The Glam Grotto Hustle

I don't know if any of y'all have left your homes recently on account of the Deep Space temperatures but I did and didn't die so yay global warming.  I ventured out of hibernation to see American Hustle and let me tell you I haven't worn a bra since.  

Perfection Here

The effect is slightly less glamorous and more "Hey hillbilly, your nipples are pointing in different directions!" but I just ignore it and tighten my wrap dress because I'm all about the swinging seventies now and I care not about your lack of appreciation for nipple diversity.  

Here

But I'm pretty sure that all nipple appreciators (this is going in a terrible direction...) can agree on the magic of J Law and A... ok just Amy Adams.  For a preview that didn't really grab my interest, I can tell you that it was worth leaving the mound of blankets and cat on my couch for.

Black and yellow, black and yellow from Retro Renovation

A solid 75% of that might be because of the fashion and interiors.  65% was due to stellar acting and 25% because of "science oven."  

Here

I began to have an intense lust for sweet, submarine yellow.   This is weird as I normally am blech to yellow but dammit if Amy Adams didn't turn me lesbian.

American Hustle Pinterest

For the color. Lesbian for the color.  I think...

I was obsessed and distracted by her apartment which she is casually hanging out in from the picture above looking gorgeous enough to make me want to eat that yellow chair with a knife and fork.

American Hustle Pinterest

The movie has a Pinterest page which is both cool and weird that a movie has a Pinterest page but fortunately it had great shots of her place so it made my job easy.  They don't appear as bright and glam as in the movie so take your bra off and use your imagination if you haven't seen the film. 

American Hustle Pinterest

So much white on white love.  Just imagine how great Charlemagne would look in here.

American Hustle Pinterest

The dining room had me leaning out of my seat in the theater trying to see around the characters because I don't understand how moving pictures work.  Warm, yellow grasscloth, abstract art, more white on white, funky lamps...  I feel dizzy from the retro perfection.

American Hustle Pinterest

Can't forget about the massive amounts of glorious (faux) fur too.

So now I'm in full 2014-is-Seventies-Appreciation-Year mode and pulled a bunch of swank spaces for us to rub ourselves on.  I even pulled a few Kelly Wearstler images just for this post - that's how serious I am because you know K dubs and the Madame have a checkered past.  That damn chair makes me itch (ESPECIALLY if an errant nipple touches it!) but it's warm with lots of contrasting textures and loads of white and I can't help it.

The 70s queen K Dubs via Sukio for these two images

I need a grotto very badly.  A glam grotto.

(Glam Grotto is the new nickname for my vagina, BTW.)

(Glam Grotto Hustle would be the name of my fake strip club.)

via Dwell

Or maybe I could just time travel here to Warren Platner's American Restaurant in 1974.  Pour it up, pour it up.  That's how we ball out.  

In the seventies. 

via Dwell

Here's Platner's reception area (I believe) for Windows on the World at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center completed in 1976.  It's like Star Trek meets grotto with a Dalek back wall.  So much love.  RIP.

via Dwell

Is this K dubs again?  Nope, it's our friend Platner with a FUR-COVERED COUCH in the home he designed for himself in Connecticut in 1970.  This fucker does not mess around.

There's something about the mix of sparkly glam and scratchy textures that really speaking to me right now.

Xnet? Honestly, the site was in Hebrew so I have no idea.

Could it blind you with reflection or sandpaper your face off if you laid your head on it?  Then yes I'll take two please!

via Freshome

An arc lamp and animal pelts are grotto musts.  When in doubt, cover it in leather or put some glass on it.  For easy cleanup.  

For the above space, Renaud De Poorter and Femke Holdrinet renovated the interiors for this "New Brutalism" home (check out more here) that I'm digging.  Mostly because I had no idea there was such a thing as New Brutalism so prepare yourself for that upcoming post!

from the book Living Spaces via Design Crisis

You think I'm joking but the amount of South American Brutalist concrete in my 'blog ideas' folder is quite massive. (Building material pun!)  But I like this other side of seventies too - the cold concrete side.  I'll throw some fur on it, polish up the arc lamp and we're ready for the swingers party. 

Cuz that's what people did in that decade?  I don't know I wasn't born then.  Maybe that's a good thing.

via The Elegant Cast

White on white on kilim. Are those white Kandinsky chairs?  Hot shit.

Ok so this decade's photography leaves much to be desired BUT think if Lonny was photographing these spaces for now.  We'd all lose our shit for those over-exposed-lighting-from-the-window shots and giant art.

Last three from The New York Times Book of Interior Design and Decoration, 1976, via ebay

Maybe this is getting too far away from my Glam Grotto mood board but I can't stop.  These spaces are too great.  Great bad.

Francois and Betty Catroux apartment, NY magazine, 1968 via Time Lines Vintage

If your vintage room doesn't have Frank Stella then why are you wasting my fucking time, Internet?

from Australian Vogue Living via MidcenturyJo's Flickr

Okay now we're getting back to swank and sizzle.  (Swank and Sizzle is the name of the lap dance and steak dinner combo you can order at the Glam Grotto Hustle.)

