Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Home Away From Home

December 28, 2016 at 9:53 am by Claudia

I’ve always liked these apartments. There’s plenty of room for one person. The ceilings are high, the walls are white and bright, the kitchen is equipped with everything I need (including a working dishwasher, which I don’t have at home) and Company Management is extremely accommodating and helpful.

Heck, the apartment is three to four times the size of some of the studio apartments I rented over the years. It’s positively spacious. Believe me when I say that I know  small. I’m always amused when I read blog posts about ‘cottages’ which are really large houses, or small apartments that have a separate bedroom, kitchen and walk-in closets. There was a time when an apartment that size would have been nirvana for me! It’s all relative, of course. If you’ve downsized from something larger, your new space will seem small. Anyway, all this is to say that I appreciate this space provided by the theater and feel perfectly comfortable here.

A little tour with some commentary on things I’ve added:

This is the hallway. The apartment door is at the end. The bathroom is on the left, the bedroom on the right. The floors used to be carpeted, but they changed them out to laminated wood a few years back. I like the look of them, though when Scout was here with me I had to put rugs down so she wouldn’t slip.

The kitchen counter. Some of the apartments have stools on the other side of the counter because there is a nice overhang. The table and chairs are new to this space. There used to be a round table and some mid-century looking chairs that had seen better days. A nice improvement.

You’e seen the quilt before. The Christmas Tree will remain on the table through Saturday.

The desk and the weird hooks hanging high up on the wall. They’ve turned out to be quite handy for hanging the wreaths. I’m contemplating what to do with them when the wreaths come down at the end of the week. The little table on the right holds my Bose speaker and my new on-the-road Canon printer. I bought a USB cord and now it’s working perfectly.

I use the McCoy planter to hold all my charging cords. When did life become so complicated?

The living room. The quilt on the wall is the newest addition to the space. I made it when we were living in California and the fabrics used are batiks. I’m partial to that orange and, as must be clear by now, I like purple.

Amazing that the bark cloth remnant fits the top of the coffee table so perfectly. Who would have thought? Since all the tables are black, I used some fabric to break things up. I also grabbed that pillow from our bedroom at home (Don never puts them on the bed when I’m away, so he won’t miss it) to add some color to that big, brown sofa.

This little lamp I bought at Target is rather small. When I get back home, it will go on Don’s desk. So I used some books to give it some height. That’s another fabric scrap on the black table. Looking at it in this photo, I think I should give it a pass with the iron!

The bedroom is too dark to photograph, but this quilt is on the bed:

Yes, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge, but these touches make a basically blank space a home-away-from-home. I’m fortunate, I know, that I can load the car up with all of this stuff and drive to Hartford. But I did the same thing when I worked in San Diego for 10 weeks at a time (we were living in the Northeast.) I packed three big boxes with things I knew would brighten up the apartment space and make it mine and sent them out to California. It’s worth it for me. When I walk in the door after a day of rehearsal, I feel I’ve come home. It’s a temporary home, of course, but making a little nest makes a huge difference in the quality of my life on the road.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Filed Under: decorating, Hartford, On The Road, quilting 20 Comments

Back In The Saddle

December 27, 2016 at 8:43 am by Claudia

Back in the saddle in Hartford.

I drove back here yesterday morning because I had some coaching to do yesterday afternoon. I can’t complain! I love my work, so it’s nice to be back. And, I was lucky enough to get two and half days back home.

We had a lovely low-key Christmas, which is just how we wanted it. Christmas Eve was full of chores; doing the laundry, cleaning the house (because even though I know Don cleans, he doesn’t see what I see…) wrapping presents, and listening to Christmas music. We watched It’s a Wonderful Life  in the evening and we cried, as we always do. Side note: Old Man Potter is the movie version of a certain all-too-real man who shall remain nameless, but you know who I’m talking about. I can’t tell you how many times we turned to each other and said “It’s him!”

We lazed around on Christmas morning, finally getting around to opening gifts around 11 am or so. No, we didn’t have coffee cake because it’s full of dairy and decidedly non-vegan. At some point, I’ll figure out how to adjust the recipe, but I was tired and it was Christmas Eve and we decided to forego the cake for this year. Don did find two vegan turnovers at a local bakery and they were delicious!

Dinner? Don decided to throw caution to the winds and we ordered Chinese take-out. All in all, a perfect day. We ended it by watching Eight Days a Week, Ron Howard’s new documentary about the touring years of the Beatles. The DVD was one of my presents to Don. Excellent and full of footage never seen before.

I didn’t take many photos, though one of my presents from Don was a camera lens I’ve been wanting for a long time: a long-range telephoto lens that will be perfect for capturing bird life around the cottage! I’m thrilled with it.

Photo courtesy of Don’s iPhone. I played around with it only for a short while, as I quickly discovered my camera battery needed charging and the charger was back in Hartford. I try to avoid posting Christmas morning photos as I’m always still in my flannel pajamas, with messy hair and no make-up. As you can see.

Goodness, I look like my mother!

I did manage to get this shot of a nest high up in one of our maple trees.

One day when I have some spare time, I’ll visit the park across the street from my apartment building and see what I can capture with the new lens.

