My Coffee Table Indirect From Japan

With Super Couch (oh, how I love it!) happily ensconced in my living room I needed to find a solution for a coffee table. Previously I had been using a Pottery Barn Chloe Coffee Table that I had picked up six years ago at a Pottery Barn Outlet for $60. Regular price it was $350 so it was quite a steal. Although it was a great coffee table the long narrow shape looked awkward with Super Couch. I needed something square or at least a very wide in order to fill up the space properly and look proportional to the sectional.

As I was contemplating what to do it dawned on me that the low table that I brought back from Japan might just work. I bought the table at a Recycle Center (a Japanese second hand shop for home goods) for ¥1000 (about $10 US at the time). The table is low because it is meant to be sat at with cushions on the floor. I loved how spacious the table top was and decided to set it up in my Japanese apartment as a work table for crafts. It worked out really well and I spent a lot of time working on projects sprawled out over the table.

I shipped the table back to the U.S. when I returned home but since then the table has languished in one of the back rooms of my house that I never really use. I rescued it from oblivion and placed it in front of the sectional. It was just the right size and fills the space nicely.

I love the curvy shape of the table legs and the grain pattern of the wood on the top. It really is a beautiful piece, especially for the great deal I got it for, and I am glad that I finally have a place for it in my home that showcases it better.

Temporarily on top I put a beige Marit table runner from Ikea that I already had. The tray is a hand carved wooden batea meant for tossing corn and rice that I picked up at a market in Panama this past summer. The two vases on the outside I bought in Seto, Japan and the one in the middle I made when I was a kid. I love how it is a little wonky, but not so bad for being in sixth grade, I think.

I plan to replace the items with something a little more colorful in the future, but for now it will do.

I'm really happy that the table works so well in the living room. Seeing it there when I walk in the front door brings back a lot of great memories from Japan and brightens my day. Now I just need to find a new rug and things will really be starting to come together...

Have you recently "shopped your home" and moved a piece of furniture or decor item to another room? What kind of coffee table do you have?

Dining Room Bookshelf Souvenir Collection

When I shared about my dining room previously Kathy had asked about what was to the left of the pictures that I had shared. Between being out of town in Japan and being quite sick since the middle of last week I haven't had a chance to post about it up until now.

That area is opposite from the dining room bay windows and features a small wall between my stairs and the hallway doorway to the side wing of my house. On that wall I can't have anything that sticks out from the wall very much or it would impede traffic from the living room to the kitchen. I always need to have more book storage so I built a bookshelf from bricks and bi-fold closet doors for the spot. I previously shared a tutorial about how to make the bookshelf here.

Above the bookshelf I have black and white 12x18 enlargements from pictures that I took. I framed the photos in some inexpensive 16x20 Ribba frames from Ikea. From left to right the pictures are Machu Picchu in Peru, Florianopolis in Brazil, the Great Wall in China and Banaue Rice Fields in the Philippines.

On top of the bookshelf I have arranged several of my souvenirs from various trips. The left side has a vignette arranged in some antique boxes that I bought in Japan at a flea market. I love the dove tails joints on the box and the embossed markings on the sides.

In my medium box on the left I have one of a pair of shisa (guardian lion dogs) from Okinawa in Japan. On top of the box is a little wooden carved container from the Carribean.

Inside the large box I have a rice god statue that I bought while hiking around Banaue in the Philipines. I picked that particular statue because I liked his dangling earrings. Behind the statue is a jade carving that I found at a market in Beijing which I had a lot of fun haggling over the price about.

Up in the top little box is a wood carving of a black bear from Hokkaido. To the right of the boxes are two carved coconut cups that I bought in Guatemala.  In front is an abacus that I bought at the flea market at Toji Temple in Kyoto.

On the right side I have a series of bowls perched on Japanese silk bobbins called itomaki (木製糸巻). The bowls from left to right are a hand carved redwood bowl from California and a bowl from South Africa carved with the big five African game animals. Following is a bowl that I made in Seto, Japan and a vase I got in New Zealand carved from a native tree fern, mamaku.  

Just to the left of the bowls I have a carved vessel with two birds perched on top that I bought in the Philippines on the same trip I bought the little rice god statue. To the left of that is a carved hanger for tapestries that I found at the Night Market in Luang Prabang in Laos.

Directly in front of the bowls is an African elephant calendar I bought in South Africa. The twelve miniature elephant carvings each represent one month of the year. Arranged in order by height, you flip the direction of one elephant for each month that has passed.

To the right of the bowls I have a bottle that I discovered in my house's walls, a little abacus and a rock I picked up while hiking Mt. Fuji. 

I know that the top of the bookcase is overcrowded and a bit cluttered looking, but each of these items is really special to me and can't imagine not displaying everything.

