This makes me exceedingly happy.

You know what else makes me exceedingly happy in ironically related news?  Ted Haggard is finally free of his homosexual compulsions!!  Those latent gay tendencies are just so gosh darn annoying!  Thank gawd he had such a retarded sheep saintly woman as a wife to stay by his side during the last three years of poverty and therapy.  She did what any woman would have done and slept with him the day he confessed because nothing says I forgive you and your drug-taking, prostitute-fucking, hypocritical ass like a vagina hug.  She's pretty much like Jesus.  The kind of Jesus that doesn't hate gays of course. 

You know what else makes me exceedingly happy?  Unhappy hipsters. 

You know what else makes me exceedingly happy?  New readers.  Madame Sunday toasts to you tonight!  (With boxed wine in a plastic cup of course)

Hair, there, everywhere!

Through one of my endless internet adventures I ran across these groovy prints on AphroChic the other day.  They are from the 'I Love My Hair' collection by the artist/graphic designer Andrea Pippens and are a steal at $25 each.  Check out her blog Fly for more fabulosity - or this little interview about her graphic design work on Kiss My Black Ads.  On my first read she blogs about Erykah Badu and Matte Stephens which are both people that Madame Sunday is enamored with.  I hope our blogs can be friends. 

This is how you do brights people.  I would totally hang all three in my hallway if it wouldn't make me look like some kind of asshole poser.  Have you seen my incredibly accurate portrait to the right?  About the only fancy thing I can do to my hair involves pigtails or introducing it to a bumpit.  Unless it's a chignon - Madame Sunday's hair LOVES silent G's. 

I think this is an appropriate time for a throwback jam from India Arie:

Wait - she says "I am not your expectations" so I WILL hang them in my hallway! ahahahahaha!  I love this clip - she's singing with a guy that looks like he was in Alabama. 

Damnit!  I'm totally judging - he is not my expectations either. 

In related hair news I really want to see this Chris Rock documentary that came out in the fall.

For the record I love Alabama AND India Arie.  And Matte Stephens.  And Erykah Badu.  And Sour Patch Kids.  And superfly designers that let my retarded ass post their work.   And Chris Rock.  And Sour Patch Kids. 

I have fancy tastes.

Octopussy: hummin comin at cha.

I couldn't NOT title my post like that.

I think owls might be a dying breed. In the design sense I mean. I would make a post about them being a design cliche but honestly it's not worth my time as they are now completely mainstream.  As is any cloven beast with antlers. So what's a madame to do when she needs a new species to decorate with? Go 20,000 leagues under the sea of course!  Check out this video of an octopus using a coconut shell as shelter.  I laughed, I cried, I googled.

It's the first recorded incident of an invertebrate using a tool.  FUCK YEAH!  Creatures of the deep are mysterious, complex, squishy and all those arms mean lots of hugs.  Suck on that owls!  And since turquoise is the color of the year I'm expecting all manner of aquatic life to be the shiznit.  Even this.  It'll be the new Twilight except under water.  Still just as sparkly though.

More octopussy love...

Armour and Co. from Brilliant Asylum

Octo by Amber Alexander

I own this.  It is beautiful.

from Serimony's etsy

Calamares from Safarias's photostream

Tentacles by Jeremy Forson on Thumbtack Press

Can't you just feel those things in your mouth?!  Awesomely yuck!

real octopus ring found here

plate from elsa + sam

silver octo from ragtrader's etsy

This has been in my favorite's folder for awhile on etsy.  Now there are 263 pages that come up when you search for octopus.  I'm not shittin you.  Octopussy is everywhere!  I'm not the only one who noticed.

You're going to need a lot more coconut shells to hide in Octopussy.

Insert Revolutionary Road reference. But with furniture.

I desperately want to own one of these wonderful paintings of mid century iconic furniture by Kelly Reemtsen that I found through Bohemian Vintage.  Normally furniture like this is presented slick, shiny and graphic befitting its original intent to provide homogenized, manufactured but well-designed furniture for all so it's refreshing to see the textural quality to the paintings. 

Oh my.  I'm starting to get a little 'valley of the dolls'.  Homogenized manufactured well-designed indeed...

And she so perfectly captured Madame Sunday on her way out to do some yard work. 

Dirty design gangsta

I love looking at well designed spaces that are immaculately decorated and reedeeculously goodlooking but there is only so much a madame can take.  To be really inspired I need mess and piles and chaos.  Fancy interiors pretty much only inspire me to shop and possibly set my shithole house on fire to collect the insurance money.  To be creative however I need a bit of crazy.  At least that's what I tell myself as my laundry piles up and dirty dishes stream out of the sink.  FUCK YOU I do it for my ART!

