misosouper, a shopping blog

Think of these lovely drains as incentive to keep your sink from becoming a dish-dumping ground.

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As you read this, Hurricane Fay bears down on my state’s shores. Our power is probably out, and a tree branch has punctured my windshield. (No one was in the car, thank goodness. Who goes out driving in a hurricane anyway?)

You might worry that we’re subsisting on a meager diet of PB&J and Tang. But no. As a veteran of exactly 873,642 hurricanes, I know that when the going gets wet and windy, the wet and windy grill. And with this griddle, our grill transforms into a skillet, so that we can eat bacon, eggs, and home fries for breakfast before we go outside to retrieve the mailbox that has inevitably landed on our front lawn.

When Mr. Misosouper and I married seven years ago, we didn’t register for any “fine” china; I zapped a set of Fiestaware with my gun, and figured that someday, when we had a dining room (at that point, we didn’t even own a kitchen table) and a fully-funded 401k, we’d buy something we really loved, price be damned. (Sidenote: I understand that some wedding guests like to purchase expensive gifts. But asking Cousin Tillie for a $278 pie server? Really?)

That day of reckoning, the day of dedicated dining areas and vested retirement plans, has arrived. I want this set of gloriously bird-flecked china, deep down in my soul. Is it too late to register? Never mind. I suppose we’re on our own for that $1450 gilded teapot.

In our house, we have what’s known as “the wall”: a tall blank space in our library/living room that remains conspicuously free of furniture, books, and pictures, a literal tabula rasa onto which we project our decorating fantasies. Custom bookshelves? A fireplace? Both solutions are doable but permanent; what if we hated them once they were in?

We have settled our own Apartment Therapy Good Question by covering the wall with Algue, a modular, organic installation that can serve as transparent curtain, room divider, or decoration. Our temporary solution looks so good that it just might stick around.

As the hot season winds down, I’m looking for ways to make it last; hanging this gorgeous driftwood mirror in your entry will have you reflecting on oceania all year long.

Fashioned from a stack of tables and lacquered in black, this bookshelf makes your IKEA Billy’s look positively homely.

Like a pagoda for your drinks, bedecked with a handle so your hand’s heat won’t melt the ice.

In these glasses, mint juleps on my back porch just became a religious experience.

While I’m loving the pre-fab Ikea birchness of this faux deer, I’m also wondering how it would look spray-painted black. Or cerulean blue.

At Casa Misosouper, our guestroom displays our collection of vintage signs and modern proverbs. (We’re bossy like that.) They range from the ridiculous (a poster from the ’50s featuring a cowboy that proclaims, “The Louder You Are Tonight, The Quieter You’ll Be Tomorrow!) to the sublime (”It’s Nice To Be Nice.” So, so true). Nikki McClure’s gentle sensibility–ironically carved with an X-Acto knife–adds peace to the proceedings.

Cardboard furniture? Eh…not so much. As much as I embrace the innovation of modern design, these pieces are a bit too, um, scratchy toilet paper for my taste.

Cardboard vases that are appealingly Slinky-esque? Now that is a trend I can get behind.