jonathan adler for jcp

so apparently I've been living under a rock because I am just now discovering the "happy chic" line that jonathan adler designed for jcpenney. and it is adorable! here are some of my favorite pieces. check out the whole collection here.

renningers antiques

our friend brian has been going to the annual renningers antique sale for years & always comes back with the coolest things. we were finally able to tag along this year & we had the best time. there are countless booths (you could be there for days & not see everything) & everything is pretty reasonably priced. here are some of our finds. 

 {the boys found matching vintage western shirts. $10 each!}

 {brian scored these amazing knoll bertoia chairs for his porch!}

{I really wanted these 1950s dairy queen glasses, but restrained myself}

{it was tough for me to resist these as well}

ok, so quick story on this dresser below. six years ago when robert & I first got married, all we wanted for the guest bedroom was a paul mccobb dresser (actually, robert had been wanting one years before he even met me, if that says anything). if you haven't noticed, we have quite a love for mid-century furniture & have slowly been collecting pieces along the way. but in all these years, we never purchased a paul mccobb dresser. not only are they crazy-expensive, but they are also terribly hard to find. we saw one on ebay once & seriously contemplated driving through six states to pick it up. 

our friend brian is a mid-century modern expert & has never seen any mccobb in all his years visiting renningers. so our hopes of finding anything cool were low. after a full day of meandering through the endless rows of booths, we had given up our search, when out of the corner of my eye, I spot it. there, at the end of the row! my heart started beating as I calmly made my way up to the booth. trying to play it cool, I began chatting it up with the owner. "paul who? never heard of him. it's a pretty good-looking piece and all, but I don't know if we really need it. how much you want for it? well, that's more than I want to pay for a dresser. how low can you go? it is the end of the day and all..." yup. and that was it. the all-but-orphaned dresser became ours (and for an amazing price, thanks to my mad negotiating skills!). we were so giddy on the way home that we all stopped for dinner & drinks at red lobster (I'm not kidding. I haven't been there since the early 90s, but let me tell you, that place has spiffied itself up. "extra cheesy biscuits, please!"). victory on all fronts.

{don't worry- I only dropped my poker face after sealing the deal}

{oh, and the red lobster meal came after all of this delicious fair food}

{a corn dog with powdered sugar, you say?}

{nope, it's a fried snickers bar. sounds gross, but trust me on this one...}

{real frenchies were making the nutella banana crepes, so you know they're gonna be good}

{and this is my new favorite. it's called an arepa. basically it's a sweet corn pancake grilled & filled with mozzarella}

surprise nightstand

I'd been eyeing this nightstand for months & months, waiting patiently for it to go on sale (I don't buy much of anything unless it's on sale). and when it finally did, west elm didn't have any left in the store. waaaaaaa. so my sweet husband surprised me a few weekends back when I got home from a trip & this was waiting for me when I walked into the bedroom. he's pretty great. 

china hutch

I've been looking for quite awhile for some sort of china hutch to display all of our ben seibel & eva zeisel pieces. I wanted something simple & mid century-looking, with glass on top & a cabinet on the bottom. so one weekend robert & I hit up literally every thrift store within a 25 mile radius. the last stop on the map was the house of transitions (created so that ex-prisoners on parole could “transition” into their first job). the place was covered in junk. and I don’t mean “another-man’s-treasure” kind of junk. like, crap. after walking through, I was made a bee-line for the door when robert spotted this piece of furniture. I honestly didn’t even notice it because it was covered in stuffed animals & fake flowers. but once we moved all that out of the way, it was beautiful. and we talked the guy down to only $75! it appears to be late 60s/early 70s, but it looks absolutely perfect in our home.

so moral of the story: don’t judge a thrift store by it’s crap. there’s always a diamond in the rough somewhere.