{Garden, Home and Party} I’m taking a little vacation, see you in 4 weeks

16 Thursday Aug 2012

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My oldest son and his lovely bride, AND my one and only granddaughter are coming for a visit. They’re hoping to escape some of the heat of Austin by coming to Southern California. I hope our mild summer holds and that they can relax and enjoy the mild climate that we are usually lucky enough to receive.

Hubby and I have a long list of activities on the agenda but even if we only get to a few of them I’m certain we’ll have fun.

We’re thinking of taking Olivia to the petting zoo…

…and maybe the splash pad at the outdoor mall…

where there happens to be a carousel…

…and there will be lots of playtime at the park!

I’ll miss you and would like to take the time to tell you how much I appreciate your loyalty. Every comment you leave is like a smile that warms my heart. Continue to enjoy your summer and I’ll be back with an eye towards fall. It’s always a season I look to with glee. (Not the high school musical series). 🙂

xo,

Karen

{Home} What is it about men and wood?

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by Karen B. in Decorating, House and Home, Paint Color, Renovating

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

painting

Sometime earlier this month I unveiled our newly painted family room. We I decided I was tired of the rich, red walls and ready for a change to a slightly more neutral setting.

I asked my loyal readers, all 6 of them, 🙂 what their thoughts were on painting the ceiling white, like the fireplace, French doors and entertainment center, and each person was wholeheartedly in favor of the idea.

I casually mentioned this fact to Hubby and he acted as though I had asked him to run naked down the freeway. This got me to thinking of the various blog sites that had shared similar stories where they were longing to paint their paneled, orangey pine walls white, and husbands far and wide responded anywhere from mild protestation to downright forbidding such appalling violation of the natural beauty and appeal of wood sans paint.

{source}

What is it about men and wood?!

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I can appreciate natural wood as much as the next guy, or girl, but there are times when a room needs the lift of a little paint. Besides, the ceiling in our family room is very inexpensive wood, tongue and grove so it’s not as if I’m asking Hubby to paint over burl wood or mahogany.

{source}

I do love natural wood in a cabin setting in the woods, like the beauty above. In a horse stable (below), sign me up. There is nothing like it.

Great, old wood floors are amazing. I’ve seen some attractive painted wood floors but I don’t believe I would ever paint my hardwood floors. See, I can be reasonable about wood.

If our ceiling was made from wood such as the two rooms below, I’d want it to be left natural, honest.

{Belgian Pearls}

{haus design}

This is more like it…see how clean and nice this ceiling looks, that’s the look I’m going for.

{Design Chic}

{Design Chic)

And finally…this room probably gives men everywhere the best of both worlds. The ceiling is white but also has wonderful natural wood beams to off set the paint. The fireplace over mantle appears to be recycled wood.

{Things That Inspire}

What do you think, there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s what you love and feel comfortable with, right?

{GHP} Artist unknown…Anders Oscar Gottmann?

09 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Karen B. in Antiques, Collections & Accessories, Family, House and Home, Personal Information

≈ 15 Comments

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Anders Oscar Gottmann, artist

My father’s great grandmother emigrated to Ohio from Germany at the turn of the century, about 1904. Since my grandparents died when I was quite young I don’t remember much about our visits to the area but I remember my mother and father were assigned the job of clearing out the house when my grandmother passed away.

There were pieces of jewelry and several pieces of china that stick out in my memory but it wasn’t until I was married and ready to decorate our current home that I pulled out a bound art book that had been given to me.

I’ve tried, with Google’s assistance, to search out the artist with out certain results. There is an Anders Oscar Gottmann, 1828 – 1867, born in Sweden, but no samples of his work to convince me my book was his. I don’t believe he was a relative of ours, many of the books I inherited had been collected along the way, but this book was clearly someone’s self-published pen and ink art book.

Caution! The following information may horrify the true bibliophile: The individual sketches are so wonderful, mounted on brown construction-like paper with a dark ink line framing each piece, that I dismantled the book and have framed numerous pieces for our walls. [Truth is, the book was falling apart when I received it]. I gave 4 of the collection to my dear friend, Carla. One went to the godparents of our children. They have brought me pleasure each time I look at them in our home, much more so than if I kept the book on the shelf.

I hung a grouping of the dogs over the guest room bed. Sadly, this photograph doesn’t do the images justice [and the room isn’t army green, what up with this exposure?!]

There are quite a lot of architectural drawings in the book, along with a Gothic alphabet, upper and lower case.

Some of the pages have multiple architectural elements.

Makes me wonder what he used as a model to draw from.

I framed 2 additional dog prints for my entry, yes, I like dogs. More than that, the dog drawings were unusual breeds or variations of breeds you see today.

Here is a close up of the two…

and the final piece I’ve framed is an architectural detail that I thought particularly pretty.

If by some chance you know anything at all about art history and you’ve heard of A. Gottmann, I would love to hear from you.

I’m linking up at No Minimalist Here, stop by if you have time.

{GHP} Auto Entry

07 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by Karen B. in Antiques, Collections & Accessories

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

antique cars, garage doors

I was born and raised in Southern California, and that ‘s the excuse I provide for my love of cars, that and the fact that my father retired from Chrysler. California is a state full of freeways and highways and our weather permits driving almost everywhere year round.

When I was growing up I was able to identify most car makes and models, and I would say that hasn’t changed too much, although I find so many automobile manufacturers copy each other, so it can be tricky to distinguish a Toyota Camry from a host of import and American like-sized models.

