Book Tables

There's a new steampunklet in my life and home, so it's been a bit hectic and sleep deprived around here. Just ran across these I thought you all would like, however.


The counter at Brunswick Bound bookstore, designed by architect Christie Petsini. via.

"Layers" by designer Richard Hutten. via.


Desk at the Library Bibliotheek TU Delft. via.

Coffee table, available from etsy seller Tytie. via.

End tables, also by Tytie. via.

Book Bookshelf

We're a big fan of book and library based decor around here, and Rich found this article in the Sacramento Bee about how to build an extremely simple shelf from a hardback book...


Notice how they match the spine color with the wall color. And it's always fun to create thematic shelves based on your pick of books e.g. cookbooks or a knife based murder mystery (how about "Slip of the Knife" or "A Knife to Remember") for a kitchen.

Reversing Books

Elizabeth from One Must Shock the Bourgeois* is a frequent reader here, and I was browsing her blog after a recent comment (I do read them *all*, even if I don't reply) and found this intriguing idea: She flipped most of the books in her bookshelf spine side in.

Before

After

On pure aesthetics, it's a total win: The colors are more muted, more similar in tone. It's less distracting and cluttered. Her accessories are part of the same color scheme. It's lovely.

However there's no way it would fly at my house -- library organization was one of the most fraught negotiations of our early marriage, and not being able to see what books you have would defeat all organizational efforts -- but I thought it was interesting, nonetheless. Would you do this to your books?

*Just for the record, I'm firmly in the bourgeoisie, as defined by Wikipedia: part of the middle or merchant classes, and derived social and economic power from employment, education, and wealth. And not shocked by Elizabeth's blog--it takes more than reversed books to shock me. :)

Piping Hot Book Caddy

Here's a neat project that could be easily steampunk'd: The Merry Go Round Book Caddy recently feature on Ohdeedoh. Stain the wood and paint the pipes brass and you'd have a rotating spot almost anywhere -- kitchen, bathroom, library, table....

Full instructions here.

Magic, Moving Pictures and Freakshows – Visiting London’s Egyptian Hall

One of the things I try very hard to do here to do is keep the "home" in The Steampunk Home -- no steampunk fashion posts (as much as I love it!), very little music, etcetera. When Lavie Tidhar contacted me about her new steampunk novel, The Bookman, I gave her the same deal I give everyone else -- "give me an excerpt from your book that describes the interiors." Lavie came through with flying colors:

One of the great joys of writing my steampunk novel, The Bookman, was that I got to do it while living in London – where many of the historical buildings still exist, many still in their original function.

Everyone has their own secret London. Mine includes Davenports’, the magic shop in the bowels of Charing Cross Station; Simpson’s on the Strand, the restaurant Sherlock Holmes used to dine in; the Red Lion Pub in Soho, where Karl Marx used to drink and above which he worked on Das Kapital; the ancient, hidden Nell Gwynne pub behind the Adelphi Theatre, and others. The Egyptian Hall, sadly, is no longer there. Built in 1812, it was a mock-Egyptian structure in Piccadilly that, over the Victorian era, played host to any number of strange exhibitions – including automatons, freak-shows and magic. The Mechanical Turk, that legendary chess-playing machine, exhibited at the Egyptian Hall. Some of the first moving pictures were shown there. And the British family of magicians, the Maskelynes, have taken it over, when it was known as England’s Home of Mystery.

What better place, then, to feature in my very own steampunk story? Indeed, how could I possibly resist?

The Mechanical Turk, and the magician John Nevil Maskelyne – as well as Isabella Beeton, authoress of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Karl Marx and other historical characters all appear throughout the pages of The Bookman. And it is to the Egyptian Hall that young poet Orphan, reluctant hero of this tale, comes in search of advice.

The following extract sees Orphan arriving at the Egyptian Hall. The façade is pretty much as it was, and as for the gallery of freaks, as they were known, inside – well, they are, most of them, real to life, too. There really was a Skeleton Dude. And JoJo, the Dog-Faced Boy – who acts as Orphan’s guide in that maze of magic and machines – was real too. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction...

