Ad Categories: Home and Garden

The first off-line peek at the forces and faces behind the new online collective and home-design shop Hinge pleased the crowd at the Chicago Antique Market over Memorial Day weekend. Hinge founder Angela Stone has brought together a group of furniture and accessory designers, vintage dealers, and artists committed to using raw and reclaimed materials. The result? A mix of unadorned farmhouse antiques, sleek vintage pieces, and sustainable custom furniture—each with an artful edge and a whole lotta soul. Think old materials, new forms. She coined (and quickly trademarked) the Hinge aesthetic as “Farmhouse Modern.” Furniture designers Bladon Conner and Aaron Pahmier showed off their handiwork, including one-of-a-kind tables topped with 100-year-old reclaimed maple floorboards and a lovely black-lacquered vintage dresser with Burberry-plaid-lined drawers. Elizabeth Siegan’s  hand-drawn screen-printed linen pillows dotted the space along with photographer Emily Johnston Anderson’s poetic snaps. Stone grew up in coastal Southern Maine, where her dad was a furniture builder and mom an interior designer. “I am the polar opposite of what I grew up with,” she says of her folks’ far more formal style. When she moved to Chicago, she dabbled in design work with decorator Laura Soskin. “We were always looking for the perfect find for a client’s home and I thought, ‘Why does it have to be so hard?’” After a nearly sold-out booth at the end of Sunday’s show, we’d say she’s on to something. Sign up for Hinge’s newsletter,  to get info on studio open houses, furniture parties, and future Chicago Antique Market appearances. 

—Barri Leiner Grant

As my salad-making has gotten lazier, my love for the bowl I eat pre-washed arugula out of has only grown. I bought my spalted-maple bowl—graceful as a Brancusi, smooth as satin—at the 57th Street Art Fair a couple of years ago and paid, I think, $160, more than I ever thought I’d spend on a salad bowl, but I haven’t regretted it for one second. The bowl was made by David Lory, a woodworker in Platteville, Wisconsin, who seeks out woods with unusual grains and turns them into objects of pure, functional loveliness. He’ll be at the art fair again this weekend—check him out. When I was hesitating over my purchase, a woman passing by Lory’s booth called out to me, “I bought one last year and it makes me happy every day!” So now I’m telling you.

—Joanne Trestrail

I just came across a cheeky line of handmade felt pillows (from $20 to $30) by the local company Diffraction Fiber, which are sold through Etsy. The company also sells mouse pads, coasters, and embroidered art pieces and clocks (from $30 to $45) like the one shown above. Diffraction is also carried at the new Ravenswood stationery shop, Orange Beautiful.

—GINA BAZER

Love fine china but don’t want to buy a 12-piece set of place settings you’ll use just a few times? Here’s a great idea: A new shop in Oak Park offers hosts the option to rent place settings for small gatherings (less than 50). The struggling economy has brought out creativity in lots of entrepreneurs; Bryn Reese and her husband, Dean Klovens, just opened Les Tableaux in downtown Oak Park to sell and rent fine china, flatware, service pieces, and more. Reese designs some of the patterns in her shop (such as those pictured here) and has them manufactured in Antioch at Pickard. Four-piece place settings rent for about $25; you can buy one for between $300-$570. The shop also sells hostess gifts and accessories, such as pashmina scarves meant to be used as table runners.

—JAN PARR