Hold that pot!

Several years ago I let my friends Steve and Sara use the house for a week's vacation. One of the cute appreciation gifts they left me was a couple of pot holders they made from a loom they bought at the Sag Harbor five and dime store (a place out of a time warp that warrants it's own posting someday).
Funnily, I've used those potholders a lot over the years. They've gotten a little timeworn but I love the colors, and especially since they were a gift, they fondly remind me of my friends.
A while later, my little niece made me yet another pot holder on her loom...I love that one too.
So you can imagine when I was in that store the other week and ran across a loom kit I just had to have it. I even bought an extra bag of the fabric strips to make some more potholders as gifts.
I love designing the plaid patterns...it's mindless fun.

Gift from Steve & Sara

The second gift

A gift from my niece Bella

The new loom kit

The first creation on the new loom

The finished masterpiece

I think that I will make several of these and stitch them together to make a tea cozy for my little tea pot...stay tuned for that!

Stripe it rich

I've been wanting to paint the guest room upstairs for quite a while now.
I had an idea that striped walls might be nice, I'd always wanted to try this technique but never had the guts to do it.
I knew that one whole gallon of paint was not enough to cover all the walls and ceiling; I remembered this from the last time I painted that room (probably15 years ago!). I also had almost a full can of paint leftover from having recently painted the master bath downstairs. Perfect. I knew I had the paint and just the right amount...but would the color work? It's a gray-green with a hint of blue in it. That room's walls were a very pale blue. I decided to go for it. What the hell, if it didn't work out I could just paint over the whole thing.
Well, it turned out really nice I think. Very happy with the paint color combo. I don't know if I would have ever planned these colors in advance but that's serendipity, right?
As for the process of creating the stripes it's all about the tape.
I highly recommend 3M's ScotchBlue painter's tape. It a little pricier than the other brands but it's worth it. If you use it correctly the paint lines come out virtually perfect.
The second most important thing is to measure, measure again, and keep measuring. Believe me, any slight variation in pattern of the stripes and you see it standing out like a sore thumb. It's also a good idea to use a level constantly to double check yourself even more.
The taping takes forever but the painting step goes very quickly. And you should remove the tape while the paint is just beginning to dry, you don't want to pull the tape when it's completely dry, it'll cause boo-boos. And the pulling of the tape is the fun part...it's the reveal of all that hard prep work and it's like magic to see the pattern reveal itself right before your eyes. A very satisfying feeling.
I only had one problem. Because the pale blue paint that was on the walls was so old and aged, the tape pulled it up in a few places to reveal patches of the light brown dry wall. There's nothing I can do about those spots because I didn't have any of the old paint for touch-ups. I've decided that it gives the room a little bit of an aged look, I'm calling it the "Miss Havisham" bedroom. How's that for rationalization? Of course I could try to match the paint at the paint store--and I still may--but it's fine for now.
Here's a series of pics showing the 'before' and 'after' and the stages in between...

BEFORE: a little boring, no oomph

The window wall 'before'

The wall fully taped

Taped and stripes painted

One wall done

AFTER: Panorama of full room completed; the stripes pull everything together

I think the stripe bring a cohesiveness to the room that wasn't there before, it was just a repository for a bunch of mismatched furniture. Now it feels 'whole' and very cozy. I sent a picture of it to my friend  Jim who gave it the thumbs up, "It's very Elsie DeWolfe goes to the country" he said. I'll take that.

I also bought a new set of sheets for the new room, a set of dark navy with small white dots in a random pattern (hard to see in this photo). I think the darker color adds a much-needed dose of testosterone to a room that's teetering on the twee side. It also works well with the darker furniture pieces. I got the sheets at TJMaxx, my favorite place for bedding...I will never pay department store prices for linens. Ever.

New navy Nicole Miller sheets

Texas pecan pie!

The pecans are from Texas, the recipe is from Kentucky.
My folks sent me a big batch of pecans (did I mention I'm from Texas originally?), so I decided to make a pie with some of them.
I've had a recipe for years that a former client of mine, Dee, gave me and I return to it every time.
It's super easy. The only thing I add is a splash of some kind of liquor, whatever I have on hand, rum or bourbon usually.
I like to make a design on top with whole pieces, it makes a nice presentation. All you need is a cup of coffee or a big glass of cold milk.

Put it on a pedestal

A decoration motif that I utilize a lot is pedestals, some people call them compotes.
I think they organize things well, keeping them altogether, but they also give you a little extra space by lifting things above the surface. Besides, I think they 'elevate' (no pun intended) the mundane just a little bit.
I've had a couple of trips to Thailand over the years and I always bring back one or two of the celadon variety they specialize in over there. They come in all shapes and sizes and I love the sage green color.

In the kitchen I use one for salt and pepper cellars, olive oil decanter, and timer, next to the stove.

I've posted this one before, items for the 'coffee station'.

On the dining room hutch, napkins at the ready with a sea rock weight on top

On an end table in the TV room, a large pine cone I got in California.

A small one holds my soap in the mater bath shower.

