The Big Apple!

On Friday, Matt and I both ducked out of work early and hit the open road to head to New York City for little mini-vacation and to go see my family and my brothers art show.  Being outside of my normal comfort zone, my observant eye was on high alert.  Luckily, Matt appreciates furnishings as well and doesn't mind hearing my stream-of-consciousness-chatter about it all.

Now, you've all seen some of the wonderful inspirational things from my moms home-sweet-home. I snapped some pictures for you all to enjoy of my dads' Manhattan abode. He sure can find some interesting-albeit strange knick-knacks.  He has a moderately open concept apartment that overlooks the East River. This doesn't do the view justice and these windows are the best piece of art rent could pay for! So much so, that he takes a photograph of the RFK (Triboro) Bridge every single day and keeps his camera on the tripod on the table. What a centerpiece! But I love that he strayed from the norm and put his dining table against the windows.

As I told you, my dad has acquired some very strange "found-objects" over the years. He loves all things bizarre. He has the scariest antique hockey mask I've ever seen hanging next to the Olive Oil tin Lamp that my brother gave him a while back. An artists sketching hand is manipulated into various gestures nearly daily. And he found that accent table on the street ripe for the pickings and merely changed the pulls.

My cousin used to run a bowling alley outside of Boston and she knew his proclivity for such tchochke's and gave him his very own bowling pin. I love that he also chose to leave the vintage mirror on the floor. No need for it to be hung on the wall. It adds depth underneath the old drafting table he uses as an end table.  And talk about mixing and matching new with old. This lamp makes me swoon and he purchased it a couple years ago from my favorite ... Target! Who would have thunk?!

Notice that he has hung a plethora of his own black and white photographs in large clumps, as well as some of his friends art work.  He has mixed black, silver and white frames but doesn't stray from that and keeps them uniform within their groupings.

One wonderful inspiration that my dad showed me was in a little cafe near his building. Cleverly, they had used tin colanders as a pendant light shade similar to the one you can see some folks used on Apartment Therapy.

I feel that the iteration in this terrible picture I took, is the more practical use, though both are equally chic. I like the diffusion of light this one gets as opposed to the one from Apartment Therapy.  When I'm sitting below a light I don't particularly want to look up and be looking directly into the bulb.  What do you think? Do you prefer the lamp to expose the bulb (though, they have used a mirrored bulb to diffuse somewhat) or do you want the bulb hidden by the bottom of the colander?

I think this may be a project for myself when I get my place! As always I'll take you through everything step by step.

I hope you've all been inspired by my Dad's home, I know I have!
As always, stay tuned!