a room without a view

Moving into our house 7 months ago, we've been settled in for a long time now, but there was 1 room that we hadn't touched - the 4th bedroom.  This room had become our convenient catch-all, verging on disaster zone.  Neither of us liked the space - the paint colors were not our aesthetic.  Isn't it something how colors and tastes are so personal?  The prior owners used this room as their nursery, and we plan on using it for the same (hopefully) one day.  But until then, we figured we should at least make it our own.  I'm not exactly sure what to call the room; "serenity room" sounds a little new age-y, but that's really the goal of the room.  It's a room that doesn't have a very good outside view so I think it's the perfect space for turning inwards - listening to music, practicing yoga, reading or really whatever.

Other than wanting to make the space "ours" we also didn't want to invest too much into this space as we hope its new use is temporary.  Happily, I can honestly say that they only item we purchased for the room was the paint - Behr's "Surfer".  I am so pleased with this color, a turquoise shade radiating both warmth and coolness at the same time and depending on the light can feel invigorating or calming.  Everything else in the room we had already, and it was so nice to select a few items from here and there to decorate our new room.  We finished the room today and couldn't be more delighted.

Here are the before and after pictures...

before ... prior owner's nursery

after...southwest facing window

cozy and warm

items from here and there

cool and calming surfer blue

light and reflections

Sometimes there's nothing more needed than candlelight to bring simple beauty to an evening.

aglow

flowerful Friday

I truly adore flowers, and in my mind there's no wrong time for their beauty.  Don't you think they make the special occasion more so and they make the "ordinary" less so? There's not a flower that I've ever seen that I didn't like.  For me, the thought of picking one or two flower types as favorites would be simply impossible.  It amazes me how each flower has its own look, its own mood. Compare a single snow white orchid, a densely arranged bundle of paper white hydrangeas, and bright white hollyhocks blissfully reaching for the sun - each to me is beautiful, and despite the color that unifies them all, each invokes a completely different feeling.

In Chicago I lived above a small family owned flower shop.  Every time I arrived home I had a store front full of beautiful blooms greeting me.  As summer approached and the weather grew warmer, the shop would open up its displays onto the sidewalk, sharing those fragrant and colorful blossoms with all passersby.  It was lovely.  I feel so incredibly lucky to have lived on a street where you could walk just 4 blocks north, past restaurants, bars & boutiques and see 3 flower shops.  My favorite of these 3 looked as if it were plucked out of Paris and dropped down in Chicago.  Each flower in each color rested in its own steely grey metal bucket, so that along the floor, shelves, and tables there was a rainbow's spectrum of colors - a feast for the eyes!

For me, the one and only downside of flowers is their fleeting nature.  Don't you think that's all the more reason to capture their beauty in photograph?  Here are a few I've snapped...

fragrant paperwhites

cheery potted blooms

colorful snapdragons 

unusual color combination

one perfect bloom

tulips at a farmers' market

a softly radiant hydrangea 

home sweet home

Happily, I'm home after spending the last four days away for work.  The 4 1/2 hour drive home was quietly uneventful, and the sunset over the snow blanketed farmland between Minneapolis and Madison was like a picturesque pastel canvas.  Delicate pinks and apricots gently danced across greyish, baby blues which made for an amazing light show while the rolling hills and evergreens looked as perfectly crisp as winter can be.  But once the sun set, ending this beautiful show, I was on a mission to get home.

Waiting for me at home tonight were my two boys.  Haven't we all felt that Dorothy was so incredibly right when she declared "there's no place like home"?  Such a warm fuzzy feeling opening the front door and being able to see these two.  Home sweet home...

my boys

morning glory

While yesterday was so very cold, the sky was a deep and bright blue, which made the coldness so much more bearable.  Today the sky is solid grey with no peeks of sunshine at all.  Needing some kind of distraction, I pulled up an image I captured with my iPhone this summer of a blue Morning Glory blooming most beautifully in a neighbor's yard.  The blue is the same intense hue that the sky was yesterday. 


my neighbor's Morning Glory


I've always been partial to Morning Glory.  In my mind it conjures up an image of a quaint English cottage.  Maybe there's tea and scones waiting inside.  Wouldn't that be lovely?  And, when I was little, my mom grew them outside of our living room window so they were visible from inside.  I remember being so very intrigued by those blooms and how they opened for the sun every morning. 

So nice to think of the Morning Glory's saturated blue blooms on a grey winter day...

persimmon blanket

This is my big knitting splurge of the season.  I'm using Manos del Uruguay's beautiful Handspun Semi Solid wool.  I really love this yarn - it's soft, easy to knit with, and so warm.  I made a cowl a few seasons back from this yarn and was happy to have another project that could use the same yarn.  I bought the yarn from Purl Soho: http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/1081-Manos-Del-Uruguay-Handspun-Semi-Solids, and they have the most amazing selection of colors.  I pretty much adore everything from Purl Soho, which made it was so hard to choose the color for the blanket.  I ended up going for persimmon for two reasons: I wanted a cheery color to cuddle up with in the winter, and it was one color my husband also liked. 

Persimmon Blanket

I have just about 1 foot knitted so far, and with the amount of yarn I bought, the throw should be about 5 1/2 feet long.  I'm using size 9 circular needles and think the gauge is just right - not too tight, not too lacy.  The pattern I use for this is so easy: cast on any multiple of three then k1, *yarn over, k2together, slip on one as if to purl*.  Repeat and repeat from * to *!  This is one of my favorite patterns because it's simple - allowing me to at least hold a conversation when I knit and because the end product always drapes so nicely.  I'll post a final shot when it's completed.  I think my orange tabby cat is going to look quite handsome on this blanket! 

hello 2011

The start of the New Year seems to me to be the perfect time to begin a new project.  I want to capture ideas, creations, photos, and general musings; basically, I want to look at the little things in life.