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Bijou Apartment

November 2nd, 2007

Daniel Pontius

People have been asking me, why did you leave NY, why did you move here? I understand their questioning, but like to ignore it. As Elsie de Wolfe would embroider on her pillows, Never Complain Never Explain.

This used to be my 225 square foot apartment that I had for 4 years in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The shower was behind a curtain in the main room, the WC was off the bedroom. There was a skylight in the WC (I ripped down the ceiling to find it having noticed light coming through a vent there) and since it was a rear house there was nice light. The biggest thing in the apartment when I moved in was the refrigerator, which I had taken out and replaced with an under counter version.

Once a friend from L.A. came to call and said upon entering, “So Dear, this is what 650.00 gets you in Williamsburg these days?”

The pictures are at different stages of when I lived there from an abstracted vermicelli chintz in tone on tone beige; to a plain turquoise chintz; to a vintage abstracted gold printed vermicelli fabric as a curtain with a turquoise chintz liner that in the morning when waking would outline the window in glowing turquoise haze.

There are Vera scarfs pinned to the wall in the bedroom; the pendent light was vintage chrome that I rewired (thrift store, CT) and my Lurcat litho purchased at a flea market in Florida. The little landscape is Christin Rodin taken with a Diane camera. The Marimekko panel on the daybed is vintage, (ebay) the daybed is as well, bought down the street on the corner from a local who would open up his semi-storage container and sell old bikes and bits and pieces of furniture picked up in Pennsylvania. The table top I designed and had made walnut veneer pie-cut top on an Eames base. The chairs steel vintage redone in a Christopher Farr Cloth.

The images, mostly taken late at night with a camera phone, may leave Anonymous aghast, indeed.

2 Comments

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  1. November 7, 2007

    These photographs are very, very beautiful.

    Excellent blog. Thank you!

    Cheers,
    -Paul

  2. Anonymous #
    November 11, 2007

    I must admit to a certain horror at seeing the wrinkled sheets but the apartment has a certain de Wolfe insouciance, as in don’t explain.

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