Texture...close up

Barbed wire, Odessa , Texas 

I LOVE texture...I love surfaces that show something about their age, or their experience with the elements.

Fishing net and sea shells, Fort Lauderdale, FL

I love things that have different textures, the smooth, with the rough, the natural with the man-made, like the net and the sea shells...

....or when it's unexpected like this flower I spotted on the 200+ year old porch of an old Pennsylvania house.

Flower on the wooden porch of Rockford Plantation, Lancaster, PA

The cool, fluid contrast of rain drops on a metal chair was enough to make me reach for my camera, even if it means getting soaked and having to go back to work looking like a drowned rat....like I did when I took this shot.

Rain-adorned chair, Sunrise, FL

I know, there are some who appreciate the pristine smoothness of a modern table top, or a Scandinavian dresser.  But for me, it's the surface that begs to be touched, to be experienced with my fingertips...or my camera...that gets me to stop and look.

How about you?  Textured or smooth?  New or old?  Freshly minted, or well-aged?

Backyard dreams for Pink Saturday

For the past few months, my husband has been working hard on our backyard. There was tons and tons of decking, covering over half of the yard. And it was all rotting, so up it must come.

He's done a lot of it already...and teh rest is in progress.

But even before the first board was removed, I started recreating the space in my head...

1) It will be green and rich and shady, to make it perfect for an early morning breakfast or a late afternoon cup of tea.

2) It will be welcoming, with comfortable places to sit and secret spots of beauty to discover.

3) It will look as though it has been there for years, growing and becoming. No neat rows of perfectly spaced identical plants.  Nothing that would be called "landscaping" or "shrubbery."

4) But most, most most of all, it will be a place where fairies and other magical beings will feel at home. Where the mere fact that a visitor hasn't seen them is not enough to convince anyone they aren't there.  Instead, they will say... "Was that a glimpse of a wing just around that tree?" Or perhaps,   "Did I see an odd sparkle among those flowers? "


For now it's still in the dream stage.  There are piles of wood, and some still to be removed.  Then there is the ground to level, and plants to buy....

But it's on its way! And that is good enough for now :-)

Happy Pink Saturday!

Other times, other places, other hands

I think one of the things I like best about antiques and vintage items is the history. I love imagining the life these items have led before reaching my hands.

There are very few family items in my collections.  My love for de-cluttering is apparently genetic, because the generations before me left little of their daily lives.

So I look at the items I've gathered from auctions and yard sales, and estate sales, and I spin stories.

For instance, I wonder....

What child loved this doll, and dressed her with tiny, careful hands...

What eyes scanned these pages...

...and what eyes wore these spectacles....

And did they share their space with a cat who loved to curl up on a rainy night?

What child delighted to receive a tin rabbit some long-ago spring....

And can tin rabbits become real?

Who was the bride who wore this delicate celluloid ornament in her hair? 
And how would she feel knowing that it was a part of my wedding 
so many years later?

Were great books or passionate love letters written on this typewriter,
or did it live a more mundane life, spitting out invoices or business letters in a back office, typed by a clerk who day-dreamed of sailing the oceans, or climbing far away mountains...

My collections will probably never reveal their secrets.  But the fact that they have them, the knowledge that they have traveled a long path through time and place to reach my home makes them just a little magic....

A few more of my vintage treasures....a tiny iron cat with it's face almost worn away, a hand-embroidered table cloth from the 1930's, a menorah from the 1940's, a page of poetry in a book published in 1917, glass dogs that were once filled with candy, and a miniature goose-image iron, probably a child's toy. 

For more images of vintage collectibles and decorating, I would recommend the blog Creating Vintage Charm...you will be inspired and delighted, I promise!  Even a chronic de-clutterer like me is tempted there! 

A home decorating balancing act

I love vintage furniture, antique linens, old found-objects re-purposed in new ways, cottage gardens and lace.

My ideal room contains filmy white curtains, things that have a history, lots of textures -- a very feminine look.  My new husband is not exactly going to feel at home in that kind of home. Nope....not going to work....

I also like post-industrial, salvaged pieces, like you find at Restoration Hardware....I love the solid wood, the feeling that the pieces have had a life before I "found" them -- a history.

But....

  We've gone shopping to look at furniture a few times now, and he's leaned towards very sleek, modern pieces with no texture or trim -- and certainly, no history.

I know that many of my readers lean towards the same look I prefer.  So I want to ask you -- how do you create a home decor that appeals to your vintage side, while not alienating a spouse who wants a far more modern and unadorned look?

I want to make a home we both will love, and feel "at home" in.....any advice welcome!

Grandin Road's Get the Look - Designers Contest - OlioBoard

It looks so cozy...I imagine a rainy Sunday morning outside....

