some kind and haven't blogged in three weeks - I done got the Spring fever!  It's been a whirlwind of day job stress, Flonase and trying to get up the nerve to give myself the first real pedicure of the season.  I still haven't done that part BUT I've been spending most of my time prepping the yard and planning for some major changes in the next month or so.

Looks like I know shit about plants, right?!

This looks waaay more professional than it actually is because graph paper makes everything look very serious.  77% of a solid legal defense is because of graph paper.  It's true.  Hopefully I won't need a legal defense for some plants because I am ripping out bushes so big I had to call the utility people to make sure I don't destroy something vital.  More on all that fucking mess project later!

I did, however, finish a crafty project that took a good chunk of my last remaining wintery nights.  My hallway is getting some love this year after getting a fresh coat of paint and now we're focusing on textiles.  

Unfortunately my hallway is incredibly long and narrow which makes shopping for a runner an exercise in frustration.  I needed a runner that's 2.5' by about 15' which is ornery as hell.  I guess I could have had a piece of carpet bound but most of that shit is boring or expensive and I really just didn't want to google for twelve hours "how to get rug cheap pretty."  

However, something that is not boring or expensive is a chindi rug!  I have a soft spot for chindis (or rag rugs) since they're handmade of recycled materials and delightfully happy for all your funkiest needs.  In this case, an aggressively long hallway.

The good about chindis is that they're knotted together with warp yarn so in (my) theory I should be able to knot them all together to make one loooong chindi, right?  This is a rhetorical question because I did it.  They above picture is a picture of a "seam" but I won't tell you where it is.  Well, I guess it's obvious to me but I'm really selling this DIY and I bet dinner guests won't notice!

What you'll need is a selection of chindis - I found a bunch at Ollie's which is a local discount place kinda like Big Lots - and a disregard for your free time.  Also a yarn needle.

I didn't know I would need this but had one because I was helping my mom with some crochet knots and it came in quite useful because my fingernails were hurting.  You'll see why.

You can see some of the rug fringe on the right that I'm untying, separating the warp and then retying into smaller knots to the opposite rug.  You'll need that yarn needle.  I tried to stitch the rugs together and then just duct taping them together and and then I tried tying them together without untying the fringe knots and nothing really worked well.  

I don't even know why I'm explaining to you how to do this like it's a real tutorial because no one else in the history of DIYing would ever do this.  Hell, I may never do this again.

This is less than a foot of knots.  I unknotted then reknotted about 10 feet of this.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?!  I musta been drunk on the fact that these rugs were less than $4 each because this took a long ass mothafuckin time.  Feel free to call me Unbreakable Lacy Sauce because with enough delusion and Netflix, anything is possible.

BUT at the end of it I've forgotten all the pain and the stiff neck and the nights my friends were out partying and I was home alone on the couch underneath a pile of stinky rags because I think it turned out decently (for a $25 investment).

Sorry, poor hallway lighting.

It's a little wonky at the bottom (that was my first one) and I wish it was 8 inches wider but we all have wishes.  

Best of all, now Charlemagne can run up and down the hallway with some traction rather than look like she's Wile E. Coyote running in place.

Pardon the hairball, there was a small window of time when you're photographing cats and it's shedding season.

She would walk NEXT TO the rug for a few weeks but finally has felt okay walking on top of it and dare I say napping on it.  I've since added a rug pad to help it stay put since it drifts on top of the hardwood when we play chase.

So am I happy that I have a rug in this space?  Yes, I want Julie Andrews to add chindis to her list of favorite things.  Would I do this again or encourage someone else to do it?  Only if you're recently unemployed and have nothing to occupy your time and mildly hate yourself.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

If you like to inflict pain on yourself are you a sadist or a masochist?  Or maybe just a character from the Scarlet Letter?

But I bet I have prettier floor coverings than the puritans.

This makes me exceedingly happy.

We had a snow day last week and it threw me off so much I can't even form a coherent blog sentence.  Please accept these chairs as evidence.

I've also been busy crafting but nothing I make can ever be this terrifying important.

