Decor Planning: My Living & Dining Rooms

The last couple of weeks I've spent every free hour poring over decorating magazines trying, once and for all, to coordinate a colour scheme for my living and dining room. It isn't an easy process as I have existing furniture and rugs to use, and also some prints and accessories I want to incorporate. I've pulled so many inspiration boards together with different palettes, but think I've finally settled on a colour scheme (which I'll explain later, with photos!).
Fabric and paint colours are taking up so much time! I've brought home countless sample pots from Farrow & Ball and Benjamin Moore and can't count how many big sheets of bristol board I've painted. Evenings and weekends have been spent moving these big chips around the room at various times of the day to catch the light and see how the colours read.

I've also been hunting for fabrics for new drapery panels. I've finally settled on linen as my fabric of choice because there seems to be a solid selection and some very pretty colours at the shop I chose to sew my projects. I will have them make panels and a new valance for my dining room.

I've been meaning to post photos of the room and ask for your help. But instead, I became obsessed with doing it myself. It seemed too hard to try to photograph all the disparate elements of the room and explain everything. Eventually I'll re-upholster a chair, slip-cover another, re-frame some prints, and so on and it seemed too tedious to explain it all to you! In the end, there were the choices my heart wanted and then the sensible choices that worked best for the room. Decorating is a balancing act when you can't do a whole room from scratch!

This week, I'll do some measurements and hopefully have the shop start sewing my items (unless I change my mind). I haven't settled on an exact paint colour yet, but at least I picked a palette and have some front-runners lined up!

Besides that I've been voraciously reading design books and have fallen in love with Michael S. Smith's gorgeous book "Elements of Style" which is just what the doctor ordered this week for some serious aesthetic inspiration!

Hope your week is wonderful! I'll share some photos of my ideas soon.

Photos: House of Linnea

Birthday Bounty

An inexpensive oil burner I bought for myself. The blue background is a living room test colour on carboard!

I've been meaning to write and share photos of my birthday presents with everyone but the week zipped by with no time to post.

My birthday was wonderful overall, but the day itself was a little lonely. I stayed home with a migraine and my grandmother (out east) ended up in the hospital that day with a heart attack. My entire family is on the east coast, so I didn't have any of my own kin to share my birthday with and the only person who phoned me was my Mom! I did get birthday cards, but it was a lonely day so far away from everyone, especially during a family crisis. I felt like I should be there, where I belong. But I have lived away for 20 years now. It never gets any easier. All the people I love, my very own people, are 2000 miles away, so there are times when it gets very, very lonely.

Luckily David and his family are so kind and loving to me. His Mom hosted a birthday weekend for me at her house and the three of us ate home-made chocolate cake and had fun. His darling Grandma sent me a card, and his brother and sister-in-law had us over for supper last night for a belated birthday (with another cake!). All-in-all it was a wonderful two-week birthday bash. David made it special with a beautiful gift and card and flowers, so I am very thankful and feel very loved. It is still hard having none of my own family here, and harder every year I get older for some reason. But I'm so thankful for all I have, and for the friends who wished me well too!


David bought me a beautiful handbag that I've been coveting. I never buy expensive purses, but this one stole my heart and instead of going for a fancy dinner and blowing two hundred bucks and then buying a big present, we pooled the money and I got a crazy expensive Michael Kors bag from Holt Renfrew! I adore it. It's the nicest bag I've ever owned and I don't think I'll ever get tired of carrying it. I'm a practical girl and not one of those gals who ever indulges a lust for expensive shoes and handbags. I love them all, but I'm sensible and can't bring myself to spend over $200 for much of anything (except house stuff....) anymore. So I adore my posh new bag. Who knew that burnt orange goes with everything, especially all the white and khaki and blue and beige I wear in summer!

My Mom sent a beautiful card and the always-lovely gift of money. I decided to spend some of it on a set of Spring coffee mugs and a serving bowl from Portmeirion. I didn't buy the sugar and creamer because I already have two sets! The mugs are so pretty and happy and spring-like and I don't have matching mugs for serving coffee after dinner. I thought these would work with my inexpensive blue and white dinnerware until I eventually buy a set of matching dishes! Here's a photo of two of the mugs. The rest of the set (8 mugs and serving bowl) is on order. I heart them!


I also got a Lululemon gift certificate from David's mum, plus a beautiful Floragold depression glass fluted serving bowl. I collect this Floragold pattern and already have several pieces (I'll have to show you some time). The bowl is so pretty I hate to put it away in the cabinet.

