sarah friedlander

Imperfect perfectionist living life to its fullest.

  1. Custom, Modern Furniture in Chile: IKEA Hemnes Bookshelf (Hack) + Kitchen Shelf

    I wrote a post at the beginning of February called Interior Design in Chile & IKEA Hemnes Shoe Cabinet (Hack).  I’m still blown away by its popularity and the amount of people that continually write to me and ask for contact information for my maestro (the man that makes my furniture).  If you do want his information just fill out my contact form!

    At the end of May I finally organized myself enough to ship all of my possessions from the US to Chile.  The goal I had in mind was to consolidate my life in one place.  My apartment in Santiago is not large by any means and shipping a full palette of items simply was not going to fit.  A lot of the things that were shipped went into my storage shed in my apartments’ garage (think music books and Christmas decorations) but a lot of items (favorite books, music boxes and of course my beloved kitchen pots & pans) needed a new home.

    Once again I enlisted my incredible maestro, Miguel to help create the furniture.  My plan was to have all of the furniture built and installed before my palette from the US got to Chile so I would have space to organize and put everything away.  June and July seemed like a whirlwind.  Between designing the furniture, installing it, going to France and Greece for vacation, and work it didn’t feel like a long wait for all my “things” to finally make it down south!

    I had Miguel create two items for me: (1) bedroom Bookshelf and (2) extra kitchen storage shelf.

    Bedroom Bookshelf
    The first item was a very slim bookshelf.  I wanted something across from my bed that could hold a few picture frames and then store books, knick knacks, CDs and DVDs.  Apartments in Santiago are not large so I needed the bookshelf to be super thin.  I ended up making it 8 inches (20.32 cm) and a little bit shorter in length than the bed frame.  It matches perfectly with the bed frame and I love being able to look at the artwork on top of the bookshelf from my bed..


    The IKEA Hemnes Sofa table in black-brown mixed with the Pottery Barn Chloe Console table were my inspiration pieces.  I loved the slimness of the Chloe table and the lines of the Hemnes table.  With photos of these two pieces, precise measurements and a few quick sketches I got my dream bookshelf.


    Here are two pictures (above and below) of the bookshelf showing the contents + design.  I love how it turned out and how much I can fit on the shelves.

    Kitchen Storage Shelf
    My kitchen is setup so that technically you could fit two stools on each side of the counter.  I opted awhile ago to buy only two stools and on the inner part of the counter use it for storage space (Aidan’s food storage, food and water bowl, garbage can, step stool).  With all of the additional pots and pans arriving from the US I wanted something that would match the wood color of the kitchen and not look like an additional piece of furniture.  I also needed a shelf that didn’t have to be nailed into the wall – I am a renter!  Miguel was great at matching the color exactly – I’ve had many people think it is part of the kitchen (and not an afterthought).


    The shelf in all its glory.  The color matches perfectly and I think its actually pretty cool to showcase off the Le Creuset and KitchenAid Mixer.  I also love how much the shelf looks like it came with the apartment as opposed to being an addition created by the renter.


    Shelf side view – kitchen porn!

    ~

    As always Miguel’s furniture is solid, looks great and is extremely well priced.  Living in Santiago and are dying for some IKEA or modern inspired furniture?  It’s not impossible if you have a great maestro!

  2. Interior Decorating Geekdom: Amazed by HOMY’s New Product Offerings

    I haven’t been back into HOMY (think designer IKEA) on the 4th floor of Homecenter in Parque Arauco in probably 5-6 months.  I happened to go in today, not figuring much had changed and I was blown away.  While I know this is only a reflection of life in the “barrios altos” I really do feel Chile is pushing itself in terms of bringing in stylish options to the interior decorating spectrum.  The prices at HOMY still aren’t competitive with IKEA but overall it didn’t seem that bad – I saw some of the pretty large picture frames retailing for ~$10 USD which is what I would pay at Target in the US.  A lot of newer furniture and ornaments I saw had a very Pier 1 Imports meets Crate and Barrel meets IKEA feel.  I dig it.

    Here’s some pictures from the store – if you had been their prior I think you can appreciate the large selection of awesome.

    Enjoy!

     

    (To the uninitiated or people who live outside of Chile you may be thinking – Why are you taking photos of a large selection of pretty home products?  While I love living in Chile, it has always felt that there are a small amount of stores that offer great interior decorating products.  It’s great to see stores realize that it helps to have a large variety of offerings to help encourage personal style and taste so that every single apartment I visit doesn’t look/feel the same.) HOMY is definitely doing this and its great (at times) to set foot in a store that makes me forget I live in Chile and feel like I have the same offerings as I would in the US.


    Even though I really don’t need more coffee mugs these were too cute not to buy with the built-in spoon.  I bought two of the smaller ones in red (not pictured are the same style mugs, but twice the size and much taller).


    More picture frames than I’ve ever seen in my life!


    Vases and other pretty colored things.


    Candles galore!


    So many different kind of basket and pillow varieties.


    Art, whiteboards, clocks – so many cool designer finishing touches.


    Light gallery – this picture came out pretty awful but it was actually a really cool setup with a lot of options.