Margarita Sampson's Infectious Desires via Dark Silence in Suburbia

We're expecting a snownado tomorrow so I'll probably be fucked until 2016 with that mess.  

Stay warm and lucid, saucy friends!

Hello darlin', take a peek at my new jewelry drawer!

Let's talk about something that's really important and will bring light into your cold, snowy life:  COSTUME JEWELRY ORGANIZATION!

As we talked about IN 2014 I wanted to organize my mess of jewelry in concordance with my bedroom redo.  It felt right.  I'm adulting one drawer at a time.  

So in true Virgo fashion I began a downward research spiral of all the jewelry organization systems on the market until I wanted to die and then made an impulse decision.

Behold the Ampersand jewelry trays from - wait for it - Bed Bath and Beyond!  I feel so solidly Middle Class!  My 401k immediately gained 3%.  I don't think I've bought anything from BB&B in years but here we are, trying to avoid that one weird dude in a blue apron and all the good candy at the front near the checkout.  

I didn't want something plastic and these looked relatively classy and functional for my needs.  They also needed to stack inside my Malm dresser which is another reason I bought two four-drawer dressers and not one six-drawer.  Swedish space.  It's the ultimate luxury.

Not only did I like BB&B's options best I even signed up for their text alerts to get the 20% off coupon so I could get everything on sale.  I drank the Kool-Aid.  Or more specifically I inhaled that poisonous parfum they pump through their vents.  

I would get a text every few weeks and then head over and add another piece.  It took awhile but I'm not made of money.  I'm made of Cubic Zirconia and bracelets that turn my arm a little green!

The reason I went with this line was because of my bangle collection.  I have a few and if I laid them all down in their own individual compartments I'd need another Malm dresser.  So they needed to stand up like the architecture of jewelry that they are.

This collection had a good deep tray where I could stand everything up and still be able to close my dresser drawer.  [MS sidebar:  when I went to link to the products at BB&B's website I couldn't find this large three-compartment tray so maybe it's only in stores now?  I'm sorry.  That's my luck.]  

But my current setup fits perfectly in my drawer and getting ready is infinitely easier.  I'm like a real adult!

I think I could fit some smaller trays here on the right but for now it's fine with some travel jewelry bags, my sunglasses (all the cool people include them with their jewelry) and a giant bowl of pearls.  I wear them only when I'm feeling extra French vintage soooo... that one Halloween party from 2003.  

I feel like I have a lot of rings but apparently all my new rings (post 2003) have big thick bands and so they don't actually fit in the ring organizer part.  Well, damn.  But I needed those big squares so we had to make a sacrifice.

the basement level contains an even more random assortment of vintage jewelry finds and a real (?) Tiffany box.  Anytime I get too big for my britches I look at the Mr. T chain I got at Goodwill next to it and feel at home once again.

I would like to add more trays for all my earrings because although I aesthetically like looking at this mess of metal I can't actually find shit in here.  Except for my Conway Twitty pin on the middle left.  Best $3 purchase I ever made.

I have one deep tray that's half full on the bottom and is waiting for my Mema's vintage brooch collection as soon as I remember where it is...  

The weird thing is that I felt like I had TONS of jewelry but since it's been organized I feel like it's less than I thought.  So that means I should buy MOAR JEWELRY.

I wish I had this kind of jewelry horde:

Sadly, this seems to be all the way in Texas.

Like an embarrassment of fake riches but in neat orderly boxes.  What a perfect metaphor for my life.

All in all I think I spent about $80 total which was spread out over the course of a couple of months so that's not too bad.

Not only am I an organized and sparkly adult, I'm a financially responsible one!

I bet Conway Twitty liked that kind of woman.

After spending twenty minutes going through Conway Twitty pics and songs I suddenly remembered that my Mema - the same one with lots of costume jewelry I've momentarily replaced - also loved Conway Twitty!  It must be genetic.

This post wrapped up in surprisingly delightful and nostalgic ways!

And if you don't think Slow Hand is the best sexiest song ever then I can't help you.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day with that one.

