All the Small Things

Sometimes in life, and in interiors, it's the little things that bring you the most satisfaction.

Take, for instance, my entryway. As I have previously discussed here, I have grand plans to paint giant charcoal and white chevrons on the walls with a little help from my friends at The Stencil Library, but the stencils still sit in their packages, right next to the cans of paint. Since it will apparently be years before I have two uninterrupted days in which to complete this project, I thought I'd tackle the rest of the room in the interim.

Last week I moved one final piece into place--the fantastic hand-blown tequila decanter (called a tupi, I think) from a wonderful local glass art shop called Vetri--and I think I'm ready to call it good...at least, on one wall.

What do you think?

This painting, called "Walla Walla Onion Field," is one of my favorite things I own; I purchased it a few years at our neighborhood art walk and paid a whopping $20 for it. The frame, however, cost me about 10 times that, but it completely makes the piece, and I still spent less than $300 for the entire artwork.

What I like most about this vignette is that it contains little pieces of me--my history. The stack of books by Faulkner remind me of my Southern roots, the yellow urns and white ceramic orb from my shop remind me of the experience of starting a business and working every day toward its success, and the glass tupi is a gift from an old long-term boyfriend, which conjures nice memories of a previous chapter in my life. And to top it all off, the wooden and iron desk on which it all sits sat in my childhood home throughout my life!

Of course, I couldn't have pulled it all together without my invaluable (and ubiquitous) production assistant, who you can catch a glimpse of below in the mirror:

Another "small thing" I am currently enjoying is a great artwork score from the local Goodwill, a petite oil painting of sailboats in happy shades of blue. Again, I broke the bank on this one, spending $5.99. It wasn't until I brought it home and put it against our glass mosaic-tile backsplash in the kitchen that I really fell in love.

The colors really pop against the tile, and it leads me to a dreamy place of oceans and sailboat races. Not bad for $5.99!

Song of the South

Maybe it's because the holidays are drawing near, but lately I've found myself missing home. Not home as in where I reside with my husband and children, where I have settled in over the last six years or so, where I love to return to at the end of every day, but HOME. The place where I played on my first (and last!) softball team. The place where I had my first (definitely not last) kiss. The place where I stayed up late with my babysitter watching "Fantasy Island" and tried to figure out exactly what was going on in that bungalow.

For me, Home with a capital "H" is Nashville, Tennessee. The South. I love the South. I know it has a lot of baggage associated with it, some of it deserved, some of it exaggerated, and some of it just plain made up by people who have merely passed through or never even visited.

What do I love about the South? The obvious, of course: it's home to all of my family. When you leave a place as a single girl, you miss your family all the time, but you're building your own life, so it's easy to push those feelings aside in favor of the here and now. But when your life transitions to the next level, when you begin to create a family of your own, that's when you begin to miss your family in a way that hurts....and not just because you have to pay everyone who's not family to watch your children!

Then there are the little things: the insane food which, no matter how anyone above or west of the Mason-Dixon line tries, cannot be duplicated. (If I had a nickel for how many times I've said, "You call that 'cornbread?'" I would be lounging on a tropical island at the moment.) Sweet tea. Chick-fil-A. Need I say more?

The friendliness. Sure, some of it is phoney, but in the south, when you walk down the street, people--people you do not know--look you in the eye and say hello; they don't avert their gaze as they pass. People chat you up in line for no reason. Just because that's what you do.

The landscape. The rolling green hills and three-hundred-year-old trees. The beaches and seafod boils. The front-porch swings.

The driving. People drive fast there. People get in the left lane and actually pass the people next to them. Who knew this was something I was taking for granted the first half of my life?

The hospitality. The luncheons for the most insignificant of reasons. The food people cook for you when you have a baby, lose a parent, lose a job. The table settings. The deviled egg plates. The effort.

The decorating. Yes, I said "decorating." Southerners are not afraid of going all out where aesthetics are concerned. Of filling every vacant space with objects. Of passing down items from generation to generation, even if said items are worthless to the average person. If it's not tied down, we monogram it; it's not that we don't know they're our towels, we just like an excuse to throw curly script on something, especially if it's pink.

