Archive for the ‘My home’ Category

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Watching Paint Dry

August 5, 2010

Trouvais

Here’s the first rolled layer in a corner…

Both Joni of Cote de Texas, and my reader Laurie used Pratt & Lambert’s

Feather Gray (or Gris de Plume for Francophiles)…It read really taupy

to me so I mixed mine with Benjamin Moore’s White Heron and tried it

out while waiting for my Sydney Harbour lime-wash Old Stone Wall

paint to come in…

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Love how it’s so subtle with the old linen drapes

and antique barometer …

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Tone on tone…

just textural change..

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I’d love it to work with as many fickle changes in bedding as possible…

no matter how committed to gray I am right now…

Feather Gray paint chip…Thanks for all your suggestions…

Loved Ingela’s from Love your homes comment about adding a bit of burnt umber

to her white paint to warm it up. Most paint stores have tints you can get to nudge

your paint in another direction. I’ve also found colors I’m really drawn to that are

just too dark. My paint store will mix the paint at 25%, 50%, 75% strength.

Playing with lime-wash colors tomorrow…will let you know how that goes…

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Going Gray

August 3, 2010

Trouvais

Don’t you just hate it when you create the perfect wall color… but it’s on the wrong wall!?

I used several shades of gray in my husband’s dressing nook off the master bedroom. The

effect was perfect, lots of movement and blooms of lighter shades against dark…but hard to

appreciate in a dark corner.  So I need to transfer the look around that corner on the left,

and then go darker in the dressing area. Of course, using the same paints won’t work,

because the lighting is so different. But after months of being on the fence I’ve marked

up the bedroom walls with shades of gray and there’s no turning back!

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We have had two oak trees fall on our property this year, and

have done preventative work to minimize any further property

damage..I have alot more light coming into the room and

can play with darker tones…

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The room has both gold and silver elements in the room…


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So everything’s coming off the walls…

Bed pulled into the middle of the room…

In a vortex of paint chips…

Bella Notte Trouvais

If I’m not back soon…send help….

Trouvais Bella Notte


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Posted in My home | 36 Comments »

Metamorphisis

March 4, 2010

Occasionally I like to show you bits of my own home so that you can

make sense of why I’m going on about a color, or a collection, or a favorite

flea find. My home is the genesis of most of my perspective…it’s inevitably

personal. So this is the room into which a little gray must fall.  The cabinet

shelves have come down, books and favorite objects are stacked about the

room awaiting their new homes. Zinc items cluster on a marble topped

Louis XV style French chest, happy to welcome more gray into the room…

A botanical grouping from Anthropologie…

I added a bit of paint to enliven those on the right…

The flower on the far left strains to catch a

bit of the waning light…

My scientific curiosities…the glass orb contains a filament that spins commensurate

with the amount of light that hits it, a jeweler’s magnifying loop on wheels. In the tiered

glass case an English c. 1810 pocket watch, engraved and hand pierced pocket watch

“verge fusee” balance bridges from late 1600’s through early 1800’s, on top of the glass

case: La Parisienne, an antique Junelle-Eclair here. Folds up in various positions to be

alternately antique binoculars, theater glasses, compass, magnifying lenses, etc…

More info and photos in my Provenance post here

A roll of feathers on a stand, magnifying lens,

a remake of an old French lantern…

I’ve been collecting butterfly’s since my kids were young…

the top one has a Victorian look to it…

More at Deyrolle here

I will probably place the five  larger sets in the cabinets, possibly painting the frames black.

To Fanny Brawn here

The gorgeous cinematography of  Bright Star is now out on video

This curious object is the marriage of a hanging orchid

display (pot would insert at the bottom of the wire orb)

which includes a magnifying lens and balancing ball…

and the upside down pedestal of a long gone garden fountain.

Serendipitous…I like it for its sculptural quality and

occasionally add an orchid…

The baby grand piano…our first piece of furniture for the living room…

holds a collection of Nathanial Hawthorne’s works, Byron’s

complete works, and lovely but unreadable Scandinavian books from

Big Daddy’s Antiques (at the flea market)…

My favorite Ebay win…

A 19th century Louis XV Canopy chair which I still

love being covered in its original and tattered jute underlay….

