Blog Mentions

I am so tickled whenever I randomly come across an image from our wedding on other blogs. Here are some of the ones that I've found so far:

As seen on Santa Barbara Wedding Chic

I know it's small, but we're in the very bottom photo, as seen on Junebug Weddings

This one was the most flattering blog mention, because it was included among Junebug Weddings "Best from the Best" Fashion Report, the "most stunning images of 2008!" It is also currently used as our wedding photographer's blog heading.

Stay tuned for more finds. I know for a fact that there is a big one coming up, because we have been chosen as a featured wedding for the Junebug Weddings blog. Apparently, they love us.

Living room walls

I cannot decide how I want to paint the walls in the living room. I have gone back and forth on color ideas, from green to gray, back to green, to...purple? navy? No, I think I do want to stick with green, because it will look so nice with the brown walls of the adjacent dining room, but the bigger question is what green? Olive? Forest? Man, it is driving me crazy. I think I'm probably trying too hard to make the perfect choice (it is just paint, afterall), but it is the living room - the most used room - and the centerpiece of the house. It will be the first thing you see when you walk in the front door and you will see it when sitting down to eat. And more than anything else, I want to be comfortable when I sit down to watch t.v., and I happen to be someone who is just not comfortable in an imperfect space!

Here are some ideas I'm batting around:

First idea:

Image courtesy of Wall to Wall Stencils

This is a very library green; a green that you would see in a hunter's lodge in the English countryside or on a pool table in a classic old club. Even though it's a color on the cooler side of the color scale, there's a warmth that radiates from this kind of green.

Image courtesy of House Beautiful

Second idea:

Image courtesy of Wall to Wall Stencils

I see this as a more fashion-forward color; very Ralph Lauren safari chic. It also has military undertones, which can be sexy, if done right. I think olive could actually be a very ugly color, taken alone, but when surrounded by the right accessories, it would be beautiful.

Image courtesy of coco & kelley

I'm also considering something a little more unique, like wallpaper. Here is a sample that I love:

Image courtesy of Wallpapers to Go

With this in the living room, I would feel like I was always wearing an awesome nubby fall sweater or blazer (the kind with courdory elbow patches, you know?). However, it turns out that wallpaper is kinda expensive. Darn it! So here's another option:

Image courtesy of stencilease.com

It's actually a herringbone stencil! I would either do it in two shades of green (not too contrasting - I want it to be a subtle effect) or, even more subtly, one of those greens shown above with a high gloss urethane on top. I saw this done on HGTV once. Could be cool.

Closing Day

Yesterday, we closed on the house. Our first house. It was a very exciting moment.

I couldn't wait to start redecorating the entire place, so I began painting last night, even though I never paused to take "before" photographs for posterity. Because I know I am going to do a fabulous redo on this little house, I need you all to see where it started. Here are some pics from when it was listed for sale online. It's certainly far from awful, but a little too bland for us:

The kitchen:

Here are the problems with the kitchen: it's yellow, it's country, and the cabinets and countertops are cheap.

The dining room:

Problem: bland, boring, hospital-room mint green walls and vertical blinds on the sliding glass door to the backyard.

The living room:

Lots of problems: that couch (thankfully) was not left for us, but it is pretty indicative of the former owners' taste. Those plaid valances were left for us...all over the house. Now, I adore plaid, but not that one. And not against those beige walls. This room has a few more issues: it's kinda on the small side, there are no walls that don't have either a window or a doorway, so couch, t.v. and art placement will be challenging, and from the living room, you can see every other room on the first floor, so they are all going to have to coordinate.

The enclosed porch/bonus room:

The problems: I know that some people may see the wood paneling as a problem, but Mr. Marshall and I love that woodsy look! We're going to run with it and turn the room into a library/game room. The problems that we will have to address are the flooring (weird faux brick linoleum under a dirty beige carpet remnant) and the fact that there is very little wallspace (what with the windows and stairway rails).