I know many (if not all) of these things exist in some form in all parts of the country, even in the world, but I miss my own special variety of it all, or at least the variety I have conjured for myself. Some of it surely has been romanticized, but isn't that the great thing about all that is far away, whether geographically or chronologically? We forget all that made us pull out our hair in favor of that which makes our eyes glisten with nostalgia. Thank heavens for that.

I was fortunate, growing up, to have an extra-special home/Home. We lived just outside the city on 18 acres, in a home built in 1808. As a 9-year-old child, moving from a duplex I shared with my single mother to what then seemed a palatial home with outbuildings, a barn, a pool and a guest house, I felt like Little Orphan Annie moving into Daddy Warbucks' estate.

As an adult, I now see my house of childhood in comparison with the McMansions that have sprung up all around, and I see that our house is not so grand. The edges are worn, things need replacing. But it has something those McMansions will never possess: soul. And that is a fine thing indeed.

My family has since gone through some changes over the last few years, and our family house is now for sale. My mother sent over a few of the listing photos, which inspired me to reflect on not only my childhood house, but my childhood Home, and why I miss it so.

Then I remind myself: home isn't a place but a state of mind--it's the people who make it home, and we carry those people with us wherever we go.

Couched in Beauty

I finally got my "new" vintage sofa back from the upholsterer, and if I may say so myself, it's a beauty.

Have we all seen the "Chiang Mai Dragon" print before? Yep. Do I tire of it? Never. It's a bit on the pricey side, so keeping its use limited to the sofa back got me a lot of bang for the buck. And because the back of the sofa faces the front entry, it makes a great impact.

The sofa front is covered in a buttery-soft, commercial-grade eco vinyl from Architex.

Why vinyl, you ask?

Here's how it looked before its little visit to the upholsterer:

The Living Room is slowly coming together.... baby steps. Literally.

My New House

Isn't it simply perfect?

I plan on painting the shutters black and the front door a high-gloss kelly green, slapping on a gigantic brass doorknocker of some elegant sort and, of course, adding as many boxwood as humanly possible to the front yard. The pink rhodie will probably have to go, but the fact that it's pink may save it.

A few small details:

1. It's not for sale.

2. If it were, I'm quite sure I couldn't afford it.

3. I can't remember exactly where it is... only the fact that it's a few streets over from the Montlake Cut here in Seattle, close to the water, which brings me full circle to number 2 above.

I am seriously considering writing the owners a letter (once I work out exactly where to send the letter, of course) professing my love for their home, and asking them to let me know if they'd ever like to sell it. Is this likely to be perceived as charming or insance? Anyone ever done something like this before?

I've got it bad for this house!

You Need Therapy

Big thanks to the lovely people over at Apartment Therapy for featuring my yard today, which I have discussed here ad nauseum and will refrain from doing so again as my random act of kindness for today.

But since we're talking about Apartment Therapy, they featured an ingenious idea a few months back that I saved to my reference file, and now seems as good a time as any to pull it out for everyone to see.

I (and a lot of us, to be sure) have a love-hate relationship with the TV: I love to watch it (and hate to watch it--another post entirely), but hate the idea of making it a focal point of the room. I like the idea of hiding it in some fashion--behind a piece of art that slides away a la Celerie Kemble, behind a panel of an entertainment center, etc.--but I also like the idea of admitting to the world, "Yes, I am human and therefore flawed. I love me some 'Bachelor,'" and putting it out there for public consumption.

Which is why I think the idea below is a nice one:

Though I fear the television may be a bit low for ideal viewing, I would be willing to make such a sacrifice for this insanely fabulous way to display it. Kudos to interior designer Kelly Giesen for her creative solution to this age-old (or at least, half-century-old) dilemma.

She's got another TV (this one in her bedroom) hiding behind that fabulous mirrored screen at the top, too. Love it!

Check out the full post here.

What's Growin' On

One of the things I most anticipate in my garden each year is the opening of the clematis growing up the front of our house. Over the years it has become intertwined with a climbing rose that's a just-right creamy yellow, and the two blooming together make quite an impact.

The blooms over the door are my favorite...a few days away from opening, I suspect.

In related gardening news, it's getting closer to the annual Georgetown Garden Tour, one of the few remaining events of its kind in the city that is free to enjoy. The great thing about this tour? Anyone can participate. The bad thing about this tour? Anyone can participate.

