Christmas cheer

Before I share some Christmas cheer I should tell each and every reader (whether you comment or not) that I appreciate those moments of your life that you choose to spend here.

 I thought I would share my Christmas table setting today.

I started with a silver charger from a discount store and layered on my antique looking blue willow plates that I grabbed at World Market last year. The top plate was my great-grandmother's. The pattern is Penelope.

I have a charming collection of antique, mismatched napkin rings that I did not polish because I am lazy like the patina. In them is a different great-grandmother's antique linen napkins. The monogram is "B" "D" intertwined and I love them.

I kind of forgot about a centerpiece so it was ribbon candy to the rescue. I used the ribon candy as placecard holders at the kid's table last year. I love the old-fashioned charm.

Speaking of old-fashioned...
One of the perks of choosing an old-fashioned name for your kids is finding engraved silver "just for them".

I have a few "thank you"s too.

First, Leslie at Pillow Love by le-ka-lia interiors featured a piece of my art in a darling and well-thought out nursery. You only get a snippet here so go visit Leslie to see the rest.

Also, the ever sweet Kristen at Pursuing Vintage sent me this pretty blue and white bowl. You know how I feel about blue and white!

Posting may be a bit spotty during the next week. My husband will be on vacation for a well-deserved 9 days and I am thrilled for us to have the time together. I kinda like him.

Have a wonderful holiday!!

Thanks Mom!

Yesterday I received two giant boxes of the most delightful family heirlooms from my mother.

Many of the items belonged to my great-great grandmother but some are older than that.
I had just been thinking how much I want more blue and white porcelain to display.

You had me at Greek key

It was like Christmas in October.

there was quite a bit of Wedgewood jasperware, both light and dark.

There is one piece of Wedgewood that has fascinated me from my earliest memories.

As a child,I imagined it must hold a very narrow, tall and certainly delectable cake but it is, in fact, a cheese dome.

It is one of my very favorite things that my great-grandmother had on display.

Mom also sent along a set of these small, fetching plates. They make me want to bake a cake and have a party.

This isn't even the entire haul of goodies.

Thanks Mom!

The ones that got away

This Saturday and Sunday, The Potomack Company auction house in nearby Alexandria, held an auction of nearly 1000 lots including fine art and antiques.

I had gone through the catalogue several times and I had my eye on several items and decided to watch and bid online. The Chinoiserie desk above was barely on my radar, figuring it would go for quite a bit of money.

I really did not have a spot for it but its the kind of thing I would ditch another piece to find a place for.

I clicked one heartbreaking second too late. It sold for $250. $250!!! *sniff sniff*

My intention was to buy this Federal style sideboard but I had guilty second thoughts and watched it go for a fair $550.

The second to last lot was one of three mid-century pieces out of 986 lots so I felt confident that there would not be too many bidders.

The Danish rosewood desk that was ahead of it told a different story and the bidding on this began after a long pause. Up it went and then I saw the fair warning sign and clicked...... nothing happened.... no one else bid

and now its mine! Yay!!!!

What did you do this weekend?

Fashionable semantics

Februaury 2009 World of Interiors

Let's define trendy. Trendy, in my mind, means something on the new side of fashionable. Something hot but not in every home catalog.

 In the photo above, furry floors aside, I see nothing trendy but it strikes me as very fashionable.

This disparate mix of the untrendy, somehow as a group becomes the trend.

my house

My family room has some uber-trendy items like the laquered tray but the mid-century Brno chairs with the Eastlake dresser are an odd pairing, just the way I like it.

I took this photo after a small coup of a conversation with my 16 year-old daughter. She is finally coming to the conclusion that its more interesting to be original in decorating than choose matching sets, which she has always done.

This fine line between mainstream, trendy and fashionable and the individual perceptions of where they lie have been on my mind lately.

Sure, its fashionable to mix up pieces of different eras and quality but hasn't a touch of eccentricity always been chic?

Once a group of tastemakers decide that something is fashionable, isn't it too late?

How unfashionable do you have to be to be fashionable?

Almost totally thrifted

The tray from West Elm is one of only a few new things in my living room.

Hope y'all had a great 4th of July!

I was thinking about a post on thrifting and it dawned on me that my formal living room is almost entirely bought second hand in shops or on eBay. I inherited a couple of items and only a few were bought new.

It can be done with patience and lots of searching.

This little X-bench is from Target and I recovered it in a piece of Brunschwig's Le Lac that I scored on eBay.

I inherited the Persian rug and this antique French child's chair.

It has only recently become a bit too fragile for kids. I have many fond memories of this chair from my childhood.

This bombe chest was a local antique store find for under $350 because the marble top has a crack, all the better if you ask me.

