Problems, Problems

I suppose that when a magazine is presenting practical tips to their readers, its editors feel the need to spice up the article in order to make it seem not so boring.  At least, this must have been the case with an article that I read over the weekend, one that appeared in a 1934 issue of House Beautiful.  The article's premise was how to make a woman's bathroom, dressing area, desk, and bedroom more efficient in order to help make her day run smoothly.  But, the kicker was that these tips were all presented within the context of a fictional account of women getting together for a coffee klatch (actually, the article said it was tea) and discussing the daily trials and tribulations that they faced.



One of the women said, "Every time I step into the tub I think of what an insurance man once told me. Did you know that there are more casualties annually from slipping into bathtubs than there are deaths by motor cars? It's a fearful strain, really."  A strain, indeed.  Then there was Mrs. D who was livid about towel bars, ruing the "barbarian who first put towel bars over bath tubs behind bars of another sort."  I'm not really sure of what she is speaking, but evidently it caused her towels to get wet, forcing her to make a "six-foot sprint across the room for a dry towel", something that she claims "nearly kills me."  And then there is poor Mrs. C whose "gastronomist has positively forbidden any excitement during meals."  And yet, when Mrs. C is "trying to be very calm and unhurried about my orange juice and toast, wouldn't that just be the time my Finnish Lena would bellow, 'Mrs. Carpenter on the telephone, Madam,' and I have to scramble out from under the breakfast tray and like as not upset my orange juice in the confusion."  I don't know about you, but I would kill for these kind of problems.  



I have to admit, though, that the practical ideas that were mentioned still seem like good sense today.  Take, for example, a small table placed tubside that allows you a place upon which to place your towel.  (It certainly beats the barbarian-created towel bar.)  Then there is the "glorified" hospital table that fits conveniently over your chaise longue, a far more convenient way to take breakfast than a tray on the lap.  My breakfast lasts all of ten minutes, so I might use such a table for Sunday night suppers at home.  But the best idea of all has to be something called the "Servitone", described as a small disk-like microphone "into which you have only to whisper that you would like your morning coffee in bed...and the fact is boomed out in the butler's pantry through a loud speaker."  Why go through the Starbucks' drive-through window when you can order your coffee from the comfort of your bed...and over a microphone, too. Now that might be the solution to my problems!



Image at top: Handy niches for bottles, jars and cloths.  A waterproof cushion and rack for the tub. The small table keeps your towels available.

For a dressing table, this luxurious built-in arrangement with an adjustable mirror and copious cabinets for storing lotions and creams.

Breakfast in comfort on a chaise longue with a glorified hospital table instead of a tray and your telephone swinging at your elbow.

The drawer in the desk at the right has a light concealed inside. The blotter is fastened down.

For evening make-up this mirrored slab, draped top and sides, offers full-length vision. It is lighted by a concealed spotlight. The tables at each side are for creams.

Reading in bed with a light concealed in the wall and a back rest with soft, quilted framework for sheer comfort.

Feeling Daft about Delft

I was looking through my copy of Nancy Lancaster: English Country House Style a few days ago, and I was reminded of how much I admire Lancaster's blue and white plates that hung above her fireplace at the Coach House, her last home.  You can see a detail shot of the plates, above.  I wonder if Lancaster's plates were antique Delft plates that depicted the months?  I can't confirm this; it's only a hunch.  But I also have a hunch that quite a few of you do know something more about these plates, and if so, feel free to drop me an email or comment below.

In the meantime, I did find a few plates that have a similar look to Lancaster's plates.  Certainly these examples are all charming, but they would be even more beguiling in a home decorated like that of Lancaster.

A set of seven Dutch Delft month plates, 18th c.

A pair of Delft plates that are currently being auctioned off on ebay.

A set of reproduction 18th c. Delft plates that depict each month.

An 18th c. antique Delft plate available on ebay.

Pretty Paper

Over the weekend, I visited the Fortnum & Mason website to buy a Christmas pudding.  Although it was never really an annual tradition in my family to serve Christmas pudding, there were a few holidays when my parents ordered one from Fortnum & Mason.  I remember it vividly.  Well, actually, I can't remember if I liked the taste or not.  What I do recall, though, were those terrific china basins in which the puddings were packaged.  And being the sucker that I am for a pretty package, I felt that this year I needed to order a pudding, although I admit it's more for the bowl rather than the pudding itself.

So, while I was on the Fortnum & Mason website, I noticed that they now sell cakes from Demel.  Well, that excited me because I visited the venerable patisserie while in Vienna a few years ago.  Their chocolates are absolutely delicious, but what I liked even more than the chocolate itself was, wait for it...the packaging.  I even saved two of their candy bar wrappers.  They've been sitting in a drawer for five years, and heaven knows what I'll ever do with them.  Still, you can't just throw away wrappers like this:

After leaving the Fortnum website, I just had to visit the Demel site.  I didn't order anything considering that I had a high-calorie pudding on the way to me, but I certainly did spend time browsing.  Just look at their chocolate box that is based on a Wiener Werkstätte design:

Then there's Les Orangines containing candies of orange fondant and orange marzipan:

And for you cat lovers, the Katzenzungen milk, which is described as cat's tongue shapes made of milk chocolate:

And then, as usually happens when surfing the web, I somehow ended up on another site, this one with even more charming boxes and bags, the French chocolatier Maison Boissier:

They even have chocolate petals:

Then I found the pretty boxes of Prestat chocolate from England:

At this point, my confectionary tour ended because I knew if I didn't stop, I'd be up all night.  I didn't even make it to the Laduree or Charbonnel et Walker sites.  If you know of other sites with packaged chocolates and candies like those at Demel and Maison Boissier, please let me know.  I might be ready to take another tour very soon.