I thought it might be nice to Ctrl-Alt-Delete my internal inspiration barometer take a look at some non-traditional spaces like artists' studios.  Probably the most well-known studio is that of Francis Bacon who I haven't really thought about since art history class but has popped up several times this week in my information scavenging.  Bacon was an Irish figurative painter in the last half of the 20th century whose art was seen as grotesque, violent and just generally creepy.   Well you can't create that in a space full of sunshine, fresh flowers and bunnies - you create it in a space that looks like this:

here

Ahh...  I feel inspired already.  You can also read this fascinating article about the relationship between the art and the studio.   The studio was such a factor in Bacon's art that the Tate Museum painstakingly recreated his studio in their museum.  No shit.

here

No this isn't an episode of Hoarders it's where magic happens.  The kind of magic that sells for 40 million dollars.  Even more here.

Here are a few more spaces that inspire

from here

Artist Deborah Buck from New York Social Diary

from the Selby

The George from the Selby

Ok pretty much every space from the Selby is like this so I'll probably just spend the rest of the afternoon over there.  I will not be using that time to finish laundry and cleaning up those dishes because only uptight assholes like lawyers and accountants need orderly surroundings.   I'm a disorganized design gangsta.

So much awesomeness. So little time.

- Here's a playlist from Stuff Hipsters Hate.  Take a listen while we keep reading all the stuff I've encountered lately that needs to be immortalized forever on ModernSauce.

-What.  The.  Fuck.  How cool is this?  The Altitude Design Summit is in Salt Lake City starting today and brings together design and lifestyle bloggers and has tons of supercool writers and technology dudes who are giving presentations.  Madame Sunday will have to work that in her busy schedule next year.

-I love this informative chart from Acetone that I found on Eye Spy.  They left off textile designer but somehow I think I'm being lumped in with that Microsoft Painter asshole.  That's probably a fair statement had they seen my college portfolio.

-Over at Desire to Inspire today they are featuring the photography and designs of some ladies that I didn't know anything about but their pictures have been in my lust files for a long time.  Meet Victoria Pearson and Katie Ridder.  Sometimes you can't tell whether a picture captures an extraordinary thing or a great photographer can make an ordinary thing extraordinary - I'd like to believe it's just a symbiotic relationship and give a virtual high five to all parties involved.  It would take jeebus himself to photograph my shithole into looking like something worth looking at without disgust.

Victoria Pearson

When I go for eclectic I look like a douche but not this lady.

 

Kattie Ridder

-I rarely go to 1stdibs because it's so insanely expensive it's makes me cry to think about how tragically poor I am but I really like fancy things so it's usually a bittersweet visit.  Their newsletter is worth subscribing to for the features in Introspective magazine like this about one of my favorite designers Keshani Perera and lots of other creative people. 

-The perfect place to have Gandolf over for second breakfast.  

-Don't tell anyone but Madame Sunday's flower arranging skillz are worse than her empathy skillz so dreaming about beautiful bouquets in the house always remains a dream.  That and I kill plants like I'm a walking pesticide.  However if I could have a flower to look at everyday it would be the ranunculus so I especially enjoyed Design*Sponge's post today on the very same little colorful garden pillows from heaven.

-I like categorizing things into like-themed groups for efficiency and aesthetics so this site really appealed to my hoarding organizing tendencies.  Like Polyvore but for handmade and vintage stuff.

-If you're still listening to the music above take a quick trek over to Third and Delaware.  It's a sartorialist view of EVERY EPISODE of Roseanne.  It's hilariously ironic now but every hipster will be wearing that shit within a year you mark my word.  Or sooner if you've seen last fall's Urban outfitter catalog...  Doc Martens 4eva!!

Man! I feel like a (modern) woman!

Think hard and remember about a year ago when our economy was in the shitter and people where flipping out and starting vegetable gardens and wearing plastic bags on their feet instead of shoes and millions of people were out of work.  Wow that was so long ago it barely feels like it happened at all!  Pop culture embraced the Great Recession and birthed such vomitous gems like "staycation" and "recession chic".  Depression-era fashion became hot for like a minute and hipsters said "FUCK YOU!  we're going pioneer!" and then we saw lots of suspenders, handlebar mustaches and Brooklyn cowboys.  Even Gap had a brief horrible foray into outfits that looked like long johns and old mattress ticking.  I'm pretty sure every unemployed person wanted to punch you in the balls wearing your $50 tea-stained Gap thermal shirt in solidarity.   Flash forward to today and I think interiors have finally settled on a collective response.  I'm calling it Modern Country.  I was going to call it New Country but that sounds a lot like Shania Twain would be sitting in all of these pictures and that would ruin everything.