The Sheraton style sofa is my favorite thrifting score of all time. It had just arrived from an estate and was marked at only $350! I was really suspicious of flaws (smells) at that price but it was in perfect condition and is a very high-end piece.

This Korean case was only $15 at the Salvation Army. It makes a great end table and if I get tired of looking at it I won't feel guilty in sending it away.

I purchased a pair of these chairs on eBay and then had them recovered, making them the most expensive items by far but they are super comfy.

Many of the accessories were thrifted.

I did buy new drapes and hardware, as well as, table lamps.

The chandelier is from eBay Curtains and hardware are new

The wall color is Sherwin-Williams Faint Coral and this whisper of pink is my favorite part of the room.

Why so many thrifted and antique things? Well, the first answer is easy, budget. I either haven't had or wished to spend thousands on a single piece. The second part of that answer has more to do an appreciation of the imperfect. You should see my husband! Ba-dum-bum! Sorry, I had to do say it.
 In my eyes nothing is all that great if it doesn't have a little wear on it. Too much newness looks vulgar to me. I like patina and its offered without a premium in second-hand stores.

One thing in every room

I recently had a conversation with a fellow blogger about the way blogging has helped us pin down our own style. She said she had come to realize that she really must have "pretty". I wondered what was my "must have" in any given room. It could be something shiny, textural, something of a particular color or any number of things. It is that one element that makes the room feel like it belongs to you.

 I gave it quite a bit of thought and looked around. I grudgingly came to admit that the one element that I strive for, consciously or not, is " something weird with history".

Take this example...

In my family room I have a lamp that is made from an antique general store coffee grinder. If I saw it for sale somewhere I would deem it "tacky" but it has been in my family  longer than me and it certainly ups the eclectic factor.

Another example is this antique carved elephant tusk now in my dining room. I found examples in most rooms in my house and these strange old things with a story are priceless to me and I can't imagine not displaying them.

Neither an antique or a simple oddity will do for me it needs both

Vignettes like these really do it for me.

 

For me the "must have" element is in the form of accessories but I wish I had the guts to include some truly unusual furniture. Maybe like this...

Look around and tell me, what's your "one thing" for every room?

Still got'em

About this time last year, I purchased a lot of antique architectural prints. I only wanted to keep one or two so I cut mats for them in standard frame sizes and put a few on Etsy,

Some of them are really fabulous.

I still have them but don't feel inclined to list each of them on Etsy.

If anyone is interested I still have them and will gladly part more than a few, matted or not. Email me and I can send along more images.

An old friend

I was just 16 years old the last time I visited the family farm in Maryland. The house was built in 1855 and passed down through the family to John and Ellen my second cousins once removed (?). John's mother, whom I have always called Aunt Betty has lived there her entire 92 years. She lives in a cottage behind the main house.

My grandfather spent a large part of his childhood here playing with his cousins and learning from his uncles.

I should mention that my Aunt Betty is not an old lady. We walked through the fields and down to the riverbank and I could barely keep up with her.

The water is surprisingly clear and provides much of the water for the D.C. metro and Baltimore area.

The property is a trove of history and even its trees are important. This enormous stump was once the largest Kentucky coffee tree in the world.

I spent some time here as a child and the scale of my memory proved much smaller as an adult. The simple farmhouse built by Quakers loomed as a grand palace in my recollection.

I was terrified of the "old lady in the parlor" as a child. The portrait is one by famed American artist Charles Willson Peale of his sister in-law, Deborah Moore Jackson. The original hung in the parlor until the 1970s, what you see is a copy.

The tiny photo below is of my Great, great grandfather Earnest who was born in 1860.

I am particularly fascinated by his wife, Maria Rust, who was born in Leesburg, Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War. The Rust family was a prominent Virginia family. Her father was a colonel and her uncle was General Armistead Rust, yet in her adult life she found herself (and her sister)  marrying into a Northern, Quaker family.

As a child I was fascinated by the library room which was far different than in my memory but nevertheless pretty cool.

Me in the library

Dutch door to kitchen

Even though the kitchen has been redone since my last visit, I was thrilled to see how many old elements they left untouched.

I was mad at myself for not taking better pictures of the dining room or at least more of them. The light fixture alone was worth its own photo.

It was a glorious Fall afternoon and we took a walk to the family cemetery too.

I knew many of the names from books on my family's history.

I met a few other distant cousins who visited that day too.

Seeing the place through adult eyes was a real treat for me and felt much like reconnecting with an old pal. My cousins were so kind to let us poke around their home and ask a million questions.

I will very likely be without power by the time anyone is reading this. I'll be back as soon as humanly possible. If you too are in the path of Sandy... be safe!

I hope to do another art term next Monday.