    Pillows!


    Just like IKEA – they now have an as-is section.  Love!

     

  3. Reupholstery Project Progress Report


    (Of course Aidan needed to help out/supervise)

    I’ve been dream/thinking about doing a reupholstery project for a few years. It seemed easy enough – just ripping off some fabric and putting on something new.

    I went this past Sunday to the antique section of Persa Bio Bio. It was dusty and dirty and I felt completely out of place being both a girl and a foreigner, but nevertheless found a chair that was worth of a redesign.

    I really like this chair because of its curved lines and decor. I’m hoping that it can eventually replace my computer chair. While I love the chair I use for my desk I would like something a little “prettier” since my office is really just a corner of my bedroom.

    I’ve spent the last few days working on the chair, pulling up lots of staples from the fabric and then the foam. Next step will be to sand it down, add wood putty and add a chocolate brown polish.

    I then plan on picking up some IKEA fabric this weekend to cover it with. I’ve posted quite a few photos to Flickr with progress – enjoy!

  4. Opiniones sobre IKEA en Chile

    Oh noes!  A full blog post in Spanish without translations.  I feel like everytime I write in Spanish and have to convert it to English it loses a lot of the emotions/sentiments and ends up sounding very bland.  I wrote this blog post specifically for the Spanish speaking population of Chile so I’m going to leave it untranslated.  If you are dying to read it you can click here to to auto-convert to English.  Enjoy!

    He estado escribiendo sobre IKEA en mi blog pero solamente en inglés.  Dos semanas atrás instalé un sistema de estadísticas dentro de WordPress para obtener mas información sobre la gente que visita mi sitio web.

    Lo más interesante para mí es que encontré mucha gente que llegó a mi blog a través del tag “IKEA en Chile”. Específicamente habían varias búsquedas sobre el hecho que no hay IKEA en Chile.  Después me di cuenta que a la gente le gustaría la idea de comprar muebles  al estilo de IKEA en Chile.  Pero la pregunta es, ¿dónde?

    Primero, nunca habrá un IKEA en Chile.  Homecenter tiene un acuerdo con IKEA para hacer cosas en el mismo estilo y para tener el mismo tipo de tienda en HOMY el 4º nivel de Homecenter al lado de Mall Parque Arauco.  Pero realmente no es lo mismo – HOMY tiene una selección súper pequeña y el precio para cada mueble es mucho más caro que IKEA en todo del mundo.  Es interesante porque Homecenter ha hecho de HOMY una tienda de lujo en vez de una de estilo más barato, como es originalmente la propuesta de IKEA.

    Creo que a las personas les gusta IKEA por tres razones: Su estilo, la calidad de sus productos y también su precio. En Chile normalmente cuesta encontrar muebles que tengan un diseño moderno, de buenas terminaciones, que refleje la personalidad de las personas que los compran, pero a un precio tan barato como IKEA.  Sin embargo, lo que yo he visto, y lo que han visto algunas personas que conozco, la relación de precio a calidad/diseño no es para nada satisfactoria.

    Claro existen tiendas que venden muebles con un diseño incluso minimalista,  pero sus precios hacen inalcanzables para cualquier persona con un salario promedio, haciendo del diseño y el estilo un beneficio solo al alcance de algunos.

    Otro punto importante es que al chileno promedio en realidad no le importan tanto los temas de diseño de muebles. Es aquí en donde la influencia de IKEA puede marcar la diferencia, desde el punto de vista de su línea de muebles que reflejan el concepto de familias y personas alrededor al mundo. Es tal el grado de innovación que plantean en sus productos que existen personas que esperan con ansias cada año su nuevo catalogo para pensar nuevos diseños en sus hogares.

    Entonces, ¿qué necesitas hacer si estas fascinado con IKEA pero vivir en Chile?  En Chile es súper simple – ¡encuentra un maestro!  Muebles hechos a medida es muy asequible en Chile debido al bajo costo de la madera.  Yo tengo un maestro increíble que ha hecho todos mis muebles con el diseño de IKEA.

    1. Primero uso el sitio web de IKEA para encontrar que tipo de muebles me gustaría tener.
    2. Visito la pagina de IKEA para encontrar instrucciones para armar el mueble , para luego imprimírsela al maestro.
    3. El maestro puede usar las instrucciones para construir los muebles.

    Me siento muy afortunada de vivir en un país donde yo puedo crear muebles a medida.  Al fin es más pega para hacer muebles a medida pero en mi opinión el resultado es mejor:  Tengo muebles hechos perfectamente con dimensiones perfectas, colores y la mejor calidad.

  5. HOMY (IKEA in Chile)’s Website


    It seems like HOMY (which is a subdivision of Sodimac/Homecenter) is always redoing their website. As long as HOMY is around and Sodimac has the rights to the IKEA look and feel in Chile there will never be a true IKEA here. However, I wouldn’t mind if they would update their website a little more frequently.

    A few months ago they had a website with items that you could browse through, but now they have taken it down and are back to the renovation process. I’m hoping at the very least this signifies new items for the start of fall in the southern hemisphere.

  6. Previous