Space Jam No. 1: Studio 54

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Studio Kendrick Space Jam is officially here!  Every month, I'll curate a playlist you can download from Spotify, inspired by an interior that dazzles me.  To launch my first-ever Space Jam, and to help you celebrate the new year, this month's inspo is Studio 54.  Naturally.

I have a short list of the things that bring me deep joy in life.  The number one item on that list is a muthafuckin' DANCE PARTY.  And nobody did dance parties better than Studio 54.  Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager built the den of iniquity that revolutionized the idea of night-clubbing and a dance-your-face-off-for-8-hours evening of revelry. A pile of cocaine larger than a polar icecap probably helped to shake your ass all night long, but still - Studio 54 takes the cake.  Bianca Jagger literally rode a white horse on to the dance floor on her birthday.  Elton John and Cher partied together in outfits that would have looked great on either of them.  And the HBIC of all time, Diana Ross, performed on stage in what is obviously just a pile of ostrich feathers and a mountain of rhinestones.  At one New Years Eve party, event planner Robert Isabell dumped FOUR TONS of glitter onto the floor of the club. Ian Schrager said it was like "standing on stardust."

You can download the entire playlist on Spotify HERE.


Better Than Big Box

A three part series for how to avoid buying trash and put an end to buyers remorse forever.

PART I: FURNITURE

My apartment in New York was cursed by a narrow entry hallway with a 90-degree angle turn at the end, which I discovered was problematic when the first “adult” piece of furniture I had ever ordered (a sofa from Room and Board) couldn’t navigate the turn from hell at the end of the hall.  I paid for the sofa in cash from my cocktail waitressing job, and had to pay a restocking fee to send it right back to Room and Board.  After that, I ordered only flat packed furniture that had to be assembled in the apartment from a limited handful of retailers – IKEA, Target, West Elm, and the like.   

So when it was time to leave New York, I had to disassemble all that furniture to get it out of the apartment.  And, after several frustrating rounds of Craigslist postings, was forced to put it all on the curb because no one wanted to buy used furniture that they had to transport to their place and re-assemble when they could just buy their own new shitty flat-packed furniture for not much more.  My poor bookcases, consoles, and tables were like bastard children born from a loose scullery maid in a Jane Austen novel.  Perhaps someone took pity on my orphans and took them in.  But if not, they are languishing in a landfill somewhere outside of Queens. 

 This experience is the very definition of PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE.  If you’ve ever owned a cell phone, a light bulb, a sequined top from Forever 21, or anything ever made by IKEA, you will certainly be familiar with the concept of planned obsolescence even if you didn’t know it before now.  

 

Planned obsolescence; noun:

A policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials.

 

Let’s talk trash for a minute.  How many pens have you thrown away in your life? Where are all my fucking sunglasses?  Once I purchased an entirely new printer because it was cheaper than purchasing a replacement set of color ink cartridges for the printer I already owned.  If you could make a pile of everything you have ever donated to Goodwill, everything you have ever sold in a garage sale, everything you’ve ever sold on Craigslist, put on the curb with a "take me" sign, or straight-up thrown away, how big would that pile would be?  Think of all the cushions, rugs, bookcases, clocks, bed frames, ottomans, chairs, tables, sofas, lamps, and chandeliers you've relinquished because they broke or went out of style within 5 years of purchasing them. 

If you’ve ever tried to re-sell any of these items you will know that nobody wants this shit after it’s been used because it’s essentially trash.  But we just keep buying it.  Sometimes it’s a purchase of convenience, sometimes it’s because you’re broke and it’s cheap. But mostly it’s because a jillion dollars of marketing research went into making it appealing to you so you could keep fueling the consumer culture that keeps making these companies money.  These things weren’t meant to last because the people who made them designed it that way.  I couldn’t move that furniture from my New York apartment because it wasn’t meant to be moved after assembly.  It was meant to be thrown away. 

The famed designer George Nelson wrote “Design. . .is an attempt to make a contribution through change.  When no contribution is made or can be made, the only process available for giving the illusion of change is ‘styling’!”  Enter the Big Box Furniture Retailer.   Chances are, you probably have something (or many things) in your home that come from one of these companies.  I mean, how could you not?    Williams-Sonoma reported revenue of 5.292 billion dollars in 2017.  That’s billion with a “B”.   And if you think you didn’t shop there, Williams-Sonoma also owns Pottery Barn, PB Teen, PB Kids, West Elm, Mark and Graham, and Rejuvenation.  Crate & Barrel also owns CB2 and The Land of Nod.  Did you know that Wayfair also owns All Modern, Joss & Main, Birch Lane, and Perigold?  Urban Outfitters also owns Anthropologie, Free People, and BHLDN.  And the thing these mega-retailers have in common is that they don’t give a fuck about your home or what you put in it.  They are the arbiters of planned obsolescence.  Nothing you will ever buy at any of these stores will be handed down to your grandchildren because it won’t last that long. 

