A Romantic Manor House in Normandy

 

 

 

From House and Garden:

'It’s one of the most beautiful places in France,’ says Cordelia de Castellane of the Normandy village of Beaumont-en-Auge, situated a few miles south of the coastal town of Deauville. And just beyond the boundaries of this picture-postcard commune, set against the bucolic backdrop of the region’s farms, orchards and medieval fortresses, the Greek-French designer has recently completed the decoration of a charming country retreat, with parts of the distinctive building dating back to the 17th century.

The striking three-storey manoir has a traditional half-timber colombage façade and belongs to a literary couple who are longtime friends of Cordelia. ‘We share a love of dance and literature, particularly the works of Marcel Proust,’ explains Cordelia, who serves as artistic director of Dior Maison and Baby Dior. The 150-square-foot property unfolds across a trio of structures: alongside the main manor house – the interiors of which Cordelia describes as ‘super French’ – is a four-bedroom guest house with a more contemporary look, and a former rotisserie that now contains a palatial, beamed dining room.

Before making a decision to change a single thing, Cordelia spent some time staying alone in the house. This luxurious period of solitude proved fruitful. Immersing herself in the original spirit of the interiors and observing the movement of light across its rooms guided her approach to the layout and to the decoration, which is by turns calm and characterful. It is typical of Cordelia’s method. ‘I see the people, I feel the house – and it just comes to me,’ she says of how she brought this scheme to life. (Read more.)

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Restoring a House in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val

 

 

 

From Home and Garden:

‘I am very loyal,’ says the landscape gardener Jinny Blom. ‘If I make a promise, I’ll keep it.’ That is precisely how she ended up being the custodian of a house in a small village in south west France. Before Jinny’s mother Françoise died in 2013, she asked her daughter to look after her home in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. ‘It meant a huge amount to her,’ Jinny adds. ‘I feel she belonged there and so it became somewhere with real resonance for me.’

Her mother moved to the historic village, which is surrounded by a rugged limestone plateau at the bottom of a gorge on the Aveyron River, on something of a whim in the early 1990s. ‘It was a funny choice,’ says Jinny, ‘as she was very gregarious, and it was desolate and parochial back then.’ Things have, however, changed significantly since. Today, the inhabitants of the charming village include a Parisian interior designer and a former member of Yohji Yamamoto’s fashion design studio. As Jinny puts it, ‘There is a lot of nice stuff happening.’

Françoise sounds like a very wonderful character. Born in Madagascar, where her French father was a spice and timber trader, she was sent to school in England during the Blitz: she arriving speaking only Malagasy patois and didn’t see her parents again until she was an adult. ‘My mother was more English than anyone you’ve ever met,’ notes Jinny. ‘She spoke like the Queen and had her hair done like her. She was, to all intents and purposes, the Queen, except that she was – without a shadow of a doubt – French, because she wore couture, which nobody else did in Royal Leamington Spa, where we lived.’ (Read more.)

 

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"Enchanted with Life"

Chateaubriand remembers Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France.

After his presentation to Louis XVI, Chateaubriand passed through the gallery to meet the Queen returning from chapel. “She soon came in sight,” he says, “surrounded by a large and brilliant suite; she made a dignified courtesy, appearing enchanted with life. And those fair hands, which then held so gracefully the scepter of so many kings, were, before they were tied by the executioner, to patch the rags of the widow, the prisoner of the Conciergerie.” (Read entire post.)

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The Textile Designers Behind Some of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s Most Memorable Interiors

 From Elle Decor:

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is remembered not only for her enduring influence on American style, but also for the homes she carefully shaped throughout her life. From the White House and the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port to her Fifth Avenue apartment and homes she shared with Aristotle Onassis in Greece, Kennedy approached interiors with the same elegance that defined her public image.

Newly surfaced, never-before-published letters exchanged between Kennedy and textile designers D.D. and Leslie Tillett reveal the depth of that involvement. While Kennedy worked with celebrated decorators including Sister Parish, Stéphane Boudin, and Albert Hadley, the Tilletts became her trusted collaborators whose textiles appeared over and over again. Together, the letters offer a rare glimpse into the creative partnership behind some of Kennedy’s most significant interiors.

