Alistair: Posted on Sunday, 12 February 2012 4:49 PM

Secret design Studio does not know if anybody else has discovered the fun of Plastolux.com, whose catch-cry is “Keep it Modern”.  Probably best described as a visual blog, it always has lots of interesting eye-candy and posts to appeal to the mid-century modernist.  Go to http://plastolux.com/ and say hi to Tyler Goodro from the Secret Design Studio.

One of the interesting parts of the Plastolux website is “Keeping it Modern on eBay”, which is where the picture above was taken.  You know about all of the interesting bits of mid century modern furniture that gets away on eBay, the stuff you’d love to own for your MCM abode, but you are outbid at the last moment, or you don’t have the money, or you don’t have the room, or a combination of all of these factors?

Using a bit of careful photoshopping, a keen buyers’ eye, and a fair amount of skill Plastolux has been combining these lost opportunities into great little interiors – see above and below.  Sure the perspective isn’t perfect as each piece of furniture has been copied from an eBay listing, the background has been cut out, and the images have been scaled (sometimes mirrored), then combined into these very stylish mid century modern interiors.
Go to: http://plastolux.com/category/modern-on-ebay to see more creativity.

It is probably the easiest way to play with interior design without spending any money, or waiting for deliveries, or spraining your back.  Secret Design Studio is following Plastolux on Twitter so will keep an eye out for any more of Plastolux’s delicious interiors.

While putting together this week’s collection of the best 10 mid century modern eBay buys in Melbourne, Secret Design Studio stumbled across these delightful new Acapulco chairs.  They haven’t been listed in this weeks eBay carousel as they are new and Secret Design Studio prefers to use the eBay carousel for authentic, one off pieces.  Secret Design Studio has been looking for years (yes years) to find suitable mid-century modern style furniture for outdoor use.  Generally the stuff on eBay has endured years of exposure and are now serious repair jobs.

Walk into any outdoor furniture retailer and all you will find will be rattan, faux-rattan or teak.  There is nothing wrong with these materials but they are visually heavy and lack the lightness of touch that was commonly used for outdoor furniture in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Secret Design Studio has been looking for chairs that will work well on the front patio and around the pool that have a mid century modern look, are light to move, and don’t collect rainwater, unlike our very comfortable but impractical, fiberglass, Casala chairs.

There appear to be two styles of this chair.  The first is like the 1950’s wicker saucer chair with the seat woven from plastic/wicker around a circular frame.  They are still available on eBay, however the frames have usually started to rust, the plastic/wicker thread is usually damaged and you can’t get matching sets.  The pink chair (above) has a circular frame.

The second style of frame appears to be slightly elongated at the top – refer to the aqua chair.  From the eBay store there appears to be a number of colours available including the pink and aqua in the photos above, as well as red, white, purple, black and brown.

The great news is that they are available in Melbourne, appear to be in stock from the eBay listing, and can be purchased in Fitzroy, which is a lot closer to Secret Design Studio than Alcapulco in Mexico!

There is also a rocking chair version and side table available, but these are not listed on eBay.

For more information go to the eBay store at:
http://stores.ebay.com.au/amorylocura/Other-/_i.html?_fsub=1&_sid=1038769979&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322
or the Amory y Locura store website:
http://www.amorylocura.com/cat.cfm?id=42

The Amory y Locura shop is located at 77 Gertrude Street Fitzroy, with phone number (03) 9486 0270.  Amory y Locura is Mexican for love and madness, hence the title of this posting.

Secret Design Studio doesn’t think that Plastolux is clever enough to Photoshop these chairs, so he’ll just have to buy one.   Hope he leaves the aqua ones for Secret Design Studio’s poolside!