Everyone else in the country wants to be tied up right now and I'm lusting after the lyrics of old country songs.  

Okay so I DID watch Secretary twice this past weekend because James Spader is JAMES FUCKING SPADER so I'm not afraid of non-vanilla things.  

Sometimes I just prefer things in nicely-lined, imitation-suede boxes.

This post has now gone further down the spiral so I'll stop talking before I drag Trent Reznor into this mess.

This makes me exceedingly happy.

There is a slim - we're talkin' Spanx on Spanx on Spanx slim - chance I'm going to get to redo my office at work.  I'm trying not to get too excited about forces beyond my control.  If I can't get my day space redone then maybe it's time to get my home office looking legit.  Not that I really use it but I'll FEEL more productive and that's all that really matters.  

Either way, there will be some useless paperclips put into a stylish home sometime soon, gawddammit.  I must corral the office supplies.  Sweet, sweet, useless office supplies...

While looking around for fun office ideas I stumbled across this little desk/nook/bill-paying station and think it's pretty much perfection.  Like Wes Anderson's accountant works here.  The lighting, the reclaimed wood that's not from a pallet, the mix of art and materials, the industrial tape dispenser, the faux (?) marble top...  it's all perfect. Right down to the trash can.  

Funnily enough I HAVE a trash can very similar!  The can itself is brass but maybe it needs some spray paint...?  I dunno, 'live and let live' has always been my philosophy regarding trash receptacles.  

I also have a trophy... because I'm a winner!  (It was an ironic trophy but I'm still a winner because it has my name on it.)  

I'm pretty sure my final space wherever it is won't look anywhere near as cool as this but it's okay.  I have that ironic trophy and that's all that really matters.  

This space is home of owners of Schoolhouse Electric in Portland.  The whole house is great but don't mind me, I'll just be right here making sculptures out of useless paperclips and industrial tape.

Because I'm a winner.

Peacock Pavilions: Looking Fine and Doing Good In Marrakesh.

If you're feeling extra sweet this week - gave away the last piece of pizza, made awkward small talk with a nice stranger - it's because of the stars.  Today the moon moves into Aquarius for the next two months and this is supposed to be a time for humanitarian acts, so says New Age people.  The cosmos WANTS you to put a few extra bucks into the Starbucks tip jar.  Even when they aren't looking, George Costanza.

In conjunction (astrology humor!) with this cosmological occurrence, this seems like a good time to introduce you to the story of the most stylish humanitarian on this side of the galaxy: Peacock Pavilions and its owner/designer/mom Maryam Montague. 

You've probably put your eyeballs on said pavilion many a time and didn't even know it.  You've probably pinned it - I did - I didn't even know it.  Well, I'm about to learn you real good.

Maryam, caftan enthusiast/nice person/blog friend, and her architect husband, Chris Redecke, decided to settle their family on an olive grove in Marrakesh and build an eco-conscious boutique hotel and resort.  As you do.  

So together they designed and decorated Peacock Pavilions, a box waiting to be checked on every design blogger's bucket list for obvious reasons.

This is her office where she overlooks the olive grove.

My office has a drawer full of nothing but hand lotion and Claritin...

This place could give us lessons in curtains.

But it ain't all Elle Decor spreads and Lonny covers, Maryam travels Africa and the world fighting for human rights and democracy.  She has a standing date with Amal Clooney to talk about running nations and fashion.  I made up the last sentence but I bet it's true.

I let a jerk merge in front of me in traffic the other day so I GET what it's like to devote your life to helping the less fortunate.  I live my life with compassion.

I think I need to live my life in Morocco too.

And in case you were distracted by all the good deeds, don't forget the staircase:

But since I'm a one trick pony with exceptional taste, I can't help but be drawn to her bedroom which is full of winter whites (do they have winter in Morocco?).  I guess if you aren't feeling the bleak midwintery vibe of the last post here's something in warmer weather for you.

BRASS DOOR FRAME.

It also has some custom wall stencils which might be the only wall stencils I didn't know I even wanted until I saw it.  