By the time Kennedy arrived at the White House in 1961, D.D. and Leslie Tillett were already fixtures in American decorating circles. Founded in the 1940s, Tillett Textiles built its reputation on hand-screened fabrics and a customized approach to design, attracting decorators such as Sister Parish and Albert Hadley, as well as clients like Bunny Mellon. It was through Parish and her White House renovation that the Tillets connected with Kennedy. (Read more.)

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The New York City Unicorn Apartment

 

From Architectural Digest:

Many try their luck at finding the New York City unicorn apartment—the charming, affordable, off-market unit. And most fail. But interior designer Sam Masters achieved the unthinkable: a prewar, one-bedroom in the heart of the West Village. Of course, this wouldn’t be a true New York City fairy tale without a bit of drama. It took Masters 16 years and six apartments to land here. But when he did, it almost felt scripted: “When I first moved to Manhattan, my friends and I went out one night and walked down Bleecker Street. It was just so alive, and I looked up at these very windows and wondered who lived there.” Of course, like any true New Yorker, Masters is quick to temper that memory with the caveat that the Village has “become overrun and a little annoying.”

 But Masters isn’t afraid of leaning into the (well-earned) city cliché. “[My apartment] definitely has a very 2000s-ish New York City feel,” the designer says. “It’s got that Sex and the City vibe of the West Village, which I love, and it’s quirky—you know, crumbling plaster walls and paper-thin windows, so it’s loud.” Manhattan is, after all, an island of trade-offs. (Read more.)

 

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This Unconventional Swedish Country Home

 

 

From Architectural Digest:

“My mother is an artist who’s passionate about botany,” explains architect Daniel Fagerberg, who was recently tasked with fashioning an unconventional Swedish country home for her to the west of Stockholm. For this highly personal project, he wanted to honor the intricacies of the flora and fauna that his mother has “dedicated her entire life to studying,” while paying homage to the cozy, light-wooded interiors that Scandinavian cottages are known for. The resulting property is a dream home for anyone who wants to be immersed in nature, botanist or not.

 Fagerberg describes the site as a “gentle westward slope, with oak and fruit trees, overlooking a vast landscape of meadows with a dense forest as a backdrop.” The home itself is a tribute to the famous Erskine Villa, a 1963 home by architect Ralph Erskine located a few miles away. The 2,260-square-foot structure was divided into four spaces with vaulted ceilings that was originally conceived as a stucco building (the white facades were intended to serve “as a canvas on which to display botanical studies.”) After a more detailed analysis, the architects decided that a façade of wooden panels would be more appropriate, as they provide “detail and texture,” while the size of the project also grew in tandem. (Read more.)

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Who Is Queen Mab?

From Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham

From The Imaginative Conservative:

Santayana dedicated some pages to a piece titled “Queen Mab” presumably after the enigmatic faery who is mentioned by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.[1] The essay turns into an analysis of British literature, which I take to mean that Santayana saw some form of greater representation in Queen Mab that extended to the wider British psyche. Santayana’s claims regarding British romantic literature, if there is truth in them, add yet another level of genius to Shakespeare, who would have most likely been aware of the duplicity of romance while implementing it in his play. I want first to explain Santayana’s essay—his views regarding British literature—before revisiting the lines where Romeo and Mercutio exchange their thoughts on the meaning of dreams and Queen Mab’s role within them. 

Who is Queen Mab? That is the question this essay will aim to explore. 

Santayana begins his piece by connecting literature to nature. He writes that nature is “far more resourceful than logic,” which is why she has “found a way out the contradiction” that exists between “the human need for expression” and the “British distaste for personal outbursts.” If our inner and outer man oppose each other, then literature is a way to circumvent this contrast. But not all literature is equal. Santayana turns his attention to romantic fiction, which he called a “bypath of expression.” It is a form of literature that is the equivalent of a fleeting phase in our lives, when man plays at “self-revelation” despite being far from it. In Romantic literature man indulges in “day-dreams and romantic transformations” and “imaginary substitutes” for himself as a way to “nurse and develop” his opinions and preferences without stating them directly. Through this form of expression, Santayana writes, man will “dream of what Queen Mab makes other people dream.” 

