Thursday, January 6, 2011

A Few of my Favorite Things



I once read that as soon as you have three items that are alike, you have a collection.

I have more than my share of collections, then. ;)

I've told you how I am always drawn to signage...any signage...and all-white pieces do the same thing to me. I love items that are utilitarian and beautiful all at once, and there is something striking about all-white that really speaks to me in its simplicity.

Now, what I have is not pricey. I don't own any major ironstone pieces (a quick story about that...my Mammaw always loved her mother's pink-and-white china, and when her mother passed away, she decided to get rid of her own "china" and use her mother's. I asked her what she did with hers, and she said to me, "Oh, it was just that old ironstone, so I got rid of it." I nearly fell out. Literally, I nearly fell out.) There is only one exception, to my knowledge, to my lack of pricey pieces...I came across one white pitcher at a yard sale at which every single item was 25 cents, so of course I bought it just because I liked the look of it. It had "Hall" imprinted on the bottom, but no date. I looked it up in an antique catalog, and if I have what I think I have, the value was listed as $75. But even if the value is only 25 cents, it doesn't matter, because I love it.

This is just a little arrangement of white pitchers, etc. (two of them are from Ikea, and the others I think I got at a garage sale), that I FINALLY found amongst all the boxes!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Happy New Year!

We have been out of town visiting with our family, so I took a little holiday vacation from posting. I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! I know we did...it is so good to see family again.
I am having a little bit of a hard time coming back and getting into the swing of things! I see a lot of projects that need to be completed, but I feel like I pushed so hard in the weeks leading up to Christmas that I just want a little break...and truthfully, the old pocketbook needs a litte break, too.
On the subject of decorating, though, I got a little discouraged about my color choices for the new house. I have been doing some research on trends in decorating and everything that I read or each picture that I looked at seemed to indicate that neutrals and whites are coming back in again. I understand that, since for a long time we saw a lot of really saturated colors (didn't almost everyone put red on the walls at some point?), and the pendulum always swings back the other way after a period of time. (As a hairstylist, I have to keep notice of this...50's hair was really smooth and refined, 60's hair was big and contrived, 70's hair was loose and free and easy, 80's hair was HUGE and contrived, 90's hair was back to long and straight with grunge style and then big and poofy...we all remember the "Rachel," right?)
Anyway, I chose colors that are somewhere in between...a pale blue, which is kind of neutral, but still kind of bright...definitely not beige! And then I chose a greenish color for the kitchen which was called "Tempered Sage." It looks like a creamy green, I think. My older brother was helping paint the walls blue (pardon me, Valspar's "Stillness"), and he kind of freaked me out...he just kept telling me that it was shockingly bright. Of course, once it was all up, it didn't look so bright anymore, but still, it made me question myself and my choices. I would text my best girlfriend (who is fearless) so that she would give me a backbone. And then I remembered something that Kim from Daisy Cottage said...that you must decorate your house for YOU, not for anyone else's approval, and that you must do what makes you happy in your space.
And when it comes down to it, my space makes me very happy.