Thoughts of Home On Thursday

Have you ever been invited into someone’s home

and you immediately felt comfortable and at peace?

It is that special feeling of welcome, and comfort, and ease, that encourages you to share and exchange

ideas with your friends.

When I was a little girl, there was nothing I enjoyed more than sitting and listening to my grandmother and my

aunts and my mother talk about their favorite projects or recipes or inspiration or gardening tips .


I want- we your hostesses want- you to feel the same way.


Join us next Thursday, February 11th, for the launch of a new blog party where you can do just that.


We look forward to seeing you there!

**********

Christmas Home Tour 2012

Dear Friends,

As I write this, my grandsons are assembling Lego kits a few feet away,

and my favorite cookbooks are sitting on the dining table so I can make one of my 6:00 am grocery shopping trips to HEB tomorrow morning.

I have tamales to pick up at Delia’s at noon tomorrow

and a cookie baking session with my grandsons after that.

I know my father will stop by often to sit and watch the action.

These are the things that feed my soul in this quirky home

I love so much.

Welcome and Merry Christmas!

***

Kitchen Sitting Area

Den

Formal Dining Room

Study

***

Linking to: 
Fridays Unfolded @ StuffandNonsense
Show and Tell Friday @ MyRomanticHome
Frugal Friday @TheShabbyNest
Catch as Catch Can @MyRepurposedLife
Furniture Friday@DecoratingInsanity
Pinworthy Projects @JustUsFourBlog
Live Laugh Link @live.Laugh.Rowe
Friday Free For All @ FiveDays5Ways
Inspiration Friday @ AtThePicketFence
Addicts (not so) Anonymous Link Party @ Addicted2Decorating
EBTKS @ ALittleKnickKnack
Fabulously Creative Friday @JenniferRizzo
Vintage Inspiration @CommonGround
Party With Junkin Joe @TheCottageMarket
Weekend Wrap UP Party @ TatertotsandJello 

Unlocking Creativity

(Traditional Home 2012)

This is a bait and switch post.


I do NOT know what unlocks my creativity

in terms of design in my home.


In addition-

to make matters more complicated,


I have entered a sort of indecisive,

hand-wringing stage of late

where ideas dart around and rarely land.


And so when that happens, the phone calls to daughters start

beginning with me saying

”Don’t hang up. I just want to ask you about my paint colors.”


If that doesn’t work, I text friends (Anna, Jenny) or email other bloggers (Karianne).


And so today,

after days a la Cinderella’s step-sister trying to jam her foot into the wrong shoe,

something broke loose,

and my creativity rebooted and started to flow naturally again.



Why today?

I have no idea. 

It just did

after doing the things I listed below.


Here is what I learned if you are ever faced with this stumbling block:



*Decide what you don’t like.

I eliminated a large portion of the

color choices for our guest bedroom at Sherwin Williams by scanning the board and saying

”No, no, no…”




* Once it clicks ,and you feel your creative juices flowing-

Run!

My house may be a big hot mess right now

because 4 rooms have been repainted in the last week

(my utility room is now cobalt blue),

but I am seizing the day.


* And finally, when I asked our daughter the librarian

if she wanted to come by during her lunch break today to

look at the white paint color I picked 

(I know… I was really pushing my luck),

when she agreed,

I ran around the house 90 miles an hour

fixing her lunch

and putting things I thought would look good on the bed in the newly painted bedroom.



That worked

MAGIC.

Who knew that all Sherwin Williams Snowbound

(Sherwin Williams 7004 )

needed

in a room with lots of natural light was

a white coverlet on the bed

which I will be spray painting in gold leaf,

a burlap pillow,

a mercury glass urn,

a chinoiserie vase in taupe and white,

a few antique gold accessories,

an antique gold and glass lamp from the flea market,

leopard print fabric that will cover a desk chair I am painting gold,

and two intaglio prints in gold frames I found at the flea market?

Who knew?


Apparently,

I DID.

***

Linking to:

UnderTheTableandDreaming
Make it Pretty @TheDedicatedHouse
Twisted Party @ DebbieDoos
Cowgirl Up @CedarHillRanch

 

 

Jewelry Fruit Bowl

Have you ever impressed…

yourself?

Isn’t it great fun?

It makes me laugh thinking about it.

I am my own audience of one!


When I found this stray flea market find out in

the garage ,

I did not think of

fruit.

I thought of the end of my dresser.

And so,

true to my blog’s roots

and my mother’s tutelage,

I spray painted it flat white.


And now it holds this.

Comeback Kids

I have now lived long enough (not complaining)

to notice decorative things for the home do indeed make a comeback .

So when brass items started reappearing in blogland,

especially in more urban

stylized interiors,

I shouted

‘Woohoo! I liked brass the FIRST time’.

And so I fell in love when I found this shell

at a Market Days.

I was willing to pay $12 because it is the perfect summer accessory.

This back to the future business with accessories makes perfect sense to me.

How about you?

