SoOh Sighting: In Time Trailer (and free ad space opportunity!)

Just saw this trailer preview through Gawker and I notcied a special sign with a very special name on it at the 2:10 mark. Could it be possible that this cool futuristic dystopia is set in little ole Dayton, OH!? Probably not with all those pretty Californian faces and flat, dry, sunny landscapes but it's fun to ponder. If anyone can comment on what's the meaning of the Dayton sign I'll give you free ad space* on my blog for one week!

*terms and condition set by me which includes design etc

SoOh Feature: Drew Steinbrecher of Kitsch Café

I'm very excited about my post today because it is I Love SoOh's first feature! In my pursuit of finding bloggers that highlight things to do in Southern Ohio, I stumbled upon Drew Steinbrecher, a graphic designer who lives in Cincinnati. Drew has a well known and very informative Cincinnati-centric design blog at Design Cincinnati. He no longer posts there but it is well worth reading through his archives to learn about  the Cincinnati area and his sidebar has an incredible list of Cincinnati places to try  Fortunately for all of us, Drew continues to blog at Kitsch Café and even more fortunately for us thrift enthusiasts, he has several wonderful etsy shops; Kitsch Café and Kitsch Wear. Beyond sharing about his shop and life in Cincinnati, he is  also offering  SoOh readers a 15% discount off both his shops (details below)! Okay, I'm going to stop here because Drew's answers are far more interesting than anything else I could possibly say.

Tell me a little about your shop and what you sell

I have two Etsy shops. At Kitsch Café I sell vintage housewares, home decor items, and vintage fabrics and craft supplies. At KitschWear I sell vintage mens and womens clothing and accessories.

What is your process in choosing items for your shop?

There are a few questions I ask myself when shopping for inventory for my shop...

• What condition is it in? It could be the most amazing piece of mid-century design, but if it's in poor shape, I won't buy it.

• Can I afford it? If it's too expensive and I won't make a profit, then it stays at the store.
• Is it too heavy or awkward to ship? I've passed on some great items because they'd be too much of a hassle to ship.

Once an item makes it through those first qualifications, I then ask myself if I like it and if I would be proud to put it in my shop. If I don't like my inventory then my customers will be able to tell.

 

How much of what you sell is influenced by the Southern Ohio area?

I have been shopping in other parts of the country, and the vintage items I find here are a bit different than say, Los Angeles. Here, most items that I find fall in to the kitsch category... Items that maybe have a country influence and are "shabby chic". I do find items that are truly mid-century and famous pieces of design, but not as often. I was able to find a lot of Danish modern and Eames items before the trend hit about 10 years ago. Now the little of that kind of design that's in this part of the country is snapped up right away.

What part of Southern Ohio do you live in and how long have you been here?

 

I live in the Clifton Gaslight District in Cincinnati. I love my neighborhood and can't see myself living too many other places in the area. It's very walkable which is important to me. I grew up north of Dayton and came to Cincinnati in 1995 to attend design school at UC.

What are your top 3 favorite places to eat in Southern Ohio?

Riverside Korean in Covington. Ok, not in Ohio, but it's just right across the river. Korean is my favorite ethnic food thanks to the Riverside. I always get the dolsot bibimbap which is rice, meat and Korean veggies served in a hot stone bowl. The banchan, or sides, are great too... especially the daikon radish and the kimchi. 

Sitwell's Coffehouse on Ludlow Ave. in Cincinnati. This isn't on anyone's list of culinary delights, but it's a nice place to go after a movie at the Esquire, or to hear the Faux Frenchman play on Wednesday nights. I sometimes take my laptop here and work in the afternoons. 

Yagoot. I have a huge sweet tooth and Yagoot's soft serve yogurt is one way I can satisfy that and still feel (kinda) ok about indulging.

What are your top 3 favorite go to events in Southern Ohio?

Final Fridays in Cincinnati. I love going to the Pendleton Art Center and seeing all the artist's studios. It's also great to see Over-the-Rhine filled with people.

