Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Rock-A-Bye Baby


Years ago, I told Coco that if we had a baby, I would buy her an Eames Fiberglass Rocker. Well we've reached that point. I sold my last Eames Aluminum Group Chair to basically trade this fellar off of eBay. I couldn't drop the $1500-2000 on an original 50's complete rocker. So I bought a clean, mid-50's O.G. Herman Miller armshell chair, and a new, reproduction rocker base. The elephant gray goes nicely with the black wire and birch runners. Coco's happy with it.

Back when I promised that I'd get her one of these, I didn't realize that the Herman Miller Company hadn't produce the rocker for a few decades. They had stopped producing them in the late 50's. During this time, they were only given to Herman Miller employees as maternity presents. That explains the rarity of an original, complete rocker. They've just reissued the RAR rocker, but now they use a more environmentally-friendly, plastic-based shell. I understand the switch, but the fiberglass swirls in the vintage chairs just look so nice.

I could get into an entire essay on the husband and wife design team of Charles and Ray Eames (Duane got into it a bit on his blog). Their synergy, versatilty, and style is almost unmatched in my eyes.


Here is a little update on how the living room is coming around. The rocker will eventually go in the kiddo's room. We need a little paint, and a big canvas or hanging on that back wall. Crown molding would be nice too. We'll be getting much needed windows within two months. In fact, we just put in the order yesterday. As part of the installation, we're going to convert/expand the window in the record room. It's gonna be sweet when that's done.

Thanks for listening. I've put Coco to sleep!

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