Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Scenes from the Cottage: The Living Room

January 19, 2015 at 8:31 am by Claudia

We’re recovering from yesterday’s terrible weather. It rained all day long, which quickly turned to ice, black ice for those drivers who were unaware that the innocent looking rain was becoming dangerous. The result was terrible for many people: multiple car accidents, cars spinning out on roads and freeways, the eventual closure of the Thruway. Don had a gig north of us which he had to cancel. It was just too, too dangerous to drive. So we were stuck in the house all day while we tried to make Scoutie’s little corral safe by salting everything in sight. It was simply horrible. Today will be all about salting the driveway so we can get to the grocery store. I’m sick of this icy winter.

Nesting Mode continues, so I hope you don’t mind if I indulge in some more Scenes from the Cottage? Today we’re checking out the living room. I didn’t capture every detail, but there are plenty of photos elsewhere on the blog if you want to see more.

The living room and the kitchen are essentially one big room. There are lots of windows, so sunlight floods each room.

As Is, remember, so we have dark corners, rumpled sofas, and a dog.

Corners-Living Room 6

Corners-Living Room 1

Corners-Living Room 2

Corners-Living Room 3

Corners-Living Room 4

Pantel1

Corners-Living Room 7

Corners-Living Room 5

funtour-lambwiththepartyhat

mparakeets

Corners-Living Room 8

I threw in an older photo of the parakeet lamp because I forgot to take a picture of it the day I shot these photos.

I’ve had the loveseat since I lived in Boston, so that would make it about 23 years old. Like the sofa in the den, it’s had several slipcovers. The yellow chair was purchased new several years ago, as were the rugs.  The red chair was a $50 purchase from a San Diego antique shop. The wood chair was purchased at a local vintage shop right after we moved in here. It’s surprisingly comfortable.

The large white cabinet was found for $100 at auction. I love it, love it, love it.

The piano was my grandmother’s. The coffee table was refinished by our friend Rob when we lived in San Diego and we got it for a song.

You know all about the dollhouse.

The desk was free; found on the street and ‘reimagined.’

Once again, there’s lots of McCoy pottery scattered around the room, on tables, on the piano, under the dollhouse, on top of the white cabinet, on the sideboard. In fact, many of the colors I use in the living room and kitchen were inspired by the sherbet colors of McCoy.

The wooden ship was given to my dad by my mom.

The quilt on the floor was found at auction. It’s on the floor entirely for Scoutie’s comfort.

The lithograph of the Aquitania was a big find last year – a bit of a splurge for two normally frugal people. We bought it from a local antique shop. Words cannot express how much we love it.

The parakeet lamp was a birthday gift from Don.

The pillow on the red chair was a gift from Judy.

Monty the Cow was purchased right after we moved East. We love him. We’ve been known to move him from room to room so that he can see everything going on in the house.

I had a canvas print made of the Lamb With The Party Hat (this blog’s logo) and Don insisted, much to my delight, that we hang it in the living room.

The small print in the green frame is a postcard of a print that Don saw in a local gallery. The original print below it is a Norman Rockwell. We found it several years ago in the Berkshires.

The clock was found across the river in an antique shop (the same one where we recently found the Maxfield Parrish). We fell in love with it and put it on layaway. It was an anniversary present to each other.

The Hymns board was found in a local antique shop several years ago. I had to have it.

The fringed lampshade was found in California at Christie Repasy’s shop.

The dog comes with the house. She’s priceless.

You know that feeling when you walk in the door and you can’t help smiling? That’s what happens with this room. The living room makes me happy.

If you have questions about anything else, feel free to ask in the comments section.

Happy Monday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

 

Filed Under: antiques, auction, decorating, DIY, living room, vintage 62 Comments

Scenes From the Cottage: The Den

January 18, 2015 at 8:48 am by Claudia

This time of year I am in full-on Nesting Mode. I look around our cottage and thank my lucky stars that we have a roof over our head and a charming one, at that. So I’ve been taking some pictures of the cottage. First up?

The den.

This room – where I write, blog, read, and where Don and I watch the tube – is full of things that are well worn, used and vintage. The only item that was new when we purchased it is the sofa. It’s now nineteen years old and on its second slip cover. Oh, and the rug, which is now 14 years old and has attained ‘well worn’ status courtesy of the dogs that have shared our life.

The den is smallish, sunken and until very recently, was not my favorite room here at the cottage. Then, after almost 10 years of dreaming of built-in bookshelves, we took the bull by the horns and stained some wood, added some standards and brackets, and now? I don’t know why, but those darned shelves have made all the difference in the world in my perception of the space.

I really love it here now.

It’s full of stuff. Every bit of space is in use. But that’s the way life is here at the cottage, where livable space equals about 1000 square feet and the owners have a lot of things that they love.

Some scenes from the den (as is, nothing styled):

Corners-Den 1

Corners-Den 5

Corners-Den 2

Corners-Den 6

Corners-Den 3

Corners-Den 10

Corners-Den 4

Corners-Den 7

Corners-Den 8

Corners-Den 9

Everything has a story of course, because that’s how we roll around here.

A flower print in a beautiful scalloped wood frame found for $15 at auction.

A pair of vintage lamps found in a favorite antique shop last year. We fell in love with them.

A blue/green table found at auction for $10.