Extract from The Bookman, by Lavie Tidhar

From Chapter 13: A Night on the Town

And then, almost without noticing, Orphan was there.

He stood outside the imposing façade of the Egyptian Hall.

What did it look like?

Imagine a grand and ancient temple built for the long-vanished kings of a desert country, wide and rich beyond imaginings. To either side of it stood ordinary, red-and-grey bricked apartment buildings, as ordinary and staid as two elderly gentlemen who had stayed out too late. The Hall, though... Wide columns rose on either side of the entrance, each twice the height of a man and above them, in lonely splendour, stood the goddess Isis and her husband, the god Osiris, magnificent and tall, while above and all around them the rest of this mock-temple sprawled, covered in unknowable hieroglyphs, a sturdy and faithful imitation of the temple in Tentyra.

Above them all stood, in giant letters, the single word: MUSEUM.

Carriages and baruch-landaus alike carried people to and from the busy entrance, and a steady trickle of visitors, both wealthy and less well-to-do, came and went through the large front doors of this temple of learning. Even Lizards, Orphan saw – a party of five, all dressed in full regalia and attended by a host of human servants – came to this place of wonder, and paid the admission price.

He could still taste the mustard in his mouth from the sausage he had earlier devoured; it was not a bad taste, exactly, but it lingered unpleasantly. Like the Egyptian Hall, he thought. It looked, for all its mock-antiquated brashness, like a doll dressed up in once-fine rags.

At the door he showed the usher his letter from Maskelyne and was admitted in without questions.

The inside of the Egyptian Hall was a wide cavernous space. It was an amalgamation of junk and of rarities, of curiosities and oddities: a mixture of the deeply strange and the every-day.

In the centre of the room stood a rounded enclosure and, inside it, all manner of animals were on display, identified with large signs that were hung around the enclosure: there was a giraffe from Zululand and an elephant from Jaunpur; a dancing bear from the forests of Transylvania and a zebra from the Swahili kingdoms; a peacock from Abyssinia and, in a cage all to itself, a sleepy tiger from Bengal. The animals looked lethargic to Orphan, almost as if they were drugged. The tiger opened one eye when Orphan passed him, looked at him for a short moment and then, as if that exercise was too much for it, closed it again. The bear declined to dance, and crouched on the ground like an elderly fisherman, while the peacock seemed reluctant to spread its plumage to the onlookers, who tried to encourage it by cheering at it and waving their hands in the air, to no avail.

Dotted around the room were the human curiosities. Here, in an alcove with a gas lamp burning on its wall, sat the human whale, a giant male dressed only in loincloth, whose naked flesh rolled and rolled, like waves in a pool, each time he stirred. He had his own crowd of admirers, who came up to him by turns and poked him with their fingers, in order to better see the fat roll from the point of contact and spread outwards across the giant frame.

Here, sitting on long raised chairs like the legs of flamingos (there was one of those birds, too, in the animals' enclosure), were the Scarletti Twins, one smaller than a child and as fat as she was tall, the other towering over six feet up and as thin as a rope. 'They look like a small fat mushroom under a tall and gangly tree, the poor dears!' Orphan heard an excited customer say to her husband, who nodded with obvious satisfaction at his wife's wit.

Here was the Skeleton Dude, a thin, ill-looking man in a tuxedo (hence the name, dude being a Vespuccian slang-term for urbanite), and beside him was the Translucent Man, whose pale skin allowed the observers to examine the circulation of his blood through his arteries and veins. Here, too, was the Fungus Man, whose body sprouted numerous additional appendages, spots and boils (which you could pop at your leisure for a modest sum).

Orphan walked in a daze through this gallery of unfortunates. Everywhere he looked in that wide open space some man or woman stood or sat or – in one instance – floated (the Mermaid, a woman floating inside a large water-tank, whose lower body was made to look like the tail of a fish), some unfortunate soul was displaying an affliction for the amusement and elucidation of the paying public. On and on it went: in a side room he saw a man with no legs and a man with no arms ride a bicycle together; in another, a bearded lady shared a rolled-up cigarette and a cup of tea (apparently on her break) with a woman who had three breasts (and drew an unwanted crowd of male admirers even as she sat there).