***

Linking to Rhoda’s

There’s Something Happening Here

“There’s Something Happening Here…”

Remember that song?

Buffalo Springfield???

Anyone???

It is a new world when you are SIMULTANEOUSLY obsessed with a song running through your head

and the fact that things with just a little more funk are calling to you.


Case in point #1:

I love this small scale wingback chair that my mother gave me 20 plus years ago.

I love animal print.

Therefore, I really love this chair recovered in small scale animal print.

Case in Point #2.

I love the look of a brass based coffee table (retro-not 80’s light weight)

with an orchid like flower on it.

I found this one in fuchsia

for a steal at TJ Maxx.

The color has zero relationship to anything else in the room,

which makes it even better.

In my living room

“The Times They Are A Changin…” (Bob Dylan)

Oops!

Wrong song.

***

PS.  It occurs to me that I still have two things which belong to daughter #2 (the librarian):

the zebra rug and her Mary McDonald design book.

I am in big trouble.

***

Linking to:

Kim at Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesdays
Judy at DIY by Design for Swing Into Spring
Kimmie at Sugar and Dots for What I Whipped Up Wednesday
Paula and Patti at Ivy and Elephants for What's It Wednesday
Michele at Primp for Primp Your Stuff Wednesday
Gina at The Shabby Creek Cottage for Transformation Thursday
Sherry at No Minimalist Here for Open House Party on Thursdays
Katherine at Katherines Corner for Favorite Things Thursday Hop
Niki at The Vintage Farmhouse for Creative Things Thursday

 

Dear Daughters: The Keys to Real World Design

DEAR DAUGHTERS,

There really is no formulaic design mystery here.

I promise.

In fact your eye for design is far beyond mine was at your age(s).

Let’s pretend you asked my opinion anyway…

Here are a few key points to real world design.

Key Point #1:  

In the world of daily real world design (where we live), I have 
realized that a key distinction (in addition to talent and 
training) that separates confident, successful

and even professional  designers from you and me

is CONFIDENCE.

They are simply confident in the doing of it all.

My recommendation when you are standing in the middle of your living room feeling doubts?

Think ‘this is not world peace.’


Key Point#2:    My confidence is not really confidence.


It is rather

the mother of invention,

the shoestring budget,

the sciatic nerve pain from moving furniture for a million years with my hips because I just HAD to try it right then,

the shouting, when in a bind on a step stool with small sharp nails in my mouth, to anyone who will listen,

“Help!”,

the avoidance of furniture stores,

and the pleasure I find in seeing what you do.

Key Point #3:  You do not have to know what you like.

Like it all.

You know how we gravitate to the diverse anyway?

Your home is your love of diversity with a roof.

It is what we do-

as in invite everyone.

Be very, very glad that I realized early on that nothing good happens in a world of cookie cutter harvest gold and avocado green.


I so cookie cutter tried.
Trends will continue.
We are currently living in a land of farmhouse living.

It is lovely. 
However, I will never forget what Papa said when I encouraged him to read The Grapes of Wrath.

He said, "I don't have to. I lived it."

Let's just say South Texas farm houses of the 50's and 60's don't look like farm houses of today.

And finally one last family memory.

In 1958, when Nonnie painted her kitchen at the ranch

bright white, with white cabinets, used black wrought iron pulls,and installed red formica countertops,

she wasn’t looking for like minded people.


How can you dance in the kitchen to Ray Charles

if it looks like everyone else’s?

Love, Mom

Just Doing It

I think one of the great adventures/obstacles in decorating (not my favorite word)

around the house,

is

JUST DOING IT.


It is so easy to get paralyzed by doubt,

or ideas of perfection-

or sitting,

or procrastinating.

But then one day something happens-

usually a sliver of a thought-

an idea-

a glimmer of a plan-

as in

I’ll put green and silver in the kitchen.

What happens next is a lesson straight from

my high school English class :

practice builds fluency.


Doing creates doing.

So…

Let’s all act as if.

Hop up.

Get up.

Move something…anything.

Try something.

Doing creates doing.

Is green in my kitchen

perfect?

Good grief no-

I’m just doing it.

You can too.

Blue and White Inspiration: Theirs and Mine

 

(My favorite book on blue and white.)

My love of blue and white began

years ago and has never lessened.


I thought I would share some of my favorite inspiration photos

from my Pinterist Board,

Blue and White Favorites,

and photos from Carolyne Roehm’s book

A Passion for Blue and White.

(Carolyne Roehm)

(Carolyne Roehm)

(Carolyne Roehm)

(Carolyne Roehm)

(Michael S. Smith Houses)

I have had so much fun through the years with my own blue and white.

I loved creating this arrangement of my summer zinnias in this blue and white bowl,

the many rearrangements I have created in the Nap Room,

in gathering tablescape items for a dear friend’s

daughter’s engagement party,

and in the daily inspiration I get from using my

Spode Blue Italian every day.

***


What inspires you?

***

Linking to: