BEFORE & AFTER: A CUT ABOVE THE REST

BEFORE & AFTER: A CUT ABOVE THE REST 

BRIMFIELD ANTIQUE SHOW
I BRAKE FOR YARD SALES
@laraspencer

A few times a year, (May, June and September) the opportunity to shop the Brimfield Antique Show surfaces.  There are two ways to do this, first being go early with the professional buyers or go at the end of the show when dealers are looking to unload. No matter which one you chose, remember to drive a truck or at the very least a van.

TIGER LILY’S TIP #1: Have the Right Transportation & Fill-up Local

BUSIN’ TO BRIMFIELD
http://www.brimfieldshow.com

Here’s the link to the show,http://www.brimfieldshow.com. For city dwellers and swanky suburbanites, the location borders on the outer-bounds. I mean this in the nicest way. An area gas station, promotes the gun club with a bang and the gas prices brought me back a year or two.

BRIMFIELD LOCATION
GUN COUNTRY

TIGER LILY’S TIP #2 Bring Cash

We went on the last day on our September visit with cash. The best reason to have cash is it opens the negotiations. It also sets your budget. Once you are out, your out.  Everyone wants to get the best value when they are at show or buying spec items. The trick is to stay with in a 20% margin. If you start acting tough and throw ridiculously cheap numbers at the dealers, you not only will insult but make for a wasted day where you don’t end up with anything.

BARGAINING AT BRIMFIELD
BRING CASH

BEFORE: 

The other point to bargaining in Brimfield is to look for a piece that you think is a bit of challenge. The stuff no-one likes to touch is usually what I gravitate toward. The beauty of preserving the artisan trade of upholstery at http://www.tigerlilysgreenwich.com is that we can revitalize any old piece. In the end, I paid $15.00 for this vintage barber’s chair. My negotiating tactics were largely based on the condition of the piece and that I had the transportation to cart the chair home.

BEFORE
BARBER’S CHAIR
NEEDS A FRESH UP-DO

AFTER:

I wanted to keep the look of the barber’s chair consistent with what was existing from its 1930s frame. While the initial frame was cheap, the rebirth was an investment. I think the tip here is that when you buy something at a low price point, you have to love it enough to spend a significant amount more then the purchasing price to get it back to its prime. I think we accomplished that.

AFTER:
REUPHOLSTERED HONORING VINTAGE STYLE
BUY ME: $1,395.00
http://www.tigerlilysgreenwich.com

I sat in the chair and spun it around.  It’s like a little time machine. I thought about style, period and what makes something great at any age.
Coco Chanel says, “A style does not go out of style as long as it adapts itself to its period. When there is an incompatibility between the style and a certain state of mind, it is never the style that triumphs.”

##ONELOVE

JERRY MCGUIRE MANIFESTO: #13 A SEASON OF RENEWAL

JERRY MCGUIRE MANIFESTO: #13 A TIME OF RENEWAL 

Welcome back the Jerry McGuire Manifesto. It has been four months.  It comes out when there is something important say. For starters,  it is fall. I can confidently start there. That is important to say.  The weather is awesome, highs in the 70s, the universe is changing. It is historically harvest time. It is currently harvest time.  I have proof of that.

That’s right outside my front door. I am author yes, but don’t forget a decorator first and foremost. Anything and everything can be decorated. That’s the beauty of life. From the accessories you wear on your ears or around your neck, to the icing on a cake, to harvesting mother nature’s best and putting it outside your front door.

Forgiveness is the message of this Jerry McGuire, it opens your mind and opens doors. I forgave my dad the day he did it. I forgave myself for giving up my news career.  I forgave myself when I passed up that pitchfork at Brimfield. I could have decoratored my harvest porch with that or sold it on-line.

That was the preview to summer, May 2013. I was hardly thinking about the fall. That was the season we shot “I Brake For Yard Sales.”I was thinking about the immediate needs only of 8-famioly reveals.  The opportunity to work on designer before & after and change the way people live in their homes, that was truely an enlightening moment. It is one I have graditude for and a moment that may not have came had I not forgiven myself.

I always thought I would be a news reporter and take after Katie Couric. Mix a little fluff and a hard news story and there I would be at the top of my game by my late twenties. I made it to the network in 2009. New York met with a recession and before long the big dream I had to for my career,  that also for the record ended with husband, big house and kids dissolved into thin air.

For all long time after that. I was depressed.

Fall is all renewal. You might say everything is dying, I say like a snake everything is shedding its worn skin.  Rebirth. Here’s what Truman Copote has Holly Golightly say  “Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.”

Point made, the season of harvest and bounty is also the season of forgiveness. Not to get overly religious here, but Jews celebrate Yom Kippur in September.   It is also known as The Day of Antonement, the holiest day of the year. One atones for their sins and in return we offered new prespective on life.

CELEBRATION NATURE
Fuel for thought

I am glad I forgave. I forgave myself first. I forgave myself for time lost in devotion to a job that I didn’t see through. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have succeed in design. It opened my mind to something more. The key to forgiveness is to dervive a positive part of the equation. It is a fundamental law. A negative minus negative is a positive. See the situation for the good it withholds.

BEFORE: We also found these stools at Brimfield. Lara Spencer and I shopped Brimfield together. We are very close souls. We used the ottomans in a Riverside family home on a episode of “I Brake For Yard Sales.” The upholstery is shot, but the size and the shape have definite potential and character.

Television news gave me a lot. That is my forgiveness. Rather then regret time lost, I saw the whole experience as time gained. In forgiving, I saw the benefit of having the experience. I  believe no moment or time spent is in vain.  That forgiveness, gave me my career at Tiger Lily’s. I started just answering the phone for my parents because I needed to get out of the house.

Four years later I have found my stride at Tiger Lily’s.  It took less time to upholster the ottomans.  I happy every moment and thank ful for my wonderful work. Graditude and forgiveness are one in the same.   At Tiger Lily’s, I preach seeing potential in old furniture and frames. Tiger Lily’s our store in Greenwich (www.tigerlilysgreenwich.com) is truly a magical place. Inside our Greenwich workroom, we still hand create. I am preserving that legacy.

Tthe events and the steps that brought me to Tiger Lily’s are meaningful and necessary.  It takes a lot of hard work to keep a family business running. It is exclusively for the strong :). Strength is another realtive of forgiveness, students of McGuire. Not as prophetic, I will  quote  Ghandi here,  “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

DEBUT DESIGN EVENT
The Westport Arts Center

That  picture of me was taken at my first event for Tiger Lily’s. It was my design debut at the Westport Arts Center. It is now a few pages back in the books and soon to be chapters as life goes on. Forgiveness has unlocked doors and set marvelous opportunities in motion for me,  from the internet, magazines, products to television.

AFTER: The ottomans were upholstered in Bruinswig & Fils, Bamboo Trellis.  We used a few cut pieces to complete them for HGTVs “I Break For Yard Sales.”  Even with out a match they crisp, bold and refreshed. For girl who thought her  life was over when my news career ended, it is serendipitous to return to TV. It is thrilling to have it happen in fall of 2013. I feel renewed,  myself when I look around and count the blessing I have.

Enjoy the fall. Let it renew your soul and may it give you tranquility to look at what is ahead.  Witness the renewal, forgive in a way that changes your heart.

“Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. “Garrison Keillor