Café Design

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For This Week’s Finds, I’m sharing with you my lifeline for the past  few months: an entertaining mix of Create Academy classes – one on making bespoke hand-sewn lampshades, the other on flower pressing as a way of preserving your favorite wildflowers and plants. There’s something so touching and nostalgic about pressing flowers. The process is meticulous, almost meditative, and it forces you to slow down and be present. Most importantly, both courses allow you to be creative and playful (not to mention frugal), while making something beautiful and one-of-a-kind for your home.

Scouring Facebook Marketplace is another way to unwind after a busy day at work and I’ve been lucky enough to find a pair of andirons for our living room fireplace and a comfortable antique chair that needs some love (and new upholstery). I can’t think of a place for the chair right now, but at ten dollars, I could not pass it up. I’ve also discovered new (to me) authors such as Richard Osman with The Man Who Died Twice – a beautiful book, equal parts humor and heart, Mary Roach and Lilian Jackson Braun. 

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Happy spring equinox, dear friends! If you, like me, are anxious to get outside and play around in your garden again, then I hope today’s post will inspire you to consider some wonderful cut-and-come-again annuals in your planting schemes this year. I’m new to gardening with annuals but a single summer working with them has completely changed my perception about gardening and has reframed my expectations of productivity.

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Happy Sunday, dear friends! I hope you’re safe, warm, and in good company, wherever you are! It’s been a while since our last Sunday chat  and I’ve accumulated quite a few items I’d love to share with you. As usual, this week’s finds are a mixed bag of design stories, shopping finds, items I’ve been wearing or decorating with, recipes I’ve been obsessed with, paint colors I’ve tried, crafts I’ve enjoyed. First off, my favorite non interior design related purchase this year: 

Freestanding Punching Bag (gloves included)

I was a biter as a child and, although the behavior was later corrected, the instinct never really went away. Every now and then, when someone pushes just the right buttons at just the right time, it’s back to the playground for me. At least on the inside. And while running has done a great job in making me a much nicer person to be around, boxing has done wonders for my overall mood, my skin, and latent biting instincts 😉

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Over the last couple of weeks I had the privilege to read an advance copy of Stephanie Sabbe’s new book, Interiors of a Storyteller, and it has been a most delightful experience! Knowing of Stephanie Sabbe’s talents as an interior designer, I went in expecting a collection of beautiful homes and inspiring photographs to save for future reference. What I did not expect was a first-class writer and storyteller: charming, witty, self-aware, humorous but not flippant, deeply personal and refreshingly honest. 

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When it comes to getting through the bleak days that follow the holiday season, seeking joy in the ordinary, everyday activities can be a great way to muddle through. In an attempt to escape the  blues, I’ve spent the weekend in the throws of domesticity, cleaning, organizing, decluttering. Taming chaos into order always lifts my spirits. As I sit here in my cozy chair writing this, another winter storm is touching down in Western Massachusetts.