Don’s big gift was given to him in November – a new guitar. Under the tree for him this year: five vintage editions of the Hardy Boys, a vintage Big Boy ashtray and a book of Bob’s Big Boy matches in pristine condition with an ad for Death Valley Days  on the back! We both got a neat little battery charger for our cars that will also charge our phones. And he got the DVD.

For me: the long-awaited lens, earrings and a necklace from Nest Pretty Things, a fabulous Etsy shop, Mary Oliver’s newest book of essays, Upstream, two beautiful handmade stone coasters by a local artist that show a view of our local mountain range, and a photo book that Don made for me, full of photos he’s taken on his iPhone, many of them at the Protest March we attended in NYC. He included some quotes about strong women/his wife and I, of course, cried.

Priceless and utterly beautiful.

All in all, a beautiful day.

I’ve told you about the strange way in which little mirrors and canvases are hung on these walls. Much too far apart to make any sort of statement and, in this case, too far apart to adequately cover up with this quilt I brought from home. Nope – neither horizontally or vertically. I tried.

So I hung this right below the canvases. I don’t feel I have the right to take them down because doing so would make it impossible to hang them up again. Just know that there is one 12-inch square sort- of-modern-art canvas at the upper left hand corner of the quilt and one at the upper right hand corner. I’ve cropped them out of this photo. The quilt does draw my eye away from the canvases, which is a good thing.

Okay. We’re all caught up. Little Z had a fabulous Christmas and hearing the excitement in his voice as he was gearing up for Christmas Eve was heaven. His new red wagon is “loud!” and he is having a great time with it, as well as the plethora of Paw Patrol toys and accessories that he found under the tree.

Happy Tuesday.

Filed Under: Christmas, Hartford, On The Road 26 Comments

On the Road: Decorating a Temporary Living Space

December 21, 2016 at 10:18 am by Claudia

I’m running a bit late today as I didn’t get to sleep until very late (noise next door). Ah, the joys of apartment living. The good news? I slept in. And I don’t have to be at rehearsal until noon. Otherwise, my friends, you might not be getting a blog post today!

We finished table work yesterday and today I’m coaching the actors one-on-one. These initial sessions are a great way to get to know each other, to go through all of their lines in the text, to talk about the rhythm, the poetry and the iambic pentameter of each line. We discuss the meaning, the challenges and, hopefully, I help the actor gain in understanding.

Back at the apartment:

The big black coffee table that replaced the white one that I liked so much. Sob. I do like the shelf underneath, though. Luckily, I always grab some fabric scraps when I’m packing and this piece of bark cloth works rather nicely. That’s my new wall calendar from Rifle Paper Co. under the table, just waiting for January 1st.

This gives you an idea of how high the ceilings are in these apartments. At one time, this was an office building. I like the high ceilings – such a contrast with the cottage, where our ceilings are much lower. That’s my humidifier on the counter.

This shelf unit is a new addition since I was last here. Very handy, I must say. The hooks on the wall are new, as well.

The desk. This has changed since I took this photo. Because the sofa is so hard on my back, the company manager brought in two chairs for me to use until they can change out the sofa. That can’t happen until A Christmas Carol  closes and those cast members and crew members move out and that won’t be until December 31st. Since I’m going to be back in a couple of months to work on Saint Joan, the company manager thought it might be worthwhile to actually move this sofa out and a firmer one in.

I’m grateful for the chairs because I really had nowhere to sit to watch television except at the desk or the dining room table. New television, by the way. Much better picture quality – that’s a very nice change!

Anyway, here they are. It makes things tight right now, but I’m sure she brought two chairs because she knows Don is coming for New Year’s Eve.

I had covered the sofa with the quilted cover from the bed (I always change that blue quilt out with my quilt from home because it’s prettier and more lightweight). But when the chairs were added, it made sense for me to take the cover off.

I am not a fan of a big expanse of brown faux leather. Just my opinion, of course. I have a feeling it all goes back to my mom decorating with beige and brown and lots of dark wood in a small living room. She did eventually go to avocado green. I know you all remember that  color craze. Anyway, my immediate reaction is to cover the brown with some color, as that combined with black tables and a brown floor is a lot of ‘dark.’ I still plan to do that, but I’ll have to wait a bit until I go home and see what I have there. And there will be some sort of quilt on that wall.

In order to fit these chairs in the living space, the desk moved over to the right.

The nest is taking shape.

Flowers, of course. I stop at Trader Joe’s on the way here and buy flowers. That is a must.

The other end of the room. Mirrored squares successfully covered. I mentioned in the comments that the squares are attached firmly to the wall. They’re not hanging on something, so trying to move them and rearrange them would damage the wall. So, I’m covering them up! I always move that yellow lamp to the counter because it picks up the yellow in the quilt.

I’ll do the same on the other end by the sofa when I bring another quilt from home.

These are my essentials for life on the road: quilts to hang and to cover the bed; fresh flowers, fabric to cover surfaces that are worn or too dark, extra lamps (the lamp on the desk and the blue lamp next to the sofa are from home) pottery to use as containers, books, my favorite mug, framed photos, my Bose sound link mini speaker, and this year, little Christmas trees.

Have to run!

Happy Wednesday.

Filed Under: decorating, On The Road 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.

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

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