 I recently read the details of every single nightstand on the West Elm website.  Over half of them state “Hardware may loosen over time. Periodically check that all connections are tight.”

Fuck that.  If their hardware “loosens over time” then they need to come tighten it for me.  Or better yet, perhaps they should familiarize themselves with the revolutionary concept of building better furniture.  Dunno about you, but I don’t want to buy furniture that comes with a “this shit might fall apart soon, so get your tools out to make sure the legs don’t fall off” disclaimer.

If you’re buying furniture this year, take this advice with you to avoid the insidious trap of furniture regret:  More is not better.  Better is better.  Be a discriminating consumer and inform yourself. Buying trash is bad for the planet, it’s bad for your bank account, and it’s an impediment to happiness in your home. 

If you’re hanging your head in defeat right about now because you don’t know where to find stylish, well-made furniture that isn’t from a big-box retailer. . .chin up!  I would never leave you to stew in mediocrity without a solution, because that’s against my rules. Here are my top picks for American furniture companies that are changing the game through quality, materials, availability and price.  Or as Nelson said, making “a contribution through change. . .” 

$ under $1,000

$$ 1k – 3K

$$$ 3K and up

Akron Street

$

Where: Based in NYC

They Make: Tables, chairs, and beds from Appalachian sourced white Oak

Who Are These People: Launched in 2015 by Lulu Li and Hansley Yunez, both from Harvard school of Design.  They sold out the first batch of furniture they made after a bootstraps campaign on Craigslist that they created themselves.

Gold Stars For: Great prices, designs that are easily incorporated into any style, and my vote for the best IKEA disrupter on the market.


$

Where: Made to order in LA

They Make: Upholstered Furniture

Who Are These People: CEO Edgar Blazona is a rock star.  In his youth, he was commissioned by the city of San Francisco for his works in graffiti.  Soon after, he became a custom metal fabricator.  Later on, he paid his dues at Pottery Barn learning overseas sourcing and manufacturing processes, and he is often considered to be the king of the prefab movement after establishing Modular Dwellings.  I think he’s a gold-medal expert in all areas of the furniture business from front to back.  And as if you don’t find something you like, you can always check out his second company, True Modern.  

Gold Stars For: Providing full scale paper print outs of the sofa you’re considering so you can lay it out on the floor to see its footprint before you buy.  Custom by-the-inch sizing of any piece.  14-31 day lead time (which is fucking magic). 


$$

Where: Designed and crafted in downtown LA

They Make: Powder coated wire furniture

Who Are These People:  Founder Guarav Nanda founded Bend Goods after working for GM as an automotive sculptor

Gold Stars For: Everything made from recycled materials, suitable for indoor/outdoor use, and contract grade to hold up in high-traffic environments like restaurants and bars.  I’m also giving a gold star here for fun design and color choice.


$ - $$

Where: Designed and crafted out of their workshop in Cincinnati, Ohio.

They Make: Tables, chairs, and case goods from lumber that is locally sourced, and sustainably harvested.

Who Are These People: Partners Hayes Shanesy, who has an industrial design degree, and Rosie Kovacs, who holds a degree in fashion from University of Cincinnati’s DAAP.  Housed in a former brush factory, their company initials, BFF, is a play on Best Friends Forever, which is how long they say their furniture should last. 

Gold Stars For: Sourcing all their lumber regionally, and very versatile designs easy to assimilate to any space.


$

Where: Emeryville, CA

They make: Upholstered seating using steel frames instead of wood

Who Are These People: CEO Brad Sewell has a background in mechanical engineering and later pursued an MBA at Harvard Business School.

Gold Stars For: Lifetime guarantee of all furniture frames, assembly of furniture in 15 minutes without any tools, free shipping within 7 days, free 14-day returns, option to buy separate cover sets that allow you to change out the upholstery color anytime.


$

Where: Designed and crafted in Huntington Beach, California

They Make: Mid-century inspired seating and tables

Who Are These People: Henry and Lesa Jara decided to turned their passion for mid-century furniture into a business after helping their daughter sell vintage pieces at a Long Beach flea market.