That is straight up relevant to all design bloggers right now, don't deny it.  Except the art on the ceiling...?  That's how you can tell a real 70s room vs. a current design blogger room - there's always something funky in the retro room that absolutely confounds you.  Or the space looks like people are getting ready to have sex in it.

Exhibit A:

Last two from The Apartment Book via Desire to Inspire

This one has a "small town girl moves to big city but is broke and reluctantly meets porn casting director for the first time" vibe and this picture was taken three seconds before his dick got some fresh air.  The name of the porn would obviously be "Welcome to the Jungle" with the cover shot taken in front of that tree in the back. But I'm totally blogging it for the windows and the white.  And for the leather tongue chairs but more to make fun of them.  They kinda prove my point.

A quality retro space needs to look like a pornstache lives there.  I bet there are some hairs of questionable origin on that couch if you look close enough.

here

And somehow we came back to white and yellow and black again.  I'm still feeling it but I can't help but squee hard for Platner anyway.  I think if photographed better it'd feel pretty relevant.  But then you notice the Wheel of (mis)Fortune white greyhound by the couch and the daisies - DAISIES? - on the table.  So close, retro room.  So close.

These last few images came from the bowels of the internet - a site made in 1999 (!) called Ugly Rooms for the Beautiful People whose sole purpose was to mock and shame the interiors from the 1975 Better Homes and Gardens Decorating Book.  

Based on the obscure and pedantic references I'd thought the author an aging queen who came out later in life and had a penchant for gin and making ditzy women cry at parties from the overwhelming intensity of his acid tongue but after a quick google search it turns out he's just a journalist.  And an old-school blogger.  Ugh what is it with bloggers lately?!

here

"It's just a bunch of crap tossed together with no theme, no unifying design, or color.  You just know it smells like old cigarettes and socks."

I'm not going to say that I didn't laugh because even though I really dig all of these rooms, this one probably does smell exactly like old cigarettes and socks.  

Let's get Lonny to rephotograph it and have wet Beyonce do some dirty bidness with those dining chairs Grammystyle and I bet even Mr. 1999 Blogger will be singing a different tune. 

But for real you should go back in time and read Ugly Rooms for the Beautiful People because it's much better than my 2014 blog. 

I would never make you cry at a party.  I would probably be in the corner looking at your wallpaper or checking out your floor tile and might make you cry from second-hand embarrassment but never because I was being pedantic.  I'm not even sure I'm using 'pedantic' correctly because I'm way more concerned with decorating my Glam Grotto (room vajazzling?) and trying to get my hair to do that thing that Jennifer Lawrence's does.

The purge before the coming glitter storm.

So I don't know about y'all but I spent the last four days watching Misfits and balls deep in, well, Christmas glitter balls.  I put the entire autumnal smorgasbord - pumpkin, potatoes, turducken - in my body within the span of 24 hours.  I need to do some purging of body and brain.

But first, I made the previously mentioned butternut squash mac and cheese for my orphan Thanksgiving offering and didn't make anyone cry so I say it's a win!  If you're like me and think butternut squash ravioli is transcendent but wish there was more of the good shit but on the OUTSIDE then this is for you. Good for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, dinner, fourth meal and all manner of Misfits-induced binge eating in between.

I used a combination of this recipe and this one but threw in some sage and probably some other things that I can't remember... Topped it with some homemade fried onions and bacon and I think some cheese... I'm not good with following recipes because I DO WHAT I WANT but I strongly encourage you to try it.  I could talk about butternut squash all day long but I'll spare you.

Showering was optional during my 4 day hermit-age and my thirty-something skin is pretty pissed about it.  My hair was starting to take on a sociopath hipster look which wasn't that bad because this is the look I'm aiming for this winter:

Uma Wang

Like a gothic ice princess.  In a really badass poncho.

In keeping with the gothic ice princess of doom theme, I'm getting rid of a lot of color in my house.  It's just too overwhelming, she says as she's stares at a blank white wall in a white room with a white cat.  

BUT I had a special moment with this tobacco brown headboard and pale blush pillows recently:

Emily Henderson for Cup of Jo

The rest really is overwhelming to me but since I'm embracing my pinkitude this year I thought it was noteworthy.

And I'm assuming when y'all weren't staring at the business end of a dangerously overflowing plate of food you had your eyes focused on this:

here

I thoroughly loved Catching Fire despite all lack of vaginal feels regarding Peeta but does anyone else get as excited about the cornucopia as I do?  

Catching Fire here

It's like the set designer wanted to make something that appeared deadly and modern and just threw some shit together but, I don't know, it works for me.

OG Hunger Games cornucopia here

I think I gasp every time it's on screen.  But we all know that I love some weirdly modern dystopian shit in the middle of a field...

Yugoslavian monuments from a loooong time ago...

*cough*

Perhaps buoyed by concrete and bleakness, wanting to pare down at home goes hand in hand with getting rid of color.  The occupational hazard of being a design blogger is buying shit.  Lots of shit.  The Ranch is like a circus of objets d'art.  Objets d'art from the junk store.

here

So I've been salivating at some minimal interiors a lot lately.  It's like the softer side of gothic ice princess.

