while walking ted, i randomly found this crazy 1970's chinois-meets-deco floral screen at our neighborhoods's biannual weekend yard sale blowout, and it was the perfect addition to the corner of my client's living room (loving how the silver leaf brightens up the dark corner too).  you never know when you are going to find the right piece, so it pays to keep your eyes open (and your ears too, as you never know when the the junque whisperer™ will call).

pairs of things are a decorator's secret for unifying a room, and a pair of tall etageres makes both an architectural statement, and is (are?) completely useful to display the pretty things we love. whether you flank a sofa, a fireplace, a bed, a desk or a door, pairs of etageres are your friend...

amy d. morris, via atlanta homes and lifestyles

carrier and company, via stylebeat

celerie kemble

unknown, via elle decor

eric kohler

kelly weasrstler, via studio ten 25

pheobe howard

lookee what we found this weekend... and since we already have one at the atelier, you know where to find it, if you need one for your very own!


and here's some bar cart images to get you in the mood:

original source unknown, via pinterest

via design*sponge

deborah needleman via lonny

via veranda

via rue magazine

via society social

via the delightful emily henderson

via my living room

the above photo is one of the most popular pictures from the maison21 design portfolio, added to over 3000 ideabooks on houzz.com, and 4 years after it was first published here on the blog,  i still often randomly run across it on the internets- usually uncredited-  but i guess that's the price of being a superstar... (please read 'superstar' in your best sarcastic voice)

and one of the most frequent questions i get asked about the photo is "where did you get the deer statue?", and sadly, i have to answer that it was vintage and the client's own, so i can only steer them in the direction of 1stdibs  with a "good luck!" (good luck to you *and* your checkbook!)

well, guess what the junque whisperer™ led me to yesterday? that's right, deer-landia, where we picked up this fabulously large version, all for our very own (much bigger than the one shown in client project photo- it's 3 feet tall, the largest of these thai brass deer we've ever seen in person).  it also turns out that even though they are separate rooms, our 3 foot plaster monkey and our 3 foot tall brass deer do not get along at all, so sadly, we need to find our deer friend a new home. if you live in southern california,  would you be a deer and drop by our hipswap shop to say hello? of course, there is a modest adoption fee involved (well, i guess that would be modest in comparision to 1stdibs... it's all relative, you know? ;-)



here's a round-up of some more little "dears" for inspiration...

coco chanel's paris apartment (maybe the most famous deer statues in the history of decorating)

deer at the atelier, circa 2007 (from our pinterest. these were about half the size of out current dear little friend)

designer fawn galli's home in domino

san francisco residence by redmond aldritch

last, my deers, i'd like to send you out with a song...

the junque whisperer™ called out to me yesterday, and told me based on a tiny grainy picture to immediately go buy this sculpture- no questions asked.  so on a dark, deserted street late last night,  i forked over some cash and bought the above without really even looking at it and just had the seller load it into the m21 mobile- aka, granny clampett, the furniture hauling pick-up truck. (yes, the junque whisperer™moves in mysterious ways, sometimes making buying pretty things more like a drug deal than a luxury experience, but that's ok, i know the junque whisperer™ is just a monkey on my back and in many ways, i am just an addict looking for my next score ;-)
i thought it would be a little table top sculpture, but it's a big ol' ginormously heavy hunk of polished bronze on a black stone base. check out it's size next to a bottle of veuve clicquot my friend diane gave me for my recent birthday (i've got nice friends, right? ;-)  it has some minor finish issues (the original lacquer coating is flaking off), and one corner of the base is chipped, but otherwise, it's just bee-you-ti-ful.


thing is dude bought it from didn't know anything about it, as he inherited with his apartment (past owners probably left it rather than move it. did i mention the thing is freakin' heavy?).
he said he was told it was originally very expensive, but that's all he knew.  just by size, weight and quality i could tell he was right, but question is, was it expensive from the kind of retail/gallery store on rodeo dr. that sold nagels in the 80's? or it is expensive as in it came from a reputable gallery or auction house and is by a known artist? of course, there ain't a marking anywhere on the damn thing, so i just dunno.

