the marion house book

Monthly Archives: August 2010

wonderful wood

Can you ever have too much of a good thing?

Take wood for example…can you imagine it on your floors, on your walls and on your ceilings? Seems like overkill, right?

But take a look at some of these place sand see what a spectacular effect it can have. The trick is keeping the types of wood to a minimum. I would say no more than two, otherwise it ends up looking too hodge podge.

In addition to the wood, I absolutely love these chairs. Francois Halard

If we ever renovate our third floor, this is the inspiration for our bedroom attic. Image via Design*Sponge

Even the doors (if you can spot them) are made out of wood! Simon Watson.

Beautiful, textured wood from Harriet Maxwell MacDonald and Andrew Corrie’s home on Shelter Island. Ditte Isager for House Beautiful

These rustic wood walls create a beautifully, moody space. Martyn Thompson

There is something magical about this loft with its paper lanterns and swing. Image via 1 b.p.

Vertical and horizontal lines of wood. Francois Halard (left) and Sarah Maingot (right)

Wonderfully aged wood floors (OK, so this is only the floors but I love the image!) Chris Brooks

Posted by Emma - The Marion House Book on August 31, 2010 – 9:33 AM

Filed under colour trends

hello! neighbor – clay & liz

I am super excited about this month’s edition of Hello! Neighbour. First, because this house is on the same street as the Marion house and second because this home is full of so many amazing vintage finds that you don’t know where to look first. Almost every item in Clay and Liz’s home has a different story to tell. Ask about the dining room and you will hear how Clay made the light fixture and that the vintage suitcases were free from Craigslist. In the living room, their is a first edition copy of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories on the mantlepiece. The front porch features a table made from an old director’s chair and fridge racks that Clay cobbled together after watching too many episodes of the Junk Brothers. Even one of the children’s rooms boasts a vintage E.T. TV tray that Liz’s found at a garage sale.

Pretty soon, we will all be able to benefit from Liz’s keen eye for vintage finds when she opens her new online store, The Arthur. The store will feature unusual and hard to find vintage items that she has collected for years. Stay tuned here in the coming weeks for details.

Enjoy the tour!

Names:

Liz Ikiriko & Clay Stang

Occupations:
Liz – Photo Editor/Toronto Life Magazine

Clay – Photographer

How long have you lived in your home?

3.5 years

Any animals, kids?

Yup! 1 Dog – Gracie and 2 Kids – Otis & Esmé

What is your favorite room?
Liz: The Living Room – from every vantage point I find something new I like about it. It’s cozy and I really love how it’s a perfect blend of our styles. Clay tends to be a bit more modern and streamlined than I am but it all comes together in the living room. We got the Sai Baba bust on the mantlepiece from a GREAT garage sale. There is also a JD Salinger collection on the mantle (1st edition Nine Stories) between thrift store owl bookends.

I also love the tv room…we’re pretty lucky with the amount of space we have. So we have a tv room upstairs. I love this room with its non-working fireplace and big bay window. We reupholstered the George Mulhauser plycraft chair that I found at a garage sale. We traded photography for the hanging light from Kate at In Abstracto and the couch was our biggest purchase so far, from Pavillion. My fave item in tv room is the Breathless (a Bout de Souffle) poster I found at a shop on Queen East (above Mulhauser chair)

Clay: The Bathroom – it feels like the perfect blend of old and new. It was the beginning of our many renos, before we moved in. I learned a lot during the process.

Liz: Clay and I have found the perfect way to work together. He does the big major transformation reno stuff and I come in and do the details.The only original element from the bathroom is the medicine cabinet. Though, I have to say our taste has definitely come together over the years. The bathroom really seems like it’s a perfect mix of us. Simple, modern but with vintage found details.

What is your favorite object/thing/moment in your home?
Liz: Tom Waits photo by Dan Winters (best birthday/Christmas gift from the hubby. EVER) & napping with Esmé on our new back deck (built by the hubby!).

Clay: Tom Waits photo by Dan Winters and the afternoon light coming down our 3rd floor stairwell.

What are your future plans for the home?
Finishing kitchen, painting/adding some colour character (we have boring white walls everywhere) and we’d love to finish off all the little details in our house – sprucing up windowsills, baseboards, adding quarter round, etc.

Anything you would change?
Wish we had a 2nd bathroom with a lovely clawfoot tub. I dream of it on a daily basis…

Best thing about living in Parkdale?
We have amazing neighbours. Seems like we live in pleasantville with all their loveliness. And it’s great being so connected to the city center without feeling like we’re in the midst of the hustlebustle. Also, 90% of our friends live within walking distance and since we have no family in the city – that is a super bonus. Our friends are our family so it’s nice to be so close.

What original feature(s) of your home will you never get rid of?
Our 2 fireplaces (though, it’d be nice if they worked), all the ceiling medallions and the original turn-of-the-century solid wood doors.

Links, acknowledgments

All photographs by Kristin Sjaarda for The Marion House book except photo of Tom Waits by Clay Stang.

Dining Room

- big photo – Clay took in NYC

- portrait by Simon Willms

- wood block print from Smash

- bowling floor console by Clay!

- table from Craigslist, chairs from Bungalow

– light fixture by Clay!

