The STUFF Sisters

Classy

Several days ago, while walking through the living room on my way to my bedroom, something caught my eye. New art in the living room …

A well-appointed home makes room for painter’s tape and Scotch tape.

My husband and I have lived in our historic home for over twenty-five years. We have started and completed many projects, with and without help. Early in our time here, we did most of the work ourselves. Plaster repair, painting, wall-to-wall carpet removal, flooring repair. We have light skills in electrical and plumbing. Continue reading “Classy”

Bushel and a Peck

My daughter made this tile for me. It is a lyric from a short little song my Grandmother sang to me and I now sing to my daughter. Art makes me happy because when a person chooses to hand make something to share with a specific person or with the world, the love, passion and good intent stays with that piece forever.

The energy in each piece of art I have in my home feeds my soul. Today I will – once again – be surrounded by this magic because I live with art.

Pursue good art. Pursue good stuff…

Nosing Around

You never know what others will see in the rooms you live in. More importantly, what they will read into you in what they see about you and around you.

I have never toured the White House in Washington, DC. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’ve never planned my trips to this greatest of our cities in advance enough to actually book a tour. I would love to see the public spaces of that building, but I have never had a desire to see the private spaces where our president and his family reside. I firmly believe they are private for a reason, and they don’t need the rest of us nosing around.

I live in an historic home in our center city. It is pushing 110 years old, yet it is not a masterpiece nor overly important architecturally. It is, however, a home. With people living in it. A dog. Plants. We host many events, but we seldom let guests up to the second and third floors. Many reasons: one being the rooms are not as majestic; two being that projects have been completed on the first floor for many years yet linger undone on the upper floors; and three being that these are our most private quarters. Our bedrooms and baths. Our studies, dressing rooms, and over-sized closets. Not as tidy as our lower floor, and loaded with our treasures, valuable and not.

Two times last week we let people climb the stairs, past the magnificent crown molding and quarter-sawn oak of the first floor, to land squarely in our lives. One night it was the staff from our business that came for a meal and tour, and one night was a close friend who needed a place to change clothes before we waltzed out together for another night on the town for charity.

For the first evening, I spent multiple minutes preparing our spaces upstairs, and on the second evening I did not. I do not know why. Both were intimate and benignly invasive. You never know what others will see in the rooms you live in. More importantly, what they will read into you in what they see about you and around you. Your art. Your books. Magazines. Lotion bottles.

I know that when I looked up from my bed last night and saw this sight before me, I was reminded that evenings with my son in our home bent over a book studying while typing endlessly on a keyboard are limited. I can actually count them on my two hands.

Our personal spaces are our respites, and I will miss my son crashing about in my private and quiet spaces on the upper floors of our home.

Just as I will miss doing the same in his.

p.s. More about my son and his impending departure for college here.

Catching Myself Looking

I’m looking. Constantly. He probably knows it. Probably playing dumb for his mother’s sake.

I am looking for signs of what won’t be in my life when a certain someone takes off for college in the upcoming fall. I catch myself noticing how things will not be in places where they have been for 17 years. Coats, mittens, sporting equipment. Coins, pencils, backpacks.

Today I saw this as I cruised down the hall. Moving swiftly to a shopping date with my sister, my mind had captured the image, but I was halfway down the stairs when I stopped, climbed back up, and reached for the camera in my overfull handbag.

A twin bed recently slept in. Warmed by an afternoon sun that is boxed in by a west facing window. A tumbled mess and two sleeping buddies that have missed few nights with my young man.

This I will miss. Stay tuned….

The Storm Passed

In recent months, I have been drowning in the flood of my own life. A “perfect storm” of work, parenting and volunteering put me on my knees. I had a plan. I really did.

In recent months, I have been drowning in the flood of my own life. A “perfect storm” of work, parenting and volunteering put me on my knees. I had a plan. I really did. But then those unexpected and unlikely events started to hit.

Every time I turned around, another (medical, staff, tenant, dental, roof, appliance, plumbing…) issue hit. Again, again and again. I thought this time I was going to break, thankfully I had help with the materials and equipment from http://profoam.com.

Then last week my daughter climbed into my bed after a bad dream. I was still awake, lying in the dark holding back tears of fatigue and fear. She crawled onto my stomach, her limbs falling past my knees and over my sides as she drifted back to sleep.

I looked down at her in the dark, and just like that the storm passed. Only one thing actually changed…me. My heart could finally be heard above the screaming in my mind.

I let go.

Last Thursday, when an actual storm ripped my roof open, tore siding from my house, and knocked the power out, I lit candles, put buckets out to catch the water, locked the windows, and cuddled up on the couch with my child and fell asleep in the warm glow of my home.

A home isn’t a house. My house may very well fall down around me one day, but my home will always be warm, well lit, and open to the people I love and who love me in return.

Home Alone

God save me from my memories.