The people over at Olioboard are having a contest. The winner receives a $500 gift card toward furniture, and I need some furniture! Please come on over to my entry on Grandin Road's Get the Look - Designers Contest - OlioBoard and vote for my Monday Meditation room (my ideal bedroom -- or darn close!), and help me win. Please!

And while you're there, get your account...it's a fun way to try out new looks for your rooms, or just to play!  If you decide to create rooms of your own, post links here so I can see them!

Here are's another one of my designs...not in the contest, but just fun to make....

This one feels very serene....

Finding my colors....

I've been struggling trying to find my colors lately.  No, I'm not talking about deciding which season I am for fashions.  I'm talking about colors for our home.  Right now, the walls are white, the trim and doors are beige and the carpet is oatmeal. Couple that with the brown wood cabinets and off-white counters in the kitchen and you have a color-lovers worst nightmare!  

So I am trying to select colors for every room.  And because it's an open floor plan, I'm also trying to select colors to carry from one room or area to next without too many transitions.  

Then I found Lisa Carke's blog, Polka Dot Cottage, and a cool tool she found called The Color Palette Generator.  And suddenly I had found my answer.  

Lisa's post was about blogging the colours of our homes, using this tool.  But because the inside of my home right now lacks colour, and the outside is the development-mandated poop brown, I decided to use the tool to look at photos of places where I feel happy, hoping to find my the right shades and combinations to make our interior feel that way, too. 

So here goes.  

The first picture is a spot in Elizabethtown, Pa where I could stand or sit for hours just peacefully contemplating the view and life and everything else.

The second is from our wedding in March...the colours we used made me feel happy and hopeful and joyous.

And the third is from a hiking trip to Ocala last November....

Until this point, I had not really consider greens for the interior.  I was learning towards reds, burgundies, and other warm tones.  But the paint chips and samples just were not looking right with the house -- or to my eye.  


Now, I see why!  So greens look like the right choice for this house, for now in our lives.  Thank you Lisa, for seeding your blog post so I could find it!  

10 days, 6 hours and 22 minutes...but who's counting?

I didn't think it would come together, but it is. A wedding in a garden. The tables and chairs are reserved and set for delivery on the 19th. The papers goods, dishes, flatware and linens are on their way. The favors are being made by Barbara at "A Little Something Extra" and the menus are ready to go. Rings, dresses, shoes, veil, flowers, all done. And in our bedroom, a corner has been taken over by vintage serving trays and hand-blown glass bowls and vintage details to adorn the tables. Some of it new, some old and bearing the patina of years or even decades of use and love.

I think I knew it would be a vintage-style wedding from the start, even though I hadn't officially chosen. Looking back on the photos I saved and the blogs I read from day 1, including Vintage Chic Bride (that's one of their photos above, BTW), I was heading in that direction. And then when we found the location...a beautiful garden setting, I just knew. And the collection began. From Home Goods to local thrift stores, I found the perfect pieces for serving tables and guest tables. The only thing I didn't find were vintage table cloths, so I settled for classic ivory linen. It will work.

After the wedding, I'm not sure what I'll do with my collection. Maybe pass some of it on to another vintage-style bride. If you're a South Florida bride-to-be planning a vintage-themed wedding, let me know, and perhaps I can share some of my finds.

But not just yet. I have a wedding of my dreams in just a few days!

Happy to be the Châtelaine

Châtelaine - a woman who owns or controls a house.

The move is almost complete...the movers came on Monday (BTW, NEVER use Father and Son Movers in South Florida! Great employees moved my stuff, but the company ripped me off at the last minute.)

The apartment is almost empty and almost ready to be inspected. The house is now a mass of boxes and furniture in odd places. And I am exhausted. But very happy.

On the drive to work today, I was thinking about arranging things, putting books on shelves, dishes in cabinets and clothes in dressers. Working out in my head where artwork will be hung, and where my scrapbooks can reside. Imaging family dinners in a peaceful and happy space.

So maybe it's not trendy to say that I love caring for a family home. Too bad. I love my job, but I am also supremely content to be the châtelaine, keeper of the home. And I am blessed to have the family to care for.

Decorating my space

I am a very visual person -- tell me a story, and I will see it in my head. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes really, really not!

But being visual, it's no wonder that one of my first thoughts on this job was "How can I decorate my office?"

It's plain. Boring. I posted a few photos and a congrats poem the first day. Hung my Rumi calendar. And that was it.

This company is big on encouraging people to decorate their personal space. They even sell lithographs to other people in other companies to decorate THEIR space. But I can figure out what I want to do here.

Warm and cozy? Exotic and mysterious? Peaceful and soothing? Modern and sleek? I did some searching on office decorating online -- sadly, most of the posts said "don't" Not an option. I was hoping for inspiration, not prohibitions!

What does your office look like? Are you allowed to decorate? Or indeed even encouraged to do so? I would love to hear about your office decorations or cubicle decorations. Pictures would be great, too!

Looking for inspiration...can you help?