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If you are an interior design aficionado, you know art is an excellent way of bringing life into a room. Photography and prints are a good place to start, but what I really like are paintings, especially vintage portraits.

Affordable portraits are not easy to find, so I always find myself foraging for them in thrift stores, estate sales or flea market. This habit can be scary sometimes because most of the art you find in these places is hideous, horrible, ugly, gross (no exaggerating) … until you find that gem.

Thrift stores have a LOT of paintings from wanna be artists that are unattractive. Sometimes, these stores want to charge a lot of money for a piece of trash! Don’t let them trick you, and try to bargain them down. I usually find a nice piece for less than $100. $50 is a great thrift store deal, but it all depends on the painting. As my uncle (a vintage expert) says ” if you like it and you are willing to pay the price, is a good deal.” No regrets!!

The ideal thrift situation is to have a relationship with the manager of such store. To do this, you need to be in that thrift store often and always be NICE. If they won’t come down in price, come back another day. The painting you want is probably still going to be in there. Art doesn’t sell that fast. On the other hand, if you are totally in love with the painting get it right away. Spending the rest of your life regretting that time when THE ONE got away is a stressful way of living. I have been there and done that, and it is not easy on the heart! Believe me. I still find myself daydreaming about that ugly man in that one painting that somebody stole away from me a couple of years ago.

Back to vintage hunting, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Practice is the only way to develop a critical eye that is able to find beauty in what others would consider average. Pay attention to some of the portraits below and imagine finding them in a thrift store. Some of them are outright ugly, but, once they are hanging on a wall, they work!

Here are some examples of vintage portraits that transform average spaces into interesting ones:

Image Source Design Sponge Image Source Méchant Studio Image Source sfgirlbybay Image Source My Scandinavian Home Image Source Designfiles Image Source Jim Fairfax Image Source That Kind Of Woman Image Source Ebay Image Source Carla Aston Image Source Apartment Therapy Image Source Remodelista Image Source Remodelista Image Source Design Files Image Source Verdigris VieImage Source One Kings LaneImage Source sfgirlbybay

LOVE!

Hanging rattan chairs are in almost every house I see on Pinterest. They are very cute, but I have always wondered if they are actually comfortable. To me, they don’t look like a chair you want to lay down and watch TV on, do they? But that odd, nest shape, and the fact that they hang from the ceiling, makes them visually attractive. Let’s take a look.

Furnish At Home In Love Anson Smart Elle.fr Waiting On Martha Picslovin Seventy Nine Ideas Decor Pad Don’t know where I got this one from, sorry.

At Home with Kelley Howley

VERY CUTE! Don’t you think? Do any of you have one? If yes, do you find it comfortable? Do you actually use it? I would like to have one on my porch or outdoor area, but they are expensive. It is not easy to find one for less than $450. Also, you need to make sure you have enough space to be able to swing on them, otherwise, what is the point?

As a side note, some years ago,  Jonathan Adler mentioned in this interview that the hanging chair is one of the items every house should have, and we all know that Jonathan Adler is the god of the interior designer world, so there you go.

Here is a round up of my favorite hanging rattan chairs out there. I found an Etsy shop that has them for just $250 (see last chairs on the list below). They are vintage and seem to be in pretty good condition.  I should grab one right now instead of writing this post. Have a nice weekend!

Hanging Rattan Chair by Two’s Company – Domino – $479.99  Hanging Rattan Bowl Chair by Out There Interiors. 495 Euros  -Ships to Great Britain only Hanging Rattan Chair by Serena & Lilly – $495 Pod Hanging Chair by CB2 – $699 Hanging Rattan Chair – Chairish -$539 Vintage Hanging Rattan Chair – Etsy – $250