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Around the Cottage

November 30, 2011 at 9:49 am by Claudia

Well, the big news here at Mockingbird Hill Cottage is….hang on to your hats…the septic tank was emptied yesterday!

I know. Take a moment to collect yourself. If I had been a bit more on top of things, I would have taken pictures. I could have devoted a whole post to the process.

Let me tell you, the guy who drives that truck and empties the tank deserves to be paid very well.

I keep forgetting to share this little gem with you. I discovered it in a local shop and was planning to sell it in my future Etsy shop. But Don claimed it. It’s about 2 inches high and says:

I’ll hold your rings
For you;
While dishes or
Washing you do.

Souvenir of Lake George, NY

Lake George is quite a bit north of us, in the Adirondacks.

The little lid comes off and there is a little well with a piece of wood in the center, just like a ring holder. I used this on Thanksgiving when I took my wedding ring off in order to make biscuits. It lives on the window ledge by the sink. I love these little wooden souvenirs. They look handmade and are so gosh darned charming.

Can you find Scout in the background of the photo?

By the way, I’ve actually signed up for my Etsy shop! Someone already had the name Mockingbird Hill – I couldn’t add ‘Cottage’ because there were too many characters. So it will be under my user name of ScoutHarper. I have no idea when it will open, but I’m aiming for the first of the year. I will carry vintage finds and some handmade things, as well. I’m getting excited.

Playing with the Necco Candy Jar:

Filled with the fabric Easter eggs I made a couple of years ago. The pastel colors remind me of yummy candy.

I’ll eventually fill it with something Christmas-y but I refuse to start Christmas decorating this early. I’m adamant about the subject. Hey, I love Christmas decorations as much as anyone else, but for me, the season loses its sense of wonder if I rush into decorating the minute Thanksgiving has ended. We always get a real tree – usually around December 10th or so. Then the decorating will begin.

They’re in the jar temporarily. In fact, I’ve already removed them. The inside of the jar still smells musty. I’ve used coffee grounds in the past to remove mustiness. I have some ready to go. Any other suggestions?

I must thank you for the wonderful and moving comments on the “Blogging Etiquette: Mean Girls” post. Wow. I read them all more than once. I was touched and in some cases, moved to tears. This clearly resonates with all of us. Whether we’ve witnessed someone being bullied or suffered through the bullying of one of our children or have been bullied ourselves – this kind of behavior leaves lasting scars. I feel passionately about the subject and it’s clear that you do, too. Thank you.

Defending the Small House #3

November 29, 2011 at 6:00 am by Claudia

{Living Big in 1200 Square Feet}

Week #3: Cozy Lighting in a Small House

Welcome to week number three of our ‘Defending the Small House” series. Brenda and I thought we would chat about cozy lighting this week.

(Apologies to those of you who thought I published this post last night! I hit publish accidentally – with no text other than our logo. Yikes.)

Let me say, right at the top, I do not like most overhead lighting in a room. I’m not talking about chandeliers, necessarily. I’m really speaking about those fixtures that sit in the ceiling in the middle of a room. We all have them. Each bedroom in the house I grew up in had a ceiling fixture and even at a young age, I begged for a lamp instead. The light from those fixtures is harsh and doesn’t create a cozy, warm space.

Tip#1: Avoid relying on overhead fixtures. Create a warm look and feel with lamps scattered around the room. The only overhead lights I use are the 6 pot lights in the kitchen ceiling. And in the evening, I warm up the light in the kitchen by using this lamp.

I find myself turning it on even when the overhead lights are on. It somehow softens the light and adds warmth to the room. After I’m done in the kitchen for the night, off go the pot lights and this little lamp stays on. (By the way, I covered the shade with fabric from my stash. It has so much more personality now.)

The other overhead lights in this house are in the hallway and upstairs bathroom. Still haven’t found something for the bathroom (I’m looking) but in the hallway, which is also my studio, I use this lamp in the evening.

It sits on the bookcase and immediately adds warmth to the the hallway/studio. Be gone, overhead light!

