Swaglamps, Cellings lights and Ikea Trips. Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Yesterday was my daughter's 9th birthday. Our family decided to skip the party mess and instead decided on a road-trip to the Ikea just outside Stink City (also known as Phoenix). There we bought her a whole new room. She has hit that point in our lives where half her life with us is already over. 9+9 people. 18 is the age they leave home. I hated yesterday because of that. And I wore a clown face and was hopped up on migraine meds all day. But I kept it to myself. I wanted my daughter to think I was having fun.

We gorged on chocolate and cinnamon buns and caramel cookies and soda. We dipped fudge chocolate-truffle bars into fudge-chocolate frosting, then we ate that on spoons. AND THEN we ate more ... and then the whole bag was gone. She is sleeping right now, I swear I feel like my heart is giving out.

My children are beautiful. And I bought them both new rooms thanks to tax returns. My 2 year old does not have his own room yet, but he greatly admires my sons masculine aura. This would be an excellent time for me to beg a friend with a truck to drive me to Phoenix to pick up a bunk bed for my boys. To all my truck friends out there ... Beg, beg, beg.

But my point to the big ebay-blog here, is how nicely old ebay purchases blended with the new Ikea themes.  

My son has a color palette that has not had much adjustment since he was 10 months old.  Chocolate brown, Prussian-blue with a little cobalt, and a 1970's flat Sap-green filled out with just enough white to keep it from becoming a true olive.   He had us buying him a new bed cover in green, a new rug in blue and brown, a clothing basket in blue, and a bed net in green.  He won us over for a new sheet set of olive and navy circles.  A throw with a bright green-embroidered map of the world.  He now has a head liner of 6 new dark blue throw pillows that look wonderfull on top of his coveted 7 foot long brown-velvet pillow log.  The kid loves a cuddle island.

Back in that first winter that I started ebaying,  One of my biggest passions were Mid-Century light fixtures.  I had been combing thrift shops for the better part of 3 decades buying up all the swag lamps and teak hanging lights I saw.  But I was unsatisfied that I'd found my "lamp of dreams".  The one that'd bring my room, mood-genie.  So I was still shopping.  And not just for the pull string, hanging kind, I bought the cord and switch and the table and the install-into-your-celling varieties.  All within a 6 month time period.  And they were all nice.  

One such lamp hangs above my head, true some screws were missing and the wooden slats slid out of place when I first tried to handle it out of the box.  But  I spent $.15 at the Ace Hardware and now my friends and neighbors are very jealous.  The light has 6, 1/4 inch thick, 18 inch by 2 inch long strips of solid teak wood that curve in the air around a 12 inch glowing globe .  All the mountings and screws are solid brass.  The light is iconic of an era of Modern Design that will never be outdone.  Simple,  pure lines, and  high quality materials.   I won this lamp for $24.  I still get chills.

The hanging light in my son's room is the focal point by which all his coveted objects extend.  The light hangs low into the room and is attached straight into the celling.  Turning on by the overly, elaborate relief-sculpted Batman light switch-cover by the door.  I would describe the design as a 1975 false-coptic swirl.  And the color of green that goes great with the Hazel Atlas Eldorado glass series of 1968.  Including shipping and handling that lamp cost me less than $30.

My daughter has moved on to add red and orange to her pink and purples of toddler-hood.  And hanging above her new, red duvet is an amazing orange-red sculpture that illuminates her red-orange rug and the hutches so big she could smuggle "illegals" in them (and she does, making sure all her groovy girls who play the immigrants, have clean water and the local rangers get bulldozed and stomped by her Motivated Stuffed Animal Humanitarian Brigade).  Having "out-sourced" all her old baskets and grating systems of organization to a younger school friend, she is now using the Eames era fabric that I won on ebay for $45, to separate off a section of her room to play with all her small toys.  Ikea sells a suspension wire kit with clips, that can be strung from wall to wall at any point in a room.  We used this wire system to hang the cloth to my daughter's specifications.  This beautiful ream of cloth extends 2 1/2 yards and flows down 3.  The weave is of long lines of intersecting reds and oranges (I have it's cousin in greens)  And at the points were the lines meet, squares form and produce hybrid colors.  One single thread of gold runs through at every square's creation to punctuate the production.  When the orange light hits this cloth, the play of color is exquisite.   

The light fixture in my daughter's room was once the main light in the entrance of my store.  A 1940's hand blown glass sconce that sits inside an elaborate wrought iron containment.  Within and under the 1/4 inch thick Red-Orange bubble of glass, sits another glass container, and it is within that container that you find the light fixture where you change the bulb.  ' "It was hell", recalls former child'*.   Changing that bulb requires a two day meditation.  The cost of lighting for the Sunshine of My Life?   $50, I cannot tell you how much shipping and handling charges might have been.   I am delighted to say that I was able to "do a local pick up".  Something that I fear only happens in California, Brooklyn and Boston for the stuff I really want.   Or maybe I've just bought Tucson out.

*Kliban