Arhaus Furniture, known for handcrafted home furnishings, will open its first South Florida store Sept. 22 in Palm Beach
Gardens. The 16,000-square-foot store in the Legacy Place lifestyle center, features antique and contemporary home furnishings in eclectic room settings.
Anne Houdek, company spokeswoman, says the Palm Beach Gardens site was selected because of the success of the Naples store, which opened in 2003.
Don’t be fooled by the latest Arhaus catalog, which features a sofa with a washable white slipcover. Arhaus may look like a Pottery Barn clone, but the resemblance stops there. The Arhaus product development team travels around the world looking for craftspeople and artisans to create items that include hand-laid mosaics, hand-sculptured wood carvings and hand-forged copper. For example, the team found coppersmiths in a village in the mountains of central Mexico who hand-hammer recycled copper more than 3,500 times on each table.
The company’s manufacturing is also politically correct. Many of the materials are recycled, such as copper, cast-aluminum and glass. Antiques are refurnished and salvaged. No wood is used from endangered forests. And mattress materials are 100 percent organic. Prices range from very reasonable ($179 for a ginger table lamp) to upper end ($8,299 for the Brentwood leather sectional on sale; regular price is $11,397).
One of the most original is a reproduction of an antique computer desk inspired by a 19th century piece found in China. This limited-edition desk, made of elm wood, is stained in a warm honey color ($499 on sale; regular price is $879).
The store is located at 11375 Legacy Ave. To get there, take I-95 north and go east on the PGA Boulevard exit (No. 79). Turn right onto Fairchild Gardens. Legacy Place is about a quarter of a mile on the right adjacent to The Gardens Mall.
For more information, see www.arhaus.com.
If you’re a fan of Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Martin or St. Barths, you’re going to love French Island Elegance (Abrams, $40) by Michael Connors.
Connors once again has teamed with the talented photographer Bruce Buck to produce a beautiful ode to the islands. Previous books include Cuban Elegance and Caribbean Elegance. Like the others in the series, French Island Elegance appeals on two levels — to the serious student, who is interested in the history and perspective that West Indies’ scholar Connors offers, and to the home decorator who seeks inspiration from the 160 photographs.
The book takes you inside places tourists rarely see — homes that reflect the opulent furnishings of the French Creole aristocracy of the sugar, cotton and tobacco barons of the Colonial period.
It’s filled with ideas you can steal, such as using plantation shutters with a fluted trim surround to add architectural interest to an opening between rooms. Another interesting treatment is the Louis XV-style chairs upholstered in white sailcloth that are hand-painted with tropical scenes. The painting softens what could be stuffy formality of the Louis style.
Connors began research for the book a decade ago when he learned that the French decorative arts had been largely ignored by other scholars.
“The importance of the contributions of French West Indian craftsmen to the social and economic history of the French islands, and to the decorative arts in the Caribbean and in France, has only begun to be recognized,” Connors writes.
We agree that there is plenty that deserves recognition. His book is a great beginning.
Anyone who loves decorating has gotta have a good glue gun.
My glue gun, purchased at a craft store many years ago, has toppled over, burnt my fingers and made a mess with glue that dripped in the stand and my work surface. Not a good thing.
If your glue gun is also ready for an update, check out the Dremel 1200. I put it through the paces last weekend, gluing jewelry, reattaching the handle on a purse and wrapping a present for a good friend.
The Dremel rated four stars on all my projects. It has a powerful 120 volts/80 watts compared to the old glue gun’s 120 volts/10 watts. A sturdy, built-in stand keeps it stable. There’s an on/off switch as well as a light indicator. Red shows it’s on and a green light lets you know it’s ready to use. Other assets include a blue silicon safety sleeve that protects fingers from getting burnt and an anti-drip trigger that cuts off the flow of glue into the channel. I love that it comes with three different nozzles, ranging from a fine-point tip for fine lines to a spreader tip for a wider strip of glue.
It took two glue sticks to get the glue flowing as the directions indicated. Then it worked perfectly.
The price ($24.99) is more than twice what I paid for my old glue gun, but it’s worth the extra money for safety and ease of use. And, unlike the cheap version, it comes with six glue sticks. You can find it at hardware and home improvement centers.
Write Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub, Home & Garden Editor at: Sun-Sentinel, 200 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale 33301 or e-mail her at cschaub@sun-sentinel.com.