We've opened our garden for the last five years or so, and it's so much fun to meet fellow gardeners, share ideas, and listen to people fawn over all your hard work. Strangely, it's also fun when they don't fawn and instead point out all the things you did wrong.

Our fabulous graphic designer has designed the promotional posters for the last few years, and she recently unveiled this year's design:

As the lovely poster indicates, this year the tour is on Sunday, July 12. Come on down, and don't forget to stop by 813 S. Orcas and say hello!

On the interiors front, I recently nabbed these for myself and am kind of loving them, despite their noxious vintage vinyl smell. (Please, no one tell me in any specific fashion exactly HOW bad that is for me.)

I found the '50s/'60s-era wallpaper on eBay a year or so ago, and just recently got around to doing something with it. The custom turquoise frames are by my best-friend-in-my-mind Jonathan Adler from his line for Larson-Juhl.

I love the connection between the glass mosaic backsplash and the frame color... Now if I could only get my act together and paint the walls! It's only been six years, after all. Don't rush me.

It's slo-o-o-o-wly coming together in the Living Room. Still on the list:

1. Sofa reupholstery (Fabrics all ordered. Woo hoo.)
2. Wallpaper in kitchen (Ordered. Double woo hoo.)
3. Paint for entire room. (Can't bring myself to deal with this one.)
4. Chevron stencils for entry. (See #3, though I do at least have the stencils. And the paint. Only lacking motivation. They were all out at Benjamin Moore.)
5. New side chairs (Just snagged on eBay for $40 a pop. Sadly, the fabric going on them costs 3 times more per yard than each chair!)
6. New kitchen cabinet hardware (I am so over the top about this that it will be the subject of an entire post shortly. One word: lucite.)
7. New floor lamps (All picked out. Waiting to win the lottery. Note to self: Buy lottery ticket.)

Is it just me, or is making to-do lists completely depressing?

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Imagine my surprise to receive my most recent Anthropologie catalog and find it done in partnership with Nashville's own Hatch Show Print. Now where have I seen them featured before...? Gosh, it's on the tip of my tongue...Oh, wait: Right HERE.

Come to think of it, this new couch of theirs looks awfully familiar, too:

Oh, right...that's because it was IN MY LIVING ROOM.

Strange coincidence? Probably. But in case it's not, Anthropologie, I would like this: This:

And this:

Now we're even.

Living Room Remodel, Part One: So-fa Away

Now that you've all had a little peek inside my home, it's time to share what's REALLY going on in there. For the last year or so, I have been carefully plotting the next incarnation of my living room--god knows I can't let a sleeping dog lie, especially one that's starting to stink--and have had things pretty well figured out, with the exception of a minor detail I like to call MONEY.

Well, turns out when you launch a new business at the onset of a major economic downturn, you can benefit financially in one important way, come the following April, in the form of a little check from Uncle Sam. Who knew?

I'm not sure my husband is fully aware of this yet or not, but guess where most of our uncle's gift is going this year? Come with me for a little shopping trip, to see what will soon be making its way to South Orcas Street. And pick up a little something for yourself while we're out...after all, it's on Uncle Sam.

Remember my old couch?

This is actually a piece I bought for the shop that had been waiting in the wings (aka the garage) for months for its reimagining in grey faux-leather with chrome nailhead trim. It brings a tear to my eye, just thinking about it. One day, after sitting on this little 1990-esque number from Ligne Roset for about four years too long...

...we cleaned the vintage tufted lovely, fabric tears and all, and welcomed it into the living room. It lasted there for a good 3 weeks, until my husband retrieved the wrong $25 vintage sofa I had bought from a local thrift shop. After drying my tears of loss upon realizing the right sofa had been re-sold in the meantime, I realized what I had was also quite lovely:

At 1,300 square feet, our house is not terribly well suited for oversized furnishings (at least, according to my claustrophobic husband; I think large pieces can sometime work wonders in small spaces, but I'm trying to throw him a bone on this one). This little beauty is more than a foot smaller in width and considerably less deep as well, so after moving it in and re-orienting the layout of the room, it has now become a part of the family.

