The roller coaster ride that is a lot of sleep, then too little sleep, then a lot of sleep continues. I have to follow the same advice I give to Don: Some times it just happens. You’ll get through the day.
It’s true.
So, it was very hot and humid yesterday which made me stay in the house except for the usual watering of plants. I sat in our newish chair in the living room and read. Occasionally my eyes would wander over to the portraits of Scout and Riley on the wall.
And then to the Parrish.
And then back again to the dogs.
So I finally got up and tried the canvas of Riley and Scout in place of the Parrish.
Much better. It belongs there. When Winston arrives, the wall will be complete.
So…where to put the Parrish? I wandered around the house, trying it here and there. We have limited wall space, especially upstairs where we have attic rooms with slanted walls. I stood in the studio/office and thought about it. I left the Parrish propped up against the work table. I walked away.
Eventually, I tried this:
I had the calendar hanging here, but I moved it over to the far left side of the shelf, after trying the Parrish there first. I preferred it here, because just to its right is this:
I may tweak the placement of The Dinky Bird – maybe a bit closer to Pierrot’s Serenade.
When I first created this little space, I was all for keeping it clean. By that, I mean relatively free of clutter on the desk and clutter on the walls.
I failed miserably.
I have stuff. Let’s face it. I collect egg cups, I collect mini pottery (over on the wall to the left of the desk,) I have a bulletin board full of memories and photos, I have all the clutter that goes with building miniatures, and then I have the Parrishes. And the pottery. And…you get the picture.
But I thought about the Maxfield Parrish and how much I love his work and how long I’ve waited and waited to be able to purchase one or two of them and I thought: why not have them both on the wall that faces me when I’m working at my desk? I can lift my gaze from the keyboard and gaze upon the glorious colors and smile. And I do.
One other thing. I mentioned this on Instagram a few weeks back, but I don’t think I shared it here. We found this chair at our new favorite antique shop for $25.00. It’s a mid-century bentwood chair and, gosh, is it comfortable. It’s been added to our mismatched set of chairs that surround the kitchen table. It’s in great shape. I love it.
In case you’re interested: the Matryoshka doll/tea ball and tin of Anastasia tea were given to me by the producers of Anastasia, as was the round medallion on top of the tea tin. The tiny Delft shoes were a gift from Susi in Amsterdam, the shadow box contains a brooch give to me by my late brother, and the tin over on the work table was an antique shop find.
Happy Saturday.
I think you may have found the perfect place! They belong together! You are a collector…and I guess the best way to display your collections, is to keep them together, yet separate. So you didn’t fail…you are just expressing yourself! I tried to be a minimalist, once….I can’t do it! Cute chair…it just looks comfortable! It’s quite cool and rainy here today….pleasant change. I was noticing how green our lawn was…more representative of May, than late August. And, it’s growing so fast…yours too? Enjoy your day! ;)
I can’t be a minimalist. That’s the sad truth! But not so sad, because I love all my things. Our lawn is growing fast as well – very strange for August!
Nice glimpses of your sweet cottage, Claudia. I knew you’ll tweak and tweak until you get the placement of all your treasures right. Then you’ll live with them and tweak again. That’s what we do! I love your new old chair. The shape of the back is very very similar to my parents’ dining room chairs, and so is the wood and color of the stain. My parents chairs have upholstered seats. My parents saved and saved for their dining set. Each chair was almost a month of my Dad’s salary, and the table was three months. My Mom still regrets not buying the matching hutch, but they couldn’t afford it.
We have two bentwood chairs, now, and I really love them. Love the story of the careful saving of pennies that resulted in your parents’ dining room set.
Love your bentwood chair! But then, I’m a sucker for almost any bentwood chair, especially a style that I do not or have not owned. My collection right now stands at thirteen, I think. And I’ve let several go over the years, including a rocker that I loved, but no longer had room for. Still miss them. (Oops, just remembered three more, at the beach shack!)
The Parrishes look very happy hanging side by side. I’ll bet you wish that boy, Winston, would hurry up and make the grouping downstairs complete!
We only have two – the one in the post and another one that is more of a desk chair – cushions covered in green faux leather (it’s a Thonet.) That one we got for $5!
Wow! A $5 Thonet. Now that’s a deal! None of mine are “real”.
I couldn’t believe it at the time, Shanna! That’s the only ‘real’ one I have.
Everything looks as if they are exactly where they were meant to be!! Lovely!!
As Donnamae said, we are getting a beautiful rain this morning. I just said to my husband that we have not had any crunchy grass all season due to lack of moisture. Mowing has had to be done weekly. We looked back the last 3 years, and each year there was a span of 2 or 3 weeks in late July and/ or August where no mowing was needed. Not this year. The weird thing is that we have only had 2 or 3 rainy days. Most of the moisture has been overnight rains. Hope your humidity broke, even if it is just for a few days, it does help!! Have a wonderful day!!
We had at least one very dry spell, but then it rained like crazy for about a week and now everything is green. But, interestingly, the rivers are still low. We can’t figure that one out!
You have put everything in their right places. Love seeing bits and pieces of your cozy home♥
summerdaisycottage.blogspot.com
Thank you, Summer!