I like the soft pools of light that lamps produce. Overhead lights, even the ever popular chandeliers, just don’t do that.

Tip #2: Reading lamps should be plentiful. They should provide good, strong light for you and your family and guests. I’ve been a guest at a few homes where there weren’t enough lamps available for reading. Sometimes there’s a lamp available but the lightbulb isn’t a high enough wattage to provide good light. If you’re worried about the wattage being too strong, get one of those 3-way bulbs. Or put the lamp on a dimmer. I’d rather have too many lamps than too few.

I don’t know about you, but I need reading glasses now and I need good light!

In our home we have reading lamps by all the main seating pieces.

There’s a floor lamp that you can’t see by the loveseat. You’ll see it later. It lights the reading area for both the loveseat and the chair. There’s another floor lamp between the piano and the yellow chair. It works nicely for reading or playing the piano. As you look through the french doors into the den, the lamp that is lit is by my blogging chair. We also have lamps on either side of the sofa.

By the way, I bought this lamp (in the den) when I was in my early twenties at Hudson’s warehouse sale. Hudson’s used to be the major department store in the Detroit area. Unfortunately it has been swallowed up by Macy’s. Just wanted to mention that it has had many shades and has been with me for, ahem, many years and it still works like a charm.

Is this the time for me to say I detest CFLs? I know they are supposedly good for the environment, although the fact that they need special clean-up and disposal because they have mercury in them is worrisome. But until the light is softer and warmer I will be staying with incandescent bulbs – even if I have to order them from some far-off place.

Tip #3: Add small lamps that are wonderfully quirky and bring warmth to a corner or two. I call these personality lamps. I have a few of them. I love placing them in a corner where they add to the evening ambiance.

This is my parakeet lamp. It provides a soft, subtle glow.

Don and I found this little lamp several years ago and fell in love with it. Eventually I found the perfect red shade. It sits on our spinet desk and softly lights the base of the staircase.

Tip#4: Take your standard issue lamps and add shades that make them stand out. We have a floor lamp that I bought many years ago from Pottery Barn. It’s had several shades over the years and frankly, I wasn’t happy with any of them. Two years ago, I was working in California and I found this shade at Christie Repasy’s shop. I fell in love with it.

Beautiful, vintage – it changes the whole room. (Don isn’t as crazy about it as I am, but it’s staying.)

Here’s what it looks like in the evening. (Still haven’t painted the base white. I will.)

Our other floor lamp was missing it’s original glass shade when we bought it. It came with a paper shade that just didn’t work. But the lamp itself had beautiful green glass in the stem and base. I carried the measurements with me for months until I found the right shade. The green (which is around the rim of the shade) perfectly matches the green glass on the base.

Tip#5: Grab that glue gun and decorate your lampshade! Take a run-of-the-mill lampshade and add buttons or flowers or fabric or burlap or vintage hankies and change it out completely. That’s what I did with the kitchen lamp. The shade was old and stained and one day I grabbed some fabric from my stash and covered it. It made a huge difference.

Add some buttons or lace around the rim. What about some fringe? A bit of whimsey can completely change the look of a standard shade.

What’s on my wish list? Sconces for the sides of the cupboards on either side of the kitchen sink. A small light in the upstairs half bath. It would have to take up very little space and be hung on the wall because of the size restrictions in that room. That’s it. We can’t have a chandelier because this is an old house with low ceilings and my husband is 6’4″ – that would be disaster. Though I love the look of them, they really aren’t a good fit for this little cottage.

I just have to add: I’ve been watching a lot of House Hunters in the evenings. Don’s been working late. Am I the only one who’s sick of seeing young buyers look at a large walk-in closet and say it’s too small? Or complain, yet again, that the appliances aren’t stainless? They really haven’t a clue, have they?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of Defending the Small House. We love to hear your comments, ideas and suggestions. Make sure you visit Brenda and see her ideas on cozy lighting. See you next week!