Gold Stars For: Solid Alder wood construction, super fun upholstery colors, removable covers that are easily cleaned, family-owned and operated, and true mid-century swank without mid-century sticker shock.


$$

Where: Downtown LA

They make: All the things

Who are these people: Riley Rea and Alex Segal.  From humble beginnings making DIY furniture on Etsy, they now create GORGEOUS pieces of California Modern Furniture

Gold stars for: Manufacturing most pieces in southern California and serious goddamn style


$

Where: Based in Detroit

What They Make: Floyd makes 6 things - a sofa, a bed, a dining table, side table, and a desk (and some hardware).

Who Are These People: With their ethos of “Made for life, not the landfill,” founders Alex O’Dell and Kyle Hoff created Floyd with a 2014 Kickstarter campaign to make “furniture for keeping.”  Originally producing a single product – a steel table leg that could be clamped to any flat surface to turn it into a table - they recently expanded the brand after receiving  $5.6 million in funding.  

Gold Stars For: Everything!  Made in the USA (Virginia), all USA made steel, no VOC emitting materials, free-shipping, and a 10-year warrantee for starters.  No tools required for assembly, all furniture is easily “take-apart-able” to move homes when you do.  They refer to their products as “furniture for keeping” and their tag line is “Made for life, not the landfill.”


$$

Where: Crafted in their world-class workshop in LA (even the upholstery is manufactured in LA!)

They Make: All the things

Who Are These People: Frank Novak, Founder

Gold Stars For: Family-owned and operated for 25 years, reviving the craft of reproducing out-of-production mid-century furniture and lighting, including George Nelson bubble lamps and the Eames for Herman Miller fiberglass molded chairs using the original preform machine that Zenith Plastics used to make the 1950’s originals.


$$$

Where: Auburn, Maine

They Make: “If it’s made of wood, we can do it.”

Who Are These People: Founded by Thomas and Mary Moser in 1972.

Gold Stars For: Sustainably harvested American hardwoods, creating exquisite furniture in a Shaker-influenced style with a modern twist.  This is truly American craftsmanship at its finest.  If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy one of their pieces, your grandchildren will fight over who gets it when you die.

A Designers Guide for Cat Lovers

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I'm taking a moment to celebrate my true love. Cats. To be clear, I absolutely qualify for crazy cat lady status, and I don't care who knows it. They're soft, they smell good, they make crazy sounds, they're hilarious, and pound-for-pound they're the most formidable predators in the animal kingdom.

Cats are punk rock - you can't tell them what to do. Cats have super powers - like invisibility the ability to sleep anywhere. Cats are awesome. And you know who else agrees with me? Ernest Hemingway, Karl Lagerfeld, every 8-year-old girl in the world, the Egyptians, and infinity billion viewers of cat videos streaming on the internet all-day every day.

Now let's take a moment to discuss things I like. . .less. I do not love a litter box. I do not love owning a sofa for 6 months and returning from vacation to discover the cat has waited until the humans were gone to scratch it to bits. I do not love the glass jar of Q-Tips on my bathroom shelf being knocked into the toilet, filling the bowl with cotton, tiny paper sticks, and shards of glass. I don't enjoy waking up to the sound of a cup of water being over-turned on the nightstand on to my iPhone. And then sprinting to the kitchen to put the iPhone in a bag of rice and seeing that the cats water dish is entirely full of water. And I really don't love discovering the pile of laundry I left on the floor because I was late for work soaked in cat piss at the end of a long day. The valuable lesson here is that cats are also assholes, and their potential for destruction is what you might get if you mixed a raccoon with a monkey and kept it indoors for its entire life. They are thuggish ruggish to the bone and they will ruin your house if you let them. Here's my guide for avoiding turning your feline into a pair of mittens because they destroyed your blinds, ate all the leaves off your ficus before puking it back up on your best pair of Jordans, and ripped all the button tufting off your $5,000 sofa for their own amusement.

 

Best upholstery options

This is the biggest kitty conundrum.  Some folks will suggest you get leather furniture.  But they’ve clearly never met the absolute criminal residing in my house who was happy to let our leather sofa live in peace but scratched the leather Barcelona chair until we had to call hospice to guide it with dignity in to the afterlife.  Other folks will suggest you get microsuede.  But I would sooner have the cats scratch my eyes out than put microsuede furniture in my home. The best fabrics to deter and/or stand up to scratching are tightly woven options like cotton twill, or an outdoor fabric that doesn’t scream patio cushion.  Sunbrella makes the best options, and as a bonus, they’re also kid-proof.  Velvet is also a good option.  It has a cut pile, rather than looped fibers, which pull easily when cats get their claws in.  The only down side to velvet is that you’ll need to do regular passes with the lint roller to rid it of pet hair.    