detail showing the hollow matte inner surface, exposed at the bottom`of the piece.

what i do know is that it certainly reminds me of a barbara hepworth with it's pierced hole and ovoid shape, but that fin-like extension on the left side sorta throws my bh theory off; plus i really doubt there are too many barbara hepworths out there getting inherited with apartments and sold to decorators in the middle of the night on a street corner (still there is the story of the dude who bought that original warhol at a yard sale in vegas, so one always has hope).

barabra hepworth

barbara hepworth

barbara hepworth

if this was a piece of furniture, i'd probably have a pretty good idea of who made it, or at least know who to contact to find out for sure (talkin' 'bout you, lewis trimble!), but i don't know any art experts, and frankly, i'm loathe to haul this weighty thing over to sotheby's or christie's, only to find out it's from the franklin mint. quelle horruer!

the junque whisperer™mystery...

so naturally, i thought of you, my readers, and how since you are some of the smartest, best connected peeps around, that maybe y'all can help me identify my new pretty. sooooo- any guesses?

ain't worth as much as two on our credenza!

we like to thank our inner junque whisperer for leading us to these ginormous 1960s italian capodimonte beauties this weekend.  even though one has a couple of broken leaves, they are ah-may-zing...

and how was your weekend?

thank you mr. panda for the good fortune with my not-so-very-chinesey chinese food (c'mon, you know you like their orange chicken- everybody does!).  kind of appropriate for a junque whisperer®, and i hope it bodes well for some planned upcoming shopping excursions!

careful, he might hear you...

not the bogeyman, or some other awful phantom, but rather we're speaking of maison21's inner junque whisperer™ (as in be careful what you wish for, because he's always listening and he makes you buy stuff you really don't need...)

long time readers of m21:dbns will know that maison21 has had a hankering for a claude lalanne sheep for like, ever... (you know, just like every other decorator on the planet). unfortunately though, the 5 figure price tag has stood in our way. heck, even a sheep "in the style of" lalanne is too prohibitively expensive for our recession budget (there is one on 1stdibs right now for mere $8,500). we even considered big ol' stuffed toy at one point, but backed out because it just wasn't quite the right look for the five hundred dollar price tag. so we kinda gave up.


but our inner junque whisperer™ didn't give up- he's always listening, 'member? and the fact is, he comes through more often than not (though his time table is unpredictable, at best). so lookee what we found this weekend:


yup, he found us a big ol' sheep "in the style of" lalanne (if you squint). and therein lies the problem... we have it, now what the heck do we do with it? it's massssive, for one thing- we were hoping for something that could double as ottoman or small bench, but this monster is 4 feet long and 3 feet tall! we just don't have the space in the atelier for him. normally, we'd just do what we do with any other find we can't resist, and offer him for sale in the marketplace, but this guy has a lame front leg that we believe just might be beyond dr. maison21 DFAVM's ability to fix (Doctor of Fake Animal Veterinary Medicine, if you're wondering); so finding a buyer who also has a degree in DFAVM but in an orthopedic specialty, might be difficult dontchathink? ;-) so our little lost lamb sits in our already crowded living room, while we contemplate his fate...

our inner junque whisperer™ was workin' overtime this weekend too- remember that fantabulous giant diamond table that tickled our fancy when we visited emmerson troop a few posts back?


well, IJW™ decided we needed a bejeweled table of our very own, and produced not just one, but three of these crazy mirrored acrylic numbers! not the same as the emmerson-troop table obviously, but still, how often do you see any table in the shape of a giant jewel? so we'll give IJW™ credit on this one... (and these are in the marketplace- no room at the inn!)


now if only our inner junque whisperer™ was perhaps an "inner lottery ticket whisperer" as well- maybe next time we could afford a real lalanne sheep- with 4 good legs, too!

greetings from wet and soggy los angeles! m21 has been a bad blog-father this week- hardly posting, as well as ignoring comments and emails (sorry) but you'll have to forgive us- we've been a bit all over the place lately- as in physically, mentally and emotionally, all over the place!