Living Room Side Table Makeover

On Saturday I dropped off two donation boxes at the Ann Arbor ReUse Center full of household goods that I had purged from my home. While I was there I couldn't resist looking around a bit and I picked up a cute but very battered little end table for $5.

I have wanted a table to go on the end of my love seat in my living room for a while, but I needed something with a small footprint since I don't have much space. I think the little table I found was meant to be a plant stand but it is just the right size for my purposes. The height is great and now I have a spot for guests to place a drink when I am entertaining at my home.

The table was sturdy and the wood was in good shape, but the cream paint finish was grungy and quite poorly applied. I cleaned up the table and gave it a coat of spray primer followed by two light coats of spray paint in Spring Sprout.

Once I let the table dry for a day I decided to add some paper to the bottom shelf for fun. I measured the shelf and then cut a piece of teal chevron scrapbook paper down to a square of the right size. The shelf attaches to the legs at an angle so I needed to trim off the corners to make the paper fit. I placed the paper on the shelf and then folded the paper up where it hit the leg. This gave me a guideline for trimming the corners and ensured a perfect fit.

I think that the table turned out really cute and I can't beat the price of less than $11 ($5 table + $4.98 spray paint + $0.89 paper). It looks really bright and cheerful now.

The table fits wonderfully next to my love seat. I thought that the little shelf would be the perfect place to display the vintage camera that I picked up at a little flea market in Shanghai, China. It isn't in working order but when I saw it I couldn't resist buying it, loving taking photos as much as I do. My favorite part about it is that it actually has markings on it indicating that it was manufactured in Shanghai. 

Have you made over anything recently? Are you up to any spray painting? I think I must spray paint something once a week. It's a compulsion I tell you!

This post is linked to the "Thrift It Challenge" on Our Fifth House.

Treasures From My Travels: Sea Glass Souvenir Display

When I posted about the souvenirs that I bought during my recent trip to Panama I forgot to mention a free souvenir that I literally picked up. On the day that Missy and I spent on Isla Taboga, an island off the coast near Panama City, we lounged at the beach for a good part of the day and cooling off in the water in an attempt to escape the ninety degree heat.

There was a lot of sea glass washed up on shore so we decided to collect some, rinsing the sand off in the ocean. I gathered a handful of pieces but Missy lives in the Caribbean and is a sea glass finding expert so she found a bunch and shared with me. That is sisterly love!

Now that I am home I wanted to do something cool with my sea glass. I found a tall slender glass apothecary jar on sale and thought it would be perfect to use. To make my display I started by printing out a little tag with the location and date and cut it out. I then put a little tape on the top back edge of the label and adhered it to the inside of my glass jar. I used some craft sand and filled up the bottom of the jar until the label was secure but not so much that the tape was covered. I then gently peeled off the tape and added more sand until I reached the level that I wanted. You have to be careful to slowly add the sand so that grains don't sneak in front of the label. Pouring the sand in the jar left a dusty residue on the upper part of the jar so I wiped it clean and then finished my display by layering the sea glass on top of the sand.

I think it turned out cute and it pairs well with the Japanese glass fishing floats that I picked up at the Toji Flea Market in Kyoto in December.

Do you like to collect sea glass? Do you have a fun way to display it in your home?

Treasures From My Travels: Panama Souvenirs

Yesterday I returned from a wonderful trip to Panama with my sister. We visited the canal, saw the old colonial city in Casco Viejo and went hiking in the rainforest. We spent a day in El Valle de Anton, a small town located in an extinct volcano crater, and a beach day on Isla Taboga, an island off of the coast near Panama City. During the whole trip we enjoyed some wonderful food and I especially enjoyed the ceviche and fried yucca.

While on my trip I also collected some new treasures to decorate my home. When Missy and I were visiting the Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal we popped in the gift shop. Although most of the items were a bit too kitschy for our tastes we really liked the plate with an old map of the canal and we both ended up getting one.

Throughout our trip we saw tiny paintings on feathers for sale and I ended up buying three. I love all of the detail on the birds and frog. I'm not so keen on the colors of the mats but that can easily be swapped out when I frame them.

While Missy and I were in El Valle we went to the artisans market and had fun wandering around. One item that we saw a lot of were bateas, which are wooden trays used for tossing corn and rice. Some of them were finely sanded and lacquered but I really liked the unfinished ones that you could clearly tell were handcarved. They also happened to be much cheaper which was another bonus for me. There were some really huge ones I wish I could have taken home but I settled for a mid sized one (B/.5) and two small ones (B/.2 each).

Also at the market, Missy and I couldn't resist getting ourselves some Panama hats. We looked at different hats with different quality of weaving and tried a bunch on until we found ones that we liked. I think it will make a great beach hat.

