Thursday, June 25, 2015

Back in the Saddle Again

My WIFYR friend, Kim Webb Reid recently blogged that "I'm back to wanting to blog about things I love." (Check her out here. She is smart, engaging, and funny.) Kim mentioned her family room and all the things in it that she loves in spite of its overwhelming beige-ness.


I started looking at my own family room. And it, too, is a sea of beiges and browns, with shots of dark red. It must look really bland to most people. But I love it. I find the tones rich and calming. Soft suede and velveteen and leather and dark wood are yummy to me.


Then there are the wooden pallet cart with the rusty iron wheels we use as a coffee table, the antique iron diving mask my mom had in my own house growing up that represents how I got such a love for wonderfully used items, the huge trunk my great uncle brought back from New Zealand probably around 50 years ago, my grandpa's leathery suitcase, old typewriters and cameras, and a worn red door converted to a table.

It is, as Kim also talked about, what the items represent to us that matters. And if you read this blog (as all three of you do), you know how much I treasure items from the past—especially those that once belonged to the people whose lives brought me here.


At the end of last summer I promised to show what I had been working on all year: a cross-stitch that I did of my "ancestral" home, if you will. The 1906 home my great grandfather built, where my grandpa was born and raised, where he raised my mother and that always felt as much like home to me as my own house did. It was sadly sold by my uncle—the grounds (and 100+-year-old trees) demolished for apartment buildings, the shell of the home kept (at least) because it was on the historical registry. But I can't bear to go back and see what they did to it. So I wanted to have a picture of it as it once was.

And then, that was my last post. Talk about a cliffhanger! I'm sure you've been on the edge of your seat for nine months!

Believe it or not, although cross-stitch had been completed, the full project wasn't finished until just a few weeks ago.

As of yesterday, the wall I have been dreaming of for years is now up. I have been saving this wall for this project and while it isn't completely completed, at least it is up.

And I LOVE it. It makes me so happy every time I walk into that room.

And as I think about it, that room, too, is a sea of browns.

I guess that's just what I love.

NOTE: I will post just about that project in the next day or two. I promise. (No, really. I promise. It needs it's own post).