Front Door Fabulous

I always love to see what colors people paint their houses - particularly if they are interesting and fun.  My husband has a problem with this when I’m the one driving…he’d much rather I watch the road then stare sideways (and sometimes backwards) to get my color fix.  Sometimes you come across a house that is so fun you wonder if the mailman needs migraine medicine in order to deliver. 

There are many houses more simple in detail that don’t call for a multiple-color paint job.  I find that for these houses a fabulous front door does the trick.  You have a single focal point, an idea of some personality and a fun little zing to appreciate as you go by.

My last house was an Italianate Victorian from 1847 with tons of detail- we had fun with the colors of that house:

Melissa Gulley Style

My husband and i have gotten quite good at fixer uppers and have one we are in the middle of.  Our current house is a more simple Victorian from the 1890’s.  I will not stain your brain and risk injuring your eye’s with a photo of its exterior, but it is BUTT UGLY!!!  It has aluminum siding from the 1950’s that covers every single inch of it- even over the window and door moldings.  If that’s not bad enough we accurately named the color: Pallor.  Our house is the color of pasty English people’s skin (I can make fun of this, I’m English by descent) when they have never been in the sun, don’t exercise, smoke two packs a day and don’t eat vegetables (perhaps just minutes away from contracting full blown rickets).  There is not much that I can do to improve this until we rip off the siding and reface the whole huge place, and we have SOOOO many other things to do first.  The only thing we’ve done is paint our pretty double Victorian front doors Turquoise.  Within a week I’d gotten a positive comment from everyone in the neighborhood - they were obviously desperate for something to be done.  This little festive color upgrade did so much, I then added various turquoise planters and flowers.  Sometimes it’s just a little touch that makes it:

The best part of having fun with the front door is being able to easily change it.  It only takes about an hour, so it is a great project for the commitment-phobic!

I’ve Been Swamped!

I have not posted for a week or so - OK, so two weeks - we have been flooded.  We got water (a lot) in our basement -for the first time - during the huge rain storm a week ago.  The fire department came to pump us out and realized that there was nothing they could do until it stopped raining.  Instead they shut off the gas to the house (furnace floating was kind of bad), so we had no heat, no hot water, no way to cook.  The house was yucky and freezing.

(below, see my tres chic turquoise leather golf bag- FLOATING!!!)

As luck would have it, my dear friends Carol and Jerry were on vacation and their house was empty.  When they heard about our problem they offered their house.  Now that’s a good friend.  So my husband, two kids, two dogs and I moved into one of the most spectacular houses I have ever laid my eyes on (did I mention good friends!).  During the day we would go work non-stop on saving the basement at our house (so stressful and un-fabulous)  and by night we would enter this amazing house and the stress would just fall away- it was what saved us from losing our minds.

(Meg Braff)

It was so interesting to live at a friend’s house for a week.  You think you know someone- but when you live at their house you see details of them and how they live their lives that most are not privy to.  I will report that my friends are surprisingly normal!  What did hit me about how they live is the amount of organization in their house.  Built-ins everywhere, not just your average built-ins but the most well thought out, detailed and space saving built-ins I have ever seen.  I have always felt that instead of the bigger house, bigger rooms, bigger garage, bigger basement, etc., houses can be small, as long as things have been planned properly.  That upfront thinking means that everything has a place (and doors to close!) so you don’t look at the storage (clutter).  It can be so much more effective. 

Carol and Jerry had thought out their storage so beautifully they had quick access to everything they owned.  For example, if we want to go ice skating I have to unearth the ice skates in the basement, find warm sock in the bowels of someone’s dresser - god knows who's - and a bag to transport all this stuff from somewhere else.  Ultimately when we think to go ice skating- the process of finding the right stuff is so arduous that we nix the idea.

 

At Carol and Jerry’s house they want to go ice skating, they go to the cabinet, open the door and choose the bag from the shelf that contains each person’s ice skates, socks, ice skate guards, then below, they pick the hat, mittens and gloves need and they are off!  Wow, that is so awesome!  Think of the activities we could all effortlessly do on the fly if it were all that easy.

This weekend I am reorganizing for sure!

I’ve Been Clocked!