Duplicate cabinets flank a window seat, and have been

sanded, primed, and had their first coat of “Pavement”

paint…

One of a set of  chairs on either side of the fireplace…

needs to be reupholstered…

love the lamp shape on the floor lamp…

bought the stone balls a decade ago

from a stone yard in Napa…

My antique French grape pickers tin “hod” or harvest basket

with attached straps and last season’s lavender…

cast stone fireplace, my 18th century settee that keeps migrating

through the house in search of a perfect spot…

The c. 1939 open beam ceiling swoops from over 9 feet at the

mantle to reach the second floor landing…

Bought the chandelier from the flea market and had it wired. Similar chandelier

at Big Daddy’s Antiques here. Love that mirror above the French desk…

bought it for $100 when I was first married and stripped and bleached it…

Ubiquitous Pottery Barn couch that withstands the cat’s claws every

morning. Really doesn’t bother me. I like a couch I don’t have to worry

about. Might redye the slip cover. More posts with photos of my home here

*

It’s exciting, messy, and disruptive to pull everything

out of the cabinets, exhausting since I’m doing the work myself…

But exhilarating to be able to put my favorite finds over the last

twenty years in new places with a new look…

to be continued!

*

Check comments below for sources for butterfly collections

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Posted in My home | 24 Comments »

My home, part 1…

October 6, 2009

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When we moved in 17 1/2 years ago with a three year old and infant,

our first priority was the yard…and living in an area beset, graced,

with deer…we quickly fenced the perimeter and found someone

to create stone columns, and then over the years, a series of

retaining walls.

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The triangular shaped lot slopes up to the house…

and the house is actually built into the slope,

so that the master bedroom at the far left has its own

outdoor patio, and my little office at the right top

has a bird’s eye view of the surrounding

hillside…

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This is the downside view of the original 1939 house…

set in beyond the grape trellis is a one car garage that

we use as a project room…and at it’s back my

husband has claimed a storage room for a wine cellar..

Up above is the living room from which this garden

view was snapped last spring…

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Running the length below the house where the best sun is…

is my pride and joy, despite the weeds and a persistent gopher…

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Behind the rows of lavender, on both sides are about 20 peony

plants, several espaliered apple trees and a dozen antique Bourbon

roses with wonderful French names. In Northern California

many people ice their peonies but I do my own gardening and

save myself as much effort as possible…

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Practically edible beauty…

with so many plants, if we suffer through a nice cold winter

I can usually count on a 100 blooms…

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Found this from a stone yard for @ $20 years ago…

love adding bits of architectural detritus amongst

the pretty living things…

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This is a forest area below the garden…

I planted white Ice Wings narcissus and Spanish blue bells years ago

that come up in the spring, sometimes in the summer

we string our hammock between two oaks…

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These zinc lanterns are my attempt to dog proof our entry

after the house was repainted last year…

Our German Shepard “Bronte” is over 13 years old…

Her name is a nod to the literary Bronte sisters..

and means thunder…which is appropriate in her case…

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So…to be honest…there are usually 15 pairs of shoes

scattered about the entry…want to put a nice honed bull-nose

piece of Carrara marble on the table…

Hmm…I could go for gray here…any advice?

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Immediately to the left off the entry is the kitchen…

I was thrilled when I found out the guys that did our retaining walls

would do the floor, laid out the limestone tiles, numbered them,

and hovered over every piece as it was installed..

added just a few pieces of a grayish stone tile to break it up…

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Counters are Jerusalem Gold honed limestone,

Back-splash a marble mosaic…I wouldn’t let the installer  put grout

over the joints because I thought he’d over do it…so yet

another thing I need to get around to doing…

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We kept the original custom cabinets, and painted them antique ivory

with an aqua interior, added crown molding only to cabinets…

stainless steel appliances, work table…

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A cozy corner in the kitchen…

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To see the garden in the spring click  here …

to be continued…

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Posted in Flea Market Style, Gardens, Interiors, My home | 26 Comments »

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