The sentence needs unpacking. In Santayana’s essay, Queen Mab is England’s literary imagination, but a very specific part of it: the Romantic. And this romantic part of the English literary imagination is a momentary step in our journey towards understanding our hearts. It is, in other words, incomplete. Santayana wrote that a man’s heart, his “ruling motives,” will be revealed “only in long stretches of constant endeavor and faithful habit,” which often comes towards the end of his life. But Queen Mab is still part of the human heart that managed to revolutionize people’s aesthetic sensibilities. British Romanticism elevated man’s self-image. As Santayana wrote, “that which he might have been, and was not, comforts him. Such a form of self-expression, indirect, bashful, and profoundly humorous, being play rather than art, is alone congenial to the British temperament; it is the soul of English literature.” (Read more.)

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Ashington Manor in Somerset

  

 

From Country Life:

There are many things to note about Ashington Manor in Somerset, not least that, in the 16th century, it was the home of Ursula St Barbe, wife of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s chief fixer, whose machinations precipitated the gruesome end of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Although she primped it up with a fancy new façade and oriel windows, it had mixed fortunes in the following centuries until it was stumbled upon by Isabel and Julian Bannerman. The couple are makers of magical gardens, who have cast their spell for The King, Sting and Trudie Styler, Jasper Conran and Keith Tyson, as well as further afield, including in Lower Manhattan, New York, where a garden they designed commemorates the British and Commonwealth victims of the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. However, what is remarkable on a crisp morning beneath the mullioned windows of Ashington’s double-height great hall is that it is almost toastily warm, in a way that could never be achieved by even the most generously proportioned hearth.

Most people who spend time in leaky, historic piles resign themselves to the fact that if they want to enjoy the heady smell of old oak, the texture of worn stone and the gentle creak of mortise and tenon joints tapped together three or four centuries ago, the price they must pay is wearing thick socks and a gilet all day (and night). They cling to the Aga like a limpet and feel pathetically grateful when handed a hot-water bottle or find, to their delight, that someone has remembered to flick the switch on one of the world’s least expensive luxuries — an electric blanket.  (Read more.)

 

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Easter Eggs

Meat, as well as dairy products and eggs, were at one time renounced by all Christians during the Lenten fast. Among Eastern rite Christians, the discipline is still observed. Decorating and exchanging eggs at Easter have long been a sign of rejoicing. According to Wikipedia:

The egg is widely used as a symbol of new life just as a chick might hatch from the egg. The Easter egg tradition may have celebrated the end of the privations of Lent in the West, though this is speculation. Eggs were forbidden during Lent as well as other traditional fast days; since chickens would not stop producing eggs during this time, a larger than usual store tended to be available at the end of the fast, which had to be eaten quickly to prevent spoiling. Likewise, in Eastern Christianity, both meat and dairy are prohibited during the fast, and eggs are seen as "dairy" (a foodstuff that could be taken from an animal without shedding its blood). It was also traditional to use up all of the household's eggs before Lent began, which established the tradition of Pancake Day.

 

Among the most famous of Easter eggs are those made by Fabergé for the Russian Imperial Family. More HERE.

 

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Lilacs

Lilacs by Pierre-Joseph Redouté

 

Lilacs by Mary Cassatt

 

Our lilacs are blooming in Maryland. Here is an article on the history of lilacs. Lilacs were much loved by Marie-Antoinette. And here is an excerpt from the poem "Lilacs" by Amy Lowell:

Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;

Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug into a hill.

You are everywhere.

You were everywhere.

You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,

And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.

You stood by the pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,

You persuaded the housewife that her dishpan was of silver.

And her husband an image of pure gold.

You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms

Through the wide doors of Custom Houses—

You, and sandal-wood, and tea,

Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks

When a ship was in from China.