Litter Boxes

Nothing will ruin your efforts at having a stylish home more than a hideous plastic box in the corner of a room filled with cat shit.  Here are some better options.

 

Claw Your Way to the Top

A scratching post is non-negotiable.  Scratching is a natural need for cats, and if you don’t give them something to scratch on, your furniture will live in a constant state of fear for the rest of its life.  And since style is a natural need for me, if I have to live with a hideous carpeted scratching post, I will live in a constant state of ugliness for the remainder of my life.  You should have more than one scratching post placed in prominent hang out or sleeping spots.  If kitty seems uninterested in the scratching post, catnip or toys can be used to make the post more enticing, but another good trick is to move the post in to the middle of the room for a day or two.  As a cat-owner, you should know that they will check out any new object if it’s right in the middle of a room.  I also notice that when I periodically move my posts around to new locations, the post gets extra heavy use for a few days.

If you’ve been forced to buy new furniture specifically because the monsters ruined the old furniture with scratching, put double-sided tape on the arms and sides of the new furniture as soon as it arrives in the house and leave it on for the first 2 weeks.  It’s not glamorous, but it’s only 2 weeks and it’s very effective.  This also works like a champ on box springs.  If you’re worried about the adhesive compromising more delicate fabrics, put painters tape on the upholstery first and then cover the painters tape with the double-sided tape.  You can try this on furniture that has already been scratched as well, but definitely use the painters tape/double stick tape method so any loose threads won’t be pulled further when you remove the tape.        

Sleepy Kitties

Save the Trees

If you’ve got a leaf-eater or a planted-pot pisser on your hands:

Method 1: Shake up some cayenne pepper or vinegar with water in a spray bottle and mist your plant and/or the surrounding soil with the solution.  It should be SPICY to the taste.  Spicy enough to sting their little mouths and paws when they chomp your ferns or scratch around in the dirt.  You can also try a special no-no bottle with this mixture to squirt them with when they get into the plants.

Method 2: Use the double stick tape method to create a little tape island on the floor with the planter in the middle until the cats stop paying attention to the irresistible greenery beckoning them into mischief.

Method 3: Bitter Apple. This product was developed for dogs to discourage destructive chewing or neurotic biting at hot spots, but it works the same for cats. It also work really well for cord biters.

Curated Like the Guggenheim

If you’ve got a real jerk who loves to knock breakable items off high places, you can thwart their efforts by using Museum Putty.  It’s a white putty used by museums to anchor ceramic or glass items to a flat surface to avoid accidental breakage and minimize damage during earthquakes.  Museum Gel and Museum Wax are clear, if your items are glass or on a glass shelf.  Just ball up a few pieces of the putty, stick them evenly spaced to the underside of the piece, and squish the object down in place on the shelf. 

Closet Door Openers

All the closets in my house have sliding closet doors.  And all the cats in my house want to open them and climb inside to pee on things.  Depending on how determined your cat is, here are some links to hardware options for keeping the doors closed.  One is a thin magnetic cabinet latch. Mount one side to the edge of the door and the other to the inside of the door frame.  You can also install a cabin door hook or a teardrop privacy latch.     

Window Watchers

It’s a fool’s errand to try and keep them out of the window.  You can always tell who has cats because their mini blinds are broken and bent from the cat forcing the blinds open to climb through the slats.  Roller shades are a much better option.  When the cats get up on the window sill, they just paw the panel away from the glass and hop right up.  I opted for solar shades in my house, which are made from a tightly woven, but flexible cat proof acrylic.  Roman shades made of fabric or canvas work as well, but cat hair accumulates on the panels.  Bamboo roller shades are another option.  If kitty starts to chew on the edges just use that Bitter Apple we talked about earlier. My choice for affordable roller shades are from blinds.com

Cat Proof the Nightstand

Here are some of my favorite products to prevent nocturnal feline shenanigans from disturbing your slumber.

 

You Can Sit With Us, An Epic Guide for Holiday Table Setting

Well everybody, I think we can agree things have been. . .complicated lately.   As a nation, we’re experiencing deep divisions of politics, morality, and plain ol’ common sense that we haven’t seen in a while.  Often these divisions exist within our own families, which we can politely ignore for most of the year . . . until we have to pull up a chair and break bread together at the holiday table.      

