Showering with praise

I am blessed to have one of the great things about having a house in the Hamptons: an outdoor shower.
Seriously.
I love taking showers anyway, but having outside in the open air is truly a treat. I think it was the one thing that sold me hands down the first day I saw the house. There's just something so refreshing being out in the open air getting yourself clean. It's the best.
Mine happens to be in the back of the house on the wooden deck.
Here's a picture of the original deck; it was an interesting construction, a frame that housed several house shutters that slipped into it:

Original back deck

Original shower construction

And here's the shower that was installed on the new deck after the back of the house was added onto, it necessarily made the deck smaller but the shower basically stayed the same size.

Yes, it's a little sexy with the openings between the horizontal slats, but hey, that's showering au natural, right?

The above picture was taken right after the construction was done on the back of the house. You can see in the below shot how the cedar shingles and wood used on the shower structure have aged in color.

Here's a peek inside.

There are a couple of little shelves for soap and shampoo bottles. 

A peek inside...

Around the shower head I draped a smooth stone that had a natural hole in it, so it was easy to string a piece of leather through it. 

My Barton Springs rock

It was given to me by my friend Bennett, a fellow Texan. He found it at the famed natural pool, Barton Springs, in Austin, Texas. A natural oasis for cooling off from the hot summer Texas sun. 

Barton Springs, Austin, Texas

I put the rock in my shower to remind me of that revitalizing place; I'm so lucky to have my own little invigorating spa in the middle of Sag Harbor. 

Tweaking

The windows for the home office have still not come in yet, and the painter can't start till they arrive. But the carpenter did do some little tweaks I suggested for the shelving and cabinets.

Top bracket is now centered on roofline peak

I didn't like how the top support bracket on the topmost shelf was not centered on the peak of the roofline. He had centered it on the window, which is a logical thing to do, but the window isn't centered on the room! There was something about it that kept bugging me. Now it's better. I also wanted him to drill some holes in the base of the shelves that sit on top of the cabinets, one on each side (you can't see them in this picture).

Cabinet doors installed; hate the knobs

There are electrical outlets underneath the shelves inside the cabinets and I think I may want to run a lamp cord up through the hole so a little lighting can sit there. On the other side where the desk will be I think I want to have some bookshelf speakers or a boombox to play CD's while I craft (yes, I still play CD's, I'm a child of the 20th Century, so sue me). You can also see that the cabinet doors have been installed. I'm not crazy about the knobs, I'm going to search for some that are more substantial.
I'm going away on a long business trip so won't be back to the house for a month. By that time the windows will be in place and the room freshly painted. I'll come back to a new room all ready to be furnished :)

Mugging for the camera

One of the things I look forward to every weekend morning is getting up and having a hot, steaming mug of coffee (I'm partial to Folger's or Dunkin' Donuts blend). I sit at the settee in the dining room in the winter, or on the back deck in one of the chaises that overlooks the backyard. With a stack of that week's shelter magazines I have a calm, easy moment of zen before I start the day's breakfast and chores.
And one of the reasons that moment is so enjoyable is that years ago I found the absolute perfect coffee mug to go with it.

It's made by a company called Hartstone Pottery based in Zanesville, Ohio.

I don't even remember where I found it, but I liked it so much I bought three more over the years to supplement my collection. They are a good size; they hold a good amount of liquid which is great if you hate getting up all the time to go top off your mug's worth. They're heavy and sturdy too. The heft of them is substantial, they feel good in your hand. But the best part is the 'mouth feel'...the glaze and top rim fit perfectly to your lips. They make all sorts of patterns, and most veer to the "country kitschy" side, so I've stuck to the garden vegetable pattern, not too-too cornball. Definitely grab one for yourself, you won't be sorry if you're a coffee lover. Here's their website.

The ivy league

The first word association you think of with 'cottage' has got to be 'vine covered'. And when I think of vine I think English ivy. There's something very traditional and cozy about it. I like it's heartiness and the fact that it stays pretty green throughout most of the year. I've used it extensively around the yard.
In the front of the house I have it lining the brick driveway.

And in the backyard I have it covering the fence behind a row of Nikko Blue hydrangea.
Here's that wall of ivy a year or so after it was first planted, taking hold but still a little thin.

Here it is today, fully covering the fence behind the bushes.

I wanted to plant it in the bed outside the dining room windows. Here's when it was first planted.

And here it is today.

Now before someone writes me to say how bad it is to have ivy growing on cedar shingles, know this: I am very diligent about watching it's growth and making sure it doesn't get up under any of the shingles and stays on top of them. I do like the way it looks, but haven't decided how far up the wall I'm letting it grow. I keep thinking it would be nice surrounding the windows...