 (Read more.)

 

More lilacs at East of the Sun, West of the Moon. 

Lilacs by Dora Koch-Stetter

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Tragic Abundance: Spring Cleaning as Mortification

 From Matriarch Goals:

It is true that I love interior design and making things look nice, but my husband and I are terrible at home organization and at keeping things nice. We are both descended from legit hoarders, which does make us susceptible to imbalance when it comes to material possessions. But more than our genetic misfortunes, we both suffer from a similar type of impatience and a hatred of maintenance that really just amounts to a wholesale failure to keep up appearances.

My husband suffers from a true Spartan hatred of material possessions, which you’d think would deliver us unto minimalism but it doesn’t work that way. I suffer from an overabundance problem, too many hobbies, too many interests that lend themselves to collections and displays. My brother-in-law calls my particular brand of garden and home design tragic abundance, and nothing could be more true. I love old stoves and chimneys and decaying structures that lie out in people’s yards, curing, covered with roses or lilac bushes. That’s the dominant art form around the California Gold Country: natural, botanical abundance growing over the old steel and wood skeletons of a previous civilization. In some ways all of California is late-stage Republic in its artistic presentation, but this looks better in the northern part of the state because we have the granite boulders and hollowed out industry to give it a more romantic setting than the “this is basically Mexico” deserts of Southern California. (Read more.)

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The First Spring Day

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing!
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the spring-tide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me!
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring!
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

By Christina Rossetti

(Artwork "The First Buds of Spring" by Lionel Percy Smythe, courtesy of Hermes.) Share

A Purple Staircase

 

They call it burgundy but it looks purple to me. From Home and Garden:

Pink, in a palette that ranges from the most delicate powder to a saturated magenta, runs throughout the house, telling a story of intimacy and femininity. The homeowner, with a background in fashion and an innate sense of beauty, had envisioned a cozy sanctuary for herself, her family and her lively dog, Rodeo; interior designer Tracy Simmons brought that vision to life through a carefully considered mix of materials, shapes and inspiration. The result? A vibrant, sensory, deeply lived-in space, with a decidedly feminine touch.

 At this California home, colour is not mere decoration: it offers a narrative structure. In the dining room, saturated walls and Stella McCartney's Fungi wallpaper for Cole & Son create a theatrical atmosphere that's warm, immersive and impactful. Vintage A. Suman seating, upholstered in Métaphores fabrics, adds tactility. The deep pink tones of the wallpaper drench the ceiling, and all manner of window and door frames, culminating in colour-matched curtains that elegantly gather round the openings to gently let in natural light.

 Pink walls continue, in even more playful iterations, in the girls' bathroom with Kelly Wearstler's signature blush tiles, in the velvet armchair in the living room and right through a selection of vibrant Pierre Frey fabrics. ‘I wanted each room to convey a story about the owners,’ the designer says, ‘and colour, for me, was a way of whispering these emotions.’ Indeed, this house is more than an explosion of tones and patterns, it is a masterclass in how to work with colour such that it excites without tiring the eye. Tracy achieved this by tackling the project room after room and allowing each space to take on its own character. (Read more.)

 

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Queen Charlotte and Christmas in Georgian England

From Nancy Bilyeau:

Some people cherish an image of Victorian Christmas as the peak of all celebrations. This was when the Christmas tree first found its way into English homes, thanks to Prince Albert, and when families gathered to "make merry" and give thanks for their good fortune, just as they did in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. 

Um, that's not quite right. 

While there is a strong belief that Albert brought with him from Saxe-Coburg the tradition of a Christmas tree, the honors belong to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. She was raised in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and it was following her marriage to George in 1761 that the tree tradition found its way to England.... 

At first Queen Charlotte confined her importing of German Christmas traditions to mounting a decorated yew branch, but in 1800 she threw a memorable party at Windsor for the kingdom's leading families, showing off an entire tree. Dr John Watkins wrote with some awe of how "from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys, most tastefully arranged; the whole illuminated by small wax candles." He said that "after the company had walked round and admired the tree, each child obtained a portion of the sweets it bore, together with a toy, and then all returned home quite delighted." 

