Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn: The Decor That Will Make You More Intriguing

Linda Vernon The Daily Routine , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome Dear Readers! Happy Friday! Well after a long week of slaving over a hot keyboard, this blog is taking the day off, and is serving up this archived Pottery Barn post for your viewing pleasure! Have a great Friday! See you tomorrow!

Dear Readers!  The new Pottery Barn Catalog just arrived and not a moment too soon!  For you see, in this issue of The Catalog, Pottery Barn finally provides solutions to how we, as boring, ordinary citizens, can become more intriguing!

“Your Home Tells the Intriguing Story of who you are, where you’ve been and what inspires you most.” — Pottery Barn Catalog August 2012

What Pottery Barn means by this is that your home WILL tell an intriguing story of how intriguing you are IF you purchase fake-intriguing-story-about-you decor from Pottery Barn.

Frankly, PB suspects you’re not all that intriguing which is why Pottery Barn has taken the liberty of punching up your life through the use of decor that implies you are all that and a bag of potato chips. Let’s look as some examples, shall we?

The intriguing story this Pottery Barn wall decor says about you is:

  You don’t quite understand about the alphabet. 

Oh sure we all learned our ABC’s . . . except for you.  Why?  Because you were too busy helping Pottery Barn’s “Grams.”

Pottery Barn White Board ($56) where Grams makes her first appearance in the Pottery Barn Catalog
Pottery Barn’s White Board ($56) featuring “Grams”

For you see, you were always hunting for truffles at Martha’s Vineyard with your beloved Pottery Barn Grams and therefore; you never attended school with all the other “saps” which means you can’t read or write. So now you obsessively nail gigantic wooden letters to your walls.  So what? That’s not weird, it’s intriguing!

The intriguing story this Pottery Barn vignette says about you is:

You’re favorite snack is honey and shredded Parmesan cheese.

Ah! Nothing quenches the thirst and eases the hunger pangs quite like a refreshing jar of honey and a big ol’ heaping bowl of shredded Parmesan cheese after a long day of helping Grams frantically dig for truffles at Martha’s Vineyard in the backyard estates of the rich and famous before they come home.

You and Grams prefer a snack that sticks to your ribs, your fingers as well as your Pottery Barn Vintage Printer’s Customizable Cabinet!  Oh sure, let people roll their eyes at how messy you are!  That’s the difference between them and you.  They’re stupid, and YOU’RE INTRIGUING!

The  intriguing story this Pottery Barn Blackboard says about you is:

Your grandmother is a drug dealer.

If you look closely at this blackboard, you will see that somebody has written “EMPTY Da Da Da Da.”  and  “Do EMPTY 4” 

And you know you didn’t write it because you are too intriguing to know how to read and write.  Could it have been Grams?

Wait a minute why are the police leading Grams out to that police car?

What? All those truffles Grams was digging up (and sampling) turned out to be hallucinogenic mushrooms which she apparently was selling to earn money to purchase intriguing-story-about-you decor from Pottery Barn?

Ha ha!  That Grams!  While most grandmothers are sitting at home in their rocker knitting sweaters, reading  Reader’s Digest and clipping coupons, YOUR Grams is trading cigarettes, working out and filing appeals!

And if that doesn’t make YOU intriguing, Pottery Barn doesn’t know what does!

Until next time . . . I love you

It’s Time to Take the 2013 Cockamamie Pledge

Linda Vernon Blogging , , , ,

Hello Dear Readers and welcome to the brand spanking new year of 2013!  Can you believe how lucky we are getting to spend all our time in a future that only yesterday was nothing but a gleam in the calendar’s eye?

Here are some of the things My Brain Peanuts is just finding out it has planned for the new year:

Taking All the Stops Out and Going For the Certificate!

This year this blog is going to shoot for a perfect attendance award.  My goal is to write every day of the year.  (And so far so good!)

