Last month, whilst sitting in my room in Mogadishu, I was looking at old on-line versions of my favourite design magazine, Living Etc, and am now totally inspired to start renovating more pieces in Kenya. Last year I did a couple of refurbishment projects including two mid-century vintage armchairs which I lovingly sanded down, albeit with a little help from S, M, J and T &T, then waxed with delicious smelling beeswax from John Lewis. I had sheepskin covers made for the seat pads and scouted around for some different cushions. Then whilst surfing the web about a month after my chairs were finished and in situ, I read an article about interesting finds from The Flea - the fabulous Aladdin's Cave of everything under the sun in Brooklyn - and one was of almost identical chairs with the bargain price tag of $250 for the pair. I had picked up mine in a junk yard just off Wayaki Way here in Nairobi - the pair for $20.
The place was really run down - I question whether any other muzungus frequent it - yet when the chap saw our expensive big Prado pull up with its shiny red diplomatic number plates, his eyes lit up, the sun glistened on his pearly whites (ok brown) teeth and kerrr chink was the sound resonating in his head. The Poor guy seemed disappointed I wasn't interested in purchasing the set of 60 matching dining chairs, 25 tables or the 30 dodgy-looking bar stools for that matter, which he had "obtained" from a hotel which had just closed down.
In the same place I picked up a sort of etagere - I think it had been used in a restaurant or bar (who knows could have been from the hotel!) for stacking glasses, as it had six sad looking wooden shelves - it was covered in ugly black chipped paint. After lots of sanding and copious coats of gloss white paint, a bit of pimping with shelf supports and 3 bespoke glass shelves it now takes pride of place in our dining area, housing some of my treasures on the top shelf, masai jewellry and our drinks collection on the middle one and Johnnie's acrylic Conran Shop globe on the bottom one. I would have loved to have used bright orange glass or perspex, but just couldn't source any here, so am thinking of ordering some orange adhesive film instead.
My next project once back in Nairobi is to track down a mid-century sideboard and pimp it in my own eclectic style. So watch this space.
The place was really run down - I question whether any other muzungus frequent it - yet when the chap saw our expensive big Prado pull up with its shiny red diplomatic number plates, his eyes lit up, the sun glistened on his pearly whites (ok brown) teeth and kerrr chink was the sound resonating in his head. The Poor guy seemed disappointed I wasn't interested in purchasing the set of 60 matching dining chairs, 25 tables or the 30 dodgy-looking bar stools for that matter, which he had "obtained" from a hotel which had just closed down.
In the same place I picked up a sort of etagere - I think it had been used in a restaurant or bar (who knows could have been from the hotel!) for stacking glasses, as it had six sad looking wooden shelves - it was covered in ugly black chipped paint. After lots of sanding and copious coats of gloss white paint, a bit of pimping with shelf supports and 3 bespoke glass shelves it now takes pride of place in our dining area, housing some of my treasures on the top shelf, masai jewellry and our drinks collection on the middle one and Johnnie's acrylic Conran Shop globe on the bottom one. I would have loved to have used bright orange glass or perspex, but just couldn't source any here, so am thinking of ordering some orange adhesive film instead.
My next project once back in Nairobi is to track down a mid-century sideboard and pimp it in my own eclectic style. So watch this space.
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