With Winter Now Inexorably Upon Us, a Look Back at Spring

All these photos were taken by my boyfriend's 18-year old, marvelously talented daughter Grace at a dinner at my house last April. I love how she uses natural light. Very painterly.

HOW TO GET A 7,000 POUND TABLE INTO MY HOUSE AT 7:30 AM

It wasn't easy.

But LOOK! LOOK! the white floors, the 9-foot table (from a convent in Johnstown , PA... can you see the flood marks???).

We ate pancakes on it this morning because what else would you eat on a 9-foot table?

A new table is so deeply exciting. The dinners you can serve! the sewing projects you can undertake! The newspapers you can spread out!

But first to build anticipation... a Before Picture

It's not technically a great before picture. It was taken after I got rid of a 10 X 10 70's sectional couch to prep for the arrival of my much talked about Chesterfield, now in front of the fireplace in the next room. But it shows the original floor...

and now the After!

The antlers are a particularly brilliant innovation on my part (not the use of antlers -- an old trope certainly -- but how I managed to hang them). They have their skulls still attached (sorry if you are eating breakfast. "Skulls" in the plural I realize is a bit too much to deal with with a mouth full of oatmeal). I got them for $70 each, a great price. But I couldn't figure out how to mount them or even hang them from the ceiling -- the balance was off, and my efforts to thread picture wire through various sockets and holes was both gruesome and fruitless. So I searched flea markets until I found the right size wooden boxes ($5 each!), attached the boxes to the wall with screws and anchors (and a level, and a boyfriend) and plunked in the antlers. Ta daa! You can see in the next picture that there is another set of antlers directly across the house in the living room. I like symmetry.

observe the $5 "pashminas" draped across the back. My house is old and drafty, and my friends have poor constitutions, so each chair gets it own and everyone has to stop complaining about the heat.

Let us briefly discuss antiques: It has been my experience that they are better looking and better built than new stuff. It has to do both with craftsmanship -- handmade by artisans versus mass produced in a factory, and with the quality of the wood. There's very little true hardwood available these days.

Most importantly, antiques -- not the fine stuff you bid on at Sotheby's, but the stuff you will find in a small shop near you, or a good flea market -- are cheap. Cheap cheap cheap, or at least comparatively.

My gorgeous beauty -- which weighs 200 lbs if it weighs an ounce (I helped carry it in and pulled a muscle in my left..err...chest) -- was just $650 from Housewerks in Baltimore (see the side bar for a link. It's an incredible place).

Compare it to this table from Pottery Barn, which is undeniably lovely and has those cool turned legs.

But it's $4,000. That's a whole trip to Paris for 2.

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/montego-turned-leg-rectangular-table-set/?catalogId=48&bnrid=3380801&cm_ven=Google%20Base&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_pla=Feed&cm_ite=Google%20Base

or even this one from Crate and Barrel. It's 104 inches long -- about the same as what I have -- but costs $250 more. Plus it didn't come from a convent in Johnstown, PA.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/furniture/dining-tables/basque-java-104%22-dining-table/s564382

Now, like the Old Spice Man, I instruct you to look at my table again!

So excited.

I'm growing paperwhites in the old pickle jar which I found in an antiques store for $20. I had originally thought to make it a lantern for over the table... it may yet become that.

A note to a client

I am cleaning out 19,000 emails (this is not an exaggeration. there are actually 19,000 emails, dating back to 2006 in my ancient AOL account) and I came across this note I wrote to a design client.. and I thought it was good advice then and now for anyone considering Major Furniture Purchases.

This guy found an expensive chair and ottoman he loved, but didn't move on it fast enough and it was lost forever. So this is what I told him:

"Keep this in mind: furniture, well made, classic and something you love, can be with you FOREVER. It's versatile, movable -- economizing is not necessarily the best option. Better to get something you love love love, and keep forever, than something you like and will toss out in a few years when you find the thing you really love.

"Be deliberate in your decorating, and decorate for the long term. You are old enough now (I presume) to be investing in longer-term pieces.

"I wouldn't recommend this approach to someone in his mid 20s. But 30s... now is the time to start building the life and look you want to have - from Craigslist or fancy stores; only buy things that scream out: MINE!