Tonight was a gift that has come along so seldom in the last 15 years that I was giddy with the possibilities. The husband at work for a client. The kid off at a dance and after parties.

God save me from my memories.

Tonight was a gift that has come along so seldom in the last 15 years that I was giddy with the possibilities. The husband at work for a client. The kid off at a dance and after parties. I didn’t know when the man would be home, but the boy’s pickup wasn’t until 1am. A day of work and volunteering behind me, and an evening to myself. Alone. In my home alone. Nirvana.

Maybe catching up on my reading. Maybe writing a bit from the notes I gathered at my writing group on Friday. Maybe learning to use the remote and watching an old movie. Maybe remembering the huge dust monster found in my closet/dressing room/office earlier this morning while digging the boots out.

Guess which one won?

Here I am at 10pm on a Saturday night. Battling the vacuum attachments was work enough, but the flood of memories from the handbags, totes and clutches almost took me down.

What in the hell is wrong with me? I can clean out a child’s room quickly. I can make happy work of an over-packed junk drawer. I can sort through the “dump pile” of weekly mail swiftly. I can make tough decisions about what goes and what stays in every room in the house except the one that is solely mine. My dressing room and office.

This pile of incredibly dusty and seldom used bags turned into a hike through Mizzou (early ’80s), a trip to a national political convention (mid ’80s), a trip with my toddler to the zoo in St. Louis (late ’90s), a first-time handbag purchase from a street vendor in New York (early ’90s), and a talk with my grandmother (seemingly yesterday). I stood there vacuuming them all – with the brush attachment and working up a marginal sweat – telling myself that this was it. This was finally the day to rid myself of cotton duck cloth and/or leather that hadn’t held a school book, diaper, notebook, badge or swimsuit in over 10 years.

Then I folded them neatly into a dust-resistant plastic bin and put them away on the highest shelf of my closet.

For another day.

p.s. Of course it turned into a larger project that encompassed the entire closet. Silly girl. What was I thinking?

Big Trees are Magic

Friday morning I sat on my back deck and looked for places to plant a tree on our postage stamp lot in mid-town.

Friday morning I sat on my back deck and looked for places to plant a tree on our postage stamp lot in mid-town. Mowing takes our son all of 15 minutes – front and back – because trees, bedding and produce gardens dot the property. Grass is not our top producer of mulch. Leaves are.

We live with three large trees. Trees that tower over the house, and the house stands at three stories tall. Majestic specimens all: oak, maple and hackberry. Mature trees. Trees that knock our use of air conditioning back a bit. I have told my husband many times that when even one of these trees leaves us, I’m calling the movers.

In the last week, two different neighbors have cut down same-size trees. Big ones. Upon seeing their removal – even if watching tree removal after a storm actually, my chest got tight. My palms ached a bit and I beat back tears. I have yet to dig down too deep on these physical reactions to loss to understand myself. Maybe I don’t want to. All I know is that within 24 hours of the second loss I was sitting and looking at my yard, thinking about planting a tree. I felt we needed another. Not we the people in my house, but we the planet.

I guess I’m a tree hugger. Big trees are magic to me. I can remember lying under the huge oak at one of my childhood homes. If offered a wide and dense canopy. I would look up and I was protected by a big green tent. If I heard something overhead or wondered about the sky, I would have to get up and walk away from the tree to see anything at all. Hearing was possible; sight was not.

I have spent the years since I was a political consultant trying to beat back agressive or fevered tendencies in my words and actions. I like to think I’ve calmed a bit. But on the issue of trees, knee jerk reactions are clearly on the rise.

Waves

I tore this image from a magazine last week. Sadly, I don’t remember which magazine, so I can’t give credit to them for featuring this nifty room.

I tore this image from a magazine last week. Sadly, I don’t remember which magazine, so I can’t give credit to them for featuring this nifty room. I pulled it because I really like the wave painting.

I would have wanted the bench to face the painting, but often that doesn’t work in homes. I often have that challenge in my home.

I would like to own a piece of this artist’s work. Maybe I will come across the artist one day.

Meanwhile, I will just have to enjoy having this in one of my many scrapbooks.

Turquoise Bedroom

I tore this page from the February issue of Spaces magazine. This room is too formal for my lifestyle and taste, but that color. Ohhhhhhh, that saturated color.

I think the turquoise matted framed art is brilliant. And, if you look closely the whole wall is framed in wood and acts like a giant second headboard. Again, brilliant. Because that incredible color would become cloying if the whole room was saturated. To me it is the perfect amount of infused color.

Showcase Your Art

I like interior walls filled with art. I just rearranged the art in my own home. I created new collections that reflect some of the styles in this one-page article.

I really like the simplicity of the limited color palette in this next photo, but it is safe to say I don’t collect art in one color palette; it is quite the opposite, I must admit.

I will try and take some photos in my home soon.

Note: These pages are from Elle Decor magazine, March 2010.