Before long, anybody who was anybody wanted a Christmas tree. (Read more.)

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Le Bal des Débutantes 2025

 

 

In which the daughters of celebrities mix with aristocrats and princesses at a traditional event. From Vogue:

Anticipation for this year’s Le Bal des Débutantes—known simply as Le Bal—had been mounting for weeks on TikTok, with no shortage of videos decoding what to expect. The renowned, invite-only debutante ball is akin to the Met Gala for haute couture-wearing teenagers, scions, heiresses, and royals, and the latest edition held at the Marie Antoinette-worthy Shangri-La Paris hotel on Saturday evening did not disappoint in the old world glamour stakes.

As per usual, the debs and their families landed in the city during Thanksgiving week in order to prepare for the event, practice their dancing, and select their diamond jewelry from V Muse. This year, Carolina Lansing—granddaughter of designer Carolina Herrera—made her debut with her little brother Magnus Lansing serving as her cavalier. For the big moment, she opted for a floor-length strapless black and white polka dot gown with a bell-shaped skirt, bow, and a matching sash designed by Wes Gordon, creative director of the Carolina Herrera label. Lansing revealed that she met with her grandmother for advice on the gown too. “We ended up paying homage to my grandmother’s first runway collection,” she told Vogue. “That collection featured a lot of polka dots, so we decided to do black and white with a low waist and ruching, and a big bow because it felt very ’Carolina.’ There’s a lot going on, but it is also very elegant and simple at the same time.” Lansing teamed the gown with a ribbon choker with an antique diamond and sapphire brooch. “The pin immediately reminded me of my grandfather when I saw it, and he just recently passed away in March,” she said. By the end of the night, her brother ended up jokingly wearing her bow as a supersized bowtie.

Attending Le Bal is an established tradition amongst celebrity offspring, with Lily Collins, Margaret Qualley, Apple Martin, Ava Philippe, and Scout Willis among those who have stepped out in the past. This time around, Bronwyn Golden Vance—whose parents are actors Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance—was ready for her close-up. The Harvard student helped kicked off the festivities in the rococo-style ballroom with an opening daughter-father dance. Vance glided across the dance floor in an ivory tulle confection with flecks of gilded details, designed by French haute couturier Stéphane Rolland. Like Lansing, she called upon her sibling to be her cavalier, with her twin brother Slater Vance taking up the task. “I think Le Bal is about being in a space with successful women who are around my age from all over the world–it’s very rare that you can share such a beautiful night with accomplished young girls who are slowly reaching adulthood,” Vance said ahead of the event. “It's a moment to cherish friendships with women who have similar aspirations in life. But yet we are all so different, so it’s a chance to blossom and meet a lot of new people, which I feel like a lot of people don’t get to do. I feel very blessed that I have this opportunity.” (Read more.)

 

Featured at Le Bal were the Churchill emeralds. From Tatler:

What does one wear to Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris when one’s father is the 12th Duke of Marlborough? Couture by Armani and a diamond necklace once worn by your ancestor to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, of course. Few jewels possess the history or pedigree of the emerald-and-diamond piece adorning the neck of Tatler cover star Lady Araminta Spencer-Churchill.

For Lady Araminta, wearing the necklace – loaned from Le Bal jeweller V Muse – marks not only her debut into society but her place within the Churchill family history. Its appearance at Le Bal des Débutantes, held at the Shangri-La hotel in Paris, links her directly to generations of Spencer-Churchill women who wore the piece at pivotal moments in their own public lives. (Read more.)

Many tiaras could be seen. Also from Tatler:

Eulalia de Orleans-Borbón is the daughter of businessman Álvaro de Orleans-Borbón (himself a distant cousin of King Juan Carlos, who is Eulalia's godfather) and descends from several of Europe’s royal houses; her great-grandmother was Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, daughter of the Tsar, who married Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, son of Queen Victoria.