Where was Maskelyne?

As he passed a man with bricks on his head – the bricks were being pounded into rubble by a second man with the use of a great sledgehammer – a small figure bounded up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

'Are you Orphan?' this startling person asked.

Recovering from his momentary surprised, Orphan nodded, then said, 'You must be Theo.'

The man who had stopped him was short of stature, and dressed in short, loose-fitting trousers and an open vest that exposed his hairy chest. His arms were equally hairy, as were his legs. His face was dark and deeply grooved, covered in a straggly beard all over that looked like wild-growing weeds. Deep, sorrowful eyes looked up at Orphan from that extraordinary face.

'You can call me Jo Jo,' he said.

END.

The Bookman was released in the UK this fall and will be released in the US in January. Here's more about it from Angry Robot Books (the publisher). Buy it at Amazon.com:

The Bookman

Pictorial Webster's

My friend Kara alerted me to the imminent publication of Pictorial Webster's


I hate to just shill the publisher's pitch, but...

Pictorial Webster's -- Featuring over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster's dictionaries in the 19th century, this chunky volume is an irresistible treasure trove for art lovers, designers, and anyone with an interest in visual history. Meticulously cleaned and restored by fine-press bookmaker Johnny Carrera, the engravings in Pictorial Webster's have been compiled into an alluring and unusual visual reference guide for the modern day. Images range from the entirely mysterious to the classically iconic. From Acorns to Zebras, Bell Jars to Velocipedes, these alphabetically arranged archetypes and curiosities create enigmatic juxtapositions and illustrate the items deemed important to the Victorian mind. Sure to inspire and delight, Pictorial Webster's is at once a fascinating historical record and a stunning jewel of a book.


They are giving away a very fancy leather hand-bound edition, too!


Buy Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities at Amazon (for 34% off -- only $23.10). There's also a Pictorial Webster's Stamp Set and Pictorial Webster's Wall Cards.

Via Junior Society.

The New Traditional

The New Traditional, by Darryl Carter, caught my eye while browsing a local bookstore; I turned a couple of pages and was hooked! (Luckily my in-laws got me a copy for Christmas.) Since then I've seen a number of magazine articles featuring Carter's designs. He even has a line of furniture with Thomasville.


If you were a fan of the "minimalist steampunk" look I posited a while back, this book is for you. Carter takes traditional elements -- high quality floors, antiques, dark wood -- and combines them with light backgrounds and black accents for a traditional minimalist look.


All the magazines mention that Carter is a lawyer turned interior designer with little formal training; I suspect the analytical lawyer mind led to this highly disciplined look.

It looks deceptively easy, but this look requires a lot of careful editing and high quality pieces. I think it would be fun to find just the right set of pieces -- to make it steampunk, focus on Victorian or Gothic furniture (or reproductions), add in a handful of brass accessories, and make or splurge on a standout clock and lighting. I suspect this look could be adaptable to apartment neutrals. A key piece of the look is unadorned neutral upholstery; slipcovers could transform existing pieces. Paint would transform the walls (note: O at Home had the exact color Carter used on a house for them: Tackroom White WW10 by Ralph Lauren) For flooring, I keep picturing cream colored travertine, but a lower budget option could be wood look laminate flooring in a medium or dark tone.


None of Carter's houses have *any* color outside of his very neutral pallete, but you could soften and personalize the look with a small handful of accents -- pillows, rugs, a painting -- in a single color. (Dark reds or navy blues would set off the neutrals, but almost any color could work as long as you were diligent to keep everything either neutral or this color.)

The New Traditional, by Darryl Carter, at Amazon.

Garden of Decay

Garden of Decay is a self published book of industrial decay and abandoned buildings that is captivating.


Be sure to click through for a mosaic of their images (including an abandoned Gothic church...)

Books into Bookshelves

Artist Jim Rosenau uses books as lumber to make, well, bookshelves.