Summer Music Series every Friday on Fountain Square in Cincinnati. Lots of great bands and a fun atmosphere on the square.

What are your top 3 favorite places to thrift in Southern Ohio?

St. Vincent de Paul on Este Ave. in Cincinnati. I never leave disappointed from this unknown thrift store close to Mitchell Ave. My most recent find is a George Nelson designed Herman Miller coffee table that I got for $10.

St. Vincent de Paul on Reading Rd. in Mason. A great store for finding vintage knick knacks that are mostly kitschy and sometimes mod.

Valley Thrift on Woodman Dr. in Dayton. Another great place loaded with all kinds of vintage items that you can talk yourself in to buying.

Anything else you would like to share about yourself, your shop or Southern Ohio?

I'd like to offer your readers 15% off at both Kitsch Café and KitschWear by using coupon code "SOUTHERNOHIO". Thanks!

...

Well I don't know about you all, but I have a lot of places to check out now! Thank you so much Drew for sharing about your shop and life in Southern Ohio. If you would like to learn more about Drew please check out his blog Kitsch Café and definitely check out his shops. Remember he is offering a discount so share this post to anyone you think would be interested.

Modern Ohio Furniture Company Round-up

via Mainly Art

I was very excited to see this an article about modern Midwest furniture companies at Apartment Therapy but when I started combing through their list I was disappointed to see no Ohio Love. And since I'm all about Southern Ohio love I decided to make my own round-up. Fortunately, I had stumbled upon a great resource when gathering information for my Jimmy Modern post and I'm using 20th Century Cincinnati as my primary source. Below are all the Southern Ohio dealers listed on their site:

Atomic Style Home
Hamilton, OH
mid-20th century furnishings
www.atomicstylehome.com

Charles Bachmann Antiques
Thornville, OH
MCM and Industrial Arts furniture and decorative accessories

Dada Interiors and Design
Dayton, OH
MCM furnishings and lighting

Deter's Modern
Cincinnati, OH
MCM furniture, lighting, glass and pottery

Feathers
Dayton, OH
Vintage fashion & decorative accessories

Harper Art Studio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Charley Harper artwork: vintage silkscreens, limited edition prints, books and more
www.charleyharper.com

 

Mike Ilhardt
Cincinnati, Ohio
20th century furniture and decorative arts

Jimmy Modern
Dayton, OH
MCM furnishings, lighting and art

Mainly Art
Cincinnati, Ohio
www.mainlyart.com

Newcomb Macklin
Cincinnati, OH
20th century fine art & frames

O-H 10 Modern
West Alexandria, Ohio
Art Deco - MCM Furnishings and Decorative Arts

Bob Mousaian
Dayton, Ohio
Arts and Crafts – MCM furnishings and lightin

Red Lion Antiques
Springboro, Ohio jewelry, objects d'art

Louis Rub
Cincinnati, OH
Art Deco – MCM furniture & lighting 

The Gallery Kathlyn
Fairborn, Ohio
Art Deco jewelry, barware, lighting and home accessories

Vintage Poster Bank
Cincinnati, Ohio
original posters & mid-century accessories

...

Wowie! I've got some places to check out! The website does have more dealers from other parts in Ohio and some out of state places as well, so take a look on their dealers page. I also saw this:

CF3h
cincinnait|form|follows|function
non-profit modern design forum
www.cf3.org

Another good resource for modern design in Ohio! I hope this list was useful and as usual please share your finds.

Englewood (not Inglewood, CA)

WELCOME TO ENGLEWOOD

Today we took an awesome day trip to Englewood. Kyle kept pronouncing it "Anglewood" and I had to explain to him it's pronounced:

"Inglewood"...you know like Inglewood, California.

To which he responded:

Ohhh, that is like that whole "pen" and "pin" pronunciation.