Chez chaise

If I can give you one piece of good advice it's always buy outdoor furniture at the end of summer, it's always on sale.  I had two wrought iron chaises on the back deck but they had seen better days. I had them for probably 15 years or more and they had been two colors: white and olive green (I spray painted them Krylon's "Italian Ivy"). But they were getting rickety and bent out of shape and I was ready for a change.

So I bought a single wide chaise made out of teak. Since I'm the only one who sits back there I thought 'why not splurge on yourself'?
The bottom teak body arrived last week and the cushions arrived this morning, a blue to match the backyard Nikko Blue hydrangea.
It's a sleeker look and it's the same style as the porch furniture (Restoration Hardware's "Santa Monica" collection).
I think I'll take a nap on it this afternoon :)

The old wrought iron chaises

The new "double wide" chaise

Full shot of deck now

Outside maintenance

One of the first things you learn when you buy a house is that it needs constant upkeep, it's almost a living breathing thing. There's always SOMETHING that needs fixing, changing, updating, throwing out, etc.
This week I took care of two things, one I had an expert fix, the other I did.
The first was that the chimney needed a new cap and some outer bricks needed re-appointing...quite a few as it turned out, 18 in all.
The old cap was rusted and busted, the new one is much sharper looking...and the bricks look great, you can't even tell at this point which ones were replaced.

New bricks

New chimney cap

On the side of the house near the kitchen window there were some shingles missing, I guess they'd fallen off over the years. I hated the snuggle-toothed way it looked so I nailed some other ones I had there were on the little roof of the garden shed. They were aged already with some lichen on them. they don't match right now but in a couple of seasons they'll blend right in. 

New shingles under the kitchen vent

Sign 'o the times

One of the charming sights--and icons--of Sag Harbor is the little movie theatre on Main Street and it's art deco sign. It's a quaint visual that immediately gives you a sense of place, it says "you are here". And although it's clearly not of the stylistic period of the town's "ye olde" whaling village heritage, it nonetheless has an air of times gone by (but happily preserved) for us to enjoy today.
The theatre was first opened in the 1920s and was known as the Elite Theatre. It was renamed the Sag Harbor Theatre when it was acquired by the Glynne's theatre chain in September of 1927, for an amount rumored to be around $35,000! It was remodeled in 1936 and boasts a vintage auditorium.
But it's that sign that everybody loves. A few years back the sign was being taken down because it had fallen into disrepair. The wife of the late actor Roy Scheider (Jaws, The French Connection) was passing by and stopped the crane that was dismantling the sign. There was much community hoopla to 'save the sign'; many charity fundraisers later the sign was restored to it's original condition.

The Sag Harbor Cinema at twilight, neon aglow

A daytime photo

A photo I took a few winters ago after a big blizzard

Here's a caught moment of me modeling in front of the theatre...kidding!

Throwing shade

I have a nice little lamp on the sideboard in the dining room...but somehow the shade had gotten pretty banged up and wrinkled in spots. And there was an odd stain on it...maybe the cleaning lady did it? Who knows?
Anyway, rather than throw it out I thought I'd try and salvage it with a little crafty creativity.
I had a couple of Chinese newspapers I'd saved from a trip to Asia a while back, saving them for some future project...so I thought why not decoupage the shade with them?
I cut them into strips, glue sticked them in place, and covered the whole thing with Mod Podge. Done.
The strips wrinkled up even more but I think it works, adds a little "hamish" quality  ;o)

Stained lampshade, not good

Adding the strips of Chinese newspaper

Close-up of the bad wrinkle

The finished project, Mod Podged and lovely

Toad-in-the-hole

I made this recipe the other day and it was wonderful.
A variation on an old English dish.
It makes a beautiful presentation, I'm going to make this for a brunch gathering sometime.
Mine came out a little puffier than this picture but still lovely. I adore one dish meals.
It was the perfect dinner now that there's a crisp Fall touch to the air.

Toad-in-the-Hole

You can find the recipe here.

Seascapes

Sometimes when you collect something of little or no value, but then group variations on that object in a room they take on more specialness.
Case in point: I have collected several seascapes over time that i've placed in my bedroom and master bath. Alone they're all fairly nice, just art naive, but taken together they form a bigger decorating statement. The walls are surrounded by five foot tall white wainscoting, a very very soft tan paint sits above the woodwork. All the furniture in the room is either white or black, no other color exists but the pop of blues and teals from the seascapes. They range in size from 2 to 3 feet across to small postcards.
I don't think of it as a 'theme' room per se, not too beach-beachy; I'm just paying a small homage to the fact that it's a cottage in Sag Harbor near the ocean.

A large one that sits on the high picture rail

A large one on the wall next to my bed, I bought it upstate and painted the frame myself

A small one on the picture rail 

This one sits on a shelf in the master bath, a gift from my friend Tony

A postcard of a Van Gogh on my desk 

A small print of a photo taken by my photographer friend Tria

Condé Nast goes to Sag Harbor

I ran across this nice article about Sag Harbor on the Condé Nast Traveler website today. From about a year ago, it gives a nice snapshot of my favorite little town.

My favorite thing in it is this cute map by illustrator Greg Venn.

You can read the whole thing here.