Kipkoo pops up!

I'm very pleased to announce that KIPKOO will be selling its wares at Hearts on Fire: A Vintage Pop-up organized by The Cat & Fox Vintage Collective on Feb 11-12 at 666 Queen Street East in Toronto!

Be sure to check back to see how things develop. There are several vendors signing on, offering an assortment of cool stuff, including men's and women's vintage clothing, art, antiques, and yummy treats to eat! It'll be a great opportunity for Kipkoo fans to see pieces that haven't made it onto the site yet, including a favourite vintage chair of mine (if I finish staining it in time!).

Artwork supplied by The Cat & Fox Vintage Collective.

Bedroom Design Inspiration

If my bedroom looked like this, I'd never want to get out of bed:

apartmenttherapy.com

Wanna be in a quilting bee?

It's snowing today, and I'm dreaming of quilts. Soft, puffy quilts with intricate patterns, or scrappy quilts with fabric pieces from my childhood, something to whisk me away from the present.

I've always wanted to be in a quilting bee. I grew up in a small town in Southern Ontario, and Mennonite quilts were everywhere. I have this image of observing a group of Mennonite women sitting around a large quilt, focused on their work. I used to go to a quilt show every year with my mom, and we'd walk around and pick out our favourite.

I think a huge part of the appeal of a quilting bee, for me, would be to escape computers and cell phones and just sit and stitch with a bunch of people who's company I enjoy. Lately, I feel like I spend too much time in front of my computer, so the idea of sitting around with the room of crafty women (and men!) is so inviting.

I've actually NEVER owned a quilt, but now that I'm in the vintage business, perhaps I can keep a lookout for one that suits me.

I've been eyeing up some of the more modern quilts I've found online. The one that makes me swoon the most is 9 Patch Color Study by Eleanor McCain.

Left: Jack's Modern Quilt by Nancy Stoval.  Right: Roots Ginger Queen by Denise Schmidt 

Left: 9 Patch Color Study by Eleanor McCain.  Right: SkullFucked by Quiltsryche.

Left: Bedeviled by Regina Alexander.  Right: Snakecharmer by Denise Schmidt.

Look! Even hipsters (and their dogs) love a good, old-fashioned quilt!

Publicity shot for "The Rosebuds," a band on Merge Records.

Trolleys and Carts!

I don’t know what it is I love about vintage carts and trolleys so much. Two or three have wheeled their way through my life over the past few years. One was a teak bar cart which I promptly sold on Craigslist, the other was an old medical cart painted pink, acting as a microwave stand for many years.

Does owning a cart imply that you have a lot of space and you need something to transport your riches around vast living quarters? Too much space is not a luxury I "suffer" from, but I picture these trolleys and carts in vast condo lofts. Alternatively, they'd make an excellent way for artists to transport their supplies around easily.

Here are some carts I found online that I'd enjoy rolling around my imaginary loft:

1) Industrial metal cart (circa 1950) from styledevie.com
2) Wood and iron utility cart from Sierra Living Concepts

3) Vintage wire laundry cart on casters from ethanollie on SellSimply.com
4) Another cool cart from styledevie.com

5) Poul Hundvad teak serving cart from scandinavianmod.com
6) Vintage mail cart from my shop, kipkoo.ca

When I saw the vintage mail cart at an auction, I couldn't help picturing the breathtakingly beautiful Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) from Mad Men pushing something like this around the office. Though I suppose technically that's probably not in her job description, I couldn't help picturing it!

The cart and clock shown here are available at kipkoo.ca (Joan Harris not included).

Kipkoo is open for business!

At long last: kipkoo.ca is finally open!

I can't believe it took me so long! But then I remember the hours and hours of work that happen behind the scenes: finding items, transporting them, researching, photographing, cleaning, fixing, measuring and weighing. Not to mention all the admin tasks: PayPal, shopping cart set-up, domain name (x3 since I kept changing the name!), business bank account, marketing, surveying potential customers, and more research than I care to mention. It might look effortless, but there's a crazy amount of work involved!

The interesting thing about an online store is that you never know who is going to find out about your products or who is going to buy them. Will my first customer be a friend, a friend of a friend, or some random woman from, say, Connecticut, who stumbled upon my site while looking up Holt Howard ceramics (I have two of those, Ms. Connecticut, hope you saw them both!)?

The store is heavily in favour of local (Toronto and GTA) buyers, since larger (ie: furniture) items are for local pick-up and delivery only. I can't imagine anyone spending more than the price of a dresser itself to have that particular item shipped halfway across North America.

I'd like to point out that this is a consignment shop. So if you have any mid-century modern furniture or houseware that you're looking to sell, please contact me! For more details, read the "how to sell" page on the kipkoo site.

So, let it begin.

For posterity sake this is what the kipkoo homepage looked like upon first launch.
The image behind is the site my desktop image, "Wood Grain Crowd" from Veer.com