Spring Favorites & Travel

I am about to embark on a 10-day journey to the east coast to see my darling mother and extended family. I hope to have plenty of time for visiting loved ones, sleeping, sight seeing, spring appreciating, and eating lovely foodstuffs.

I have been meaning to post a few things, but got behind. So I thought I would share with you some things that have been on my mind the last few days.

This is presently my favorite room, from a Paris hotel. I should like to live here, thank you. Excuse the awful scan. Don't you think it is perfect for me (although champagne gives me a headache)?

This is my new favorite book ("Living Traditions" by the inimitable Matthew Patrick Smyth). The front and back covers are awfully nice to look at.

And here is Biscuit, my favorite (and only) cat in the background. A very pretty bouquet of spring flowers, a gift from myself to me, sits in the foreground:

These are my new favorite summer shoes ($11) which I can only wear in the house because my arches ache if I actually walk anywhere in them (my feet demand proper shoes):

Close-up of kitty inspecting camera:

This is my favorite shrub in the yard, a double-flowering plum, attempting to flower (at least the buds against the warm window - the rest have barely emerged).

This is the marvellous book I am reading. I love novels of manners and have intended to read this forever. I keep meaning to buy her book "The Decoration of Houses", published in 1898 (I imagine it's a blast). I am set to read her Pulitzer prize winning "The Age of Innocence" next.

And this is my favorite song (presently, and for the last several months since I first saw the video). I finally bought it tonight on itunes for my plane trip. I do hate to fly, but Adele will help. Collective ahhhhh...

(Adele from Later with Jools Holland)

Happy Spring to you all! See you in June!

Dark & Light: The Essential Mariette Himes Gomez

I have become obsessed with clean traditional rooms that feature an airy, pale background with a few striking dark elements. These rooms are by my interior design idol, Mariette Himes Gomez.

The furniture in these rooms is architectural, which adds to its beauty and impact. The dark furniture is a beautiful accent in these light-flooded rooms...

I used to think the lightest airiest rooms were full of white, but the lightness is highlighted best by the touches of darkness. It is high contrast that accentuates paleness best.

Mariette chooses important pieces and elevates them with her quiet, pared down, but carefully orchestrated interiors. She can do no wrong in my book. You have to be a master to achieve simplicity like this. This kind of simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (to misquote DaVinci!).

Her work is my inspiration as I slowly try to pare down, declutter, and distill my rooms to a purer form. I love antiques and I want to create classic rooms with beautiful things I never tire of. I am not a trend follower, but even a trend can be added to these timeless rooms without disturbing their quiet perfection.

It will be a long process for me (lacking time and this kind of budget...), but I intend to slowly create a home with just this feel...which I call pared down classic, with the interplay of light and dark.

Imagine living in quiet perfect rooms like these (her own Manhattan apartment):

Bliss!

Check out Mariette's website and her beautiful books: "Rooms", "Houses", and "Apartments". They are as wonderful to read as to look at...her philosophy on decorating resonates deeply with me. If I could do my life over again, I would study design at some great school and then in my fantasy world, beg Mariette to let me learn from her and her beautiful mind!

Enjoy.

Parish-Hadley: Observations

The White House:  The Kennedys' master bedroom, as designed by Sister Parish (I love this room!)

Just the other day I was flipping through my copy of "Parish-Hadley:  Sixty Years of American Design."  If you don't know them, Sister Parish and Albert Hadley were influential and successful American interior designers who operated a prominent Manhattan firm from 1962-1999.  Sister Parish died in 1994, but Mr.Hadley, as far as I know, is still busy designing in New York after closing down the Parish-Hadley firm.  I don't know much about him (other than he was quite a modernist, didn't like too many doo-dads in a room, taught at the Parsons School and came from middle class Tennessee, where he took an interest in design as a boy), but I have actually read a fair amount about her.  She was a socialite on the New York social register and had a heck of an eye for design but no formal training.  For some reason, she strikes me as an interesting lady.  By the way, Jackie Kennedy hired her to re-decorate some rooms of the White House, and Mrs. Parish was the first professional interior designer to do so.

Anyway, I won't pretend that I have studied them exhaustively, but I have pored over my copy of the Parish-Hadley book and read a lot about her.  I love studying earlier design to see how things have changed and what's remained the same.  It's funny, but if you study old rooms you will see that they've changed enormously (often less busy and fewer patterns) but they are also shockingly the same. 

This isn't meant to be a long comparative essay (as much fun as that would be!).  Instead, I thought I would throw together a quick post showing some neat things I noticed in the Parish-Hadley book that struck me as interesting or quirky:

Here is a lovely example of a quatrefoil motif, in this case, used on a pair of mirrors.  This motif is back in fashion.  Notice also the bird cage (house), which looks familiar.  And apparently blue and white Asian bowls never go out of style.

The next observation pertains to the placement of side tables and night tables.  I noticed several rooms in the book where side/night tables are placed lengthwise, parallel to the bed, as opposed to sitting at 90 degrees to it.  Refer to the White House photo (top) where both night tables sit parallel to the bed.