Blogging Etiquette: Mean Girls

November 28, 2011 at 1:30 am by Claudia

This is a bit of a rant, so bear with me.

The other day a friend sent me a link to a couple of blog posts that I found deeply troubling. The blogs and bloggers shall remain nameless. Since I’m talking about blogging etiquette here, linking to them or naming names would be bad manners on my part.

One blogger wrote disparagingly about a woman who was sitting nearby in a public space. A certain aspect of her appearance apparently didn’t meet with the blogger’s approval. Not only did she write about this woman in a negative way based on something purely superficial, her readers joined in. The comment section was full of mean-spirited comments and the written equivalent of laughter about the other woman and the way she looked – a woman, by the way, that none of the commenters had actually seen. Only one commenter had the guts to call them on this bitchy, hurtful behavior. We used to call it ‘picking on’ someone. It’s also called bullying. Whatever you call it, it’s despicable. They were picking on someone who didn’t even know she was being written about – who didn’t have the chance to respond or fight back.

The other blogger published a photo of herself with a very heavy set person (facing away from the camera) prominently in the background. She invited her readers to give the post a caption. For the moment, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume her intention was for the title to be about the part of the photo she herself was in. Anyway, her readers did supply titles. Not very nice ones. Most of them – not all – were pertaining to the innocent person in the background of the photo who didn’t even know her picture was being taken. As to my ‘benefit of the doubt’ – the blogger didn’t elect to delete the comments. Or even address them. And I assume she cropped, or didn’t crop, the photo. It’s getting harder and harder to make that ‘benefit of the doubt’ stick, isn’t it? Making fun of someone who can’t fight back is all too easy. It takes no skill, no wit, and certainly no strength of character.

Both bloggers are younger, probably in their early thirties, and are “mommy bloggers.” A different generation than me. Both have children. I can’t help but wonder how they would address this kind of behavior if it was directed against their children? Would they say it’s wrong? Would they be spitting mad if anyone bullied or picked on their children? They would have every right to be. Or, on the other hand, will their children emulate their mothers? After all, parents are role models, aren’t they? What kind of example is being set here?

Do they not realize that what they are doing is wrong? That tearing someone else down to build yourself up is the worst kind of behavior? That there is no excuse for it whatsoever? And all this is being done publicly, on the internet, where anyone can see it, including the innocent victims.

I’ve said this before on this blog: the blogging world is just like the real world. It reminds me of both the good and bad parts of high school. There are kind, funny, talented, generous, compassionate and genuinely good bloggers out there. There are cliques. There is a sort of ‘in crowd.’ There are popularity contests. And apparently there are mean girls (and mean boys, I suppose) who trash those who are ‘different,’ who march to the beat of a different drum, who dare to look and dress in a style that doesn’t meet with their approval, or whose body weight doesn’t conform to their standards.

It’s so disappointing. And, to be honest, it makes me very angry. Even as a kid, I didn’t tolerate that kind of behavior. Thanks to my parents, I knew it was wrong. You would think that as adults, we would be able to leave the need for that kind of petty, pathetic aggression behind. I guess we can use our blogs in any way we choose, but to use a blog as a vehicle to make fun of someone you don’t even know and have never really talked to, simply because you’re bored and want to trash some innocent bystander – well, to my mind, that is beneath contempt. And sadly, it brings out a sort of mob mentality in those who comment.

I expect more from women. We should raise each other up. We should show compassion. We should cheer each other on. And we should show, by our behavior, by the words we choose to write, that bullying of any kind is unacceptable.

I realize I’m preaching to the choir here. Thankfully, my readers and the bloggers I visit are simply not like that.

We all say and do things we regret. But the beauty of writing a blog is that we have the chance to think and edit before we hit ‘publish.’

I love blogging. I guess my love for this medium makes the misuse of it even more shocking to me. And the sad fact that no one stood up for these unknown women, save one person, is very troubling. Maybe I’m naive to expect more of grown women. But I do. They should be deeply ashamed.

Around the Cottage

Defending the Small House #3

Blogging Etiquette: Mean Girls

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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