Industrial Cottage

What is that, you say? That's the corner of a table, formerly an iron gate that my talented friend Paula had made into a table. How cool, right? I mentioned Paula the other day in my flea market post and wanted to tell you more about her. I was trying to think of how I would describe her style, but I couldn't think of just the right words. In terms of textiles, I thought her style might be described as equal parts linen, leather, and shag. Her style is clean, classic, and modern. But then I thought about how much of her work incorporates so many architectural elements and decided my textile analogy was too narrow--could I add iron and steel to the textile group? So I asked Paula to describe her style. "Industrial cottage" were the words she used to describe her style, and before my eyes finished reading the words in an email she wrote to me, I thought, that's exactly her style! Paula spends most of her days living in her Cape May, New Jersey cottage, but she also spends time in Atlanta, Georgia where she has a beautiful downtown loft. She's a construction consultant and interior designer, and let me tell you, she has a good eye, which also happens to be the name of her business. (Below are a few pictures from her loft.)

One afternoon, after Paula and my mom spent the day together hunting for treasures, my mom said to me on the phone, "Paula has such a good eye!" In her excitement I think my mom said this a few times actually. It was only after she finished talking about their day that I told her that "a good eye" was what Paula had recently decided to call her business. My mom just didn't know that at the time, but she thought it was a perfect name for her business.


Where most people might see a pile of mechanical, nautical, or architectural junk, Paula sees potential lamps, tables, containers, mirrors . . . and turns them into just that. Like the mirror above the bed in her loft--it used to be a victorian bathtub. And look at all these amazing lamps she's designed, all re-purposed from their original use. The lamp bases are drugstore soda fountain stool bases, zinc fragments off of a building in Philadelphia, and antique shoe shine stands. The lamps range from $195 each to $795 a pair.





Her Cape May cottage especially reflects her talent in turning architectural junk into something functional and beautiful. You can see in the pictures below that she turned a bank teller window into a headboard, turned an old bait cleaning sink into a table, an old ship's lantern into a hanging light fixture, and turned propellers into lamps.








Her web site is in the works, so in the meantime, if you're interested in purchasing any of Paula's lamps or mirrors, or if you're interested in having her help you design your house, inside or out, send her an email. paularossell@hotmail.com. I'll leave you now in her garden just outside her newly renovated addition that she designed. Not a bad place to end at all!