Doggies with doggies, Parrishes with Parrishes. That looks the best. And yes, it rains and rains and the rivers are very shallow. I think the heat takes it all up in evaporation to give us yet more humidity.
I think it evaporates, as well. There’s no other answer is there?
I have the same little Dutch “klompen”. I was born in Holland, and they were given to me by my father. I too have a small collection of miniatures, and each one brings back a special memory.
I really love those little ‘wooden’ shoes, Melanie! How neat that you were born in Holland!
The shadow box frame kind of picks up the colors in the newly-hung Parrish, so it works. If you hung both Parrish works together, they’d fight each other…they need to have a little separation, as you’ve done. And the dog gallery is going to give you so much comfort; looks great. Not everything has to be matchy-matchy. I had that in my Gulf Coast house and the wallpaper which was echoed in drapes and other stuff had us dizzy more than once…and it was a ‘model’ home which had been professionally decorated for the development (so you’d think they would have known better).
I, too, envy those with lots of room and wall space. I need more cabinets to contain collections. My big problem right now is that I’ve amassed too many DVDs/CDs I don’t want to part with, I don’t want to take them out of cases (putting the disks, say, in a binder/notebook to conserve space) but I also don’t want them cluttering the living room where the TV is, to where it would like a video store of old. A lady I knew in my mom’s age group once told me about how, in her generation, they just didn’t have a need for so much furniture in a room but they didn’t live in the age of all this new media/accessories. It’s like in a kitchen, the most they might have had was a mixer on the counter and a coffee pot on the stove. Nowadays, some people have all kinds of appliances including larger items like a cappuccino maker. So, the age-old thing, if you’re trying to fit a modern, 21st century life into a 19th-or-20th century home…it’s a challenge because people just lived differently back then.
I had the most fun yesterday viewing a large, stately 1880 Victorian home…not a ‘mansion’ but built with so much detail and charm (and care…when custom homes were works of art). I had spent quite a lot of time visiting this house when I was a little girl. It is so, so pretty from the outside; wonderful architecture. Although the furniture and decor was of course different (several families have since lived there), the layout of most of the rooms was identical, thankfully unchanged. Seriously, I got shivers, transported back in time: I remember the built-in bookcases in the playroom…built low enough for small hands to reach for a book. I remember the brick and stone patio off the parlor where we’d play games and finger paint on easels. I remember the curving drive circling the home where you’d drive in and go all around, up-up-up to the back (on a hillside) and then back out again to the front. I remember the interior glass French doors separating rooms (usually thrown open to create flow between the spaces). It really forced my brain to work…dig ‘way back into those memory archives…to visualize how it all had looked when I was a kid. Even the less-vivid memories came flooding over me. Such a treat and surreal experience. I cried a few tears because I had much joy coming to this lovely home for about five years as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s (they had the most adorable wooden playhouse for little girls at the time [it even had a toy washing machine in it and a kitchen plus I clearly remember cheery gingham curtains in its tiny windows] and a huge sandbox for the boys, although gender ceased to matter and we played with everything!)…the happiest of memories; an important part of my childhood development…and I’m so glad the home is still there but the problem now is that, as is often the case with older homes, the neighborhood is somewhat deteriorated. Anyway, when you mentioned in the post today about slanted walls, that’s the way this beloved old Victorian is, with most all the upstairs rooms, although those ‘slants’ certainly give a lot of definition to a room. What I love about this old house, too, is that it has several bay windows (including in a tower, from floor to floor…turrets, a popular home-building feature of the era and SO cool [!], always made me think of Rapunzel ) which provide such great nooks and ledges. Where I live now, we’ve barely got a windowsill from the way the windows fit in the frames. Sigh. I’ll always be a old, old house girl and not a mid-century one.
Sounds like a perfectly enchanting house, Vicki. So glad you were able to visit it again.
I love our old house, but because it’s a simple cottage/farmhouse, it didn’t come with a lot of closets and the ones we have are small. That’s what happens with a house built in 1891.
We ‘collectors’ can’t help but have stuff!! I love the dog gallery wall. Really sweet and lovely to have all your sweet children in one place. I found some frames I liked and ordered new glasses today. I hope they turn out well, when you try them on you are blind and I never have anyone with me to help. Oh well!! Expensive as well but I found a little bit of a deal on the frames. Grands coming over to visit a little later today and then I’m hitting the bed with a book!
hugs,
Linda
I’m so exhausted. When I got up in the middle of the night, not having slept a wink, it was 4 am. I think I went to sleep around 4:30 am, finally, but I woke up at 8:30. That is not enough sleep!
The canvas and the Parrish look great where you placed them Claudia…I’ve always loved bentwood and miss the rocking chair I let go of years ago..I used to rock my son on it when he was a baby…At least it’s been cooler at night here so I can give the AC and fans a break…I like your little Matryoshka doll/tea ball..she is adorable and such a sweet little gift…
She’s too cute to use, Nancy! I like her on display instead.
You have what it takes to decorate a room! Great vision! I like it!
Thanks, Sydney!