The guest bedroom:

Problems: This was the former owners' master bedroom. How boring! But all it needs is paint...and I need to rip that emerald green wall-to-wall carpet the hell out!

The second bedroom:

Problems: not many. This room is sweet. It will eventually be our nursery, so we're going to hold off on decorating it, so that we don't have to do it twice.

The office:

Problems: they painted the walls to a neutral shade before they sold the house, so we don't have to deal with those stripes. The biggest problem is that this is a small room with no closet (so they shouldn't technically have been able to list it as a bedroom, which they did). Since it's gonna be Mr. Marshall's office, that's no real concern.

The attic:

Problems: the ratty, old carpet, the low ceiling (especially over the stairs), the lack of light in the stairway and the other unfinished half of the attic, with its mustiness and spiders and exposed insulation.

I'll show all these pics again once we're done redecorating. Luckily, redecorating is all we really need to do, since there are no major renovations needed.

Yay house!

All images courtesy of Zillow.com

Wellies Galore

I just saw a little old British lady on t.v. wearing a cute pair of floral rubber boots:

I've never gardened before, but I am going to, just as a pretense for splurging on a pair of authentic Hunter wellies. I'll probably go classic and buy a pair of the Original Greens:

but there are so many other tempting colors to choose from:

All images above courtesy of Zappos.com

and even some special editions, like an oh-s0-chic collaboration with Fortnum & Mason:

Image courtesy of Fortnum & Mason

and the most fashionable juxtaposition of high and low, the Jimmy Choo wellie:

Image courtesy of Hunter

Pillows

Recently I've noticed two really cool pillows trios.

The first set is at Anthropologie:

The second set is at Restoration Hardware:

Two New Collections

I would like to use this blog post to formally announce the beginning of a two new collections:

Flow Blue:

Image courtesy of Country Living

Jasperware by Wedgwood:

Image courtesy of Wedgwood

I love all things blue and white. That is well known. I have been collecting Blue Willow china for many, many years now and I already have quite the collection, which I use both to display as well as to eat off of. My collection has grown so large and complete that I have decided to start a couple of new blue and white ceramic collections. Though - just for the record - I will never stop collecting Blue Willow.

The blurriness of the pattern that is the hallmark of Flow Blue was either the accidental result of volatilizing chlorides left in the kiln during the firing process or an intentional method of camouflaging the seams created by the process of transfer printing that had become fashionable in 18th century England. At first, these pieces enjoyed great popularity in England, but as the English began to lose interest in the novelty of the blurred transfer, the manufacturers shipped the leftovers to America to be sold at low cost. Almost immediately, Flow Blue became the "china for the masses; the common man's porcelain." American copies were made and sold at an even lower cost, which essentially put the original English manufacturers out of business. More recently, Asian knock-offs have flooded the market. Genuine English Flow Blue can be quite expensive, because of the rarity of high-quality, non-chipped pieces and the degree of "flow" can affect the price as well.

Image courtesy of DeFina Auctions

Image courtesy of O'Gallerie

Image courtesy of Dargate Auction Galleries

Something that I did not know before doing (a second of) research for this blog post is that Josiah Wedgwood, of Wedgwood Jasperware fame, is commonly credited with developing the flow blue technique. Jasperware, unglazed stoneware with molded reliefs, was one of a string of major successes for Wedgwood and what the company is best known for today. Jasperware with a blue background and white bas relief is the most popular design (and my favorite), but the ceramics come in every color and vary from Greek scenes to florals to simple bands of pattern. Even in the blue and white category, there is a variety of background tints ranging from light, pale blue to a slate gray-blue to dark cobalt. I like them all.

Image courtesy of Dargate Auction Galleries

Image courtesy of Dargate Auction Galleries

Image courtesy of Replacements, Ltd.

A History of Named Houses

I must have been a British artistocrat in a former life, because I can't help but be obsessed with all things gentry. As you know from this blog, I like the warmth and texture of gentlemanly patterns, such as herringbone and plaid, and materials, such as leather and wool, for the downstairs of my house and the femininity and romance of ladylike designs upstairs. What you may not know is that I'm also fascinated by the other trappings of British artistocracy, such as family crests and the tradition of naming their estates. 

