One King’s Lane Fire Sale

No, they’re not having a sale, they are for sale. I made a lot about OKL’s crazy sales, the amazingly stupid things with eye-wateringly ridiculous prices, that they had on their flash sales. I used to anticipate that daily e-mail that came at about 11:00 a.m. and see what bargains I could find (not many) and what I could laugh at (tons). I even created a category of these finds, here.

Now word comes that One King’s Lane is for sale. From a high vaulation of $900 million, to a possible sale price of $150 million, the mighty have fallen. This news comes from Fast Company and you can read it here.

After a while, I just quit reading and even opening the OKL emails. You could find the exact items, with a little looking at Home Goods, Amazon or even Goodwill, as I proved several times. It wasn’t worth the effort to scroll through pages and pages of items looking for that one bargain.

Just for fun, let’s revisit some of OKL’s more ludicrous offerings.

Metal clamps on a stick.

Framed tea towel. It must be the recipe that inflates the price.

There’s an expression: Dumber than a box of rocks. Hmmmm.

My dislike of canning jars intensified here.

Complete insanity. And how do you know that the wood is circa 1930s?

This was the post that got me a long, scolding email from another blogger. But it provided a great challenge which you can read about here.

Are you surprised about this? Did you ever shop at OKL? I did, and got some great things, but it was all tempered by their unreal prices on mundane items.

OKL: Aerin Lauder’s Vintage Office Picks

I do get on OKL about some of their pieces and prices, but I try and give them credit when they do it right.

Aerin Lauder is launching her home designs line later this spring, and she’s going to be the speaker at the press breakfast at the High Point Furniture Market in mid-April. She comes by her style naturally, being the grand-daughter of the famed Estée Lauder, the make-up queen.

Her home has been photographed for numerous shelter magazines, always to great acclaim and many pins!

So when I saw she was having a sale on One King’s Lane, I was looking forward to seeing what she’d picked for the sale. I have to mention that it was only after looking at some of the pieces in the sale, that I realized that she’d “picked” the pieces for the sale, and that most of them were not her things. Regardless, it was fun to see what she’d chosen. A vibrant Quadrille pillow.

A gorgeous lush Paul Lange print.

A pair of MCM club chairs.

A fun book I remember reading ages ago.

I did take a look at another sale, and found this travesty:

Badminton racquets

Not badminton racquets.

Oh well.

OKL: Good Job!

My beloved cousin, Cousin Ebby, used to give me a mint julep cup every Christmas for years, until I had a nice set of them. When I moved back to the States, my house was robbed and they were stolen. It took me ages to even want to get some more, and if I saw one in an antique store or junk shop, I’d pick it up, but it wasn’t the same. Pretty much every year around Derby time, I whinge about having my cups stolen and having to use ones from Bombay Company. So when I saw that OLK had some nice julep cups for sale, at a significant discount, I used some of my Christmas money and bought a few. Well, I bought six. I ordered them a week ago, and they came today. Nicely wrapped and boxed. Exactly what I wanted. I should have bought more of them!Well done, OKL!

YARD SALE SATURDAY

As I mentioned, I am getting together with some of my neighbours to have a great multi-family yard sale on Saturday, September 22, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

My friends Terry and Rick are great collectors, and we’ve gone to some auctions together. They’re doing a bit of a clear out and have some really wonderful things for sale. Here’s how they so eloquently phrased it:

Clearing out 25+ years of collecting. Kitchenware, dishes (including a great set of "India Tree", Russel Wright etc.), glassware, furniture (including chairs, a Mitchell-Gold Sofa, & more), lamps, artwork, 100s of cookbooks, art books, a huge collection of religious/kitsch items, and many other items you may not need, but must have! Several other houses on the street will be participating also! (it's also a great reason for early morning cocktails!)

I have my eye on this Indian Tree china. It’s a great classic pattern, isn’t it?

Both they and I have Russel Wright pottery, although they have much more than I do… since I only have one piece.

I am selling some of my fun glassware, and funnily enough, I saw these exact glasses on OKL today!However, I can ASSURE you that mine are much less expensive and I think I have six of them!

I am selling some of my silverplate serving pieces, just in time for the holiday entertaining season.

And of course, I am selling off a significant amount of my fabric collection. I am just not finding the time for much sewing these days. I have some great Schumacher prints in linen, like this favourite, Shantung Silhouette. Wake up your inner Junque Whisperer© and come on over to shop. I hope to see you bright and early! The address is 1012 Roland Heights Avenue (between Falls Road and Evans Chapel) in the Ham/Rol neighbourhood – that’s just to the north of Hampden and just to the south of Roland Park. Hon.

Images are indicative of what’s on offer, not the exact items. I couldn’t be bothered to take pix of everything!

Fine Cell Work

Do you know about Fine Cell Work? It’s sort of a play on words, because the cells involved are prison cells, and the fine work is the knitting, sewing, embroidery and other needlecrafts done by the inmates.

Fine Cell Work’s mission is thus:

Fine Cell Work trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework undertaken in the long hours spent in their cells to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. This helps them to connect to society and to leave prison with the confidence and financial means to stop offending.

