"Used future"

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a big fan of Firefly/Serenity.

Browsing the Wikipedia entry for Serenity, I ran across this analysis of the look of Serenity:

The cramped interior of the Serenity ship itself appears to be strongly influenced by the 'the future looks worn down' precedent set by the Millennium Falcon^[69] but devolved even further. In a similar vein to Star Wars, Serenity goes for an occasional underdone look, or "used future", as Star Wars creator George Lucas refers to it.

The "used future." I like it. I've been drawn to recycled goods as part of the steampunk look, but I couldn't articulate why it was so obviously part of it. Now I know. Thank you, Mr. Lucas, for the name and the precedent.

More on the "used future".

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Steampunk Furnishings that don't exist but should

In my quest to find furnishings that inspire that certain steampunk feel in a house, I'd love to find the following:

1) A spaceship in a bottle. Like a ship in a bottle, but a spaceship. Preferably Serenity from Firefly.

2) Traditional looking china, like that pictured below, but with pictures of technological progress (either real or imagined) -- steam engines, computing machines, etc.

So -- enterprising young men and women -- I'm waiting...

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Yet Another Brass Lamp

Mad Salvager, the inhabitant of Sequential Glass, has what she's calling a "DieselPunk" Lamp for sale. It's probably a tad bit too steamlined for the purists tastes, but the wonderful thing about steampunk is that it projects a future that no one is 100% sure of -- so if your steampunk future leans towards Art Deco without the chrome, I say go for it!

More of a traditionalist? Don't like the idea of rewiring your own lamp? (I guess electricity is to modern of a technology for you?) There are two lamps previously mentioned that may interest you.

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It may have sucked, but the sets were nice.

Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the library from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the movie, not the comic book).

More images of the move are on IMDB.

Design notes: tassels on chairs. bar cart. spiral staircase. yum!

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Gondola Day Bed

The Stiles Brothers, makers of the rattan travel trunk/computer cabinet I mentioned earlier, have some truly lovely pieces. A much less practical but more beautiful one that caught my eye was the Gondola Day Bed:



Doesn't it look like it was refashioned from the remnants of a balloon crash?

Yes, it's quite expensive. But you probably don't have a house large enough for it, either. One can dream, however, one can dream.

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Am I an oxymoron?

From the sidebar of the Steampunk Anime and Manga site:

"If you can buy it in a store, I don't see it as steampunk..."
Anonymous user of The Steampunk Forum on a Sci-Fi genre as social revolution.

La Tour Eiffel

When thinking back to the original Victorians, we tend to focus on those subjects actually under Victoria's rule -- the English and the English colonists. I'd like to point out, however, that the French has some decidely steampunk activities going on in the same timeframes. The best known? A feat of engineer that you just may have heard of -- The Eiffel Tower. So is it steampunk? You betcha -- made of iron, it was the tallest building in the world from when it was constructed in 1887 until it was replaced by the Chrysler Building in 1930. A piece of engineer that reigns over all the buildings in the world for 40 years? That's pretty audacious.

There's a lot of inspiration in the Eiffel Tower -- for instance, the ironwork is really intricate and beautiful, and can easily influence your choice of outdoor furniture. (I'm hoping to get a table and chair set for my patio, and wrought iron seems like the most steampunkesque choice in that category.)

There's also a lot of ways to integrate the Eiffel Tower into your home decoration -- most of trite at this point, but very readily available. For only $1200 you could put a cast model of the Eiffel Tower in your front yard -- at 71 inches tall it's would definitely be a focal point. For a less overwhelming option, there's an Eiffel tower doorstop or pull chain. For the purist, I can also recommend the facsimile of Gustav Eiffel's folio on the project: La Tour De 300 Metres: Facsimile Edition

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