From David's brother and sister-in-law I got a sweet cat card and a gift certificate to Pottery Barn. I can't wait to go shopping! Hmmm...maybe this afternoon instead of going on the treadmill...

But the real highlight of the week was my auction find! While visiting David's mum in the country, we attended an estate sale auction and I saw this amazing solid oak library table. I thought it would make an awesome desk for our (as yet unorganized) office. But then I decided it was too impractical (no keyboard tray) and decided not to bid. However, when it came up at the sale, it almost went to a single final bidder for $150! Not wanting this person to get my desk for such a deal, I bid against him and ended up the proud owner of a library table for $300! Talk about a steal! Getting it home was an ordeal, but luckily David and I had driven the truck to his mum's in case we found something at auction. We have a carpenter in the family and I hope to requisition him to rebuild the drawers with a keyboard tray for me! Thrilled!
All in all, an amazing birthday. And I am happy to report, my grandmother is still in hospital but seems to be on the mend. She will be 82 in August and is an amazing lady who raised 5 kids and cared for elderly parents, a sick husband for 15 years, and milked many cows and hung out many loads of laundry in her day. She is a trooper and yet seems to be enjoying the rest in hospital and all the attention. I can't wait to see her in May and hope she gets out of the woods soon...xo

Christopher Spitzmiller Lamps

I've been meaning to post and tell you all about my birthday week and the fun day we spent at a country auction (yes, I bought something!). But I've been busy every evening and not feeling so great from a new headache med, so I spent the weekend resting and napping. I did manage to vacuum and we took my 26-year old cousin and his girlfriend out for dinner, but otherwise...kaput!

While lying on the sofa yesterday, I flipped through a pile of my House Beautiful magazines. House Beautiful is one of my favorite decorating magazines, combining the traditional rooms I love, but often pared-down and tuned-up with colourful modern elements. They feature a vertitable who's who of professional designers, and have great interviews to get you inside their creative heads! The magazine has a true love and appreciation for colourful palettes, often based on a neutral foundations.

Pottery Barn milk glass lamps

While visiting Pottery Barn recently, I noticed their milk glass gourd-shaped lamps in vibrant spring colours. These retro-look lamps reminded me of Christopher Spitzmiller's designs, that I've seen again and again in House Beautiful the last couple of years. I kept noticing these lamps (or similar) in several issues yesterday. Finally the mass-market retailers are catching on!

Christoper Spitzmiller is a super-successful ceramicist who's translated his craft into a lamp-making empire from his studios in Manhattan. From location alone, you know his work isn't for the budget-conscious. His lamps are divine creations with classical forms, and according to his website "drenched in bold vibrant rich glazes"! Each lamp is fitted in a handmade wood base that may be gilded in yellow or white gold. The following photos are from his website:

I'm positively smitten with the pink double-gourd lamp below:I've hunted in Calgary for a lamp like this but only managed to find gray and black ones so far. Sadly Pottery Barn doesn't carry a pink one. Imagine how pretty a hot pink one would be in my living room, or in a little girl's room?!


Christopher Spitzmiller's lamps are only available at select US retailers. I don't want to ask what they cost. But be prepared to see lots of knock-offs as this bright, cheery lamp trend will be with us a while! And why not? I'd never tire of one of these stunning jewels in my bedroom.

~ Happy Birthday (to me) ~

On March 11th, I celebrate my 38th birthday!

See my cake...it was a chocolate layer cake with 7-minute frosting (my favorite to this day!). My Mom made me the same cake every year and I adored it! I have a love affair with chocolate to this day...but it's that perfect frosting I love most!

Sprinkles (red this year) and pretty candles made me a very happy little girl!!!

(And check out Mom's crazy yellow kitchen...thankfully my parents renovated shortly after this photo was taken! Yellow has never been the same for us...)

xo

Farrow & Ball: 18 New Hues

In case you haven't heard, the illustrious Farrow & Ball introduced 18 new paint colours last week! In their stead, 18 existing colours have been "retired" from the colour chart (but are still available for purchase).

Today, I visited Maria Tomas, the only Farrow & Ball retailer here in Calgary (luckily a few blocks from my office) to view the new colours.

I was positively smitten with several of the colours and especially loved the first eight, which I've included below:

There's a new white (No.239 Wimborne White), an elegant tan (No.240 Cat's Paw), and my three favorites: a creamy stone off-white (No.241 Skimming Stone), a noble light gray-blue (No.242 Pavillion Gray), and a refined dark gray-brown (No.243 Charleston Gray).