we started off the week reading a facebook status update by our nephew complaining about his sucky monday: had his wisdom teeth pulled (ouch), the san diego chargers lost the playoffs, dashing his superbowl hopes yet again (oh dear) and oh yeah- his mom was in the hospital because she was in bad car accident. what?!? thank goodness, the painkillers addled his brain a bit- his mom was in a car accident, but my big sis was ok, and NOT in the hospital. she was driving home from northern california, and while winding through the grapevine, lost control of her car in the heavy winds and rain that have been pummeling southern california this week. her car hit the guardrail, but miraculously, she was unhurt and no other cars were involved. m21 hopped in m21mobile and drove to gorman (ie, the middle of nowhere) to rescue her. not what he had planned for a rainy monday, but he was certainly happy he was able to do it, and that his sister was ok. shook up, but ok. yay!

they say any accident you can walk away from is a good accident, and while that's true, m21 thinks perhaps to avoid them, maybe here in southern california, people just shouldn't drive in the rain at all. maybe we can have "rain days", like they have snow days in other parts of the country. m21 isn't criticizing his sister's driving by making this statement- far from it- she merely tried to avoid hitting another car who fishtailed into her lane, causing her to react and and spin out, but that's kind of our point: we southern californians shouldn't drive in the rain because we don't get enough practice to be any good at it! like anything else in life, be it driving or decorating, the more you do it, the better you become at doing it, plain and simple- so by having only half a dozen chances to practice every year, even the best drivers in LA can't ever get enough "rain time" to be any good! so we should just stay home!

hence "rain days"- an idea whose time has come! people can stay home and enjoy the weather from the safety and comfort of their living rooms. that's what m21 was going to do before he ended up driving to gorman (it was a real holiday- MLK day- remember? so we weren't even playing hooky or nuffin'). we even planned ahead for our rain day, buying logs for a roaring fire and some cheap n' cheery daffodils to perk up the gloom of the week's worth of storms being forecast...

during the continuation of the storm yesterday, in between mopping up soaked windowsills (our southern california homes, like our drivers, aren't prepared for rain either- virtually everyone m21 knows had water coming inside their homes this week!), m21 cleaned and polished a pair of lucite lamps who will be eventually headed for a client's bedroom. they still need to be rewired, but they are so pretty in our dining room (yes, we had to test drive them), we might wait until the skies clear up to drop them off at the lamp shop! ;-) and speaking of clients, one of our other clients took a "rain day" today themselves, and rescheduled our meeting for next week- our idea is obviously spreading!

in fact, we almost canceled one of our own appointments today too (a haircut), as it was still raining cats and dogs this morning, but in this case, we're glad we didn't take a "rain day"- not only was our big bush of hair making us look positively homeless, our inner junque whisperer™ told us to stop by one of our favorite junque shoppes after the appointment since we had a block of free time due to the canceled client appointment! yay! and are we ever happy our inner junque whisperer™ is like the US mail and never stops for rain, sleet or snow, as we found a seriously cool piece of needlepoint art! m21 has had a hankerin' for some vintage needlepoint to hang in the atelier, but everything he has run across has been too "gramma" for his tastes, so this lil' number fits the bill pretty nicely. we wish "anne" had used white for the background of her "pottery" masterpiece so it would work in our breakfast nook a bit better, but no matter- it was cute, and cheery for a bargain price, so we'll enjoy it until we put it in the marketplace for someone else to snatch up!
well, we warned you this post would be all over the place in the title right? funny, sometimes we get annoyed reading other blog posts that skip all over the place- "wait? where did the needlepoint come from? i thought we were talking about rainy days?"- but somehow, today, on our own blog, it seems appropriate- car crashes, daffodils, lucite, needlepoint and all... maybe because it's still storming outside, and the unusual weather has left us a bit more unusually scattered then normal...

we leave this hot mess of an "all over the place" post with a pop classic by the immortal karen carpenter. keep dry, and stay happy (and focused), people!