Paris Pictures

I bit the bullet and digitally subscribed to the New York Times on-line. Otherwise, they limit you to a pitiful 15 articles a month. So that means that I get all of the little additional e-mails throughout the week, some of them more interesting than others. Today’s was one offering some lovely images of Paris by Little Brown Pen. I spent about one weekend a month in Paris when I lived in Wales, and I took hundreds of images, all of which were lost when my computer was stolen. So it was fun to see how much LBP’s images were like the ones I remembered. I love the way they’ve grouped the images by colour.

A gorgeous celadon green. Bright and cheerful yellows. Cool blues.

The pictures are available through the New York Times “Times Limited” here. The images are very reasonably priced and are printed in the giclée process. I might just have to get a couple for the house.

All images: Little Brown Pen

Weekend Update: No. 211 & What I Found

Whew! Glad that weekend’s behind me now.  We had more than 24 hours of non-stop rain with the coming, arrival and leaving of Hurricane Irene, but I am pleased to report that both Connor and I made it through the storm unscathed. He was helped along by a Benadryl or two, and I, by a couple of cocktails. My 110-year old farmhouse made it unscathed as well. Luckily, we never lost power and had no damage at all. However, by Sunday morning, I was gasping to leave the house and have a chat with someone who could actually answer my questions, so I met pal Julie for a boozy brunch at what’s rapidly becoming my new favourite restaurant, City Cafe, conveniently located just around the corner from McLain-Wiesand. After that, I hit up the Book Thing with DC pal, Ellen {aka I Love Lime Green}, and a friend of hers. It was great to have more actual people to talk to again! Although the power was still out at Book Thing, we soldiered through, and for my efforts, I came across a near-mint copy of this book: I can’t WAIT to begin reading this. It looks like it’s going to be a great biography and it’s filled with great pictures of her life in the States and abroad.

  At a ball in 1905. With Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel in Cannes in 1931.

The preface to this book is by Diana Vreeland and even that is worth reading!

I popped into a little junk shop after the Book Thing, and came away with this gorgeous little silver bowl, English from 1920, according to the marks. I love the detailing around the edge. Look for it and some more great pieces on my Etsy shop this week!

Hope your weekend was a little calmer than mine!

I’ll Take This… Pashley Bike

When I saw this item in the auction catalogue at Alex Cooper, I thought I’d look hilarious pedaling around my new neighbourhood with Connor nestled in the basket. But then I remembered that I live at the bottom of a valley, and am surrounded by hills, and that Connor weighs in at about 65 lbs. But I am sure that he’d be quite cozy in the basket.This is a bike by the venerable English firm of Pashley, which was founded in 1926 and is located in the Bard’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. This bike looks to be their “Delibike” style. Maybe I could take it to the Farmers’ Market on Sundays and fill it with fresh fruits and veg. What do you think?

Weekend Update: No. 308

This weekend was filled with lots of storms, tons of rain and hours of thunder, much to Connor’s chagrin. On Sunday, the thunder and rain started before 7:00 a.m. and continued through nearly midnight. It’s not been very relaxing for either of us. And the power outage didn’t help at all! Nevertheless, I can’t really complain, as we had virtually no rain in June and July. It’s been a huge benefit to all of the gardeners and farmers to have the rain! I went to a great yard sale on Saturday morning. When I was on the Nate Berkus show last year, and I had to help a family set up a yard sale, we talked about whether you were doing the sale to make money or get rid of your things, as each of these has different tactics associated with it. Well, the Saturday yard sale was a get-rid-of-it-all sale. The couple was clearing out the mother’s flat and when she’d moved 10 years ago, she saved all of her best things, and that was what was on offer. 

I picked up a great little side table, and now need to find a place to put it. Right now, it’s lodged under the Chinese silk painting that I hung last week (which by the way, is 1/2 inch off level, which KILLS me!). I also need to decide whether to keep the table brown wood, or paint it.

Speaking of painting, I also got this book case, which was a hideous blue, and am in the midst of painting it. I’ve already used about a half a quart of Kilz paint on it, and some of the blue is still showing through.

Another project I tackled this weekend was curtains for the windows in the main room. During one of the storms, Connor tried to do his Houdini act of escaping and chewed through another set of mini-blinds. This makes the fourth set he’s chewed. I bought some plain white sail-cloth fabric at DeBois Textiles, and just hung this panel to gauge how it would work. Excuse the crappy photos, but my Photoshop program is corrupted and keeps crashing my computer, so I am editing them in some freebie program. Back to the curtains, I want to raise the rods to be closer to the ceiling and then maybe trim the curtains with something to make them a little more exciting.

Suggestions?

Three Day Tent Sale @ Sloans & Kenyon in DC

Are you a little freaked out by auctions? Do you think that if you rub your ear or sneeze, you might end up bidding on a priceless antique?

Well, Sloans & Kenyon Auctionseers just along the DC/Maryland border, is having a tent sale instead of an auction for the next three days! It’s going to be great, with new items added every day.

GREAT TENT EVENT
Friday, July 29: 10am - 5 pm
Saturday, July 30: 10 am - 3 pm
Sunday, July 31: 1 - 4 pm
An Avalanche of Personal Property
Attractively Priced for Immediate Purchase
Outdoors in the Sloans & Kenyon Parking Lot
Adjacent to Eastham's Exxon - 7100 block Woodmont Avenue
Four Complete Estates!
Antique and Other Furniture * Ladies' Designer Clothing (including this beautiful Hermès blouse)Men's Classic Clothing and Shoes * Including Polo and Brooks Brothers Sterling Silver * Porcelain * PaintingsJewelry * Box lots of Miscellanea (that coffee pot has my name all over it!!!) And Much, Much More!