In the photo below, a Lucite table (very familiar in contemporary decor!) sits adjacent to the chaise, lengthwise, in an arrangement we would likely not use today.  Sorry for the bad image as you can barely see the see-thru table (it has the giant plant on it).  Note also her quirky pillow arrangement (two pillows at angles).
Below, the little baroque night table also sits parallel to the bed.  It seems so odd, but isn't it more practical?  Everything is within easy reach!
Below the night tables are in their proper spots (at least by our standards), but I love the addition of a chair beside the bed for holding a pile of books.  I always had a chair piled with books at my parents' home because my night table was too small - I had totally forgotten about it until I saw this photo.  What a marvellous and practical idea.
Another sideways table below.  Check out the wallpaper, baby.  I can see how this era gave birth to psychedelic drugs. Still, I think the day bed (and similar armchair) is gorgeous...
I included in the image below purely for the colour scheme.  This is a very BUSY room (they say Sister Parish was not afraid to pack a LOT of furniture into a room), but I liked the glazed aubergine walls (which look chocolate brown in the book) with the pink drapes.  If it wasn't quite so busy, these colours (hot pink, orange, pale pink, brown) remind me of a Domino spread.  Notice again the funny arrangement of pillows on the chaise.
The next photo I included for its sunburst mirror - they weren't invented yesterday darlings.  I also noticed the ubiquitous flowering quince (by the window to the right, mostly out of the shot), so this isn't new.  In fact, there were flowers in almost every room in the book!  Apart from the dated brown rug, this room could have been done yesterday.
Hope you've enjoyed this walk down memory lane.  It is a sublime treat to drop by the library and pick up old decorating books and study the masters.  There is so much to be learned, about what to do and what not to do!

The Masters: Mariette Himes Gomez

Recently I've developed an obsession with those gigantic coffee table books, especially those by the great interior decorators of the world.

One of the first big celebrity designer books I lugged home from the library a few months back was American designer Mariette Himes Gomez's lovely 2003 book, entitled "Rooms." Interior Designer Mariette Himes Gomez

In case you didn't know, Gomez was named one of Architectural Digest's top 100 interior designers and architects on their famous AD100 list. In other words, greater design minds than mine have blessed her with the keys to AD's inner sanctum and she now has job security for life (had that been a concern). Which it wouldn't be because she's a decorating goddess, a master decorator (if there were such a title), one of the reigning grand dames of classic design, in my humble opinion. Gomez is the Emily Post of good design etiquette, patiently following the rules with impeccable good taste and restraint.

I loved "Rooms" because it presented a lovely set of essays on various decor subjects to help you get your head around various issues. She divulges tons of great decorating tips and rules, if you will, that are less rules and more just hard-won learnings from years of practice and finally learning what works!

Gomez is old-school and believes in knowing the rules before you can break them. Gomez has a very particular point of view, even if her rooms seem familiar in their unerring and somewhat traditional perfection. She calls herself a minimalist, but looking at her rooms I think she means that she restrains within herself a desire to over-decorate. I don't consider her rooms minimal at all, but looking closely you do see evidence of restraint, that only perfectly chosen things find their way into her rooms. There is never too much...just enough in every room. Each element is painstakingly studied and worked-out. For a woman who is a master of decoration and a lover of art and furniture, I imagine that chosing the few key elements for a room would require such immense restraint that she probably does feel like a minimalist, even if her rooms aren't exactly spare!

Gomez is also an advocate of the white or off-white room (after my own heart, she is!). I think practically every room I've seen attributed to her is white or off-white (with the odd blue room for good measure). By the way, her favorite paint colour is Donald Kaufman #5, which she calls essentially a perfect white. White rooms are her canvas because her furniture and art selection are impeccable and take center stage.

She's also an advocate of getting your "shell" (i.e. the bones of the room) straightened out before decorating. Sort out and improve (or remove) mouldings and trim, re-plaster if you must, and clean up the architectural elements first. Once this is done, the canvas is ready for decorating!

Draperies and furniture placement can be used to balance "not so perfect" spaces. For example, she notes that two identical chairs used in a room, placed side by side, can add a note of structure to an otherwise plain or off-balance room. Drapes and valances can be used to help line up off-kilter windows. She's a fan of symmetry, but mentions that too much (more than 3 pairs of anything in a room) can be, well, too much!

Gomez, besides being an advocate of impeccable arcitecture and a perfect white shell, is an art afficionado. She recommends buying the best art you can afford, things you love, that speak of your character, to fill your home.

I could write more, but unfortunately I inadvertently returned the library book "Rooms" with all my Post-Its still inside and can't give you all the quotes I'd intended! That same day, I picked up her new (2007) book entitled "Houses", where she talks about all the elements of a great house. I haven't studied this book the way I have "Rooms" (which is on my Christmas list), but I will pore over it in the next few weeks.