It’s no secret that I’m not a traditionalist.  As a Texan born and raised in Austin (before it was cool or keeping anything weird) and as a gal who spent her early 20’s in Japan and her late 20’s chasing Broadway ambitions in NYC, my holiday table is a little bit King of the Hill, a little bit Ru Paul’s Drag Race.  As such, my holiday guests usually reflect a spectrum of peeps from diverse backgrounds and lifestyles.  In the seasonal spirit of inclusion, here’s my epic guide for holiday table settings, filled with pieces that embrace my  “Yep” to “YASSSS” spectrum of entertaining.  Because don’t we have enough enemies without creating enemies out of ourselves?  Even if your in-laws did vote for that guy . . .     

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Bound By Style

October: A month to celebrate the dark, play dress up, and be bad.  I was recently telling a friend how my childhood obsession with black, tight, shiny things resulted in asking my mother to make me a Catwoman costume after seeing Michelle Pfeiffer’s feline prowess in Batman Returns.  My friend replied, “Have you ever been to Kawaii Monster Café in Tokyo?”  I said “No, but whatever the hell that is, I want to go to there.” 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the entirety of Gwen Stefani’s career, you’ll know “kawaii” means cute in Japanese.  You’ll also likely know that the nation that has mastered the art of cosplay like no other is Japan.  These costumes are no exception – they are so bizarre, so underworld outré, and yes, so very tight and shiny.  


I blame the root of my fixation with tight and shiny things on the girls in Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love video from 1986. I had NEVER seen women who looked like that.  Their tight black dresses, the slicked back buns, the lacquered lips – they looked like a gang of sexy black widow spiders.  

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I made a daily demand that my mother pull my hair into the tightest ponytail known to humankind on the top of my head until absolutely every.  Single. Strand. Of my baby fine white girl hair until was perfectly smooth with no bumps.  If it didn't pull my eyelids up so that it was difficult to blink, IT WASN'T TIGHT ENOUGH.  

In fact, nothing was tight enough.  Any clothing that was not essentially tights and a leotard could easily cause me to crumble into a sobbing pile of freak-out-melt-down.  I didn't even wear jeans until I was 15 years old because I couldn't stand the way they gaped in the back when I sat down.  I wanted garments to stay in place like a sheath over my body with out any of the dreaded "stems" (the seams) touching my skin with disgusting lumps.  When I was 6, I once suffered my mother’s fury after returning home from a friend’s birthday party at Playland Skating Rink where she discovered I had shimmied out of my panties and stashed ‘em in my party favor bag to avoid the seam torture inflicted by soft cotton underwear.     

Putting shoes on was an insurmountable obstacle in the morning routine of our household because socks bunching in my shoes caused me to throw myself on the ground, writhing and wailing.  My mother will tell you that the day she bought me a pair of plastic glitter Jellies was a nearly religious experience for her.  For those of you who don’t know what Jellies are, they are basically flexible clear plastic slip-on flats, and do not require the wearer to suffer those previously mentioned garments of Satan.  However, the shoes that inspired a Gollum-esque obsession in my 6-year-old brain were my gleaming, black patent leather pair of Mary Janes.  I was absolutely overwhelmed with their dark, shiny lacquered beauty, and they laced up with a big-ass ribbon.  That’s because they were really tap shoes from Payless without the tap plates screwed into the soles.  But that didn’t change the facts: that my shit was real fancy, and the other girls were suckers for failing to think of this brilliant idea before me.   I’d tie that bow just tight enough to make my feet fall asleep, which was great, and no socks were required which was even better.

Despite my devotion to my black Mary Janes, my love for the Robert Palmer spider posse, and a killer Cat Woman costume, my ultimate goal was to be a mermaid.  My mermaid ambitions absolutely began at Aquarena Springs.

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It was a D-list amusement park in San Marcos Texas based around the wild and exciting party that is the EDWARDS AQUIFER, which is the source of drinking water for central Texas. It featured a glass bottom boat with a real live underwater mermaid show, followed by Ralph the Swimming Pig. Eat your heart out, Disneyland. One Halloween, Mom sewed me a velvet, sapphire blue, floor-length pencil skirt “mermaid tail”, shimmering with gold glitter puff paint scales. It literally bound my legs together from the hip to the ankle and I had to scooch along, taking teeny tiny steps to cross the room. It was amazing. Mermaids, after all, don't need panties.

In celebration of the season, here’s a fun list of bondage inspired furniture and decor, with a few fun extras to throw in to your trick-or-treat bag.