I've got a trigger finger when it comes to the mouse. And an impulsive personality when it comes to shopping. I won't get started because it's late, but honestly I'm either deny, deny deny, don't let self have, or buy, buy, buy, things I don't need, am not sure I like, can't really afford.

I won two eBay auctions for nightstands now--the top two in post below. I put in such low bids I thought there was no way I'd win. Careful what you wish for. Now I have to find my way to Enfield, CT to get the mid-century tables, and possibly pay for shipping from Westminster, CO for the (second) deco nighstand that I don't even like. Or convince my little brother to drive there from Denver to pick it up. Hmmm.

I want to bid on the tall, pretty pair, but it's going to cost $300 minimum to ship. Road trip?

Would someone please explain how to use eBay properly?

Clearly I like to put the cart before the horse. For instance, now I have it in mind to buy a couple of bedside tables even though I don't have a real frame for the bed. Like any of these?

So maybe Simpson935 is right and I should start to think about my kitchen. I was thinking I'd get the living room and bedroom done and then start on the kitchen, but that's obviously not happening. I have one thing I'm definitely going to keep in the kitchen--the built in cabinets. The rest can stay or go. I've been seeing vintage stoves all over the place, and we just did a list of great sources for them that's on our Green Sites We Love.

And now I see The Kitchen Designer's vintage kitchens. I don't really like any of these, but they're fascinating. And Susan's doing this really interesting thing by deconstructing them to figure out what works and what doesn't. Learning from the past: I respect that.

So, what do you think of vintage stoves? Do they work well? Are they worth the cost? Retro kitchen or no?

I can't enter the living room sweepstakes, obviously. But you can... You get a  consultation with a domino stylist and some money towards a living room makeover.

If I won, I'd buy the Montauk Sofa above, and this round wooden table right out of Steven Sclaroff's house. And then I'd be out of money. Oh wait, it's only $3,600 on 1stdibs.com.

What would you buy?

I'm generally fine with knockoffs because, as you know, I'm scrappy. What you may not know is that I'm not careful with nice things. Ask my mother. She's the sort to keep her dresses in plastic garment bags and her fancy Bruno Magli shoes in boxes for twenty-five years. I'm the sort who borrows her shoes without asking and breaks the heel. Or, true story, who insists on wearing her pearl necklace and then breaks it and loses half the pearls in the backyard. So, vintage knockoff is fine for me. Unless it's something "authentic" I get for nothing.

When I first started working for domino, we did a story on mid-century vintage and knockoffs. To be honest, I don't think I knew the difference before that. But I'm sure there are people who see the difference and can feel it, the way I can look at a rack of clothes at the Salvation Army and pick out the designer dresses from five feet away.

Any of you got an eagle eye for furniture? And the million dollar question--is vintage furniture that's not signed or not by some well-known designer necessarily inferior quality? And vice-versa: is signed vintage furniture by well-known designers like the Noguchi coffee table above better quality?

CECI N'EST PAS UNE PHOTO

It started with fashion. When I was a little girl my mother let us play dress up in her old party dresses. Wearing her gorgeous tafetta gowns gave me a taste for old-world glamour. I remember the first of her "outfits" I started wearing for real. It was this floral midriff tie-top and a pair of pedal pushers from the '60s. I would wear the top tied in back with a pair of yellow pants. (This was the year Esprit came out with this gorgeous palette of yellow and bright turquoise and royal blue.) I suppose I've been dressing "green" (in recycled clothes) ever since.

My taste for vintage furniture developed out of economic necessity. I was a graduate student in Iowa when and where shopping was not the form of entertainment it is today. Al Gore hadn't invented the internet, much less eBay. So I shopped with the farmers on Wednesday night at the Sharplesss Auction, and at the Salvation Army where I found a gorgeous green couch and a green velvet slipper chair for $30 and $5 each--I'll have to scan a photo. Then I inherited my mid-century lamps and tables.

I learned that you can get something unique for nothing if you wait long enough. Dangerous lesson since Urban Outfitters and other retailers have started buying up vintage pieces and selling them with big price tags. Could be a long wait for cool stuff...

For me, shopping isn't about finding things I like and buying them. It's always this big struggle. Half the time I can't even figure out what I like: the white ottoman above is a case in point. I go back and forth about whether it's better to bring someone shopping and ask their opinion, or to go alone and toss around in a sea of stuff looking for a buoy.

The rest of the time I know exactly what I like, but I feel certain I can't afford it, so I don't allow myself to want anything. I defend myself against desire by telling myself there are too many things in the world and it's materialistic to want more, or my favorite--desire is a form of weakness. If something's for sale in a store and I want it, I'm being manipulated by the market and will wind up with something, heaven forbid, popular. I can feel myself reject the thing before I even look at the price tag and feel it rejecting me.

Know what I mean?

Lots and lots of stores alone Route 206 in PA just like this. I found this chair for five bucks at a store that was going out of business. I'll show a real photo later. Right now, it's covered in tape while I experiment  on desensitizing the cats to it. I'm hoping if they get used to the tape sticking to their little paws when they try to scratch it, they'll associate it with badness and leave the chair alone. Fat chance, but I'm trying to be more positive and everything...

