The quality and durability of rustic furniture are great benefits, to be sure.  The sustainability of antiques and pieces made from reclaimed lumber excites a lot of people.  And the aesthetic of waxed and painted or aged patinas is all some of us need to fully swoon.  For me, though, the very best thing about this stuff is the stories.  Some we know.  Some we get to imagine.

      That the relative match-ability of two nightstands depends on how much tequila was drank in the warehouse that day is a selling point to a limited demographic, I know.  But it makes them so much more valuable to me.  It's the way you might love the quirky little lamp carried home from a vacation, years ago, more than the very elegant one bought from a catalog.  You may consider Treehouse Gallery a repository of quirky little (and large) whatevers from far away vacations. 

      Some things are homey and familiar.  Like the Mexican tortilla press that everyone wants to touch and guess as to its function.  Or the Hungarian butcher block with the divot in the center from use by generations of fathers and sons (I like to think).  Others recall other times, other worlds.  There is the Chinese apothecary, which is more or less useless today, but beautiful.  I love the idea of having enough small, little somethings to store and catalog in its tiny drawers.  We've also just parted with a seven foot long, two inch thick screen, for lack of a more informed term.  Carved and painted in Indonesia, it was definitely a conversation starter and earned a place by the front door during its short stay with us.  We hope to find more things like it on our next trip to Surubaya.

      Nowadays, we are seeing more and more reincarnations of storied materials, and they are getting more interesting.  Reclaimed and salvaged wood has been finding its way into furniture for decades.  The sources, though, are expanding from existing structures(buildings, bridges, barns), to existing objects.  Wine barrels into wine bars, for example.  My favorite, for the truly off the wall, whimsical colors, are the pieces made from old fish boats and canoes.  The more staid among them a Crayola mix of Hunter green, tomato red and mustard yellow.  Others are resplendent in sky blue, fluorescent green and hot pink.  That's right.  Hot pink.

      Breakfast at a table that tells stories of pink boats on sparkling blue water is a not-too-shabby way to start the day, I think.

Larissa Gilbert

I love accessorizing.  I really do.  It can wholly transform the mood and personality of a room.  Some people like to place just a few tasteful items around.  I, myself, like a lot of accessories.  Of course, accessories is just a designer-y way of saying “knick-knacks.”  If arranged well, though, your knick-knacks shouldn’t conjure up images of your great aunt’s ceramic figurines.

Setting accessories at an angle is pretty well common knowledge now.  I’d change it to multiple angles.  When everything faces the same direction, the whole look is very static.  Putting a few things in a setting at different angles causes the viewer’s eye to slow and meander.  It also seems to make each individual item appear special.

To that end, triangular vignettes are also pleasing.  Larger items in the center (think vases, candelabras), flanked by smaller ones.  With the exception of collections of like items (picture frames don’t count), grouped accessories should never be the same height.  I like to add some really small personal things in the spaces between.  It’s nice when someone has to get up close to explore.  Even better when they have to move around.  This works especially well when decorating sofa tables or dining tables.  The triangle becomes a pyramid or cone with the added benefit that the larger item hides the backs of things not meant to be seen from behind. 

Angles apparently really appeal to us humans, aesthetically (I’ll spare you the eleventh grade dissertation on Da Vinci and his affinity for triangular composition).  The eye likes to wander up and down, side to side.  Some of us like to go further and just plain knock something over.  Some of us don’t, though.  I hosted my first Thanksgiving last year, and while I was cooking, a well-intentioned relative, to save me from embarrassment, went and up-righted my artfully arranged pears and gourds.

That nay-sayer aside, I maintain that layered, tiered, objects that seem to spill over creates a beautiful, and bountiful, place for all of the knick-knacks we collect along the way.  Like a self portrait we can invite people to walk through.

Welcome to the first installment of Treehouse Gallery’s design journal.  The idea here is to give us another venue to exalt the virtues of rustic handmade, hand finished-in other words, touched-furniture and all of the attendant trimmings.