Farm to Table

(House Beautiful)

I have one basic, distressed white table with four chairs in my place in Charlottesville.  My sister and I bought it in NYC in 2003 and it's been going strong for eight years.  The best feature of the table is that it has two leaves that can be added so it can seat anywhere from 4 people to 8 people (as long as your guests don't mind being a little squeezed).  I'm hoping once we move into our first house and have a proper dining room space, my current table will be repurposed in its smallest form to a breakfast table in a corner of the kitchen.  Then I will be on the hunt for a new dining room table.  While I've been eyeing everything from antique mahogany tables with detailed inlays to oval-shaped pedestal tables by Baker, depending on the house we end up with, I'd lovean elegant reclaimed wood farm table that can be dressed up (cloaked in a silk tablecloth and set with my fine china and Waterford crystal) or dressed down (decorated with sisal placemats and oversized white washed candlesticks) depending on the occasion.  My dream is to someday have a country retreat (and a small barn for keep my horse); modest and cozy, with an authentic French Country chateau feel.  Until then, I'd like to create a dining room in Norfolk that marries the refined elegance of a Parisian interior (crystal chandelier, elaborately carved wood chairs) with the relaxed livability of a Provence country house (reclaimed wood farmhouse table).  Here are a few for inspiration. 


(4top luxury interior design)

  

love the wooden board bottom piece for extra storage
also notice the gorgeous Mosaic tile backsplash
(House Beautiful)

(houzz.com)

(decorpad)

(Elle Decor)

Stoked

marble mantel and layerd mirros
Michael Bruno's Paris apartment
(citified.blogspot.com)

I grew up in a house with five fireplaces.  While we rarely used more than the largest one in our family room throughout the farily mild Virgnia winters, it has become tradition at Christmas to have fires burning in all four of the fireplaces on the first floor.  After the presents are opened over two pots of coffee and slices of my sister's homemade gingerbread, we prepare for our mid-day, three course Christmas meal.  Our family changes out of pajamas and assumes our posts:  mom and sister in the kitchen, dad bringing in firewood by the armload, and I take to tidying up the gift-giving aftermath.  I'm the OCD organizer in the family and my inability to leave messy spaces drives me to consolidating and compartmentaling boxes and bags into perfect piles by the places each of us sat.  A few hours later, the house filed with mouth watering aromas and fires crackling in the kichen, living room, and dining room, we sit down to feast.  The warmth and coziness of the fires in my parents country house is a comfort I want to bring to my first home.

(fancyhouseroad.com)

English country great room
(lodging4vacations.com)

One of the best features of our apartment in Charlottesville is a wood burning fireplace and lucky for me, my husband loves to make fires.  Here is our collection of oversized matches (perfect for lighting our Orvis fatwood and really getting the fire going.)  We keep left over Wall Street Journals and large matches by the hearth.

When my husband and I sat down to make our must-haves and our would-like-to-haves for our first home, working fireplace is high on our wish list.  Most of the homes we've seen built anytime before 1940 have beautiful fireplaces in the living rooms and we immediately ask our agent if it is a working, wood burning fireplace. More often than not the answer is in the affirmative.  In our first home I'd like the fireplace to be the focal point of the living room (not the tv!).  This can be accomplished by the way we paint (contrasting colors of black and white or dark grey and white are always a sure way to draw the eye) and by placing a statement mirror above the fireplace's mantle.  I have a gorgeous French antique mirror currently being stored in my parents' attic because of its size.  I cannot wait to debut it in our first house.  Depending on the size of the mantle, it can be another palate just waiting for decoration.  A statement mirror, perhaps some silver candlesicks balanced by an urn in a bold color.  But no matter what I decide to place on the mantle, I will let the fireplace truly light up the space.



farmhouse fireplace
(Avery Design Interiors)



dark wood floors and bright white fireplace
(decorpad.com)

plush purple sofa and a cozy fire, perfect apres ski spot
(Elle Decor)

Fleur-de-Lis Fanatic

Fleur-de-lis New Orleans style (fleurdelistees.com)

Mardi Gras is just around the corner and whenever I think of New Orleans, I think of the fleur-de-lis. The French word translated is "lily flower" or "lotus flower" and it's origins are traced to the 12th century French monarchy of King Louis VII.  In 1967 the New Orlean's NFL team The Saints adopted the symbol at the inception of their franchise and in 2008 New Orleans governor Bobby Jindal made the fleur-de-lis the official symbol of the state of Louisiana.  You can find the fleur-de-lis in so many places.

The Ouerbach House, Louisville KY built in the mid 19th cen.
(brokensidewalk.com)

I love the colors of this painted wood block
(ebay)

A concrete motif on the side of an LA apartment
(apartmenttherapy.com)

When my sister and I first moved to New York in 2003, we jointly decorated our two-bedroom Upper East Side apartment.  We were eager to make the place our own and thus had to find common ground with our interior decorating taste.  At first my love of Moroccan textiles and wooden stools from Africa couldn't see eye-to-eye with her passion for Scalamadre window treatments.  What we could agree on was our shared enthusiasm for French country, engrained in us very early in life by our mother.

Thus we became regulars at Pierre Deux's Third Avenue shop, carrying home golden toile seat cushions, le Cordon Bleu silver napkin rings, and fleur-de-lis print pillows.  I now admit in retrospect we went a little overboard, but my mother was the one who really fed the Francophile fire shipping us fleur-de-lis tiles for the kitchen and-- what still remains one of my favorite pieces--a blue ceramic fleur-de-lis tile mirror.  That was over seven years ago and since my husband and I moved in together, we've (read: he) have been phasing out some of our French country decor.  However, I'm still holding onto some of the pieces.  Here they are in our apartment in Charlottesville.

I'm trying to source more of these;
my mother gave me three but I'd like a dozen or more

This piece is definitely coming with me to Norfolk
I'd like to hang it in a big bathroom or prop it above a mantle

Pierre Deux toile seat cushions

In my bathroom is  a fleur-de-lis hook to hang my ooh-la-las

So that is my fleur-de-lis French influences currently, and here are some stunning French Country living spaces I aspire to someday...

French Country Kitchen (interiorcontemporarydesign.com)

Parisian Living Room (homedecoratinginfo.com)

 

French Dining Room (mczelda flikr)