Many are built for pure aesthetic appeal, but some of the best combine books on a theme -- here, a bookshelf for "makers".



Second Editions Bookshelves by Jim Rosenau.

Book Autopsies

Is it obscene to cut up a book to turn it into a work of art? What if the art reflected and expanded on the meaning of the book?


Just a small sample of Brian Dettmer's Book Autopsies.

More examples at the galleries that represent him: Packer Schopf Gallery, MiTO, and Toomey Tourell.

More coverage at Centripetal Notion. Found via Coilhouse.

The Metatemporal Detective

I'm reading one of my Christmas presents, Michael Moorcock's The Metatemporal Detective, which is a lovely mishmash of victorian crime, westerns, the supernatural, sherlockian ambiance, and steampunk. I haven't run across any full fledged interior descriptions (although he does a great job of dropping hints so as to let your imagination fill in the rest), but I thought I would share this particularly steampunk tidbit:

As they climbed the steps of the heavy war-tram and took their places on the mahogany bench seats, the young buckaroo put a manly arm about his wife's shoulders. Soon the vehicle was in motion, racing back across the plains as a second machine collected track behind it, a demonstration of the skill and ingenuity of "Thunderclap" Meadley's famous "Flying Tracklayers," who had done so much for Texas' military reputation.

Yes, it's a bit pulp, and you know my biases towards Texas, but I think you'd find it fun nonetheless.

Steampunkish Design Templates

While I was brainstorming about what to do with my kitchen cabinets, you may have noticed the nice piece of clip art that I'm considering for a stencil. Since I'm not that graphically talented (notice the lovely stock blog template...) I've been looking around for ideas and templates to use for projects.

The best resource I've found, so far, are the Dover Electronic Clip Art CD-ROMs & Books. They come with a coloring book sized book of designs (useful for looking through and dreaming about projects while *not* in front of your computer) and a CD with the designs in 6 different formats (gif, jpg, tif, eps, pct, and bmp). The image quality is high and the designs I was drawn to will be relatively easy to enlarge to the size I need for projects.

I ordered a couple -- one on 293 Art Nouveau Designs and another simply called Old-Fashioned Frames. I considered some of the Victorian ones, but they looked a bit too fussy for DIY projects.

I was disappointed in the Art Nouveau ones -- not they weren't wonderfully Art Nouveau, I'm just not sure I realized quite how *floral* Art Nouveau graphic design was. (The image at the top of this post was one of the better Art Nouveau clips.) Old fashioned frames yielded the best options for the sort of projects I'm thinking about. The nice thing about the old-fashioned frame set in particular was that it has a breadth of types of frames -- Victorian, Art Nouveau, geometric, scrollworks, simple, ornate, etc. Something for everyone and every project that requires framing. I can see some of Mr. von Slatt's Electrolytic Etchings with these designs. Or perhaps you'd use one to incorporate a little bit of steampunk "bling" to your laptop casing.

The images are royalty free, including for web use (up to 10 images per "publication"), so feel to grab the ones I'm using in this post to get you started.


Old-Fashioned Frames CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art) via Amazon.

NeoVictorian before NeoVictorian was Cool

Here at the Steampunk Home, we do not simply recommend home furnishings for your gentle abode. We wish to assist you in bringing a steampunk perspective and value to all of your homemaking endeavors. To this end I would like to introduce you to one Judith Martin. I would consider Miss Martin, in some realms known as Miss Manners, an integral part of the Steampunk home. Mr Brumfield and I own many of her books, and refer to them often when deciding on an appropriate course of action in a particularly sticky situation. (I must admit Mr. Brumfield is decidedly better at this than I am...)

A must for every home? Miss Manners' Guide to Domestic Tranquility: The Authoritative Manual for Every Civilized Household, However Harried.

If you have children (although I read well before I entered the child rearing portion of my life), I would recommend Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children

You can tell, just by the titles, that even if Miss Manners hasn't read a lick of science fiction in her life (although I strongly suspect she has) she would be charmed by the steamier side of steampunk.

100% Steam
50% Punk -- in today's world, having exquisite manners is definitely punk. :)