Its fate is as follows:

For the front of the sofa, an environmentally friendly, commercial-grade ivory faux leather from Architex that was designed for use indoors and out, which is pretty much what it takes to hold up to my children and Jack Russell Terrier.

For the back--and don't yell at me for this, but I can't stop loving it, no matter how ubiquitous it is--Chiang Mai Dragon in Alabaster from Schumacher:

I'm doing a contrast welt along the back in a cotton turquoise Romo and, to finish it off, painting the legs a high-gloss black.

I just placed the last of my fabric orders today, so there's no turning back now (i.e, positive feedback only).

Stay tuned for part two: Side chairs, lighting, and accessories. I know, I know: it may be hard to sleep it night, what with all the anticipation.

Sponge Worthy

I was so excited to awaken this morning to a "sneak peek" of my home on the ever-popular design*sponge today! (Now that that's out of the way, can we all take a second to admire that headline? As you were.)

Being a to-the-point-of-madness perfectionist, and in consideration of the fact that design and aesthetics are my bread and butter, I was reluctant to send them photos of my far-from-complete home. We're constantly in the midst of projects, slowly making our way down the wish list as the money appears to pay for each item. In a cruel twist of fate, we were just preparing to tackle some of the more dramatic projects--wallpaper, painting, new furnishings, etc--when the fabulous design*sponge opportunity arose.

To flesh out the place, we borrowed a few items from the shop (but technically, I do own these and selected each and every one, so that's not cheating, right?) and convinced our fabulous neighbor and photographer extraordinaire Liz Ophoven to snap off some pics.

Here's what we came up with...see if you recognize anything. And, more importantly, stay tuned for some serious "after" shots in the next few months.

And in what was apparently our day for great blog coverage, the perennial favorite Decorno gave our gardening efforts a nice shout-out, though her readers were not all so sure... What do you think?

Duchess of Wallpaper

It's no secret to many of us that England has got the market cornered on bold, colorful style (David Hicks, Osborne & Little, Romo, The Rug Company, Paul Smith, girls named Gemma, etc.), so naturally a talent like Lizzie Allen (with a perfect Brit name to boot) could only have sprung from across the pond.

Cited as one of Apartment Therapy's top picks from the recent ICFF in New York, Lizzie Allen designs the most charming wallpaper we've stumbled across in many a moon. I'm afraid to read their response to my pricing inquiry, because I've already completed a few projects with it in my mind.

See for yourself....Living in a Lizzie Allen-papered room would be like awakening each day in the pages of your favorite children's book.

"London City Gents"

"Jazz in Central Park"

"Changing Guards at Buckingham Palace"

"The Royal Guards"

"St. Paul's"

I'm thinking "Jazz in Central Park" or "Changing Guards at Buckingham Palace" for a certain 3-year-old...

After all, if baby sister is getting the donkeys...

Not a Goose in Sight

"Stencil." What do you think of when you hear that word? If, like me, you grew up in or around the '80s, you may conjure images of weathered wood with pastel-colored checkerboard patterns, with a smattering of geese for good measure.

I was disabused of this notion by the insanely knowledgeable Emily Evans Eerdmans in one of her first blog posts, dedicated to the amazing stencil she used for her home to simulate antique Chinese wallpaper. I bookmarked her stencil source, The Stencil Library, and promptly failed to give it another thought until recently, when I decided I wanted to paint oversized black and white stripes in my bathroom, and perhaps something for the entry, too.

Like almost everyone these days, I am fixated on wallpaper, but unfortunately the entry and bath are not such suitable spots for its application-- my entry takes more of a beating than perhaps any other room in the house, between my Jack Russell's near-pathological hatred of the incoming mail through our slot and my 3-year-old's affinity for sidewalk chalk. And with all the moisture in the bathroom, wallpaper wouldn't be long for the world.

In this season of sweeping changes, I am also reworking my downstairs at home, and have somehow* found a renewed enthusiasm for getting it done. Enter The Stencil Library.

I remembered them after seeing some stenciled stripes on a wall in "Country Living" (I decided to give it a shot after Eddie Ross's recent touting....yeah, not so much.) Today I pulled them up and dove in, and here's what I found: 5" wide stripes for the bathroom, and the chevron (oriented horizontally) for the entry in charcoal grey and white.

Can you picture it?

I'll let you know how it goes.

* tax refund