"I feel quite strongly about making your home a comfortable and accurate reflection of who you are. If your home is well decorated, with things that function well, are durable, classic and most of all loved by you for whatever reason - form, sentimentality _ your home will be not just a place between work and play, but a destination in itself. Like a turtle shell. :)

"ie, if you see a chair and ottoman you love again, buy it, then look for a companion. Patience in the furniture hunt is a virtue. Don't waste money on also-rans."

UPDATED: The Secret to Making a Flaky Pie Crust

My mom was a home ec teacher and makes, hands down, the most awesome flaky pie crust. Here's the beauty part: it's less about the recipe than it is about the technique and last year she told me her secret. I think she thought she had long since told me, so was surprised when I was all "I CAN"T BELIEVE YOU JUST TOLD ME THIS AFTER 42 YEARS."


Here's the technique and home ec science behind it, as she explained it to me:

A flaky crust requires that small pockets of fat get trapped in the flour/water mixture, melt in the oven, create steam, and puff and leave empty pockets in their wake.

Whatever your recipe, it should include some solid fat -- butter or shortening, or if you are truly old school lard. Said fat should be cold cold cold -- throw it in the freezer before you use it. That will keep it from turning into a paste when you mix it with your flour, water and salt. And your flour should be in the freezer too -- it will help keep the butter cool once it's mixed in.

UPDATE: Having made for the 500th time a not very good crust AGAIN I remembered my mother's other advice: use half butter and half shortening. The shortening -- Crisco -- is absolutely necessary for a tender crust. The butter will make it taste good. Truthfully, my mom's crust is all shortening. So you should probably consider that too. My pie, described at the end \, was nevertheless delicious.

Here's the magic trick:

Divide the butter or shortening in your recipe in half. Put one half back in the freezer. Throw the other half into the food processor or bowl with the flour and salt and cut it or whir it until the butter and flour combine to make a sand-like consistency.

Now, get out the rest of the fat from the freezer, cut it into chunks and put it in the bowl or processor. Give it a QUICK whir - just one or two pulses -- until the new butter is the size of small peas. STOP RIGHT THEN. Add what cold water you need to (plop ice cubes right in the measuring cup) to make it clump. DON'T OVER MIX IT and don't add too much water. Your goal is to keep those peas of butter intact. If you can manage, mix the water in by hand so you keep it under control.

Upend the bowl or the food processor onto a cutting board, gather the dough together into a ball and press down into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap. When you look at the top you'll see little balls of butter speckling the dough. VICTORY! Throw it in the fridge for 30 minutes to give the butter a chance to firm up again. Then roll as you would normally and make your pie.

Don't overwork the dough -- too much rolling and rerolling will begin to develop the proteins in the flour (that's what makes bread so spongy and bouncy... kneading develops the protein strands) and give you a tough crust.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm making this:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pumpkin-Pecan-Pie-with-Whiskey-Butter-Sauce-104141

Meg's Marvelous Maison

My friend Meg is a preternaturally stylish 27-year-old who has somehow at her tender age mastered the art of being fabulously cluttered. It's English Country House meets American Blue Blood (she went to the University of the South and wore black gowns to class like Harry Potter and is in the Junior League where she takes her volunteer duties at a domestic violence shelter very seriously. She's also a frighteningly good shot).

At my insistence she took photos so I could show you what I mean. I went to her wonderful, richly layered 644-square foot apartment in a 1920's era building in DC for her birthday (Very Norma Desmond) -- homemade Bolognese for 30 on the roof overlooking National Cathedral and Georgetown -- and this is what I saw. I was humbled. Girl's. Got. It.

I actually gave her a pair of those antique Chinese lanterns for her birthday. She admired them at my house, and I am trying to de-Circus my place, so I was happy to gift them. It's nice to know they have a good home. Naturally she mailed me a perfect thank you note on embossed stationary within a day.

Isn't this perfect? Who can pull off plaid curtains? Meg, that's who. The map to the left of the window is an antique, with pushpins all the places her grandfather served in the foreign service. Please try not to gawk at the picture of him with the Queen of England. It's embarrassing.

Here are some close-ups of details.

I presume that desk is where she penned her thank you note to me, in correct blue/black ink.

A blue velvet couch from Craigslist, for something like $200. A cashmere throw she traded miles for.

"Oh hi, I bought this etagere long before they were trendy so I could stack my books perfectly. Are you jealous? Don't be. "

Notice how she unites different lamps with red silk shades.

Observe below: the correct use of a dresser in a living room.

Her kitchen is tiny, but still she managed to feed 30 people an amazing roof-top dinner.