I know that it sounds exceedingly silly for me to want to name my little house in Rochester, NY - for sure a far cry from the manor houses of England's countryside - but I'm certainly not alone in this pretension. I did a little research on the history of naming houses and here is what I've found:

Naturally, everything traces back to ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic and Empire, an elite, wealthy Roman would live in a compound outside of the city center known as a villa urbana, very similar in nature to the country houses of England. They didn't have street numbers back then (first introduced in Paris in 1512) so these estates were identified by names, either descriptive (Villa Magna) or from the family name (Villa Adriana). Many of these villas were located in modern-day England and had a real impact on the Britons emerging from the Dark Ages, when the upper class began to form, distinct from the nobility. Medieval castles led to castellated manor houses, which were generally either named after the family or the location, and these manor houses, in turn, led to smaller estates with the rise of the middle class and the suburbanization of the landscape. These smaller estates were almost always named after the location, such as "Highlands," "Foxhill House" and "Greenacres." In the late-

19th century, even the regular, run-of-the-mill middle class got into the name-game by naming their houses after the grander properties in the area (e.g. "Ferndale" from "Fern Hill"). 

Today, it's pretty much just for fun. According to a survey done in 2003, the most popular house name in the UK is simply "The Cottage." Common themes in the top 50 house names include trees ("The Willows" #10), plants and flowers ("Primrose Cottage" #40), and a general yearning for the countryside ("The Old Vicarage" #16). Of course, knowing the British, puns factor into a lot of new house names too. Some commentary on the current economy:

"Dunbankin"

"Stoneybroke"

"Kantafordyt"

"Llamedos" (read backwards)

In the rest of the world, many rural areas still depend on house names rather than numbers to identify a residence. This is particularly true in the tropics (or so it seems from House Hunters International, where everything is "Casa This," "Casa That." But I don't give a lick about the tropics, so you can do your own research on that. 

What should we name our new house? I've already lived in a couple of houses with informal names (in college, I lived in a house called "The Mansion" and my family always refered to my grandmother's house as "The Beach House"). My best friend's mother keeps a pied-a-terre in Paris that she calls "La Petite Genevieve," because it is located on the Rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevieve and Mr. Marshall has family in Alaska who live in "Blue Heron Haven," presumably because they have heron there or maybe just because they like them. 

If we named our house after its size, it would be "The Cottage," but seeing as how that name is so popular, I'm going to avoid it. It could be "Brown Cottage" or "Maple Cottage," but neither of those names has enough oomph for me. If we named our house after its location, it would be "Highway House" - not so nice. Though, that highway used to be the Erie Canal, so we could call it "Canal House," but then people would be confused when they came to visit and there was no water nearby. If we named our house after local fauna, it would be "Squirrel's Run" and while there's nothing inherently wrong with this name, it seems a bit cutesy to me...OMG, the perfect name just came to me! I'm confident that none of you will understand this name, but here it is:

"Das Oachkatzlschwoaf Haus"

Literally, this means "The Squirrel's Tail House" in Bavarian German. Saying Oachkatzlschwoaf is the most common way to test whether you can correctly pronounce this regional dialect and it's just a totally awesome word. Why this has particular meaning to this house is that, when the inspectors were inspecting the house for structural defects and pests, they found evidence that squirrels had at some point jumped from the tall Silver Maple in the front yard to the roof of the house, chewed their way through the wood and set up home in the eaves (not to worry - this is not a major issue and is being remedied by the sellers). Why this name is even more relevant is because right after the inspector investigated the squirrel hole, he ran into a baby squirrel on the ground and snapped a photo of it for the report:

 

Apparently, baby squirrels don't have big, bushy tails like adult squirrels do. See? It's all about the squirrel's tail! Perfect name. And no, we won't make you address letters to The Marshalls at Das Oachkatzlschwoaf Haus in Rochester, NY, but I will make a little plaque to hang on the front door. Yes, I will. 