Bought this mirror in Pennsylvania this weekend at an antique mart on Highway 206. It's from an old vanity, so it's quite heavy. But I love how antiquey the beveled glass is. Thinking I'll put this up on the collage wall in the living room. Make sense?

I'm in my office shouting. Over and over again. It's ridiculous, really, because all that's happened is that after years and years and years of wondering where my coffee table that I learned to Windex on came from, I found a version of it for sale (well, sold) on the ModHaus site. Thanks to Susan Snyder's blog design mind.

They say the table is in the style of Vladimir Kagan.

Maybe ModHaus has the matching end table and I can stop being mad at W about it.

Just lost these on eBay because I didn't bother staying up another half hour. They sold for about $26.00...

The green ones that give off no light and might be missing a finial. This is why I never make any decisions because I'm literally high from this. Buyer's remorse. And I just scooped them right out of someone else's hands. Oh well...

About to lose these on eBay. How much should I bid?

I also stayed at The Pitcher Inn in Warren, Vermont. We were in the "Ski" room. This is way classier than the Madonna Inn. Up above you see the picnic table with the snow outside. Below, see the authentic 50s or 60s ski posters and the sign for Mad River Glen ski area.

And...the steam shower and jacuzzi bathtub area that's bigger than Maxwell from Apartment Therapy's apartment...

This entire house is furnished in various antiques. I drooled over the lamps, the carpet, the bath fixtures and the views...

First, it was the stair runner. I love the Deco-like pattern on this rug and would love to see it run down my loooooong front hallway. Have to get back to you on who makes it, but apparently the decorator for the place used it in his own office he liked it so much.

I also loved the sink in my bathroom. It's by an English company called Pegler--at least the faucet is.

In the Mepal Manor house with just my friend Melisse. It was like stepping into Jane Eyre, except we were the mad women in the attic. The place was built in the early 20th century by a Mr. Bloodgood. Mel and I weathered the storm there on Sunday night. We could hear the wind howling. The night attendant, Nefertiti, left us flashlights before she locked us inside, just in case the electricity went out (it didn't). Perfect setting for a Scooby Doo-style mystery, but I am happy to report that the place is not haunted. I've got loads of pictures to post, but thought I should show you the outside first...

Found this roll of wallpaper in the trash. Something made me grab it. Sorry, Nick, I'm not about to wallpaper my refrigerator with it, but what can I do? As I walk out of the bedroom, it's kind of making me want curtains. Too bad it's too narrow for a window shade...

One last photo of the tree wall and the landscape painting by Jim Murphy, which started it all. Jim's is the big winter oil painting above. It's called "Ashfield in Winter." He lives and works in New England. Many of his paintings are of remote places he discovers while he's out on long runs in the woods. I love his winter scenes, but he's also got some of abandoned vintage pickup trucks that seem like no one's touched them for fifty years. And his work on the coast of Maine is just gorgeous. His painting is in good company with Franklin Evans and Nick Jainschigg's work.

On the other side of the mirror I've go another from Nick Jainschigg's painting-a-day blog, a flea market find and a gorgeous little number The Germinatrix gave me from comic book artist Chuck BB.

Years ago, I lived in Iowa City with a woman whose mother ran estate sales. Her mom found this gorgeous frame at a sale, and Jane used it to frame this page proof from Native American Portraits that I got when I worked at the publishing company, Chronicle Books, who published it. I love the Carl Moon photo of the Navajo boy on the right, but I'm also fascinated by the printer's marks. Can you see the Chinese characters in the right margin? I can't quite get my head around the idea of the book of photographs of Native Americans taken by white men,  printed in Hong Kong on paper from somewhere in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Eventually, I stopped hanging the picture because I felt like it might be offensive or fetishizing. What do you think? Should I ditch the picture and keep the frame? Vice-versa?

Want some of your very own Brahms sheet music to frame or make into art? Shoot me an email at videos (at) dominomag.com and let me know. I'll mail you a few sheets from the same book I used. When you're finished, send me a photo of what you did and I'll post it on the blog!

I love the idea of Trio in C Major, Opus 87 in pieces all over the country!

Just kidding.

I hung. Be my human level: Is it straight? Is it monumental enough.

I've had this idea for years, to frame some old sheet music and hang it as art. It's taken a while (imagine that...), but I've finally done it. The last round of excuses involved:

1. moral uncertainty about cutting up a nearly 100-year-old book of music (I'm over it.)

2. conviction that there was some perfect piece of music to hang--Rachmaninoff because it reminds me of my mother; or Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings which someone recently played for me and though I've heard it a million times (it's all over YouTube and even South Park) I recognized for the first time; or hanging consecutive movements of the same symphony or whatever. (I chose Brahms Trio in C Major, Opus 87.)

3. and, against my better nature, feeling possessive enough of the idea that I wasn't sure I wanted to share it on the blog. (Shame on me.)

Do you ever have that fear that if you send a good idea out into the world, someone's going to capitalize on it and you won't ge recognized for the genius that you are? It's so unenlightened to think that way. And...do I really think I'm the first one to think of using sheet music as art? I doubt it...

