Friday 4 February 2011

Eileen Gray moves into our flat

Remember me telling you that Her Indoors had ordered an Eileen Gray 'style' chair sometime before Christmas? Well it arrived yesterday.

I had been into darkest Somerset to order some stone from a supplier of the Ham Hill variety (whose quarry license had expired, leaving him with no stone at all... but that's another story), and had driven past the 'Mendip Shooting Ground', so I took the opportunity of stocking-up on shotgun cartridges by buying two boxes of 250 each (that's 500, for those of you who are as bad at maths as I am).

I don't know if you realise how heavy these little boxes are, but each cartridge contains about 28 grams of lead, so this and the rest of the components mean that struggling to the top floor entrance of our compact but adorable city apartment with 500 of them is a little tiring.

When I got to the doorway on the top landing, I found a 5 foot square, thick, cardboard box blocking the entrance, and had to cut it apart with a knife before I could get in. This was as far as the poor man who delivered the chair could get, and H.I. had spent the previous hour cutting the contents out of the box with a little knife of her own (from the other side), so was as exhausted as me.

It's rather elegant isn't it? Of course, being based on a design by Eileen Gray, there are a few details which do not tally with the original, but it is extremely comfortable to sit in and still looks good.

Since H.I. can differentiate between about 500 more shades of white than your average Inuit, the colour isn't quite right for her, but I soon managed to get her to shut up about that. If you live with a Virgo painter, you will know what I have to put up with.

So this is now her official painting chair, and the chair in which she will sit to watch DVDs on this very computor. I will have to make do with a hard wooden job. I am - I have to reluctantly admit - now a little jealous.

19 comments:

  1. Lovely, despite being the wrong shade of white. I think it needs an Eileen Grey E1207 round table beside it, on which to place a (fine antique) glass of wine. T'would make a nice surprise for H.I.

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  2. Funnily enough, she is contemplating getting one from the Eileen Gray institute, but they cost considerably more than the £295 this chair did, Mise.

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  3. Drop-dead gorgeous...no wonder you are jealous!

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  4. Very handy also, for a one armed person. I do hope she's not a messy painter (like Lady M).

    When Lady M was at college, her head of dep't (Majinski?)once said "If you cook anything like how you paint, don't ever invite me for dinner". She never did.

    I'd hate to see that chair Pollocked.

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  5. I'd be jealous too....it's a lovely chair.

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  6. I am jealous too Tom - it is a beautiful chair.

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  7. It was 'Najisknski', I think, Cro - do you remember how we all danced naked around his house one night, after a drunken dinner party? I had Mel as a partner. He tried to get me thrown out of college for painting a huge swastika on canvas - poor sod.

    H.I. is the cleanest painter I have ever come across (stop it) - she wears designer gear to paint in, and every year I joke that I am going to buy her a 'fisherman's smock' to paint in, knowing that she wouldn't even be buried in one, let alone seen dead.

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  8. I love when 'fossils' reminisce.

    The chair needs a soft cushion.

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  9. I know that you are all talking about the chair but I can't get over the floor - there's not one drop of paint on it!

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  10. Grouch - Fuck off! (on both counts). If you think the chair needs a cushion, then you need to get a new monitor. 'Black frocks' indeed.

    Like I say, Cher, there isn't ever a drop of paint on her either.

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  11. And why would you possibly want that, John? God luck with the chicken shed roofs, btw.

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  12. (I mean 'good' luck of course...)

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  13. At least we haven't lost two poofs! (I'm sorry, but I keep trying to resist these crap jokes, but after 3 pints down the pub, I find myself unable to {resist these jokes} )

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  14. Ooh, hang on a minute, let's try this: };)

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  15. Hmmm very fashionable - but ooop North I have never seen anything like it - I guess we need to get out more. I have 2 ercol armchairs which I am having recovered - sounds really boring compared to what you have here!

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  16. Eileen Gray was Irish, Mrs Nesbitt.

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