My friend, ILOVELIMEGREEN works at S&K and was kind enough to send me some images of what’s on offer.  I’ve got my strategy planned out… including a fail-safe way to make sure I don’t buy too much! 

Remember, the sale is all weekend and you’re sure to find a treasure! I’ve been to their auctions before and it’s been worth it to attend!

Eye Candy

Just wandering around the internets and found some things that caught my eyes.

   A new take on old Victorian, from here.

Venetian shower curtain from here.

Maybe this is what I need over my work table. Here.

Something for sitting under in the garden.

A few days at the beach… maybe later this summer.

I’ll Take This… Wee Castle in Scotland

There’s nothing better than a personal-size castle! Not something massive like Windsor Castle, which covers vast numbers of acres, but a warm and cozy castle like this one… Teaninich Castle in the charmingly named Easter Ross, Scotland. Here’s what the estate agents have to say about this castle:

Teaninich Castle is a handsome and impressive property with a symmetrical three storey frontage with hood molded windows, crenellated porch and small bartizans at the battlement wall head. The castle has been modernized to a good standard whilst retaining most of its original features. 

Dating from 1734, the castle was formerly the seat of the Munros of Teaninich, while in more recent times previous owners have included the American Charles Harrison, on whom the book Little Lord Fauntleroy was based.

While it’s currently run as a small country hotel, it can be converted back to a single family home. However, some of the interior spaces need a bit of an upgrade, as a few are quite dire: That’s pretty gawd-awful, and I can only hope that it’s the servants’ quarters, and that no paying guests ever have to lay their eyes on it. Here’s what they should be seeing instead: Not wild about the furniture or the carpeting (same as above, they must have gotten a great bargain on it!), but the arches and the staircase are just lovely. I think the niche on the right, with what looks like a sculpture of a stag in it, is fabulous.

This bedroom could be great, but I am curious about the curtains on the window on the left – there seems to be a chest of drawers in the window, and they’ve shortened the curtains quite a bit to accommodate it. Of course, the paintings on the wall are a bit small for the space, and look like they were picked up at a car boot sale. Hmmm… maybe I am not liking this place so much! Ah, but then I go outside again, and look at the old stone,  the architecture, and the view over Cromarty Firth, and I reconsider.

Information about Teanninich Castle is here, where I found this little note tucked into a corner: Since the photographs were taken there has been considerable redecoration and some of the soft furnishings have been replaced.  Well, thank god for that! Seriously though, if you’re asking nearly £1 million for the property, you ought to have the most up-to-date pictures possible for your brochure. 

I’ll Take This… Sully Island, Wales

I used to see this little island when I would go to the monthly car-boot sale, sponsored by the Sully Rugby Club. I’d look out over the sea and Sully Island would come into view. I always had a soft spot for this particular “boot sale” as it was there that I bought my little chandelier… and for the hunky rugby players who directed you to a parking space. Now I see that Sully Island is for sale. It’s actually pretty inexpensive – only £95,000, down from £1.25m only last year.  Of course, there are no buildings, no roads and no deepwater dock. In fact, the only way to get to the island is to walk across at low tide – and the tide in that area swings about 10 meters between high and low. Here’s what the estate agents have to say:

Home to an abundance of species of birdlife and fauna, and a highly regarded fishing spot, Sully Island is a beautiful and captivating feature of the South Wales coastline with its own chequered history dating back many hundreds of years.

From Romans and Vikings, to pirates and noblemen, all have used the island for their own purposes, foul or fair, and evidence of a burial mound and a hill fort, together with the timber skeleton of a wrecked vessel are visible on or around the island today. It is reputed before the First World War the son of the Marquis of Bute successfully cultivated a vineyard on the island to supply his father’s bottling plant in Castell Coch. Whilst the vineyard has long gone, it is believed that whoever owns the island retains the right to commission their very own postage stamps!What you can’t see on this map, but you can see in the image above it, are two other islands – Flat Holm, which was flat, and Steep Holm, which was steep!  There is a road running along the cliff and that was the road I drove going to work at the Castle.

Here are the details on the island, just in case you’ve got a spare £95,000 and a hankering for some solitude!

Brightside Barn Sale

My new friend Suzy has the best taste, so when she hosts a barn sale at her place, just north of the city, you know there will be lots of fun things on offer!

Tole painted topiaries

Jonathan Adler pillow covers

Chinioserie lamps

Cookbooks and a book ladder

Nina Campbell cheetah print wall-paper – two rolls, plus some other papers (you can just see a peek of the cheetah)

Two antique wood trunks – these will be a great restoration project.

Framed Redoute –style prints

This is only a small part of what is for sale! If you’re in Baltimore, this is one not to miss. The link to the address is here. Here’s what’s not for sale: What a doll!

Carolyne Roehm Yard Sale!

The style- and taste-maker Carolyne Roehm is having an actual, honest-to-goodness yard sale at her home in Connecticut next weekend, July 9 & 10. Here’s what she has to say about it:

Having just had a "milestone birthday" and embracing some of the ideas from the book--titled "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, I decided to do more than clear a shelf or a closet. In my usual obsessive way I tackled barns and attics, my studio and the basement. Whilst I am not quite going zen in style (far from it), I am attempting to "declutter".

This will not be the organized, "pretty" tag sale like the one I wrote about in Veranda Magazine a few years ago, but just your classic old fashioned yard sale. With a mix of things from garden hoses to some of my beloved ribbons and silk flowers (it has been hard for me to give up some of those, but this is an exercise in editing), there is a bit of everything.

If you are around the northwest corner of Connecticut, please stop by.

If I wasn’t about a six hour drive, and didn’t already have plans, I’d be there in a heart-beat. You?