Inspiration Part 2: Upstairs

There are three rooms on the second floor. There are two roughly equally sized rooms and one smaller room that has no closet. This will most likely be Mr. Marshall's study. There is also some finished attic space on the third floor, but I can't decide whether that should be the master bedroom, the guest bedroom or a family-type room. For the purposes of this experiment, let's just say that the attic will be the guest bedroom/fun space when we don't have guests and that the third room on the second floor will be the...baby's room...once we have one. 

The Master Bedroom:

The walls will be a light shade of periwinkle (maybe?), with lots of different whites (the bedding, the curtains, the furniture) with accents of sparkle and silver (a chandelier, a mirror, tsotchkes, etc). A lot like this photo, but without the ambers and ochres:

I don't remember from whence this image came!

I haven't worked out exactly what I want my bedroom to look like, but I know that I want it to have light, airy and romantic qualities, just like this: 

Image courtesy itsheavenly.blogspot.com

I have to point out that the bedroom pictured above comes from Zara Home. OMG, if only they had those in the US, I would spend a fortune there!

The Attic/Guest Bedroom:

The attic has lots of nooks and crannies and is very cozy, which is why I think it should be done up in a very British manner. But, unlike the British influence downstairs, the attic will be feminine and light. Victorian, rather than Tudor. I'm feeling florals:

Image courtesy of Wallpapers To Go

Image courtesy of Ralph Lauren Home

I like twin beds for a guest room - purely aesthetically - I don't care that a full sized bed is probably the most practical for the people who will come to visit us!

Image courtesy of House Beautiful

I hope our male houseguests will be okay with all this pretty. 

I can't really detail what the baby's room will eventually look like, because a) I'm not pregnant and I'm sure that would be bad juju, and b) when I do (hopefully) get pregnant, I don't know whether it will be a boy or a girl. But...I can't resist. Here is just one gender neutral baby item that I think is just toooo cool:

 

Image courtesy of 1stdibs

It's a cradle by Fornasetti. A good start to an artistic life. 

Inspiration Part 1: Downstairs

I change my mind five times a day, but this is the way I am currently envisioning each room in the house:

The Living Room:

Image courtesy of cookiemag.com

To conjure up the cozy, distinguished atmosphere of an English manor house, I would like to paint the walls a dark loden green. I might even take it one step further and line the living room with this totally awesome green herringbone wallpaper:

Image courtesy of Wallpapers To Go

The living room is small, so I think we could get away with making a big statement on the walls. 

Keeping with the manor house theme, this is my dream sofa:

Image courtesy of apartmenttherapy.com

Oh, the Chesterfield. It would probably cost us as much as the house (especially if you factor in the shipping and handling from England), so I would settle for a touch of leather in a classic club chair. Bonus points for upholstery studs. 

The Dining Room:

First of all, I would like to install white beadboard wainscoting, so that when we paint it navy blue, it doesn't feel like a dark dungeon. 

Image courtesy of bijoukaleidoscope.blogspot.com

The navy blue and white room would perfectly showcase my collection of blue and white china:

Image courtesy of Madison Magazine

And, because every long dining table should have a chandelier centered over it, here you go:

Image courtesy of cotedetexas.blogspot.com

Yup, that's right. It's a boat. Tacky? Maybe. Awesome? I think so. 

The Library:

Image courtesy of itsgreattobehome.net

This room will be small and simple, with accents of red. It has wood paneled walls and I think Mr. Marshall and I are the only young couple left in America who would keep them this way, instead of ripping them out or painting them white. Instead, I'd like to completely cover all the non-window walls with bookshelves. Lord knows we have enough books. I would like to include a game table for our Scrabble nights and a red Oriental rug (the more threadbare, the better):

Image courtesy of Persian Oriental Rug Review

When Mr. Marshall and I win the lottery, I would love to have every book we own leather-bound. Look how beautiful:

Image courtesy of Baskerville Bindings