Barbara Barry in Veranda via A Life's Design

The Barbara Barry version of the captain's chair? 

Margarita Lorenzo from Bliss

My definition of modern country really just means adding a piece of mid-century modern somewhere in there.  Probably the only reason I like this room is the shell chair.  Love the wood legs.

from Head Over Heels

Honestly I love every single thing about this room including the totally arranged photograph of it.  Let's break it down art class style: Ooh look at the neon doggie as the focal point!  His nose is pointing to those delicious chocolate walls!  Gawd that grey mantle looks saucy next to the brown.  Birch logs and twine?  Stealing it.  Moving over to the vintage-looking pillow whose traditional pattern contrasts nicely with the contemporary art.  The stupid karate chop angles the viewer to the casual billowing of the chair corner.  It looks like it was slip covered with a old blanket which is exactly how I slipcover things when I can't wash out the wine stains anymore.  Notice the inclusion of the modern ethnic side table. *ignoring sunflowers ignoring sunflowers ignoring sunflowers* Oh that color of the table wood blends so nicely with the sisal rug.   What I nice fun plant sitting next to the classy marble.  That green really brightens up the room and gives it height - just like those nice simple roman shades.  Oh shit Madame Sunday would sell her firstborn for that chandelier whose multitude of round bulbs perfectly accent the curves on the side table and plant basket.  Ooh hello again neon doggie!  And so it goes...

from House Beautiful

Once again that MCM Platner coffee table in a countrified room = awesomesauce.

Southern Living

Minus that retarded upholstered wood thing on top of the bed this is nice modern country.  Is it even country?  Is it just traditional?  You figure it out I don't really care that much...

House Beautiful from Cafe Cartolina (?)

Lonny

That black farmhouse sink is pure fabulosity.  I want an IV drip that is nothing but the pure fabulosity emitted by that sink. 

Country Living

Fucking open shelves with dishes.  Didn't I JUST talk to you about that?

Country Living

My hallway is dark chocolate so this always gets the ModSauce stamp of approval.

Notebook magazine from here

Apparently modern country also equals boring.

Skona Hem

Notebook magazine from here

This whitewashed fireplace is a nice alternative to all that whitewashed furniture that's everywhere.  At the very least it distracts from the unfinished bookshelves.

both are Erin Martin from Head Over Heels

Yes those are bales of hay.  This Erin Martin lady is definitely the winner today.

If you want more modern country you could check out Skona Hem, every Scandinavian interior ever photographed (including any Ikea catalog) or this new book that is all about modern country.  I guarantee it's not nearly as awesome and mind-blowing as what you've just read here though.  Do you need some time to recover?  Yeah me too.

Ty Pennington you just got served, eh!

Once again solidifying Sunday as the best day of the week we have the new premiere of Holmes on Homes tonight.  Although it does conflict with the Worst Cooks in America but this blonde guy

Welcome to the gun show Madame Sunday.

totally trumps Anne Burrell's clown hair.  Normally I reserve HGTV for gathering comedic material and honing my condescension skills but every once in awhile they get something right.  Well HGTV Canada got it right and us Americans just steal it.  Same thing.  Candice Olsen included. 

If you don't know Mike Holmes (the hottie above) is like the real version of Ty Pennington but without the ADD, grating personality and cheap comforter collection at Sears.  He's been in construction since he was 6 and has built his name and business on fixing other contractors' fuck ups.  You know he's the real deal because his eyebrows are lighter than his skin - that's the sign of a real contractor.   He's a foul-mouthed badass in a wifebeater and overalls that is a white knight for victimized homeowners.  His personal motto, business name and charity foundation name is Make It Right.  I'm in love.  He encourages young men and women to learn a skilled trade and works to improve building practices in Canada.  Can I have your babies Mike?

What my usual contractors look like but with less teeth and more BO.

Now he's building a LEED certified neighborhood in Ontario and has even worked with Brad Pitt in rebuilding New Orleans.  In reading this article he mentions how influenced he is by the book Cradle to Cradle and I almost creamed my panties.  He's a spokesman for Nescafe instant coffee AND believes in William McDonough.  Madame Sunday definitely wants to marry this man.  NOW.  Despite the earring and gold chain.  That just shows that he can rewire my house but also appreciates fancy things.  We can just throw a tuxedo jacket over those overalls and polish that diamond stud in his ear for a classy evening on the town.  He'll definitely look better than Brad.