Playing House at Fishs Eddy's Vintage Playstation

A set of vintage book plates David owns gave us our color palette.

Yesterday I had the most fun I've had playing with tableware in, well, forever. The occasion grew out of a fun idea from Julie Gaines, who with her husband Dave Lenovitz, owns the Union Square store Fishs Eddy.

Julie, a churning idea factory who needs someone to trail behind her with a pail to collect the overflow, invited a bunch of design people and bloggers, including Todd Oldham, Design Sponge, Susan Brinson and me, to come down to the store, raid its deep stash of vintage tableware (Syracuse, Green Band, Buffalo, Sterling, Jackson, you name it, they've got it) and create a place setting to help inspire customers to mix and match with abandon.

Actually it's not just us, she's invited any and all to try their hand, so I encourage you to make your way down to 19th Street and Broadway soon.

Layering began with a larger charger. We wanted bold colors that would photograph well. 

When Julie and Dave  started out over 25 years ago, the idea of mismatched plates on a table was heresy. Today, it's the matchy-matchy table that looks out of step with how most of us live. Heck, FE is even selling a barrel of unmatched sugar bowl lids and bottoms and showcasing creative ways to use them.

Adding an array of Fishs Eddy's great tchotchkes. 

Anyway, back to the challenge. To vastly increase my table-dressing prowess, I cajoled my good friend David Cobb Craig to join my team. A master of many arts (look at these posts of his to see what I mean), I knew this was right up his alley. Fishs Eddy will be displaying photos of all the Playstation table settings and you can check its blog, Pinterest and Facebook pages for more photos.

Enjoy our table settings!