Already an accomplished influencer with 13,000 followers, the 19-year-old is currently studying economics and finance at St Andrews in Fife – that favourite university of royals the world over – and speaks six languages. In the ultimate meeting of two grand royal houses, Eulalia was accompanied to Le Bal by Albert Windsor: the grandson of the Duke of Kent and late Duchess of Kent, who made his debut as the royal family's newest eligible bachelor when he was crowned the hottest young singleton in Britain in Tatler's annual Little Black Book in October.

Naturally, the Princess was the epitome of regal glamour in an embellished, haute couture gown by Lebanese designer Tony Ward, which featured a low neckline and a dramatic train. The perfect partner for such a dress? The sweeping lines of the Fleur-de-lys Tiara, made by Viennese jeweller Moritz Hübner in 1912, are inlaid with ancient diamonds that were originally set in the Order of the Holy Spirit, awarded by King Charles X of France.

Superbly presented, the three large, fleur-de-lys motifs can also be detached and worn separately as brooches. Passed down through the Bourbon family, this tiara once belonged to Princess Maria Anna of Parma and served as the ideal finishing touch for Princess Eulalia's look. (Read more.)

Read more HERE and HERE.

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Inside Choctaw Hall

 

 

From Victoria:

Few would guess the white orbs topping the lower posts on each side of the graceful ascent to Choctaw Hall’s entrance are actually cannonballs. Excavated from the grounds following a Civil War skirmish and encased in stucco, the accents are just one of many character-rich details waiting to be discovered in a dwelling lauded for its architectural appeal, sumptuous interiors, and almost two centuries of history.

 Constructed between 1830 and 1836 for Joseph Neibert, the Natchez mansion passed through several hands before being purchased by David Paul Garner Jr. and Lee Glover in 2014. Lee, who serves as operations manager, and David, the self-ascribed “avant gardener,” immediately set about restoring the structure with fresh plaster and paint as well as repairs to the roof and exterior. “Thank goodness we started out with good bones,” says Lee.

 Desirous of extending the grounds, the new owners also purchased adjoining property, where David cultivates gardens lush with camellias, azaleas, and other blooms. Indoors, elegant furnishings and antiques abound, but one of the most exquisite items in the trove is a grand assemblage of Jacob Petit Paris porcelain. So extensive is the collection that in 2023, a curator from the Louvre came to behold its charm. (Read more.)

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A ‘Little Women’ Christmas Aesthetic

  

From Homes and Gardens:

There’s something inherently nostalgic about the holiday season – the return of old traditions, the warmth of homecomings, and the quiet joy of generosity and togetherness. It’s a feeling steeped in comfort and memory, one that the March family captures so beautifully in the iconic book and films of Little Women. The Little Women Christmas aesthetic brings this timeless sentiment to life, blending the charm and magic of family and celebration.

Based on Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel and its various film adaptations, the Little Women Christmas aesthetic embraces the simplicity of the holiday season by means of charming and evocative home decor. This Christmas decorating theme leans into 'nostalgia-core', or a yearning for the peace, comfort, and childlike joy of Christmases past. It's no surprise that this aesthetic is such a popular trend this year, as it 'captures what people are craving right now: more warmth, more color, more character,' interior designer Terri Brien explains. 'It’s sentimental and layered, with a feeling of nostalgia and comfort that is just perfect for the holidays.'

Unlike other holiday trends that might only speak to certain personalities or interior design styles, there's something universal about the Little Women Christmas aesthetic. It embodies the essence of the Christmas holiday itself, not only through its colors and its decorations, but through the feeling it establishes within individuals. (Read more.)

 

And here is a "Little Women" Christmas Brunch from Victoria!

 

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The Years That the Locust Hath Eaten

  

From Lane Scott at Matriarch:

From 2009 to 2017 we battled through what both of us now recognize as the biggest mistake of our marriage, the purchase of our first fixer: a old 1850s ranch house, with multiple outbuildings, a 1960s mobile home (do not even try to get a traditional loan on a place with one of those anywhere in sight), and seven acres.

