October 2009

Furniture designer Bladon Conner, who has been featured on this blog and in our magazine several times (his groovy designs are carried at Scout and Post 27), is going to be on TV this weekend, talking about his “edgy sustainable furniture,” which is the topic of the NBC show “Open House” Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Connor will also be hosting an open house of his own at his new studio space at 1845 W. 35th St. in McKinley Park (near Bridgeport), Saturday, November 14, from 3 to 8 p.m. Check out the designs that will be on the show, and plenty of his other fantastic work. Snacks will be served. Check his Web site for more details as the event approaches.

—GINA BAZER

Vintage junkie Katie Ernst, who has a great eye and has amassed loads of furniture and accessories from estate sales and flea markets over the years, has just opened Revision Home in West Town. It’s by-appointment-only, but every few months, for back-to-back weekends, it will be open with regular business hours. The first sale of this kind will start today (Friday, Oct. 16) and go through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day; next Friday through Sunday, there will be a repeat performance, same hours. After that, the next sale will not be until February, but you can order select pieces online or call Katie at 312-226-2221 for a private viewing. The showroom is clean, pristine and put together, thanks to the stylings of interior designer Susan Swanson, who has purchased a lot of Ernst’s inventory in the past for clients. Prices are good, as is the quality: lamps hover around $200, smaller accessories are less than $100 (the Deco stool shown above was $95; it sold). At a press preview, we also saw a cool factory-cart coffee table for $800 and a set of four white-lacquered Hollywood Regency-style chairs for $1,600. I bought the bronze bird above ($35) and it’s already perched on my mantel.

—GINA BAZER

I love the idea of a modern-day grandfather clock. The one on the left, from Anthropologie, $128, is a fun riff on the classic; the hands are actually mounted on wallpaper. The one on the right, available at Stitch, $230, is more of a glammed-up glass mantel clock, available with a bronze- , silver-, or blue-tinted mirror back. Both styles run on a battery.

—GINA BAZER