So, when a co-worker drove his beautifully restored 1947 Dodge pick-up truck into our lot, I confess, I was excited to see it up close. I was offered a spin around the block and the charm of this vehicle didn’t disappoint. Cars can reflect the simpler times perceived to have been, back in the day.

I’ve never been to my coworkers home but this truck would look great in a garage like this, right? Love the red door of this pretty home.

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To tie my love of cars with my love of homes I’m providing you with some images of vintage cars and the garages they might be kept in. This might be a bit of a stretch but I do love the pictures of these vintage cars.

The Volkswagen ‘bug’ was my first, second and third car. I won’t go into the details of why I had so many but let me just say, it wasn’t for lack of longevity on the automobile’s part.

Assuming I could choose, this would be my garage…attached to a darling Carmel cottage.

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or this one…

{5th and State}

[my apologies to Debra at 5th and State for not being able to link to the exact post when these great garages were published, I was unable to find it. If you’ve never been to 5th and State you will enjoy the search if you’d like to see more]

{5th and State}

The car below is so darn cute. I have a friend that recently purchased one of these. I’ve got to remember to ask for a spin around the block.

{Google: Morris Minor, images}

Doesn’t this cottage garage look like it would house the Morris Minor?

{Pinterest}

When I was growing up this was my dream car. I didn’t want to go fast, I just loved the design of the vehicle. In fact I used to say if they could install a Volkswagen engine in one, I’d be ecstatic and maybe it would be affordable.

{the Steward}

I imagine someone that has maintained a Porsche like this would live in something like this…

{Home Bunch}

or this…

{source}

I’ve never been a huge Jaguar fan, primarily because I had always heard horror stories of their lack of reliability engine wise. Reliability is critical to me when driving. That said, this XKE is tempting, right?

{the Steward}

This home would do nicely for a car with such distinguished roots, don’t you think?

{my friend’s home}

or this fabulous home in Santa Barbara.

{Penelope Bianchi, Santa Barbara}

I’ve never really cared for the styling of the Lincoln, but I think this one, in this photograph, looks great.

{the Steward}

This vintage garage door seems fitting for a Lincoln.

{saved by the Southern Belle}

A classic woody seems to belong in Southern California, the ideal spot for a surfer car like this.

{SoCalBeaches.com}

Even though the garage doors below are from a company out of Houston, the exterior of this home looks very California style to me.

{Houston Garage Doors}

I don’t even know what kind of car this is but it’s seriously cool, don’t you think?

{Mya Creative.com}

So my guess is that a car aficionado that owns this car would want a detached garage for this baby.

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…and maybe they’d ride a bike when they didn’t want to risk driving on crowded California streets, complete with drivers that text and talk on their phones! Yikes.

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Thank you for indulging me. It would have been my father’s 82nd birthday this week, cars just naturally on my mind.

{Home} Let there be light

02 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Karen B. in Collections & Accessories, Decorating, House and Home

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

lighting

When I heard the news that the State of Maryland, and a few other eastern states were without power for a prolonged period of time due to that destructive wind storm they experienced late last month I immediately thought about how difficult it must be to be without electricity for days on end.

via pinterest

We used to have power outages with some regularity, turns out the transformer (I believe that is what the underground thing is called) was ancient and once Edison replaced it we rarely had power outages again.

via Ralph Lauren Home

Each time the power went out I would wonder how Jane Austen and her family were able to handle dining, reading and living by candlelight night after night. (I know, there are plenty of other worthy characters, real and imagined, but Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility are three of my favorite period books/films).

via the essence of the good life

I enjoy candlelight as much as the next romantic but when you’re forced to be without conveniences we’ve all come to take for granted, it’s a slightly different story.

Yes, there is a reason for this rambling…here are some of my favorite lamps/lighting fixtures. The lanterns, which I happen to be partial to, always remind me that this could be an example of what people used before electricity, probably not, but they seem timeless and a convenient way to carry light from one room to another, if you didn’t have electricity and they weren’t actually wired to your ceiling. Although in the period movies most lighting appears to be simple candle holders or candelabras.

and yes, I realize this rambling introduction was a stretch in getting to the real story here…

So have a look, some of the images are just really wonderful lamps I wouldn’t mind having but they all add so much to a room…

The lamp below is the right mix of classic and clean for me, the table is pretty fabulous as well.

via Inspiring Interiors

I like the idea of a chandelier that actually resembles an old-world iron, candle lit lighting fixture (below).

Atlanta Homes

The lanterns above are wonderful examples of a light fixture that could pull double duty, indoors or out.

I love the room (above) for the lantern, chair, sconces, window (which you can barely see) and the little paintings on the wall. The chair originally drew me in but there are so many pretty elements in this room.

This table (above) is an old door! The lamp is a soft green that picks up the color of the old box below the table as well as the painted floors. So pretty.

The hallway wall sconces are such a clever way to light this space. In addition, I really wish I could see more of the map hanging opposite. And doesn’t that look like a chandelier on the floor at the end of the hall?

Haus Design recently shared this image, the antler chandelier is nice looking, I’m assuming it’s a light fixture but bulbs are well disguised.

Another Haus Design image…This looks to be a hallway, the wall sconces on either side of the shutter is pretty. I like the table too, it’s great for tight spaces.

Matthew Sapera

I like the hall above for the sconce and the wood paneling. Very pretty.

Great kitchen lighting over the island.

I want these doors, aren’t they beautiful. So French.

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Last but not least, so many details in one space. Wonderful!

Veranda

Do you ever have power outages? I hope not. The loss of food and all that goes with being without power for a prolonged period of time would be challenging. Hope you are having a pleasant summer.

Check out No Minimalist Here for her weekly Open House, there’s always something fun to see.