I guess my dad and several older friends knew it to be a mistake at the time: which, looking back, if you consult the opinion of older, experienced people who have built houses and remodeled things in the same location you are about to try doing that, perhaps it makes sense to listen to them when they tell you things like “I wouldn’t ever buy a house with post and pier foundation again.” (the link above carries this fabulous description: Imagine your house doing a balancing act on a series of concrete or wooden stilts. That’s basically a post and pier foundation.) Indeed.

But we knew better than all of those experienced people, obviously. We knew we could take this very rundown, post-housing market crash, dawn of the Great Recession “deal” and turn it into a beautiful home.

When I think back to the cause or reason why two people in their twenties thought they knew better or thought they could do what most experienced people knew could not be done, I conclude that we knew better than our elders because we lacked practical wisdom, for one, because we had little understanding of the value of time, especially of one’s youth, and because we only had two young children.

We hadn’t yet reached the point of parenthood when the kids sort of force you to realize that life is about them and you’re just the support staff. We were still in main character phase, and so we bought this run down ranch on a private note, at 7% with a ten year term. (Do not do that).

It’s important to note that anybody buying anything in post-crash 2008 made money. But when we closed on this place it was a bit like that scene in Ghostbusters when Ray shows up with “everybody can relax; I found the car!” We found this cool place with a windmill and artesian well and seven acres and a barn and a cool old house and a rental for only 225k! It just needs an entirely new septic system (engineered, of course, because the county saw us fools coming a mile away) a new well because the old one is contaminated with E. coli from grazing cattle, obviously, fencing, grading, plumbing, a new foundation, and the whole house has knob and tube wiring. (Read more.)

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Make a Room Come to Life at Night

  

From House and Garden:

To put it simply, if there’s a room – or even a tiny space – in your home that you wish were more inviting, more atmospheric or simply more interesting after dark, then chances are it will benefit from a different approach to colour. We have asked the specialists to tell us which paints, finishes and decorative techniques will help to set just the right mood – and add a little magic – as you prepare for the longer winter nights at home.

It is worth noting that all of this will be in vain if you don’t get your lighting right first. As colour consultant Harriet Slaughter emphasises, ‘lamps, wall lights and candles always give a softer, more inviting atmosphere than overhead lighting, which can feel a little harsh or clinical once the sun sets.’

‘One of the first questions I ask during a colour consultancy is when a room will be used,’ says Simon Hutchinson, colour specialist at Little Greene. ‘If the room is going to be used primarily in the evenings, the colour really needs to compliment and reflect this type of lighting and atmosphere.’ This is not just a matter of taste; even those with the most discerning ‘eye for colour’ will see things differently at night. Simon explains that ‘at low levels of light, the rods in our eyes take the main job of seeing as they are far more sensitive to tonal changes, while the cones that detect more colour become less active, causing colours to become harder to identify and look greyer or very muted’. (Read more.)

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The Case For Pretty Plates

 

 From Of Home and Womanhood:

Femininity, at its core, resists this. The feminine impulse decorates, softens, adorns. Women used to carry this instinct into their homes, lace curtains, embroidered linens, china cabinets filled with delicate dishes that spoke of continuity and care. These were not frivolities; they were signatures of a world where beauty was treated as essential to life, where the feminine qualities were expected in a home.

Now, we’re told to save space. To declutter. To strip away. To keep the walls bare, the counters empty, the cabinets minimal. But a sterile home makes sterile souls. When everything is cold, the family forgets warmth.

The table is where this can be reclaimed. To set with real plates, glasses, napkins, is to bring femininity back into the center of the home. It is a reminder that we are not just bodies to be fueled but souls to be nurtured. A plate can hold food, yes, but it also holds memory, beauty, and meaning. It’s where the family can truly sit and grow.

And this is not nostalgia for “fancier times.” It is a recognition that beauty is tied to transcendence. To eat on something beautiful is to be reminded, if only faintly, of the banquet that awaits us in eternity. This is why Christianity gave the table such reverence: because it knows that the way we eat says something about what we believe life is for. (Read more.)

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