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alteredbloom

@alteredbloom

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An interiors publication for people who live with old things.
Worth the Hunt: the best estate sales, auctions, and antique shows, free Thursdays.

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Last Saturday morning at the @johnmoran_auctioneers preview in Monrovia, very much my kind of room. A music box with its tune list inside the lid. A tall carved clock. A harp with a gilded column, set against a floral screen. And a mahogany cabinet with a violin and a piano behind the glass, the piece I wrote about in this week’s Worth the Hunt.

Link in bio.

#antiques #antiquecollector #auctionpreview #mechanicalmusic #losangelesantiques Title card reading Worth the Hunt from Altered Bloom, John Moran Auctioneers, Monrovia, California, over an auction preview room with a carved lion-leg table holding silver trays, a pair of cloisonné cranes, a music box, a grand piano, and a painting of a woman in a dark dress on a forest path. taken in John Moran Auctioneers Inc. by @alteredbloom

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a day ago

This floor stopped me mid step. Sorelle, Charleston, and a pattern that does more work than most entire rooms. Black and white marble floor at Sorelle in Charleston laid in an interlocking geometric pattern taken in Sorelle Charleston by @alteredbloom

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3 months ago

A side table with a brass floral base. A painting of two figures caught at dusk. A bottle that sat on the same shelf before I was born.

Each one carries more memories than I expected.

The full essay is live on The Journal. Link in bio. Antique brass side table and green velvet chair with title card reading A Room That No Longer Exists, Altered Bloom Journal taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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3 months ago

Beaded fringe lamp, a small portrait, and a brass bird bowl in low light against the deep brown-gray of Sherwin-Williams Sealskin. It’s the corner I look at last, right before I turn everything else off. Beaded fringe lamp with an amber glass shade beside a framed portrait print and a brass bird bowl taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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22 days ago

Two lights on. The brass sconce and the little lamp on the shelf, and everything else goes dark against the deep brown-gray of Sherwin-Williams Sealskin. I notice the cameo first, then the frames, one at a time.

Altered Bloom. Link in bio. Brass sconce and a small lamp lit over a dark shelf with gilt frames and books on a Sealskin wall taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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25 days ago

Two golds that do not match and a third frame in the back that is doing its own thing entirely. This is what an afternoon of sourcing actually looks like. More from that afternoon is up in the Journal. Link in bio.

#AlteredBloom #GalleryWall #AntiqueFrames #VintageDecor #GiltMirror Two antique gilt mirror frames of contrasting scale hanging edge to edge, with a darker carved frame visible below taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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a month ago

I don’t smoke. I’ve never wanted an ashtray in my house for its intended purpose.

But I found two, a Streamline Moderne piece with stepped copper ridges, and a pair of brass birds on green onyx, and neither one made it home for what it was built to do.

Now I see ashtrays everywhere.

Full story on the Journal, link in bio. Streamline Moderne copper ashtray beside brass birds on a green onyx ashtray base taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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a month ago

Brass against warm plaster, lit from the inside. Some fixtures were just built to be looked at, not just used.

#AlteredBloom #BrassLantern #VintageLighting #AntiqueFinds #MoodyDecor Brass wall lantern with beveled glass panels and a lit bulb, mounted on a coral stucco wall taken in Charleston, South Carolina by @alteredbloom

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a month ago

I went looking for one very specific piece. Black lacquer, hard angles, the kind of postmodern glam I used to catch in late 80s movies. Instead I found two unrelated objects, an hour apart, that had nothing to do with each other until they did.

Full story on the Journal, link in bio.

#blacklacquer #postmodernglam #darkmaximalism #vintagedecor #80sdecor taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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a month ago

Before this typewriter went near the desk, I checked the hinges, the drop front, and the supports underneath it. A heavy old machine isn’t where you want to find out something’s loosened.

Full sourcing notes on building a dark academia home office, up on the Journal, link in bio. taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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2 months ago

Once the wood, metal, and wall color are doing their job, the temptation is to keep adding more of the same. What actually keeps a dark room like this from turning severe are things like velvet against carved wood, not another hard surface.

More on building a dark academia home office over on the Journal, link in bio.

#darkacademia #antiquechair #velvetupholstery #carvedwoodfurniture #darkacademiahomeoffice Detail of a carved wood wingback chair's scrollwork arm and red velvet upholstery, with an antique secretary desk in the background taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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2 months ago

An L.C. Smith that’s been with me for two decades now. I don’t know exactly where I first found it, only that I’ve always been drawn to old things people used to make things with, and to the letters that might have come out of a machine like this one.

It’s centered on the secretary desk in a new dark academia home office piece up on the Journal now, link in bio.

#darkacademia #darkacademiaaesthetic #vintagetypewriter #antiquesecretarydesk Vintage L.C. Smith typewriter centered on an antique secretary desk with a wood-cased clock in the background taken in Los Angeles, California by @alteredbloom

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2 months ago