XANADU at Specific Merchandise

The magical world of XANADU is right here in Los Angeles!  The holiday show at Specific Merchandise brings together nearly 50 designers and artists for the largest exhibit yet at the gallery storefront.  Curator and owner Brooks Hudson Thomas has done an amazing job bringing together so many talented designers for the show.  The space looks amazing, and we hope all of our friends in Los Angeles have a chance to check it out.

We are super excited that our entire line of Scout Regalia products is part of this show (!!!).  To display our SR Wall Pockets, we built a 15' tall "pennant" with over 200 hanging wall pockets.  In addition,  the show includes the SR Outdoor Table Set, garden kits, and our latest product, the SR Bookcase.  The show also features work from our friends at design,bitches, todosomething, Von Tundra, WELCOME, Winter Session, artist Morgan Maclean, and some amazing handmade shoes by Dragan Mrdja.

More information about the show is available here, and more pics of the installation of the wall pocket pennant are on our flickr feed.

XANADU
Specific Merchandise
7374 Beverly Blvd
Through December 24th

Re-Upholstering an Old Chair

Before

After

We've been meaning to upgrade our dining room chairs for a while now, and finally got around to it this past month.  We had a couple of strict and challenging criteria for the chairs, the first being that they had to look great, and the second being that it had to cost less than $50/chair.  Impossible?

To begin with, we knew we had to find chairs that we could repair/refinish to stay within our budget.  Thankfully, we live near of one of the best second hand stores ever, across the bridge in Lincoln Heights over at Saint Vincent de Paul.  We found a couple of old chairs (made in NY) with good bones and lines for $20/chair.  It was a steal, but there was still some work that needed to be done, primarily reupholstering the seat and replacing the deteriorating foam.  After scouring the fabric district in Downtown LA, we found some great tweed over at Mood Fabrics, along with some dense upholstery foam.

If you've never reupholstered a chair, its shockingly simple, and there are a ton of resources online including a really helpful video by ReadyMade Magazine.  With a few cuts of fabric and some upholstery staples, we were done in no time.  Final tally: $45/chair.  Success!

More pics of the project on our flickr page.