I could do some color like this but I'm mostly loving the lack of frivolity.

OOOH LOOK AT THIS FRIVOLOUS THING I WANT THIS SO DAMN BAD!!!

via Jaga Design

Do you see my problem?  The problem with THINGS not the problem with snakes.  They're adorable.  Know what else is adorable?  Salvador Dali's flatware:

here

You need to enlarge it then feast your eyeballs on it.  It's so fucking good you'll beg for someone to carve your heart out with one of those delightful spoons.

But when I can't buy surrealist utensils I just go straight to a store and buy some replacement things to fill the hole in my heart that is NOT from it being carved out by a sweet spoon.  Just the hole caused by life and blogging.  Sigh...

I can't resist some wooden tchotchkes... things to keep you fidgeters happy... hand nom noms... whatever you want to call them.  In this case these are wooden puzzles I found on the cheap and they're really turning my crank.  I want to awkwardly hug them.

Look - POOR DRAMATIC LIGHTING.  We'll see if I keep them all or exchange them for Christmas gifts that I should have been buying.  Sorry, family and my constant burning desire for a minimal house.

In related news, remember that table that I bought that sat empty for a long time because of my back and fear of commitment regarding styling?  Well I got about halfway through playing around and realized that it's in the spot where my Christmas tree is going so I decided to watch more Misfits instead.

I'll probably add some wooden hand nom noms after the holiday but for now it's a string of pearls succulent (that's still alive!) and some rocks and shit.

There's also a bowl of more thingies to fidget with including some worry wood (is this a Southern thing or just a Lacy thing?) and a vajra.  In general, I hate appropriating items from other religions but it's shiny and I like to fidget so it seemed fitting.

Doesn't matter.  There's currently a Christmas tree standing where all this stuff is and I'm sure it'll look completely different come January.

Thanksgiving is dead to me now (except for the butternut squash mac and cheese I'm probably gonna make again next week) and I'm all about glitter and the baby jeezus now.

Know what I want under my tree this year?  The ability to stop buying shit and this:

My fake boyfriend Joseph Gilgun

Misfits has the prettiest people that really know how to style a jumpsuit.  I'm probably the only one who likes this one (especially after seeing Lockout) but I can't help it.  

I'm drawn to weirdo sociopaths (maybe they'll like my new hair) and trinkets.

And butternut squash.

A 'farewell to summer' tour coming to a dirty creek near you.

I think I'm having a Peter Pan moment regarding summer because I'm not ready to grow up and have it be Fall.  Fuck your pumpkin spice everything (until next month).  It's just now gotten bearable outside even though I'm still considered a personal Ryan's Buffet for all mosquitoes that reside below the Mason Dixon Line.  

Maybe that's why I've got sparkle eyes for these rafts like I'm a hongray skeeter looking at the business end of a Ryan's Buffet of Lacy.  (Pro tip: if you're not a mosquito they're all pleasure ends. I don't know what that means but it sounds kinda sensuous right?!)

I also want to go to the ocean because I bet they don't have mosquitoes there and these rafts look like something Peter Pan would create if Peter Pan was a hippie hoarder.  

They're all created by street artist Swoon (a laaady street artist) and created using found object and tour the rivers of our great, littered country gawd bless Americuh.

As we know, I have a weakness for "found" structures and long time reader(s) might remember my trip to the tallest tree house in the world here and here or if you've read my blog for more than a day.

Been there, did not do that.

He built it because Jesus told him to.  I think Swoon has different, less creepy motives but I appreciate both varieties of architecture equally.

Things like this make my hoarding tendencies seem "artful" and not "symptomatic of larger undiagnosed issues."

Obviously, I like swings on slightly dangerous structures.

Other than 'when are we going to take a Beasts of the Southern Wild-inspired, Peter Pan pirate cruise in a river shack made of floating garbage?' I think the real question here is what would your street artist name be??

There should be some kind of Cosmo Mad Lib quiz about it.  Like, randomly pick an adverb followed by the name of the first person you kissed.

Mine would be Lithely Eric.  (at least that's what I think his name was...  I remember it was during Interview With A Vampire but I think that was the last time I saw him since he rolled my house the next day...?  He wore a very large gold chain so but did have a soft top Jeep so I had conflicted feelings about this outcome being that I couldn't drive yet.)

Or use the Swoon formula and just pick a verb that doesn't have such terrible, self-esteem-damaging connotations in which case I think my street artist name would be Punt.

Yeah, Punt.

So if you're ever hanging out in Burning Man-meets-the Mighty Mississippi and see someone wearing overalls and a feather headdress named Punt it's probably me.  Please help me reapply sunscreen.

all pics via Supersonic Electronic and Wired

Now I don't know whether I need to raid a junkyard or go cry about Hushpuppy and Beasts of the Southern Wild AGAIN.  It took me about three months to control the sobbing the first time I saw it.

Ok new street artist name: Hushpunty.

Punty Pan.

Peter Punt.

I can't stop...