More than 75% of the prisoners involved in this project are men, and the studies have shown that those participating in the FCW project have significantly decreased incidents of violence, aggression and other negative behaviours. The work is of the highest quality, as the prisoners are taught by members of the Embroiderers and Quilters Guild. The prisoners are paid for each project they complete, learning a skill and helping to support their families.

Organizations and individuals as diverse as the Metropolitan Police Department, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince of Wales have all commissioned pieces from FCW.

For a limited time, FCW will have a pop-up shop in Mayfair in London. One of the innovative projects during this shop will be a “monograms-while-you-wait” program. In by 3:00, pick-up by 6:00!

Recently, big-name craft designers including Nicky Haslam, Cath Kidston and Daisy de Villeneuve have created projects specifically for the FCW workers to stitch up. FCW has recently received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.  All of the teachers at FCW are volunteers, and many have been with the program for its full 15 years of existence.

In this Olympic year, there was a tie-in to FCW, when one of the prisoners worked for more than a year on a quilt to present to one of the competing countries as part of a project where each country received a hand-made quilt. He fashioned his quilt in the tradition of the American Gee’s Bend quilts, and it was given to the Spanish flag-bearer.

I think that FCW is an incredible project, and a win-win for both the prisoners and the recipients of their fine handwork. I’d love to see something like FCW in the USA.

OKL, Stanford White & Baltimore

I got a lot of grief from someone the other day who said that I a) post too much about OKL and its mad prices, b) and I “troll through the thousands of item available of any given day to simply mock one item that you don't feel is worth the asked price” and c) that it’s becoming my “thing” to post about OKL. 

Not entirely true. I mean, who has time to troll through all of OKL’s daily, and sometimes twice-daily  items? And I hope that OKL is not my thing… I am so much more than that. And out of 1600+ posts, about 30 have been on OKL. Hardly an obsession.

So I am hereby writing a positive post about OKL.

I have recently purchased two books from them and am delighted with everything about my purchases. One of the books I bought was Rizzoli’s “Stanford White, Architect. Written by Samuel G. White and Elizabeth White, Photographed by Jonathan Wallen. It’s a gorgeous book and I am so pleased to add it to my library.

I became a huge fan of Stanford White when I was membership director at a private club here in Baltimore. I had ample time to spend studying every inch of the building and finding the treasures that laid within. One of my favourite pieces was a carved cabinet with the nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle, The Cat & The Fiddle on it. It is so charming and completely unexpected, especially given the rest of the room that it’s in. It is papered with old tapestries and elaborate wood carvings on every surface. We used to keep our mailing supplies in this sideboard!

The entrance hall in the club gives a visitor a good idea of what’s to come. This incredible cantilevered staircase is stunning. It’s ovoid in shape and is topped by a Tiffany glass dome. I loved flying down those stairs!

There’s also a massive fireplace

and a balcony with a screened room where the original owner of the house, Mrs. Robert Garrett, would watch her guests arrive to make sure she was the best dressed at her parties. Literally, almost every single square inch of wood in this space is carved in some way.

As you move through the rooms, you will see carving and gilding everywhere.

Over the past few years, the club has spent lots of time, money and energy revitalizing the rooms and being careful about restoring the space to as close to the original look as possible.

One of the rooms that’s been completely restored is the Ballroom/Theatre. It’s just the most extraordinary space, and I have whirled away many evenings dancing there. The gilding and the woodwork is just glowing,and the paintings have had decades worth of smoke and grime cleaned from them.

As you head down the sweeping marble staircase towards the dining room, you notice that there’s ornamental ironwork everywhere.

The dining room seats about 100+ people, just enough for an intimate dinner for your closest friends. Although it’s hard to see, the chandeliers in this room are Meissen. When I worked there, the chandeliers had figurines on them, but I am sure that they’ve been put into storage for safekeeping. The flowers are so realistic looking, but they’re all porcelain.

Another room I loved was the library. It’s everything a library should be – dark, filled with books and as cozy as a huge room like this one can be.

I found this map case, which was, in fact, filled with old nautical charts. Perfection!

In addition to gorgeous wood on the walls, there’s also beautiful wood on the floors. This is in the ballroom.And this is in the front hall, and it had just been revitalized.

I remember when the film “12 Monkeys” was shot at the club, and the crew stuck gaffing tape on the floor to hold some cables down. When they pulled it up, a chunk of the antique parquet floor came with it. Oops.

As we were leaving the party, my friend Tracey reminded me that the Baltimore Architecture Foundation owns a set of McKim, Mead & White folios. So I headed over in the morning to see them.

We pulled them down and had a look through them.

They are filled with photographs, plans and blueprints, details and more.

I didn’t have lots of time to leaf through these delicious books, but you can bet I am planning on going back to look at them more closely.

On the way down to the Foundation, I passed two Stanford White buildings, so I did a little “drive-by shooting”. This is the Lovely Lane Methodist Church, which is featured in the Stanford White book I bought from OKL .

This is the Ross Winans house, then…

and now.You certainly see a lot more of the detail in the original photograph, because of the paint on the stonework. Wonder if that could be remediated?You can get a bit of an idea of the floor plan here.

This is why I love architecture.