the week in review: good reads, magic and Mozart

A pictorial review of the week.

Flower appreciation.

 / 1 / 

Prettiest flowers I have ever seen growing out of a crack in the sidewalk. 

 / 2 / 

Campanula. Why do they remind me of toys, images and characters from my childhood in the early 80s?

/ 3 / 

My beloved clematis burst into bloom this week.

Living room progress surges on.

/ 4 / 

Evan spent most of the evenings this week scraping, and scraping, and scraping the 10 windows in the sunroom. 

 / 5 / 

More attention and commitment to detail - original hardware covered in layers of paint by decades of DIY homeowners without Evan's attention to detail. Soaked in baking soda and water, and scraped and polished. Like magic.

 / 6 / 

Living room on lock-down - the sanding has begun.

 / 7 / 

One wheel down, three to go on the antique industrial cart that we're turning into a coffee table (see here). 

 / 8 / 

Sully telepathically communicating.

 / 9 / 

Dinner at Left Bank - a 16 oz porterhouse steak that I thought would be impossible to finish, but alas, was not. 

 / 10 / 

Dinner at home. An odd medley of ingredients in the fridge that actually turned out quite tasty and definitely unexpected - feta, cilantro, red onion, jalepeno, cider vinegar and lemon.

/ 11 / 

Impromptu vinyl session inspires Hey Ladies dance.

 A lot of Billy Joel, a little Jefferson Airplane, a lot of hip hop and some Mozart to wrap things up.

Good reads. 

/ 12 / 

What a fun surprise to get this in the mail this week from my friend Penny - a down-to-earth, hilarious approach to parenting that I can really get behind. 

/ 13 / 

And some more parenting tips. This made me smile while waiting to take Sully in for blood work at the vet. Might have to pick up a copy.

These weekly roundups just reiterate how quickly time flies. Like woah, Nelly. 

Hope you all had a great week. 

xoxo

making my week

I am shamelessly borrowing this idea from one of my favorite blogs, Reading My Tea Leaves - a weekly feature summing up the little highlights of my week (or, at least those that were captured on my iPhone). I like that it is a way to pull together all of the random things that inspired me to snap a photo during the week, no matter how profound or mundane. 

If you have not checked out Erin's blog, you should do so now.

/ 1 / 

Azalea branches budding in the yard brought in to brighten up the bathroom.

/ 2 /

Sully is no dummy - if I were his size this is exactly the place I would want to curl up for a nap - buried in down pillows.

/ 3 /

Otto's own moment of bliss. If I panned out you would see that he is napping on top of the back cushion of an oversized chaise, all by himself. Yes, he fancies himself a king, and admittedly we don't do much to dispel the notion. 

/ 4 /

Progress in the sunroom - goodbye gold! Its a very slow work in progress, but little by little the living room and sunroom are transforming, shedding their old, unfortunate, "what were they thinking?" McDonald's red and gold identity.

/ 5 /

This page from Bringing Nature Home on the three foundational elements of a natural, wild arrangement. Game changer!

/ 6 /

The long lasting dubium - I think I bought the stems almost two weeks ago, but I just got around to making this arrangement today. 

And last, but certainly not least, finally feeling ready to make this announcement to the world at large: 

/ 7 /

At almost 20 weeks along, we are due to have our first child in September. And I have definitely popped. :)

Happy weekend everyone. xoxo

achieving the good & beautiful

I cannot think you can make rules about these things. One can only have an idea of what seems good and beautiful, and then use any means to achieve it.  -  Constance Spry in Flower Decoration, 1934.

One step I recently took toward achieving what seems good and beautiful to me was ordering four books that I can hardly wait to devour from cover to cover.

  

 

First up, Bringing Nature Home - a recently released piece of eye candy for anyone prone to fits of obsession over flowers and home design. All flower arrangements were styled by Nicolette Owen of Brooklyn's Little Flower School. One of these days I will have a pretty little jar devoted to saving spare change and dollars to attend a class there. (I am bright green with envy over anyone able to attend the flower arranging workshop this Sunday, April 15, hosted by West Elm in NYC in honor of the book release, where participants will get hands on tutelage from Nicolette.)

A couple of pages from Bringing Nature Home, courtesy of Design Sponge:

Next up are two books featuring the afore-quoted Constance Spry - the highly influential British floral designer from the 1920s. 

Constance's arrangements were decidedly wild, natural, loose and fluid at a time when extremely formal, stiff arrangements held together with wire were preferred among designers. Today, it's easy to see her influence on many of my favorite floral designers.

 Constance Spry, working her nonconformist magic.

In the post "Past & Present: Constance Spry & Floral DIY", Design Sponge's Amy Azzarito notes that Constance "used materials that were usually discarded, like grasses and berries. She embraced vegetables in arrangements and preferred non-traditional containers. She would frequently raid her clients’ cupboards, pulling out serving pieces to use as unorthodox (for the time) vases." 

In the same post, the wildly talented floral designer Amy Merrick calls Constance the "first lady of floral design," and notes: "Constance was ... a voracious frequenter of antique and junk shops. Her hunts for interesting vases — from rusted cans to upside-down hats — are the stuff of legend." 

Based on that description, it should be clear to anyone who knows me well (or at all, really) why I was so excited to order these two books:

 

A small compilation of Constance Spry's arrangements (click image for source):

 Flowers of Fennel and Orange Lilies, 1951

 June morning, 1951

And last, but certainly not least, I'll be anxiously awaiting my copy of Design*Sponge at Home to arrive. It is chock full of home tours, DIY projects, step-by-step tutorials on everything from stripping and painting furniture to hanging wallpaper and reupholstery, before and after makeovers of rooms, spaces and furniture, and flower arranging tips (including twenty arrangements !!!). 

 

So if you don't see or hear from me in a while...

musty old books & Hertel Avenue love

Some shots from a recent trip to The Second Reader on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo (the same trip in which I fell in love with The Stock Exchange - they are neighbors).

And speaking of the neighborhood ... I was beyond excited to learn recently that both Globe Market and Spot Coffee, as well as a tapas place by the owners of The Left Bank will be opening up shop soon - all within a block of Room, Modern Nostalgia, The Stock Exchange and the Second Reader! Woohoo - I may never have to leave the three blocks between Sterling and Saranac for all my shopping and eating needs! Just kidding - I still have much love for the Elmwood Village and Allentown, but its just exciting to see that the neighborhood I have lived in for seven years is getting cooler by the minute.

Anyway - back to the musty old books. 

I camped out on the floor to flip through the generous garden and plants selection, and came across some interesting finds.

This book was gorgeous and very tempting, despite it being in Hebrew.

 

These last two made it home in my bike basket, along with an old, entertaining book about houseplants (yes, you read that correctly). Excerpts coming soon.