For all you who aren't familiar with the Dayton accent apparently many of us can not pronounce "pen" and "pin" differently. We use the pronunciation of "pen" for both. It's a bit hard to explain in writing but try pronouncing the following words to a friend from the east or west coast and they'll tell you that you ain't saying the words "correctly":

Pen and Pin
Tent and Tint
Gem and Gym

It's a southern accent thing, ya'll. Accent aside, we had a great time in Englewood!

We went to a great BBQ joint called Company 7 BBQ. It's relatively new and I predict good things for this establishment. I'm going to try to keep my reviews short and to the point so here are the highlights:

• Food: is down-home, comfort, southern style food. Health conscious folks should probably look elsewhere but if you are in the mood to eat delicious, tender, fatty foods then this is the place for you. Recommendation: Brisket and Collard Greens
• Service: you can either have someone serve you or you can opt to get your food cafeteria style. We did the cafeteria style which was really quick and easy. They did have servers walking around asking anyone if they needed anything and they were more than friendly and polite.
  
• Decor: the place is themed after a fire station so you have a lot of fire station related items in there. It's cute and kitschy and has an All-American feel to it. Bonus: flame patterned carpet
• Atmosphere: It's an older crowd with a slight biker feel (see pic below). Pretty quiet and tame which is fine because you are really there to just enjoy the food. The lighting was a bit low for me but once I started eating I stopped noticing.
  

After the BBQ, we went to Englewood Fun Center so Kyle could play Pinball machines (did I mention he's into pinball machines...yeaaah).

It was a nice, small arcade. Perfect for the kid at heart and nostalgia seekers. Speaking of nostalgia we ended the evening with Mr. Donkey Kong.

Front Porch Living

I mentioned in my last post that the lack of a front porch while I was growing-up is something I don't like now. I was a backyard girl and honestly that probably suited my childhood years well. We played everything in the backyard; kickball, baseball, football, calvinball, you name it. I think being in the confines of that fenced in backyard reflected what being a kid was all about for me; being free to be who I was in my own little bubble of hominess. But as a young adult, naturally, my tastes have changed and I prefer going outside my bubble to have new experiences and socialize with all types of people. And nothing forces you to do that more than sitting on your front porch.

Kyle and I had the pleasure of getting to know our neighbor just the other day and it was only because we were sitting on our porch and our neighbor was sitting on his. He invited us to join him and we moseyed on over to the porch you see above. So this experience inspired me to research the history of the front porch (and by research I mean Wikipedia). The best line I found in my "research" was:

The New Urbanism movement in architecture urges a reversal in this trend, recommending a large porch facing the street, to help build community ties.

Obviously I had to look into this New Urbanism stuff and found that:

New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types.

New Urbanism pretty much sums up our SoOh experience thus far. The warm weather, warm smiles and front porch living has helped us start creating community ties in just over a week. Here's to new beginnings and more front porch living.

Bye Bye NEO...Hello SoOh

We've jumped the shark and Kyle and I have moved from the expansive waters of Lake Erie to the humble waters of the Little Miami. Yup, you guessed it...we've relocated to Dayton, Ohio. I really loved and enjoyed my time in Cleveland. The food, the friends and the familiar haunts have become some of my fondest memories and I look forward to making the occasional visit as often as I can. But I have my eyes set on our short-term future here in Dayton. Rediscovering my hometown as a grown up should be an interesting and fun adventure. City aside though the biggest change is that we've gone from northern to southern Ohio and the differences are numerous. I'm sure the subtleties (and not so subtleties) of southern vs. northern Ohio-living will escape some of you out-of-state folks especially you big-city folks (I'm looking at you hip cousin in NYC) but I hope I can shed some engaging and entertaining light on the subject.

So in short this blog is dedicated to all things SoOh; my "hip" term for Southern Ohio. If Northeast Ohio gets it's own coined term (NEO) then dang-gum-it so can Southern Ohio so spread the word; SoOh is where it's at and where we're at!