If you don’t know by now I have a pretty healthy obsession with the color turquoise.  It all started with a tiny French carriage clock given to me by my grandmother (who also LOVED the color)  This tiny clock was a gift from her father after he returned from a long trip to France in the early 1900’s.  He brought back three clocks for his three daughters, all somewhat similar- except for the color.  My grandmother Alice had turquoise, her sisters Ines and Winn had pink and yellow.  See my beloved clock below:

This clock started my obsession with turquoise, as well as a collection of Guilloche with enamel.  According to Wikipedia:

Guilloché, phonetically pronounced gee-oh-SHAY is a French word for the process of engraving either by hand or by machine intricate repetitive patterns.  Guilloché, is an engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically etched into an underlying material with fine detail. Specifically, it involves a technique of engine turning, called guilloché in French after the French engineer “Guillot”, who invented a machine “that could scratch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces”. The machine improved upon the more time-consuming practice of making similar designs by hand, allowing for greater delicacy, precision, and closeness of the line, as well as greater speed.  Yet another account is that it derives from the French word for an engraving tool, not the engine turning machine.

Further details on Guilloche from e-Bay:

Although Enamel and Guilloché was used, pairing-first, applied by Peter Carl Fabergé on the Faberge eggs in the 1880’s-they are nevertheless two separate techniques and were not applied to one another until Fabergé.
Below is a picture of Guilloche with out the applied enamel:

Next group of pictures below are examples of Guilloche after enamel:

The machines used to create guilloché designs are no longer produced. Today true guilloché can be found in mostly luxury watches and then only a very few companies practice the art.  The guilloché technique can be seen in various antique and vintage jewelry and vanity items from compacts, pocket watches and  dresser sets to charms.

 And then of course, there is my favorite- CLOCKS.  See below a bevy of clocks to delight the eyes:

    

Because this process is no longer practiced, these items have become very desirable, expensive and hard to find.

White Ceiling Beware!

Some call it the ceiling, and some the fifth wall.  Thinking about the ceiling as a fifth wall encourages you to consider it in a decorative way.  Why not?  Who else is sick of boring ceiling white?  Oh me, me, me!  This is not a new concept, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from 1508-1512. 

Now that may, of course, be too much for some people to tackle.  Let’s look at a simpler variety of ceiling paint.

My friend Carol has a deeper version of this sky in her kitchen and no one walks into that room without gasping in appreciation at the gorgeous and fun ceiling.  Yet still some may still want an even simpler approach- say a solid color.

(Melissa Gulley Style)
Above is actually a picture of the family room in my last house.  Let me tell you, the ceiling made the room so warm and fun - it changed the feeling of the room entirely.

(apartment therapy blog)

The above all white rooms get a huge boost of character with the red and orange ceilings.

(Sherrill Canet)

Dining spaces, like the two pictures above, are a great place to play with color on the ceiling.  People are so absorbed in what’s happening at eye level while eating, that this can provide just a pop of the unexpected.  It pulls the eye up so one can appreciate the entire space.

 

(House Beautiful)                                                      (Inspiration for Decoration Blog)

Often people want the feeling of outdoors- a blue sky has a wonderful effect on people’s moods, so why not steal a little of that for the indoors?

(making arrangements blog)                                         (Melissa Gulley Style)

This incredible porch (below) is from the amazingly talented Amanda Nesbit.  We have all seen the aqua painted ceilings in porches - well, Mrs. Nesbit took it up a notch with this fabulous purple.  Do you know why porch ceilings were painted blue like the sky?  I didn't either, until my contractor and old house buff told me.  It was to fool the spiders into thinking it was the sky so they wouldn't settle there.  Hmmmmm, not sure spiders can even see color? 

Obsessions: Opaline

Now many of you know I have various things I collect.  Entering my house you are, of course, struck by the vast turquoise accents.  Many of my collections were inspired by my Grandmother Alice.  One such collection is Opaline Glass and it started with these lamps that I adore- my family is so afraid to break them that they make me put them in a place where they rarely go (whatever- as long as they stay intact).

Opaline is a semi opaque, hand blown, hand polished French glass that began in production in the early 1800’s.  White and blue are the most popular colors but the other colors pink, green, yellow, red, black and lavender are more expensive due to rarity.  Although Italy and England have produced glass similar to Opaline, real Opaline was only produced in France.

Below see some examples of the blue color which can range from an intense medium blue to turquoise and aqua.  The picture of the lamps shows a particularly translucent variety.

White Opaline was the first color Opaline, and is created with bone ash which gives it the white color.  Opaline has a very high lead content and with oxides of anatomy and arsenic the other colors can be achieved.  When you hold the white Opaline up to the light you will see a red color radiating from where the light shows through.

Here are some examples of pink:

 

Even though the glass looks so translucent you would think it’s paper thin, it’s not and actually has some heft to it.  It is much thicker than you would imagine.  Here are some green and yellow examples:

And of course red, lavender and black:

Information gathered from House Beautiful article on Opaline Boxes, January 2001.