Simply Grand's Profile

I have no problem with repurposing things--I am, after all, the guy whose dining chandelier was made out of a shrimp cocktail tray & a bunch of clear plastic shower rings--but too often, the finished results turn out looking klutzy & dormroomish, like that waterbottle chaise on Design Star. Imaginative & out-of-the-box? Sure. Attractive? No.

This project has a sleek & elegant look that's rare in DIY projects, and that rubber mat's tire-store smell wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact, I might even enjoy it. Then again, my grandfather owned an auto-parts store.

In an ideal world--or an ideal apartment, which is theoretically more achievable--we would have both kind of rooms, one bright & cheerful, and one dark & intimate so we could match our surroundings to our moods. It can be done, even in small place, because my last apartment was under 600 SF and I had two main rooms with totally opposite feels. But if I have to choose, I'll take dark any day. As the Arab proverb says, Nothing but sunshine makes a desert.

What a great building Janel, and you probably remember its Neo-Goth baby sister on State Street here in Chicago, squeezed onto what probably started out as a lot for a single-family home back in the days when State Street was still residential. I don't have a photo of it myself, but the building was just featured last week on a blog post by the hugely talented Designslinger, whose new studio work I can't wait to see.

http://designslinger.com/2011/07/28/singer-building-chicago.aspx

These days, the only place I travel to is NYC, and I take Amtrak, but back when I had to travel across downstate Illinois for my job at the Phone Company, I always chose a roadside relic on an old state highway or a down-at-the-heels former showplace downtown over the boring chain motels out by the Interstate. Corporate always went along because I saved them money, but they thought I was crazy. A few times, I have to admit, I thought they might be right, like the time in Springfield when, in the middle of the night, I discovered first one black nylon sock in my bed--not mine, either: I only wear argyles--and then another. And then, to top them off, I found a pair of red nylon leopard-print panties. Bingo! The fact that this joint was only a few minutes' walk from the Capitol building was, I'm sure, only coincidence.

Other times, though, I came up with a winner on my first pick. The coolest place by far was the Stardust Motel in Rock Island, which, even in the late Eighties, still featured its original Fifties-Modern decor, and in pristine condition, too. One time my room would be red, another time lavender, another time aqua, but all the rooms featured diamond-quilted vinyl headboards outlined in gigantic white-lacquered baroque scrolls, flocked damask wallpaper, Sputnik sconces, and in the bathroom, glittery Formica counters, plush wall-to-wall carpet that matched the room's colors & a chandelier the size of a football. The whole place was like a museum of Eisenhower-era glamour. In English stately homes, they used to keep one over-the-top royal bedroom ready at all times, just in case the King should decide to drop in for a country weekend, and the faithful folks who ran the Stardust and kept it so immaculate must have done so for the same reason, not realizing that Elvis had already been dead for a decade. Hope springs eternal, I guess. The Stardust is probably gone by now, or if it's still there, it's likely been redone in tasteful neutrals. What a loss.

Most places I stayed were in between those two extremes. Once I spent a night at the notorious Coral Court motel in St. Louis--a Streamlined Moderne gem with curving glass-block bays & attached garages--and it wasn't nearly as seedy as people told me to expect. No used underwear in the bed, at least. And it's a good thing I stayed there when I had the chance, too, because a year later, the place was bulldozed. Unfortunate, because, fixed up, the Coral Court could have been a major draw for lovers of Art Deco.

But my biggest regret is that I never got a chance to stay--not even to eat--at that Valhalla of Motels, the Gobbler, up in northern Wisconsisn, which words can't even describe. It was like a Bruce McCall pastiche of cheesy Seveties Hip come to terrifying life, but it's nothing but a cracked & weedy parking lot now. All that's left is its glimmering digital afterimage, maintained as a public service by James Lilek, our National Curator of Low Culture, and if that's not a paid position, it oughtta be.

Anyway, I figure that even if--actually, especially if--a place turns out to be an absolute dive, you'll be able to retell the story for years afterwards. But what's to say about about Holiday Inn Express? And who knows? You might discover an overlooked gem.

At the bankrupcty dale of an old-line hotel in Peoria, I picked up--for $15--a bolt of 1955 fabric Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Schumacher. A few years later, a few blocks away I found another bolt of the same fabric in a different colorway at the Salvation Army. Eight dollars, this time. But I didn't collect midecentury design, so I gave the stuff to the Art Institute.

And at the Peoria Goodwill, I picked up for $125 a handsome dining set in blonde mahogany, whose designer, in the dark pre-Internet days, I was unable to document, so that I reluctantly left it behind when I moved to Chicago. Since then, I've discovered my original hunch was right: it was a Robsjohn-Gibbings design. Oh, well. Win some, lose some.