Graduation

It has been a very eventful week for me and a little bit bittersweet as my "baby" has graduated 8th grade.  I am so proud of him and excited about all of the great things to come in his future but I can't help feeling like I want him to be little again.  I love him so much and know that he will continue to amaze us with his accomplishments - but please SLOW down with the growing up thing.  Congratulations Buddy!

Gift from the Sea

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh, wrote a beautiful and insightful book in 1955 called Gift from the Sea while on a beach vacation in Florida. She used the inspiration she received by the amazing shells she found along the shore to meditate on her life. She wrote of the commitments and demands of everyday life as well as the changing dynamics of marriage and family over time.  She wrote of love and patience and everything that is wonderful about the beach and wonderful about family and being a strong woman.

I enjoyed reading this book several years ago while on a vacation in Florida and look forward to reading it again this week when I go to the same area of Florida where Ms. Lindbergh was vacationing when she wrote the book. It will be much more meaningful to me now as this vacation will be without my family, but with close girlfriends who are all busy wives and mothers now and are juggling many commitments and struggling with both wanting to get away from it all for a few days yet feeling guilty and missing our families terribly.  The beach is an amazing place and I am so excited to have fun with my girlfriends and enjoy the sun and salt water! I am sure on this trip we will all receive many gifts from the sea.

"At first, the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one’s mind, against all tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the sea-shore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

The Great Gatsby

 

 Via

I am so excited for the opening of the latest film adaptation of The Great Gatsby this weekend. This has been my favorite book since I was a teenager and I have read and re-read it over many summers. In fact I am always on the hunt for an old edition of the book at every antique shop, estate sale and flea market that I go to - In the hopes of one day finding an original! 

Via

The setting of the novel among the expensive estates of Long Island or "The Hamptons" is seduction enough to me. I have the guilty pleasure of wanting to be in attendance at one his extravagant parties among the socialites where the champagne flows and the music and dancing goes on and on - sometimes for days. I am captivated by the vision of Jay Gatsby dressed in all white standing on his expansive green lawn, against the backdrop of his beautiful mansion with its white sheer drapes billowing in the wind. I can picture him driving down the country roads with the top down in his Rolls-Royce or him staring out his window sadly across the water at the home of his love and obsession, Daisy Buchanan. It makes me want to pick up the book right now - preferably with a chilled glass of champagne lounging in a chaise on my deck.

I really enjoyed the film version that starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow as well. Without a doubt the best part of this movie is the mansion - the architecture and glamorous decor and of course, the romantic outdoor landscapes! Just beautiful. This is what will ultimately drive me to the theaters to see the new movie this weekend. To be immersed in the glamour, style and the extravagance and to be transported back to a by-gone era that I have always been inspired by. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Chandy Eye Candy

I love chandeliers. I can just stare at the crystals and immediately feel calm and optimistic - like all is good in the world! I especially love chandeliers in settings where they are not exactly expected - such as an outdoor shed, under a tree or in an old fishing cottage. There is just something about the delicateness of a chandelier that enhances any space.

Martha's Vineyard

Marthas Vineyard is probably one of the most idyllic places that I have ever been to. It is amazing to me that an island of 100 square miles can embody everything I love. I will never forget my first time going to the Vineyard. We got on the Steamship ferry in Woods Hole – Cape Cod on a foggy and chilly day in late June and took our seats on the upper outside deck and ate steaming bowls of clam chowder as we headed out to sea. As we approached the island the fog began to lift and we could see the big shingled homes of Vineyard Haven on the horizon. By the time we got to Edgartown the sun was bright in the sky and warm on our skin and I was officially in love. 

If the weathered shingled homes in Vineyard Haven and the tiny little Victorian cottages of Oak Bluffs weren't amazing enough, we stepped out of the taxi onto a cobblestone sidewalk in Edgartown and I knew I had found the most picturesque and quaint seaside village of my dreams.  The perfect white clapboard homes, picket fences and stately whaling captains homes that are each more lovely then the next stole my heart. These charming homes have perfectly manicured lawns, clapboard shutters and the most lovely painted front doors with brass knockers like whales, anchors and lobsters.  As you stroll through the narrow streets of town, the character of the old whaling village is still very evident and all roads lead to the water - the tranquil harbor and rose covered beaches. 

Edgartown is considered the county seat and although it is only a tiny island you feel as though it is its own country, it has such a strong identity.  You will even hear islanders refer to Boston as "America".  I also loved the relaxed elegance that make Edgartown and Matha's Vineyard so unique.  Here you will  see gorgeous people coming out of  even more gorgeous homes making their way around town in the oldest and most worn out top sider boat shoes and riding up and down the streets on the oldest and just down right antiquated bicycles.  It is such a fun, quirky, beautiful place.  

I realize as I am writing this post that I cannot possibly sum up this amazing island in a single post - it's Martha's Vineyard! So for now I am just going to share some of the lovely images of my beloved Edgartown.

I hope you enjoyed this little visit!

 

Design Dreaming

I dream of interior design. I dream design when I sleep and I dream design while I am awake and I have for as long as I can remember.   As a child my brother and I would look so forward to receiving the Wish Book catalogs from Sears and JC Penney at Christmas time every year and then we would fight to get our hands on them first. He would study the toy pages writing and rewriting his never ending Christmas list and I would sit with the catalog in my hands and in my head design and decorate bathrooms to go with each and every shower curtain, bathmat, rug and toilet seat cover on the pages of the catalog. I would then go on to the bedroom comforters and on and on and on.  I could sit there for hours doing this in my head – I really could.  I don’t remember how old I was but I know I was young. Much too young to be daydreaming about decorating imaginary rooms in an imaginary home instead of choosing toys for Santa Claus to bring me on Christmas morning.

It made me happy way back then and still makes me happy today.  I dream about decorating my home, my friend’s homes and I still dream about decorating imaginary homes.  This blog is my outlet for these dreams while I work on projects and dream about projects.  A place where I can get out of my head a little bit and share these ideas and spaces that I create, real or imagined, and maybe even inspire someone else. 

Below is a bathroom project that I am currently working on.  This is for a newlywed couple who just remodeled the bathroom themselves but were looking for some help with finishing touches and advice on the original contractor stock mirror that they were a little nervous about taking down.  Although there is fun stuff happening right now with shopping for accessories and styling - I am sharing a sneak peak below.  
 

In Progress

In Progress

   I can’t wait to show you the final product soon.