I custom made a headboard recently out of a Goodwill reject, scrap fabric and staples so I too like to surround myself with luxury.

I think this proves the point that if you're gonna go monochromatic you have to have a lot of texture.  Preferably if it's a pillow with a mohawk but you do you.

Sequins are approved, as well.

A window seat also helps.  Pretty sure you can only drink creamy drinks in here: lattes, Frappuccinos, White Russians.  If you drank a red Gatorade (or the Moroccan equivalent) in here it would probably give you heartbearn. [MS sidebar: I misspelled heartburn and couldn't figure out why it was wrong for about three minutes but like it better this way so we all have to switch.]

I'm loving this grouping of lanterns.  I have one "Moroccan" lantern in this delightful egg (?) shape but now it just feels lonely.  I think I need a baker's dozen.  I'll have to get rid of my dining table but I think eating while laying on the floor is very 2015.  

If you want to bring a bit of real Morocco to your house and not have it look like the culturally-appropriated tchotchke hurricane as you might see on tv, check out her shop for all the best in properly-sourced goodies.

If you're going to gift yourself a Moroccan wedding blanket, a handira, this is the place to go.  Pillows and poufs galore too.  

here

Love the little bits of pattern with the pillows.  (This is similar to my pillow!).  I think what I like about this whole space so much is the mix of clean neutrals as a backdrop for lots of bright pattern.  You get the best of both worlds.

However, I'm rather obsessed with the BLACK wedding blankets lately:

here

I think (?) Maryam is the inventor of the black wedding blanket and if that was the only thing she did in life that would be enough.  But also human rights 'n stuff.

Mr. Beni Ourain is still solid in my book despite the controversy lately over its apparent trendiness.  I don't think you can really call something trendy that has existed centuries before we were even born, can you?

Of course next week I'll be like "Ugh BOOKS. I'm so over this Gutenberg press hipster bullshit."

here

I'd never seen one that with this color of gold before - such a nice variation.  Could work in bleak midwinter or if you're feeling more jazzy.

here

So much jazz.

The shop also features tons of cute wall hooks designed by Maryam herself.

here

It's like a cross between a hamsa and a peacock!  Because PEACOCK!  You're too much, M.  I'm not being an ass, I'm just excited because I didn't see the peacock until about one minute before writing this and I love a secret pun in silver.

Maryam, bored with her life doing nothing, has also founded Project Soar - an organization for underprivileged girls and women near Peacock Pavilions.  A portion of all proceeds from the shop benefit the program so buy as many protective peacock hands as you want (+1 for me).  

Fun fact: if you stay at the pavilion you get to ride on a peacock in a great race throughout the vast olive grove.  Just kidding, if you stay you can volunteer for Project Soar which is pretty cool.  I'm on board for dedicating my 2015 and beyond to women, yes?

My grandmother has a stray peacock that has started coming to her door to visit everyday this winter.  She lives in Texas if that helps explain it...?  Regardless, she named him Fred so if I want to race a peacock I'll try the family bird.

Familial bird-racing aside, I'm writing this overt love letter to the PP and MM because I truly believe we're seeing the real thing.  In the often shady world of internet life it's really refreshing and inspirational to find a person and cause that is not just talking the talk but walking the walk and doing it with boss style.

Make sure to check out Maryam's blog, My Marrakesh, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Or you can do more than read this here blog post and buy her book, Marrakesh by Design, or even donate directly to Project Soar.

If nothing else I recommend you follow her on Instagram for lots of pictures of the party life at Peacock Pavilions but mostly for this:

And this:

And this:

All photos are from Elle Decor, Lonny or Maryam's site/Instagram/book

More like Kitteh Pavilions, amirite?

How do cats meow in Arabic?  Like, they 'meow' in good old American, 'miao' in Italian, 'mrow' in comics...  These are things I think about when I travel.

I have yet to see a picture of a peacock AT Peacock Pavilons but maybe they have to keep them separate from the cats... Probably smart.  I don't think Fred and Charlemagne would be friends.

I received no compensation for this post but I'd take a Moroccan cat if they were handing them out...