Collections: egg cups, McCoy pottery, china, Roseville pottery, mini pottery, and books.

Well loved art hanging on the walls: an original Maxfield Parrish print, an original Currier & Ives ‘God Bless Our Home’ print (found at auction), the beautiful Lost Lamb print in its equally beautiful vintage frame.

A spinet desk made out of cherry, a lovely china cabinet (one of the first things I purchased when I moved to San Diego), an antique music cabinet, a $5 television/media cabinet (found at auction) and a $10 coffee table.

My blogging chair, found in San Diego. It’s vintage and needs to be reupholstered but, in the meantime, is sporting an IKEA slipcover.

The beautiful cigarette box I found in Edinburgh over 20 years ago – one of my very favorite things.

You can see that we don’t spend a lot of money on things. We’re always  on a budget. Since we’re also naturally drawn to used, worn, and vintage, it all seems to work out rather nicely!

It’s not perfect. But perfect is boring.

I believe in letting a room evolve over time. It’s taken us almost ten years to find what works in this space. But now, it’s my favorite retreat.

More ‘Scenes From’ this week.

Happy Sunday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

Tagged With: decorating, denFiled Under: antiques, cottage, decorating, den, DIY, vintage 49 Comments

Small House Living: Finding Room for a Desk

January 7, 2015 at 9:57 am by Claudia

When you live in a small house and have an even smaller budget, you have to be, shall we say, “creative” with your solutions. Case in point: both Don and I freelance, therefore, all of our work related materials live here. We don’t leave the house and ‘go to an office.’ In my case, I write two blogs here, have tons of reference materials (including books) for my coaching work and my book reviews, all receipts for both the blog and my work away from home are kept here, along with a lot of the other paperwork that goes along with paying household bills.

We have the guest bedroom/office/Don’s studio, where there are two file cabinets – one for me, one for Don. Mine holds dialect research and other ‘must save’ information. Don uses the desk in that room for his work. But the rest of the room is filled with a bed, a linen cabinet, a fax machine, and all of Don’s guitars and music paraphernalia. It can’t simply be an office/studio space. It also has to function as a guest room.

Then I have the ‘studio’ in the upstairs hallway – but that’s where the sewing machines live. (I sometimes fantasize about storing the machines and using that worktop as a desk. We’ll see.)

A few years back, Don came home with a freebie he found on the curb. It was an ugly computer desk. My first response was, “Take it back.” But then I  accepted Don’s challenge and reimagined it with paint and vintage fabric. To read more about that, click here. For a while, it sat in the den, but I decided I wanted a separate place to go when I had to do paperwork.

Where is there any extra space in this little cottage? Well, we have a little cupboard under the stairs where we store things that we don’t need to get to very often, which means that most of the time it’s wasted space. So why not put the desk there?

SHL-desk

You can see the little closet behind the desk. When I need to access it, I move the desk away from the wall. It’s a bit of a pain, but this is the kind of thing you do when you live in a small space. You compromise.

The chair, by the way, is one of the chairs I am longing to get rid of. Soon.

Monday dawned and I knew I had to tackle this area, which had boxes stacked on top of the desk and baskets overflowing with paperwork. I sat on the floor, pulled out the baskets and sorted like a madwoman.

SHL-underneathdesk

On the shelves beneath the desk: the wire basket holds all our paid bills, the stack to the right of it holds old agendas and notebooks, the basket on the left on the lower shelf holds all my receipts and paperwork for both the blog and my coaching work, the one on the right holds chargers, cords and my beloved Blackwings. The paint brushes in the cup are used for work on the dollhouse.

2014 paid bills/receipts have been gathered together with a giant rubber band and are now sitting in the big white cupboard in the living room. Everything else has been sorted, rearranged or dumped in the trash.

The top of the desk has been cleaned off and is ready for 2015.

SHL-tins

My tins. The green one holds business cards that I want to hang on to.

SHL-coaster

The coaster was actually a rug made by someone for that mini swap. But it’s out of scale and too thick for the dollhouse, so I thought I’d repurpose it as a coaster. (My watch needs a new battery, that’s why it’s sitting there.)

SHL-lamp

My lamp find from the Country Living Fair with its temporary lampshade solution. Note to self: get on that. The little cottage with the two birds wall pocket was a gift from Judy.

SHL-notes

Instead of trying to fit some sort of pin board in here, at least until I find one that works, I tied some thick trim I had to one of the spindles. Then I used oversized clothespins (I think I found them in the $1 bin at Target) to hold notes, one of which is my upcoming book review schedule. That photo is of Don and I on the beach in San Diego.

The wind chill today is below zero. I’m thinking I’d like to be back on that beach.

The doorstop was an auction find.

SHL-bag

And my new tote bag lives on the chair.

No, the desk isn’t elegant. It’s sort of funky. It was free. Total cost? $0. The paint I had on hand, the vintage fabric was in my stash. I’d say you can’t beat the price.

I’ve taken a rarely used space and made it into a work area for a girl with several irons in the fire.

That would be me.

Happy Wednesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

 

Filed Under: decorating, DIY, organization, small house living 32 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

Thanks for stopping by.

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The Dogs

The Dogs

Scout & Riley. Riley left us in 2012. Scout left us in February 2016. Dearest babies. Dearest friends.

Winston - Our first dog. We miss you, sweetheart.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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