Pictures!

I know that nothing makes a blog more interesting than lots of pictures.  Especially when we're dealing with style and homekeeping!

Soon, you'll find this page much improved with images to match the posts.  We'll show you real world applications for our thoughts and ideas.

Bringing the Outdoors... In!



A bright red geranium adds color and
life to a corner in our dining room.
Original Image of the Gariepy House
by Lark Whicker



If you are like me, you like to have flowers around your house throughout the year.  Cut flowers can be expensive, and they really don't last all that long.  Nothing, in my opinion, looks worse than drooping, drying flowers and plants...  depressing!  One of my favorite inspirations for cozy, but grand, interiors was the late Queen Mother.  Now, how could ask how a family with an incredibly modest income could look to the Queen Mum for homekeeping inspiration?  Easy!  Many of the touches that I liked the most were very attainable for anyone (more on the QM and style in another post).

I've found a cost-effective, long-lasting alternative to weekly trips to the flower market.  Outdoor plants!  Now, this may seem obvious to many of you, but it was an entirely new idea to me several years ago.  You see, I love nothing more than big sprays of chrysanthemums in the fall.  Unfortunately, florist mums are pretty small compared to the huge outdoor varieties you can buy.  Our local farm had pots of enormous mums in every shade for less than the rather dinky indoor varieties.  I bought a few of these and brought them home and, guess what?  They lasted for weeks!  Each plant was covered with hundreds of buds, almost all of which opened over a month or more.  In fact, it was hard to get rid of them when Christmas rolled around.

Over the years, I've experimented with other outdoor plants and have found them to be superior to the foil-wrapped pots the florists and supermarkets sell for a mint.  Bright red zonal geraniums and scented geraniums are year round dazzlers, and even azaleas, delphiniums, roses and hydrangeas seem to thrive in our living room.  Remember, I am not talking about the obvious indoor plants you see, but those sold at your local nursery and farmstands.

One word of caution about the mums (the flowers, not the Queen!)...  If you have small children, beware!  Trips to urgent care were required to remove unbloomed chrysanthemum buds from the tiny, heart-shaped nostrils of more than one of our children!

Corners

A favorite corner...  Cozy books to pick up
and read to the children, a favorite picture
and a vintage tea cup filled with paper
flowers.
Original Image of the Gariepy House by
Lark Whicker

Recently, a couple of good friends stopped by for a visit.  These are the kind of friends you are really happy to see, not the "duck down and stay perfectly still until they give up and leave" friends.  These two ladies are always positive and upbeat, and they leave you feeling so much better about your life and your home.  They bring a breeze of fresh air with them rather than sucking the life out of you.

As we sat and talked, they shared that they always felt that our home had a "mood" and a "feeling", one that they wanted in their own homes.  As a longtime resident of this home, I can tell you that I sometimes fail to recognize any mood or feeling other than "frazzled" or "completely overwhelmed".  They went on to point out things that they'd admired about our house and, to be honest, they were things we'd always taken for granted.  The particular placement of a mirror, the pattern on the curtains, the books.  That's one of the nice things about friends like this - they don't notice the chipped paint, the cabinet that needs to be sorted out or the inevitable dust bunnies under the sofa - they see the big picture and can appreciate and recognize the effort and thought that was put into the overall look of your home.  One of our friends kept pointing out corners that she particularly liked, and it gave me a thought.  What if, from time to time, we focused only on those little areas in our homes that we love.  Maybe it's a closet, a bookcase, a pillow, a picture or an entire corner.  Despite the day to day mayhem that our house faces, there's always at least one corner that remains untouched.  Usually, it's the one in the living room next to the piano or, even more likely, our seventeen year-old daughter's entire room.  Regardless of where it is, taking a moment to appreciate it and the lovely things that fill it up helps us to appreciate all that we have, and to remember that despite the clutter of backpacks, shoes and school papers, there is something lovely lurking beneath.

Spring Garden



Late spring in our back garden

 We're in the middle of spring here in Oregon and we've finally had a few warm days to get out into the garden!  So wet and rainy has it been that we still haven't managed to till the vegetable patch or the circle garden.  Fortunately, the perennial bed that I am convinced will never come back from year to year has filled in with soon-to-bloom pink peonies, golden lady's mantle and bright, blue delphiniums.  I filled a large urn with early geraniums and trailing lobelia at Easter and placed it in a blank spot in the bed.  I liked it so well that I've left it there.  Today, we planted four, new climbing roses (regular price - $20, but procrastination allowed me to pick them up for a mere $5 at our local garden center!) and started the zinnia seeds along the side of the house.

Speaking of zinnias, I used to drive by a house that planted and entire corner of their front yard with brightly colored zinnias every year.  In the late summer it was a sea of red, orange, yellow, pink and white - absolutely dazzling.  Zinnias seem like a particularly old fashioned flower to me - something that must have grown in every country garden along with hollyhocks, cosmos and petunias.  It brings to mind old, white farmhouses, green fields and blue skies, and a friendly grandmother baking pies in the kitchen.

Take a minute to go out into the garden today.  Ignore those areas that desperately need attention, and look for that one perfect corner or, if your garden was like ours was a month or two ago, that one perfect plant.  Enjoy!