Gomez's writing is enjoyable and approachable. She's a lovely writer and is frank in her point of view, but also quietly acknowledges that the reader might not be quite as well-heeled as some of her clients. She mentions places where you can save money (lamps, for example) but where a little extra expense is well worth it (down pillows!). She talks about buying great art but also loves the whimsical little objects and grassroots artifacts of bygone years that are precious to us, if no one else. So despite her sucess, Gomez seems to be utterly grounded.

Here is a quote from her book "Houses" that I like:

"I need to have my things around me. They speak to me in their own tongues. They have become the fabric of my life, as do yours. You put them in the house, and the house becomes a vessel, an anthology of tales."

I encourage you to read more about her and to look at her work and her lovely books carefully. This is a woman with a lot to teach us about great design. Her style is classic and restrained and somewhat formal to many, but I think she has a great philosophy to share about loving our homes, even if you don't love her style. And on that, we can all agree!

Beautiful Books by Ryland Peters & Small

Allow me to introduce a trio of friends who have brought me great pleasure in the past few years...Ryland Peters & Small.

Ryland Peters & Small is a UK-based publishing house which produces the most exquisitely lovely books on interior design, as well as lifestyle subjects like food and drink, gardening, body and soul, and babies! They have awfully pretty wedding books too. But mostly, I am smitten with their interiors...
The photos in the decor books are simply stunning, beautifully styled and perfectly-lit. All the photos appear to have been taken on a fine spring morning in the prettiest homes in England. Clear, natural light streams into the rooms...
These books are definitely the beautiful people of the publishing world. But while the architecture and character of many of the homes is sublime, the decors are not always expensive. They often appear to be more found style and slowly acquired, rooms that you cultivate over the years...
I adore these books! I've borrowed many at my library, and have even invested in a few of my favorites. If you're a serious decor junkie, you've likely already seen a few of their titles, and some of their famous photos (many of which are recycled in several of the books). I guarantee that everyone has seen at least one shabby chic photo from their The Relaxed Home book!

I know you will have some lovely moments with these books. But I cannot be held responsible if you fall madly in love and cannot look at another decor book again...

Belgian...Style!

In October 2007, House Beautiful featured a pared-down, traditional, serene and sensible style (music to my ears!) they called Belgian Style. I saw photos of this style a few months prior when designer Kay Douglass' own home was featured in the magazine. Apparently Axel Vervoordt, the famous Belgian antiques dealer and collector, launched this eclectic style when he assembled the key elements in decorating his Antwerp castle!

When I think of Belgium, I regret to say that nothing stands out distinctly in terms of style. I know I should be rapped across the knuckles for saying so, but it's true. Of course there is famous Flemish art and literature, but I cannot separate Belgium from France in my head, I'm afraid, when it comes to decor! I've travelled in Belgium twice (albeit as a starving but stylish student), and do recall very grand cities with weathered but stunning historical architecture, broad boulevards, wonderful small restaurants, and lots of pigeons in the train stations! I also recall a lot of un-approachable boutiques, which I was not well-dressed enough to step foot in.

My favorite experiences in Belgium were watching a live chess game (played with human-sized pieces!) in a square in Brussels, and visiting the Atomium, a giant molecule you can go inside! Hey, I was an engineering student after all. Naturally, I also enjoyed the complex and plentiful Belgian ales and the delightful waffles (not to be consumed in a single sitting).


But style...I can only think of french things when I picture Belgium. Axel would be disappointed in me. I guess I was not prescient enough to know that I should file more mental images, to fulfill my needs as a future student of decoration!

So with this frenchness to my Belgium thinking, I was not surprised to discover that Belgian style resembles traditional French style(!!), except it's a lot more laid back. In Belgian style, things are very simple, with only a complicated piece or two (like a single curvy chair).


Rustic, worn elements are welcome and cherished in this style. It has a practical sensibility, Belgian style, and it's un-cluttered!

Belgian style is about raw materials....reclaimed wood, stone, and natural fabrics like linen.

And best of all, it features a serene colour palate, with whites and subtle, muted neutrals. Some of the colours (those grayed-out slate blues and red roses) remind me of faded jewel tones!

Chair backs are notably high and narrow...I am not sure of the origin of this look, but find it quite regal. A character piece of furniture, made from reclaimed wood, or old doors, or weathered boards, is vital to this style. Elegant iron lanterns, like in Italian and French country styles, are omni-present.

Hey, Belgian style is perfect to freshen up your dreary old castle with all that dusty stuff you have rattling around in there! Just think what you could do with some linen, some old boards, and a gallon of Farrow & Ball's Slipper Satin?

But seriously, this is a solid style and every element delivers:

It is clean, pared-down, has traditional roots, and uses salvaged and reclaimed wood and natural fabrics. There is humble craftsmanship present in the ironwork, stone-work, and woodwork. It has a soft, serene palate which looks very suitable for naps and long baths. What, I implore you, is not to love?


The following books were recommended by House Beautiful as primers in the style. My neighborhood library will be seeing more of me soon....

All photos courtesy of House Beautiful.