Virtual Window Shopping

During a search today I stumbled upon Hickorees Hard Goods

I had a blast browsing through all of their items:

It was full of lots of manly yet chic finds that I think Jon would love to receive. I of course was itching to go into an actual retail shop, but alas they are only an online store.

I did find out from Por Homme that will be selling some of their goods at the new Men's J.Crew store!

Check out the display:

I must go and check it in person. I think that is one shop girl feature that Jon won't mind tagging along for.

Image 1. via Hickorees Hard Goods, 2. via Por Homme

Shop Girl: Interiéurs

Ok so I must fess up I haven’t had the time yet to start touring Manhattan shops and reporting back to you all. I’m really excited about starting this new feature, but things have been crazy here and will probably continue to be until the end of summer. So my start on it will have to wait a bit, but there is nothing stopping us from going on a virtual tour of a shop I now am dying to set foot in.

Right away the name drew me in. How could it not be perfection with that accent above the e! 

The shop was founded by interior designer and taste maker  Francine Gardner. Francine is a world traveler that sees no problem in mixing design periods, textures and scale.  She believes that interiors should not only be calming, but have the ability to reflex the home owner that will work, live and play there.

I love her use of mostly white and cream furniture with the dark accents, exposed brick and french antiques. It touches on a more masculine style of design that I don’t have in my own home (poor Jon), but truly appreciate.

 

The shop has a store front both in NY and California and a design studio as well where Francine is very much still involved.

 

Here are some examples of their work:

 

Since they are no actual prices listed on the site I can only assume this shop is way out of my price range, but a girl can still look. 

 

As if Francine didn’t seem perfect enough I then found out she has a blog! Ah she is perfect!

 

Are there any shops you are dying to get a sneak peek into come this fall?

 

Let me know!

Everything goes…

Last Thursday two little sentences got my attention while reading the NY TIMES.

The two sentences were part of an answer for the question, “Where you can sell your old furniture?”. Of course they spoke of Craigslist and Kijiji, but towards the end they mentioned a shop in Staten Island that I had never heard of called Everything goes stores. They have 4 separate locations one for furniture, another for antiques, another for books and also clothing shop.

Now I don’t know about you, but truthfully all I know about Staten Island I learned from MTV’s I'm a Staten Island girl. Maybe not the best research, but when one of the girls described her ideal man as wanting him to be orange with huge muscles I didn’t really think me and S.I. could be BFF’s.

Regardless I will do anything to provide my readers with good information and resources so on Saturday off I went with Jon on my S.I. adventure.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and were welcomed by shop owner Ellen. She was a complete sweetheart and very excited that we came all the way from Long Island after reading the piece in the NY TIMES. She got us a sales associate to walk us around and explain how they work and give us a tour of the 10,000 sq ft location and then we just walked half a block away and got to see the Antique shop as well.

Here are some of the things that caught my eye:

The prices were reasonable and there is also a  10% off cash and carry discount. Don’t even bother haggling ( I tried) they keep their prices low so they don’t have to.

I ended up walking out with a desk for a client. We are re-doing her office into a writing space for her and with her love for Victorian pieces a touch of modern this desk fit the bill.

It was a little more damaged then it showed in the picture so I was able to get the price adjusted and it came home with for $126.

All in all my trip to S.I. was a good one. It is so much more than what MTV portrays. Shocking I know. We were in downtown S.I. and it gave off a great small town vibe full of artistic people.

The ride home was another story. It took about 2 hours, but it was worth it.

Fabulous Find: JULISKA

I finally decided to hop and the bandwagon and join Seleta in her fab friday fun! I hope she approves of my fab find that I’m about to write about.

Yesterday I headed out of NY for a quick jaunt to CT. I hit a couple of antique stores, but instead of finding a fun thrift store type antique malls I found lots of serious antique shops with prices in the thousands. Suffice to say I didn’t make any purchases yesterday, but had fun driving around CT and seeing all the cute towns.

On my way to find the highway home I made a wrong turn and stumbled onto a store that had the words, “Sip and Shop” all over the place. Turned out to be a perfect detour, because they shop looked too fab to pass up and my mom wanted a cup of coffee, before we headed back on the road.

Enter Juliska:

I gotta tell you the mocha and white striped awning along with that amazing blue door really lured me in.

Here is what we saw once we entered the store:

Close up shot of the cafe:

How amazing are those light fixtures and cake domes? Glassware is a huge part of Juliska and each of their pieces are mouth blown by artisans in the hills outside Prague. Talk about a conversation starter when you bring out their glasses at a dinner party.

The owners of Juliska really wanted to bring something new to the retail front and give customers a more European experience. The shop is part retail store, part cafe along with having a bridal salon so that you register for all your lovely gifts and a 9’ Koi pond fountain that also features their glassware.

Koi pond fountain:

I love the way they had everything displayed. I swear I’m a marketers dream, because I wanted everything in the shop or to at least work there so I could be surrounded by such beautiful things all day long!

Here’s a close up shot of their glassware:

They also carry ceramic dishes that are made in Portugal as well:

Plus their latest addition: Pewter Stoneware that can go in a dishwasher, microwave and oven!

Let’s just say if I had known of this place during my engagement I would have gone nutty in there with my scan gun!

All Juliska images are from their Facebook page.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. We are suppose to hit 70 today and tomorrow in NY so I’m excited.

Off to work on my DIY artwork project!