Nothing but cream tapers in candelabra please.

Just so you don't forget she's an Amerrkin:

Oh this old elephant stool? Pish.

Let's use the loo, shall we?

If your antique priceless Persian rug is too big, simply fold it over. That's what all the chic girls do these days. Good gravy, I admire her style.

Carefully edited beauty products.

And come ON. Silver service on the john? Yes please.

A well-deployed garden stool. And a clock in case you're running late, splashing about in eau de parfum and toilet water and face powder and the like.

And now to sleep, if not to dream. But seriously, she made those awesome curtains.

Check the pops of color: yellow, turquoise, red. Gutsy!

This is how you decorate a small room: fearlessly. Let it be cozy and layered. Don't try to make it something it's not (ie, big and airy).

Those curtains again. She made em!

To my knowledge this is not her family's steed, but it may as well be. We'd believe it. She should tell people that.

Check out the confident mix of blues, below.

Chang Kai-shek did not give these to her grandfather, from what I heard.

Every bedroom needs a monkey lamp and ginger jar. Red silk shades again.

Thanks for the tour, Meg, and for making the rest of us feel inadequate.

If it's any consolation she's a TERRIBLE driver and is allergic to peaches.

What to think about when you are thinking about redecorating

Approaching a new decorating (surface glossing) or design (rejiggering the space) project can be intimidating. Here's how to get started.

Ask yourself the following 10 questions.More will follow, but this will begin narrowing down your needs and wants. (Needs are more important, as tempting as your wants are. A room must function for you well before you start putting on the jewelry, so to speak.)

1. What don't you like about the room as it is?

Too small? Too big? Bad acoustics? Awkward to move around in? Doesn't get used enough? Too many checkered floor couches and J-shaped pipe lamps?

2. What is your budget?

Be honest -- and remember that a constrained budget actually leads to the BEST designs. When you have a lot of money, you can be lazy and buy whatever strikes your fancy. When you have to keep things under control, money-wise, you'll come up with creative ways to reuse what you have, you'll find unique pieces in thrift stores -- you'll make a space REALLY your own, rather than some showroom designers idea of what you should have. WELCOME constraints, be they financial or space or time. Each will inspire you to do things you would never think of otherwise.

Like in this one, someone's all: "Nice stained leather chairs loser." And the designer is all "just wait till I pair them with a slick modern white table, then you'll see."

OK, maybe they are cowhide and not stained. But they look stained, and they give you ideas what you can do with that battered set of 70s chairs you saw at Goodwill.

3. How would you like to use the room differently than you do now?

For a dining room: throw formal dinner parties once a week? For a living room: read and play board games in addition to watching tv? For a kitchen: cook every night, or have it ready for a caterer, or entertain around an island like in the Magic Bullet commercials I love so much and can never turn off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY6EyQ_ihOI

4. What are your favorite colors?

Look in your closet -- what colors do you mostly wear? What do you get the most compliments in?

5. What time of day will you be using the room, primarily? That will effect lighting choices and paint colors.

6. How would you like it to feel?

Airy? Warm? Cozy? Rustic? Comfortable? Elegant? Sophisticated? Modern? Traditional? Cottagey? Eclectic? Tropical? Breezy? Cool? Lived in? Organized? Perfect? Neat? Packed with memories? Minimalist -- just what you need?

7. Do you have pets? Children?

That will help dictate finishes -- Scotchguarded microsuede rather than Belgian linen, for instance.

8. If it's a public room, how do you like to entertain?

How often? Casually? Formally? How many people typically? What do you do? (Make and serve dinner? Order in? Play cards? Watch movies? Try to seduce your future son, as above?)

9. If it's a bedroom, are you sharing it (or would you like to?).

Do you need it as a multipurpose getaway from grubby children, or is it just for sleeping (and snogging)?

10. How much existing stuff are you willing to part with?

Do you want to start over or just tweak what you have?

This is for you, Blackbird: MERRY COUCHMAS!

The above was a serious miracle of physics (and a large tip for the Restoration Hardware delivery guys, who were awesome). This 10 foot X 4 foot couch somehow maneuvered through 5 doorways, into a backyard, up a flight of steps and then pirouetted in a 12-foot room to face the fireplace.

Now to paint the floors, paint the bench, paint the dining room, move the club chairs into the back room, bring in the 9 foot table, move the cable, hang a light...