When I run out of ideas on January 2, I plan to incorporate some daily prompts from this book:

Write Every Day, A Year of Daily Writing Prompts
Warning: It  doesn’t have much of a plot.

A Thorough Going Over

I also plan to spruce up the appearance this blog by fooling around with some chemicals and other explosives in the WordPress Dashboard.  (If this blog suddenly disappears or if I suddenly disappear, be a lamb and give my regards to Broadway.)

And Now Dear Readers, it’s time to take:

The 2013 Cockamamie Pledge 

Raise your right hand, or whatever’s handy, and repeat after me:

I, insert your name here, do solemnly swear on a stack of vintage cookbooks, that I promise to never take anything I read on this blog as the gospel even if it claims to be the gospel as in The Bible According to Gregory.

Gregory

Gregory from bible stories according to Gregory
Poor kid’s a little mixed up.

I, insert your name here, do solemnly swear that I will never shop at Pottery Barn unless accidentally transported by a hurricane to the PB cashier counter along with a thousand dollar bills and, in the confusion, accidentally pay for a set of $999 wooden salad tongs hewn from Pottery Barn sustainable forest trees.

wooden salad tongs from Pottery Barn
Pottery Barn wooden Tongs accidentally purchased during a hurricane. Whops!  Well at least they’re sustainable!

I, insert your name here, promise to believe with all my heart and soul that Al Gore invented the internet and that he is hopelessly addicted to Funyuns.

Our Beloved Al

Al Gore holding Funyungs
“I, Al Gore, am comprised mainly of Funyuns, yet I still managed to invent the internet!”

I, insert your name here, promise to suspend my disbelief while reading all stories on this blog no matter how ridiculous the scenario, how preposterous the character’s names and how hastily and horribly they are drawn.

Carlotta Con Carnie

Carlotta Con Carnie Linda Vernon humor
Just ignore the horses.

I, insert your name here, promise never to attempt to eat any foods featured on this blog from old cookbooks found at the thrift store under penalty of death by gagging.

Stay Away From the Gagaliciousness

inedible pie Linda Vernon Humor
“Careful! She’s gonna blow!”

I, insert your name here, promise to dedicate a few seconds this year to helping out with this blogs continuing effort of Trying to Cheer Up Edgar Allan Poe.

Eddy

"Once upon a midnight dreary yadda yadda yadda . . ."
“Who cares if it’s 2013, Midnight’s still gonna be dreary!”

I, insert your name here, promise not to aggravate The Drawing Lady while she’s trying to teach us how to draw, no matter how tempted I, insert your name here, am.

The Drawing Lady

The Drawing Lady, Linda Vernon Humor
“Don’t make me jump out the window!”

I, insert your name here, promise not to notice any typos or misspellings and the fact that this blog has absolutely no idea what it is talking about so help me, insert your name here.

Thank you so much Dear Readers for taking The 2013 Cockamamie Pledge! And I promise I won’t hold you to it . . . much!

Wishing All of You the Best Possible 2013!! (even Al Gore and Pottery Barn)

Until next time . . . I love you

More Pottery Barn Razing

Linda Vernon Pottery Barn , , ,

Well, look what our beloved Pottery Barn has dreamed up this time?

 Obviously this is a topic that is near and dear to PB’s heart as they so tear-jerkingly expressed in their heartfelt catalog copy:

“Our deep admiration for the honeybee and sympathy for its mysterious plight gave us an idea . . . “

An idea for a new way to make money, that is!

Hence we are presented with Pottery Barn’s “Things That Fly Dinnerware.”

Uh. . . excuse me, PB, but aren’t “things that fly” exactly the kinds of things we are trying to keep OFF our dinnerware?  Well, whatever, we’ll take your word for it . . . for now.

Pottery Barn says the Things That Fly Dinnerware has plates that are “debossed.” Debossed?  Must PB make us look everything up in the dictionary?  Apparently so . . . sigh.

debossed [dē′bȯst] (graphic arts) Having a depressed pattern on the surface of a material.  

