Posts in Category: Seattle
Thrift Roundup: 11.4.12
Hi everybody — we’re back with another thrift roundup! It’s been a fairly quiet week at the Butter’s, but we did manage to get out and do some exploring (and thrifting!) The photo above features an interesting find — a vintage souvenir from the Louvre! This is a replica of the blue Egyptian faience hippopotamus figurine in the Louvre’s collection. Apparently, museums around the world sold replicas of their Egyptian hippo statuettes — the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s example, affectionately known as William, is one of the more well-known. We’ll get back to William in a bit. This is our second blue hippo museum souvenir — the first is a replica of a hippo in the collection at the St. Louis Art Museum.
This weekend, we managed to get away for our first day trip with the Butterbean — it ended up being a good trip, although the thrifting was somewhat bare. Mr. Butter found a vintage men’s Pendleton sweater (not pictured), and we found a couple fun kids books, including “A Tale of Two Williams,” featuring–you guessed it–our favorite blue hippo! 🙂
Our other thrift finds this week included — a pair of vintage NOS Dansk salad servers, a set of Ultima Thule Highballs, a nice blue Dala horse, and various and sundry Scandinavian Christmas items. Many of these will be in the shop this week! As always, contact us if there’s anything in particular you’re interested in or that you’re looking for.
Let There Be…Grey.
Oh Seattle.  I am ever-so-happy I moved to your fine city.  I’ve loved renovating my home and I cherish the friends I’ve made here, but come February I yearn for sun.  Hot, bright, piercing sunshine.  Sadly, I won’t see the sun until May.  In the meantime, I try and surround myself with ‘sunny’ surroundings.  I love bright colors.  Just looking at the bright oranges and yellows brightens my mood, to say nothing of the mossy greens.
Our Drexel Declaration wall unit is constantly changing.  Pieces come in-and-out as we sell them on the shop, but many pieces stay around for my personal collection, especially my Finel bowls!
A Dreamy Little Hedgehog
This weekend while we were out thrifting, the husband ran up to me with a gleam in his eye.  “Look what I found!”  The thrifting gods have not been kind recently, so I looked down to his outstretched hand with hopeful eyes.
I have to admit I didn’t know what to think at first.  I knew it was teak and I assumed it was made in Denmark, but I was only half right.  This darling little hedgehog was made in Italy, probably in the 1960s?  He reminds me of Kay Bojesen’s lovely wooden animals as well as Walter Bosse’s hedgehog ashtrays.
Our little hog also has the dubious honor of being my fastest etsy sale to date.  Good luck, little dude!  Have fun in your new home!
The Tracy House
On Friday evening a very frantic Kevin called me about a chance to have a tour of the Tracy House, one of three Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Washington and, of course, I jumped at the chance.  The house, as it turns out, is only a 10 minute drive from our neighborhood in West Seattle, so after our Saturday morning estate sales, we hopped in the car and drove to Normandy Park, Washington.
Part of this house’s charm was it’s amazing ability to blend into the background.  Concrete blocks peek around pine trees and ferns, suggesting that a beautiful house is just around the corner.
The front of the Tracy House
Given the size of the trees in front, I would bet that the house was built around them, which is very much in keeping with Wright’s attention to detail.  The green, red, and grey palate was another design element that ran through the entire property–as was the integration of the squares of concrete with the green vertical lines of the trees and the red horizontal lines of the stairs.  All this harmony made for a perfect blend of natural and man-made elements.
The back of the Tracy House
The Tracy’s commissioned the house in 1955 and knew they wanted to live there for the rest of their life.  They saved money and laid the concrete bricks themselves to Wright’s specifications.  According to our tour guide, they loved to sit in their chairs and read in the evenings, and I have to say, the living room was one of the most inviting I’ve seen.  The built-in soda and redwood bookcases gave the room a cozy feeling.
The living room of the Tracy House
Like many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, he also designed dining furniture, and the Tracy House is no exception.  The long dining table fit perfectly into the dining space.  It would be a perfect place to eat and watch the ocean below.
The dining room in the Tracy House
The concrete blocks formed the ceiling throughout the house, including in the three bedrooms.  The bedrooms and hallway had very low ceilings, probably around 7 feet, maybe even less.  Even though I could easily touch the ceiling in the bedrooms (I’m 6’1, so it wasn’t that hard!) the combination of the cool grey of the concrete and the warm red of the walls and floor really gave the space a cozy rather than claustrophobic feel.
The master bedroom of the Tracy House
It was a wonderful Saturday!  The house will go up for sale soon, but sadly Kevin and I will not be on the list of buyers.  It was, however, an amazing treat to be given free reign of the house for an hour!  I think that we’ll definitely be visiting more Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the future!