- suitcases – free Craigslist

- Stool – Liz’s 1st reupolstery project

Hallway

- theatre chairs from Aberfoyle Market

- antlers Clay painted

- buddha from friends

- illustration on wood block commissioned by my close friend on my 30th birthday, by Leeay Aikawa, it’s a portrait of me when I was 3.

Back Porch

- Patio chairs – free on street

- Patio table – from Black Pug

Front Porch – Clay redid our porch in the spring and its made such a difference. I love sitting out there on a rainy morning with coffee. The sideboard was in the house when we took possession and where I store my gardening tools. Think I’ll switch out glass in the sideboard doors and replace with chicken wire…

Patio doors are Pollard Windows and Doors

Posted by Emma - The Marion House Book on August 30, 2010 – 9:12 AM

Filed under hello! neighbor

don’t forget to enter

I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts this week dedicated to art in the home. Judging by your comments, it’s a topic that many of you are inspired by. Just a quick reminder that time is running out to enter the Paperwork giveaway. You could win a $25 gift card towards the purchase of a piece like this from their gallery.

Bairro Alto 01 – Cristina Guerreiro

Or something like this….

Swing Set – Bryan Jerabek

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post by Monday, August 30th at midnight (EST) to win.

Next week, I’ll be back here with a brand new Hello! Neighbour post that I am really excited about, a Cast Your Vote post for a fellow blogger living in Switzerland and of course, the winner of the Paperwork giveaway. Now, go enter to win some art for your walls!

Posted by Emma - The Marion House Book on August 27, 2010 – 7:49 AM

Filed under beautiful objects

story of an artwork

As promised yesterday, a post about my first foray into buying art from a gallery.

I think there are certain events in life like milestone birthdays, the birth of a child or a wedding that deserve to be celebrated with a purchase you will have for years to come. Something you can look upon to remember that specific moment.

For my husband’s 30^th birthday, I decided to buy him a piece of art. It was a discussion about art and photography that drew us together in the first place so what better present to give him.

Up the road, from where we lived in Vancouver was a gallery that was having a show by the Royal Art Lodge. The Royal Art Lodge was a collective of artists from Winnipeg, Canada founded by Marcel Dzama, Michael Dumontier, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Jonathan Pylypchuk, and Adrian Williams. We were both familiar with the work of the Royal Art Lodge, and I knew he would appreciate one of their works.

Royal Art Lodge Studio

One of the ways the collective functioned was every week, the artists would meet and work on drawings that they passed around the group Usually, at least three artists would contribute to each drawing riffing off of what the previous artist had done. Each work was then time stamped to identify when the art was completed and to signify the meeting process.

Royal Art Lodge

The show at the Atelier gallery had many of these group drawings on display all reasonably priced around the $150-$200 mark. I saw one that really resonated with me that I knew Myles would enjoy. It showed two blob-like figures holding a gigantic suitcase with a picture of men’s briefs on the side. The text above said, “let’s get out of here”. Since we were contemplating a move to Toronto at the time it seemed appropriate and timely. ( I later learned that the Royal Art Lodge had a systematic way of sorting through all the drawings they generated that involved four suitcases. The best went into a suitcase with a sun on it, the second best into one depicted with a heart, the bad went into a suitcase with a rain cloud and the worst were destined for a suitcase with a skull and bones. This was work that was so bad it was to be destroyed.)

The piece has hung in our homes in both Vancouver and Toronto. When we moved into the Marion House we found the perfect spot for the drawing in our hallway right inside the front door.

Then an interesting thing happened. As I was doing the research for this post I took a closer look at our drawing. The initials on the bottom of the page are MD, SD, and SM. Only the MD initials seemed to correspond with a name of an artist who had been in the collective (either Marcel Dzama or Michael Dumontier) and there was no time stamp. I was curious and wondered who had contributed to our drawing. Luckily, the internet is a wonderful thing and I found a contact name on the Royal Art Lodge website. I wrote a quick note with an attached photo of our drawing and hoped someone would respond in a timely fashion. (The collective officially ended in 2008 but some of its member still continue to work together.) A few hours later, I received a reply from Neil Farber. He informed me that our drawing was done by Marcel Dzama, his wife Shelley and their friend Sylvia.

Marcel Dzama – Untitled 2003

In recent years, Marcel Dzama has seen an enormous amount of success. His work is collected by major galleries and institutions such as the The Museum of Modern Art, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal. Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey, Viggo Mortensen and Spike Jonze also collect his work. A quick internet search revealed that a work similar in scale to ours and signed by both Marcel Dzama and Shellie Dick (his wife) sold at auction in 2007 for $2640.

Marcel Dzama and Shelley Dick – Untitled (Figures with Owls)

While I didn’t purchase this piece with the intent to make money it can’t be denied that the business of making and selling art is a large part of the art world puzzle. I think many people are fearful about this part of art collecting; nobody wants to make a bad investment. First and foremost, I believe that you have to love or at least be challenged by the art you buy. (Sometimes, I find the works that confuse or intrigue you…the ones that aren’t immediately apparent… are the ones you end up connecting with the most.) That way you will never be disappointed as you will always have a work that you enjoy having on your wall. If you happen to be fortunate and the artist’s career takes off then lucky for you. Even then, I wonder how many people would part with an artwork just to make some money. I know, we’re holding onto ours.

Posted by Emma - The Marion House Book on August 26, 2010 – 8:48 AM