The taste of summer

I love pie.
In the autumn there's nothing like pumpkin...and in the summer it's all about peach.
I kicked it up a notch today by adding blueberries and just a hint of brandy to my normal peach pie recipe. Can't wait for that first slice with a cold, frothy glass of milk!

Home office

My latest construction project is to turn one of the two bedrooms upstairs, the bigger one, into a home office. I wanted to put some built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and cabinets against one wall and some lower storage shelves under the dormer window. A large worktable desk  I've been using in the basement for crafts will work great in there with some sort of task lighting. I plan on bringing in a twin daybed I had in an extra bedroom in the city. That way I can still use the space as a guest room in a pinch. An overstuffed upholstered easy chair in the corner will complete the furnishings.
Here's a sketch I did of my idea, I gave this to the carpenter for guidance:

And here are BEFORE pictures of the empty room:

And here are some pictures of the room in progress: 

The old window will also be replaced with a '6 over1' paned version to match all the other windows in the house.

I love the beadboard at the back of the shelves, it's also on the frontispiece of the cabinet doors (they're loosely placed in the cabinets in the above photos). 

I think the beadboard is a nice'cottage-y' touch.

After all the millwork is done the room will be entirely painted, stay tuned for the progress.

Oprah's favorite decorating tip

I remember a few years back watching "Oprah" and she said her fave no-fail home decor idea was "lemons in a bowl".
Some audience member said, "Don't you know how much lemons cost? Who can afford to let them rot?" Oprah retorted, "Oh, even I don't fill the whole thing full of lemons! Use some crumpled paper underneath and put the lemons on top!"
I love lemons in a bowl too, but I have a better tip: I got a few fake lemons and use them underneath the real ones (I found them at my favorite store TJMaxx, they were inexpensive)...you can't see that they're not real but they give the illusion that they are :)
Not only am I always using lemons for cooking and putting in my ice water, they last so much longer than flowers. Now, don't get me wrong, I love fresh flowers too, but you can get a lot of mileage out of the ol' lemon trick. I keep a big bowl on my dining room table, they add just the right pop of color to the room. Throw in a couple of limes too for a little variety sometime. Easy-peasy style!

The dining room table with a view out to the backyard

Something fishy

One of my favorite touches in the porch are the wall hangings of a trout and a salmon I found at an antiques store in town. I like they way they look on the weathered cedar shingles and make this 'room' more homey and living room-like. The are made of a cast metal, I think they're aluminum, and they have quite the heft. Since they're outside year round in the extreme fluctuations of Long Island weather, over the years the paint began to chip badly. I decided a while back to repaint them, I merely copied the paint scheme that was already there, just freshened it up a bit with brighter craft paints. I think they look pretty good.

Old Sag Harbor

Sag Harbor has quite the history.

"Sag Harbor" by Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill--1916

It was settled in the early 1700's, was the site of a Revolutionary War battle, and became an international port by the end of that century. It was the first official port entering the U.S. and most ships would stop there before ending up in New York City. It then became a center for the whaling industry by the 1840's, which is why you see so many whale motifs around the village. It's even mentioned in several chapters of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick".

A concise history of the village can be found here.
And here you can find information about The Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.
The village boasts many historical buildings and is a very popular vacation destination in the summer. (I especially enjoy it in the off-season, post Labor Day, after all the crowds are gone!).

And here is the official website of the town.

Flower power

 My favorite summer flower has to be the hydrangea.
Their blooms last such a long time, you get to enjoy them for weeks. Unlike, say, roses where you have one week of glory in June and then you spend the rest of the summer deadheading. Trust me on this, I used to have half my backyard fence covered in 'New Dawn' climbing rose vines. They were glorious to look at for that one week, but major effort thereafter.
I'm partial to the 'Nikko Blue' variety of hydrangea. Their unique blue color is so quintessentially 'summer' to me. Here are some pics of the large bushes in my backyard...

"Nikko Blue" hydrangea

And I love the contrast of that color to the green grass and weathered shingles of he house. It's a tasteful pop of brightness in a monochromatic color scheme. And you can't beat hydrangea for cutting purposes. You get to bring the joy of their beauty inside as well where they can last several days.

An arrangement for the dining room table

The last great thing? They dry terrifically too. The light tan they turn is the color of the sun washed sandy beaches.  Here's a huge arrangement of dried hydrangea in my bedroom...

Dried blooms from my backyard

Here are some more snaps from a different angle. As a rule they like partial sun, which my yard gets a lot of. Some years are more productive in terms of blooms than others, it depends on the severity of the preceding winter. The last two winters were particularly harsh so blooms were scarcer.
These shots are from a few summers ago. Stunning, right?

Swathed in a riot of color

Quintessential summer

Even a couple of blooms can add the right pop of color to a room, here are two on my bedside table: