grammar girl

So sorry that we didn’t manage to post a favorite find last week. We’ve (hooray!) been busy selling so many things that we just didn’t have time. We’ll try and make it up to you by either blowing your mind with the awesomeness of this post or maybe by posting a second time this week. Here goes…

Anyone who’s been to the store knows one of our staple vintage pieces is the manual typewriter. We love them and have two of our own at home. We were so sad to see our last one sell – a beautiful script font olivetti – but happy to see its new owner so excited to have finally found her dream machine. Typewriter-less for the last week and a half, the shop just hadn’t seemed quite herself, so you can imagine our joy at finding FOUR this last weekend. All around the same vintage (c.1950), each typewriter holds a different appeal. There are a couple for the serious office worker and/or troubled screenwriter, one with a low-profile for someone on the go, and another for someone who just needs a little color therapy.

Hello?!!! Has anyone seen the cover of this month’s REAL SIMPLE magazine? Because we just got the exact vase that is on the cover. We swear we already had it picked to be in our “Favorite Finds” section even before it made it big on the cover of a national publication. We even have it in the exact same color. It’s the little blue bulbous one – isn’t she cute? We love it when the universe works its mysterious ways to make us look cooler than we actually are.

Anyway, we’ve wanted to carry these beautiful porcelain pieces for a long, long time now. We think it might have to do with the fact that we read a lot of Pearl S. Buck. You see, there always seems to be an integral passage in her books where we meet a character reflecting on a single orchid in a beautiful porcelain vase. And while most people would imagine the orchid, we here at Noun are way more interested in the vase. And these are the vases we’ve always imagined. They are made by the folks at Middle Kingdom in the Jingdezhen region of China where porcelain kilns are all the rage and have been for centuries. We can happily say this is one thing that bears the “made in China” label that we are proud to sell.

p.s. Look for beautiful porcelain nesting bowls in the shop a little closer to winter.

Starting this Sunday, September 14th, we will once again open our doors at 10am on Sundays. Some of you may remember, this is how things started out and sometime early in the new year we shortened our hours considerably from 10-7 to 12-5. While these hours did wonders for our sleep habit, we hated seeing people waiting, drooling for cupcakes and antsy for antiques when we finally opened our doors at high noon. Hopefully this was not just a summer phenomenon and you all will continue to ignore the Lord’s request to take it easy on Sundays and come by and visit us during our new extended hours. See you soon!

For those of you who don’t know much Japanese, “kimochi ii” roughly translates as “good feeling” or “feels good”. But to us, it’s one of those translations that doesn’t really do justice to the true meaning of the original phrase. “Good feeling” sounds kind of dorky and just feels uncomfortable. But if you can imagine warm fuzzies, comfort and both emotional and physical satisfaction you may come close to our understanding of “kimochi ii”.

So why the language lesson? Well, we found this awesome piece this weekend and it kinda has an Asian motif and we lived in Japan for a couple of years. It was the first thing that came to mind when we sat in this ultra comfy and totally cute chair.

As you may have heard, we went on vacation a few weeks ago. Most people laugh when we tell them our annual trip to “get away from it all” means going to Ohio. We admit, when we left the Buckeye State 11 years ago we didn’t shed any tears (although our Mom did). We didn’t think it had much to offer either. But now, we’re hard working 30-somethings and while we still think that our little hometown in Ohio is as boring as we thought it was when we left, we now totally appreciate all the great things that go along with being boring. The fact that there isn’t anything to do is kinda nice when you’re actually trying to relax. There are no fancy restaurants you just have to try, no Italian espresso shops with snotty baristas, no choice even to be made on which grocery store to go to – there’s only one! You make you’re own coffee and drink it on the porch while wearing your pajamas. You discuss lunch while eating breakfast and you decide on dinner while eating lunch. You go to the beach if it’s sunny and you go to the local antique shops if it’s not. Cocktail hour begins promptly at 5pm. Easy and totally relaxing!

Lucky for our lovely patrons, we had a few rainy days this year and as our lack of options dictated, we went shopping and scored some serious booty to bring back and share with you. (Did we forget to mention?…Ohio is filled to the brim with kick-ass antiques that seem dirt cheap to our west-coast budgets!) Have a peek at just a few of the goodies we brought back with us. We hope you like them as much as we do.

Click on a photo below to enlarge the image and to get the details on each piece.