Now is this really a good thing Pottery Barn?  I mean, won’t it make your oh so Hoity Toity Honeybee Brunch kind of annoying since you are obviously pushing honey, honey and more honey? I’m sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but all that honey is just going to pool in the depressions of the debossed “Things That Fly Dinnerware” plates and then it’s going to be a pretty sticky situation from thereon in.

For instance, I see two bottles of honey on the table as it is and there are probably more in the back room where PB has hundreds of hives of honeybees working round the clock every day of the year cranking out honey for Pottery Barn catalog vignettes (mysterious “plight”, my foot!)

Hey bub! I was supposed to get my break an hour ago!

Anyway, so you know there’s going to be heaping helpings of honey on hand. 

But what else is there going to be to eat at this so-called Honey Brunch?  Well, it looks like there will be some really pretty fruit in a dish called Wanda.

Just kidding.  Its official PB catalog name is “Flower Footed Fruit Bowl.”  What a tragically forfeited opportunity for PB when they could have called it a Flower Footed Fruit Bowl with a Floy Floy.   But PB is much too young to know about such references.  In fact, I think I hear Pottery Barn’s Mother calling right now. . . if I’m not mistaken (and I doubt that I am).

Then, of course, there’s going to be a piece of bread lavishly slathered with pomegranate margarine, it looks like anyway,  along with some other types of breads that apparently can’t be trusted to be out on the table without proper confinement.  After all, this Honey Brunch has to have bread so that it can absorb all the honey stuck in the debossed depressions of the “Things That Fly Dinnerware” plates.

John Barleycorn et al

And lastly but not leastly, PB has provided a plethora of choices in which to drown one’s Pottery Barn annoyances with this charming big bucket o’ booze priced at $129. (Booze, ice and fake sunshine not included).

And notice there’s a small bucket too, priced at just $19 for that special someone who prefers drinking alone.  And since the grand total for the “Things That Fly Dinnerware” comes to well over $600 for the silliest reason for a brunch that ever was — that special someone will probably be the host.

Until next time . . . I love you

Pottery Barn Presents: (part 2)

Linda Vernon Pottery Barn , , ,
If you feel like sneezing just use the hanky pinned to this bulletin board

Leave it to PB to come up with this idea.  You see, this isn’t just your ordinary bulletin board that you could buy at, say, anywhere for $15. 

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! (For more no’s see page 378)

Apparently PB has to tell us everything . . . sigh . . .  For this is not –as first suggested– an ordinary bulletin board but rather PB informs us is, in fact, a:

LARGE LINEN PINBOARD

You see, Pottery Barn has cunningly pasted some tan material . . . oops what am I saying?  I mean “stone colored linen” to whisk away the harsh, bourgeois-look of the K-Mart y corkboard from the style-sensitive eyes of the discerning PB Customer and/or Catalog Browseree.   

Just in case you’re not impressed enough already, PB tells us very clearly ( practically in baby talk really) just exactly how this LARGE LINEN PINBOARD will make our lives more worth living by going on to say this:

“Stone-colored linen provides a generous neutral backdrop for displaying photos and notes.”

And since PB is already feeling generous, they also want us to know that they are throwing in 20 metal pushpins.  Yes, you read that correctly.

20!    Metal!   Pushpins!    Come with!

And the price tag for aaaaallllllllll this? (to see the word “all” stretched out to even more  ridiculous proportions see page 379) they are only asking  . . .

$149 lousy little dollars.   Mm-hmm . . . that’s right! Only $7.45 per pushpin. 

Which really isn’t that much when you think about what you’re not getting.

P.S.

PB wants us to please be advised that we can only purchase the LARGE LINEN PINBOARD by ordering it online or through the catalog so that PB won’t be so ashamed of itself were someone to actually pay $149 for a $15 bulletin board in person.  It just gets awkward, that’s all.