I've also shown a handsome dark brown (No.244 London Clay) which looks beautiful next to a pretty pale pink (No.245 Middleton Pink) and a gorgeous dark rose (No.246 Cinder Rose). I've been dying for rose to come 'round again!

You could steal this palette alone and design a whole house (minus the tan, perhaps!).

Check out the remaining 10 colours at Farrow & Ball.

All paints are made at the Farrow & Ball factory in Dorset, England. The company is renowned for using "more high quality pigment in every tin than any other manufacturer." Since all paints are factory-blended and quality-controlled, colour accuracy is assured. In other words, no blending is done at your neighborhood shop!

Sophisticated designers rave about paint, but it's a rather expensive at over $80/gallon here in Canada (which is about $20 per gallon more expensive than Benjamin Moore's top-of-the-line paint). The paint is supposedly a little finicky to apply as well, so a confident painter and good instructions are a plus!

I can't wait to try a gallon for myself, perhaps Pavillion Gray, my new favorite hue!

Avoidance

A quiet painting by the marvellous Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi

Hello sweet Readers,

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I've been avoiding you! And it's not that I haven't been thinking about you. I have. Really. I've been feeling guilty about not blogging much these days, especially for myself. My blog lets me write (which I like to do daily), compile and distill my decorating whims (even better!), and journal a wee slice of my life.

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But I just can't seem to compose interesting posts in the short scraps of time I have available these days. The reason is two-fold. Since Christmas, I've decided to stop blogging at the office...no reading blogs and no writing blogs (I usually edited posts I wrote the day or days before, but still...this took time and consumed all my breaks!).

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I still give myself a half hour or so on the internet at noon, to read the news and the odd blog or decor site. But forgive my lack of comments. I make the rounds and some days break my rule and visit the remarkable Calie (check out this talented decorating goddess!) or Linda (aka Mrs.Matthew Mead, who needs no introduction) or the accomplished Swedish gardener/decorator/photographer/reader Poppins or my new friend Paula (whose values and tastes are remarkably grounded and inspiring in this silly world) when I should be working! But those moments are scarce. I like to check on the remarkable Vee but have hardly had time with all the great Swedish and french eye candy blogs I've found lately. I'm too busy even to post their links!

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So that leaves evenings and weekends to blog, and you know about those. So I'm now a weekend power-surfer!

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The second part is that I've started working out again (an excuse to eat more!). We bought a posh new treadmill for Christmas (which I don't think I found time to mention). So on evenings when I don't have a blistering migraine (few), I try to go on it for an hour or so. I'm loving it, despite the back pain and the fact that the activity seems to be causing my dormant fibromyalgia to flare up! Some days, I feel like I'm living in a 90-year old body, but that's my difficult and eternally annoying body. But I still enjoy it! After maintaining excellent fitness for so many years and making exercise a huge priority in my life, it took a while to get out-of-shape but now that I am, I really need to beat the odds and whip myself back into it. And it's great to move my body again and re-discover my muscles (and new jiggly bits I never had before).

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What's great about the treadmill is that I can read decorating magazines or my novel when I'm doing the walking bits, at least. But reading and running simultanteously are not recommended.

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So, I'll blog once or twice a week and hope that's enough to sustain me (and you!). Please keep visiting!

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I have so many ideas for posts too: My interior design class is rather boring, but I want to share some highlights. And I intend to write a post about Mariette Himes Gomez, a designer I adore and whose awesome book "Rooms" I'm re-reading. I'd like to tell you about the Eckhart Tolle book "A New Earth" I'm reading (yes, that Oprah book), which is an inspiring little read that neatly summarizes so much of the Buddhism I've read over the years. He's an insightful and deft thinker and writer and anyone would benefit from reading this wonderful book (even if you feel like a sheep reading the Oprah books!)

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I should also tell you that next Tuesday is my birthday (hurray!), so we're going to David's Mum's house in the country for cake and celebration this weekend. We hope to eat lots of sweets! And rest....

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I also meant to tell you also that our big living room rug arrived today! It's lovely and I'll post pictures soon, but might wait until I re-paint and do new curtains, which could be a while. I'm so undecided on colour but have decided that changing my mind is my divine right.

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I also got a wonderful sunburst (sort of) mirror for my bathroom I need to show you! And an adorable salt-and-pepper set from Etsy.

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David and I are also making plans for a trip abroad, but I'll share the destination later, as a surprise! You will be so jealous. I'm jealous of myself. And I've booked a flight home in May to visit my beloved Mom and family and can hardly wait...details later. All that to say...so much happening, so little time to write about it!

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But I guess life's for living and this year, I plan to do just that!