I haven't given up on the idea of a tree mural. The cracking paint in my bedroom has given me pause for right now. But look at this picture I found on NotCot. I love the idea of a mural that relates to some three-dimensional object in the room. Isn't it amazing?

Ooooh, lookie here. Laurab from Poof You're a Frog saw all the talk about plastic bags and decided to share the work of artist Chris Jordan who apparently makes art, including the picture you see above, out of plastic bags. The idea is to make art out of trash. The piece below is a picture of aluminum cans.

I spent the the weekend doing taxes. No inspiration in that. But I also went to two yoga classes after a two-year lapse. I was so excited I got these pussywillows on the way home. I've been wanting them for about fifteen years, ever since my friend Renee had some in her apartment. So I finally just got some. Does that ever happen to you? All you want is a bunch of daffodils, but you just can't bring yourself to stop and buy them? And the next thing you know it's too hot for daffodils?

In any event, I had gone into the store to look at the ferns for the birdcage, but I decided that they're too big; the lines of the cage are so nice that I'm going to try candles and possibly a bonsai tree inside.

In the meantime, these pussywillows are keeping me happy and giving me a sense of what a tree mural or decal or whatever would really be like in my bedroom...

I got a letter in the mail yesterday. It went something like this: "Hello, Scrappy? It's the co-op board. According to the house rules, you are required to cover 70% of your floors with rugs. We recommend padding as well."

I think my neighbors all got the same letter--in fact I hope my upstairs neighbor who called yesterday to tell me that I was playing The Beautiful South too loud (teachers, home again on another school break!) got one too. So far, I don't think he's laid down his rugs. And he wears shoes in the house.

So I guess I know what the next project is. Nick Olsen tells me it'll help with the echo. Exciting, But look what I've got. Here's one of my rugs, which has been hidden in the closet away from Emma's claws, and cat hair.

But it's too small for the bedroom. And it's wool. And it's dark. I have three thoughts. I could:

1) layer it with a few others like it that I got in Turkey, and go for the Oscar Wilde lair effect even though it's about to be sweltering 100 degree heat,
2) plunk down a pretty penny for a big Ansel, I mean Angela Adams rug like the Adriana you see at the top of the post, or this plum blossom one Holly had on decor8 the other day, or
3) continue to clod around and drive my neighbors nuts.

There must be another way. What is it?

Remember Robbie Dupree's "Hot Rod Hearts"? Or Maria Muldaur singing "Midnight at the Oasis"? I can't forget them. Not that I want to, mind you. I'm just as much a fan of nostalgia as the next guy. Which is why I was so excited to unearth my old 45s the other day. I dusted them off and decided that I was going to hang them on the wall as art. Isaac stopped me. He said my living room will look like Sun Records if I do that...

So I decided to try it anyway. Then I stopped myself. Fear set it: holes in the wall, etc.

Here you see them artfully arranged on a sheet--I'm thinking a white background's better than a green one. What do you think? Bad idea? Will I start to feel like Elvis if I do this? Or worse, a record executive?

Should I instead mix a few in the asymmetrical collage that drove everyone nuts when I posted about it a few months ago?

But I love the juxtaposition of the round modern record and the little tiny Venetian  souvenir.

Do me a favor and recall the tune to "I Left my Heart in San Francisco." Then, read on...

I left this laaaaamp in Austin, Texas. In a great little (excuse me, big, great big, it's Texas afterall) vintage shop called Uncommon Objects. decor8 or nikkirose sent me there.

I left it, like a fool. So my headline's misleading. Go ahead and kill me. Just make sure you get rid of the evidence, because I'm guessing there's more than one of you out there who's left a relationship of your own volition and then claimed to have been dumped. You know, when the used/damaged/diamond in the rough goods start to shine...

Ought I to fly back to Texas to get it? Or send Austin native nikkirose, whom I've never met, some cash to buy it and send it my way? Or are there other lamps in the sea?

Oh, it figures... This from my mother (pictured here as Scrappy Mom): "Wonder how many little feathered friends called this [birdcage] "home"? And it is much nicer than the the bamboo one I once had in my laundry room. I filled it with trailing philodendron, thinking the room's humidity would be good for the plant."

Please note that last year, LAST year, I thought my idea of hanging a big plant inside a birdcage was my idea. Hear me mom, MY idea. Was I alive when you did this? Could my little infant eyes have seen your philodendron and stored the memory deep in my unconscious mind? And if not...

Well, do any of you believe in inherited memory?

I collect old birdcages, but this one, which I just bought from domino (look for it in the May issue) is the piece de resistance. You should have seen people looking at me on the subway as I carried it home last night. I kept fantasizing that I was going to get a date that way. It's the perfect conversation piece. Without the cage inside, I looked like someone from Zoom (look it up children) carrying around my own frame. Kind of like this...

(Incidentally, you can buy Zoom on Amazon!)

So here's the question--I brought the stand to this one home after I'd already set the cage next to my leaf print, where consensus was that it looked quite nice. Now what? Shall I leave it here in the corner and perhaps put a fern in it or what?