As much as I love all the things I collected on my trip, my very favorite is a mola that I bought from a lady at a stand in Casco Viejo. Molas are part of traditional blouses of the Kuna women, with one panel being used for the front and another for the back. The have very beautiful reverse applique designs in bright, intricate patterns. The one that I bought has bird and flower designs in orange, red, teal and navy. I absolutely love the design and how skilled the tiny stitches are. At B/.42 ($42) it was by far my most expensive purchase but I thought it was worth it for the craftmanship and large size of the mola.

Now that I have had the fun of acquiring these treasures during my trip I get to have the fun of figuring out how to incorporate them into my home. I am thinking of framing the mola for my guest bedroom but other than that I have no plans yet. I'll have to see what I can come up with.

Treasures From My Travels: Nisshin Flour Milling Sign

I love bringing home things from my travels to decorate my home and each souvenir is special, but my Nisshin Flour Milling sign has a particularly dear spot in my heart.

I bought the sign at the wonderful To-ji Flea Market. To-ji is a beautiful Buddhist temple in Kyoto and on the first Sunday of every month there is an antiques oriented flea market on the grounds. After my friend, Trisha, and I had our debacle of visiting the market with no access to our money (the ATMs were closed) we went back two months later.  

On that second trip to To-ji Flea Market I found my vintage metal Nisshin Flour Milling sign. My kitchen in the US was red and green so as soon as I saw it I knew it would be perfect to hang there when I moved back. I also love to bake so being a flour milling sign gave it extra meaning. I love the worn patina it has with some small rust spots dotting the cream background and green border.

I did a bit of haggling and got the sign for ¥2000 (about $20 at the time) and happily lugged it home. I was not allowed to put holes in the walls of my Japanese apartment and the metal sign was too heavy for Command Strips so I propped it on top of my dry goods storage shelf.

When I moved back to the US I didn't want to pack the sign in my sea shipment (just in case it got lost and also because I didn't want to wait two months for it to arrive) so I put it in the bottom of one of my checked bags on my flight home. It was so heavy to lug that bag around but so worth it. My Nisshin Flour Milling sign was the very first thing I hung on my walls when I moved back into my house. When I was struggling with readjusting to life back in the US, seeing it in my kitchen gave me a sense of continuity and brought back good memories of Japan.

Of course I had to do a little digging into the history of the sign. The first line of Japanese Kanji reads 日清製粉株式會社  and means (yes, you guessed it!) Nisshin (日清) Flour Milling (製粉) Company Limited (株式會社) and the bottom three characters mean Distributor (特約店) so the Japanese didn't really give me any additional information. I did some internet searching and found that the company was founded in 1900 as Tatebayashi Four Milling Company. Later in 1908 when Tatebayashi merged with Nisshin Flour Milling Company, the company incorporated under the Nisshin Flour Milling Company name. The company is still in existence today and Nisshin Flour Milling Inc. is one of the subsidiaries of the holding company, Nisshin Seifun Group Inc. Isn't it amazing what you can dig up online?

It has been nearly four years since I bought my Nisshin Flour Milling sign and it is as special as ever to me. It has graced my kitchen wall on two continents and traveled in my suitcase with me. It also represents different sides of me, loving to travel (Japan) and loving to do things at home (flour) and will always be a treasure to me.   

Linked To: Centsational Girl's Favorite Souvenirs Link Party

Treasures From My Travels: Costa Rican Butterfly Wings

When I was visiting Costa Rica I was enchanted by the amazing butterflies that seemed appear everywhere.

I wanted to bring a butterfly souvenir home with me but I knew that many of the mounted butterflies for sale were captured in the wild and could be endangered. When I found this little collage of butterfly wings at a local artisan market I knew it was perfect.

The butterfly wings in the collage are all from non-endangered farmed butterflies and were collected after the butterflies had already died. I love the colors in the wings and the beautiful patterns they make. It is a lovely reminder of the amazing time I spent in Costa Rica.

If you are interested, check out other items I've gathered along my journeys here: Treasures From My Travels

Treasures From My Travels: Italian Coffee Grinder

When I travel I love to bring back things for my home. It makes me so happy to be surrounded my mementos from my trips and the memories each item brings back. I've been meaning for a long time to start writing down the stories behind all the treasures from my travels and I thought it would be fun to share them on my blog.

Picked up in Sicily on my Italy trip last month, this little coffee grinder is a recent addition.

Frank and I were wandering through one of Palermo's many colorful street markets (where we also got a spleen sandwich) when I spied it sitting amongst a pile of other random used items for sale. I had been meaning to get myself a coffee grinder so it was a perfect item to bring home. The seller wanted 20 Euros for it, but after a few rounds of bargaining back and forth (20-10-15-11-13-12-sold!) and approval from his wife the coffee grinder was mine for 12 Euros.

I love the worn patina that the wood has acquired and the red metal on top is a great match for my kitchen. It is not very big which is fine since I only plan to use it for grinding small amounts. As an added plus the small size made it easy to bring home and it doesn't take up much storage space. Cute and functional: that's what I call a perfect souvenir. Off to make some coffee...