Until next time . . . I love you

Pottery Barn Presents: (part 1)

Linda Vernon Pottery Barn , , , ,

The Andover Collection (and over it you hang your TV)

So Pottery Barn is proud to present this huge block of wood with lots and lots and lots of drawers.

 But wait!  PB tells us these are not drawers.  They are component cubbies!

In case you are wondering what a component is don’t worry, I’m married to an engineer. 

And he tells me that a component is a piece of or a part of something.

So then this is a chest full of cubbies for pieces of or parts of something.

Why don’t we just skip all that and store the scissors in there.  So go ahead and put them in one of the cubbies.  Go ahead, pick one.  We don’t have all day.  Ok, there you go!  Now go bake a cake and come back later but don’t make a mess.

But before you go, know this.  The Andover Collection of furniture is and I quote, “like well traveled [dude]”.   

This furniture has been “painted and repainted over time.”  Yes you got that right “over time!” Do you know what that means?

It means Pottery Barn is utilizing the fourth dimension to enhance the beauty of their cubbies.

So, of course, you will be asked to pay a little more than your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, three-dimensional cubbies (if you can even call them that).

And just in case you’re not reaching for your ATM Card, PB needs you to understand that this particular Andover Collection of 40 drawers . . . uh I mean cubbies . . . have been painted and sanded and burnished by hand with a “rich espresso finish.” 

Do you have any conception how many coffee breaks had to go awry to get that finish?  Well, don’t even think about it.  It will only make you thirsty.

Now Pottery Barn wants you to go sit down for this next piece of or part of component of information (but don’t get anything dirty).

It’s on sale!

It was $1,398, but now it’s $1299 which is supposed to sound like it’s $100 off but not exactly because it’s only $99.00 off.

But what difference does one lousy buck make you ask?  PB can’t believe you have the audacity to ask such a thing.

Rest assured it makes a bigger difference to Pottery Barn than it does to you because PB is respected for their ability to come up with:   A Comfortable Style– A Design Guide for Casual Living!  And you, my friend, are not.

Now go get your stupid scissors and get out!  PB is sick of the sight of you.  And never darken Pottery Barn’s door again — not even with what’s left of that no doubt inferior espresso you’re drinking.

Until next time . . . I love you (sort of)

Pottery Barn

Linda Vernon Pottery Barn , , ,

I’ve never bought anything from the Pottery Barn but somehow I get their catalogs in the mail anyway.   Here are some of the Pottery Barn offerings:

Bowl of rolls
Twenty Bucks for the tongs and Forty bucks for the bowl. But it's sustainable!

At first glance this blackboard seems to be trying a little too hard, decoratively speaking.  However, when you study it for a minute you will be much more impressed.  You see, this is a blackboard that is actually a huge wine shopping list and attached to it are metal bottle holders to hold the bottles of wine that correspond to the list on the blackboard. Pottery Barn calls this the Wine Tasting Library.  As you can see, someone has  polished  scratched off several bottles in no particular order.  Genius!  Your hunt for the perfect gift for that near-sighted wino in your life?  Solved! It doesn’t say how much it costs.  Who cares!  Live! Love! Swill!

Oh, and notice on the table that Pottery Barn already has those roll bowl sustainable trees started. That Pottery Barn always thinkin’ ahead!!

Pottery Barn's stylishly messy storage solutions.

See that bookcase that’s holding up all the books that are turned the wrong way so you can’t read any of the titles?  It costs $2,199. The description in the catalog insists it’s well worth it because “it stands more than 6 feet high” (much better than that short, fat and bald bookcase you’ve got now) and “it has a natural weathered finish that accentuates each whorl and knot” (providing you don’t cover them up by storing stuff in it) and “the bookcase’s four fixed shelves are generously sized to hold everything from books to baskets” (baskets full of nonsense, lies and exaggerations, that is).

Until next time . . . I love you