The New Constance Spry Style

I have lived in a high-rise building for some years now, and I love it.  Every morning, my newspaper is placed outside of my front door.  I have a trash chute conveniently located within reach of my kitchen's service entrance.  And what's not to love about having a lobby staffed by somebody 24 hours a day?  The one thing I lament about living in a high-rise, though, is that I have no yard from which to clip flowers, leaves, branches, and pine cones for my floral arrangements.

My childhood home's property yielded all kinds of wonderful yet uncomplicated flowers and greenery.  There were gardenia, camellias, magnolia and oak trees, and beautiful holly bushes that bore fiery crimson berries come Christmastime.  Our property was my mother's floral market, and her arrangements always reflected what was blooming and thriving outdoors.  What I remember most, though, was how loose and simple her arrangements were.  A single magnolia blossom floating in a silver revere bowl, or branches of copper colored oak leaves perched within an antique glass fish bowl.  They weren't studied nor fussed about.  These arrangements were as Mother Nature intended, in a way.

When House Beautiful asked that I write a blog post about what the "New Constance Spry Style" means to me, I started to think about Spry's artistic, iconoclastic, and, most importantly, naturalistic floral arrangements.  (In case you're not familiar with Spry, she was one of the most noted floral designers of the 20th century.  Her arrangements took the fashionable set by storm in the late 1920s and 30s thanks to Spry's then offbeat use of greenery like grasses, leaves, and seed heads.)  It occurred to me that after years of living without a yard- and years of relying upon my local grocery store for flowers like lilies, roses, and carnations- that I forgot that arrangements don't have to be tight, compact, and of one variety.  After all, our houses aren't one note, so why should our vases of flowers lack diversity?  Maybe it is high-time for me to heed Spry's advice and start mixing eucalyptus leaves, kale, or pussy willow into my arrangements.  Perhaps I need to tone down the bright colors to which I am attracted and start seeking flowers in shades of dusty greens, soft pinks, and pale gold.  Oh, and grass. I need to do as Spry did and add grass to my floral arrangements.

Well, while I figure out from whose yard I can retrieve this greenery and grass, I leave you with a few photos of arrangements that reflect the spirit and creativity of Spry.  They were all done by Michal Evans, one of the foremost floral and event designers in the South.  (I consider him to be Atlanta's own Constance Spry.)  I crave all of Michal's designs, but what I like about these are their complexity.  By building layers of flowers and greenery of different colors, textures, and shapes, Evans has created masterpieces that are artistic, intriguing, and really quite beautiful.  More importantly, though, they look like arrangements of which Mother Nature would approve. 

*This post will be featured in the December/January issue of House Beautiful.

The photo at top is courtesy of House Beautiful, December/January 2012.  The remaining photos courtesy of Michal Evans.

Taking a Stand

Here in Atlanta, we finally got a taste of fall a few days ago.  With nightly temperatures hovering in the 30s, it was time for my pretty potted geraniums to come indoors.  Unfortunately for them, though, they went from a comfortable balcony to the floor of the kitchen, the only spot that I could find for them where they would get sun.  And because I do find geraniums to be a genteel plant, they really have no business being unceremoniously dumped on the floor.

I could always find a narrow table like the one in the illustration above, one on which I could park a few plants, but the problem is that such a table takes up space, something in short supply around my home.  What I want, and think that I need, too,  is a good old-fashioned plant stand, one dignified enough for geraniums, not to mention my living room as well.  Of course, what I covet is a stand much like that owned by the late John Fowler, seen immediately below this text.  That has to be the all-time best looking plant stand that I've ever seen. 

While looking for other photos of plant stands, I realized that the best examples I could find were featured in books on English and Irish design.  Not surprising, really, as a pretty stand holding a flowering plant seems made for both quaint country cottages and grand country houses alike.

For all of you who are being affected by Hurricane Sandy, please stay safe and be well!

John Fowler's stand in the hall at his Hunting Lodge.

A plant stand in Lady Gunston's drawing room in Pelham Crescent, decorated by John Fowler.

A wire plant stand on a table in Fowler's home-showroom at 292 King's Road.

A modern scheme includes a column supporting a potted urn, decorated by David Mlinaric.

A stand with what looks like a terrarium on top, in an 18th century lodge decorated again by Mlinaric.

The charming and much-photographed living room of the late Mark Hampton. The curvy plant stand in the window held a pot of pretty paperwhites.

A fountain converted into a plant stand, at Killadoon, County Kildare

And a Victorian looking stand at Birr Castle, County Offaly.


Image #1 and #7 from Colefax and Fowler: The Best in Interior Decoration by Chester Jones. #2 from Nancy Lancaster: English Country House Style by Martin Wood; #3 and #4 from John Fowler: Prince of Decorators, also by Wood; #5 and #6 from Mlinaric on Decorating; #8 and #9 from The Irish Country House.

A 1970 "It" Home

Every so often, there is a home whose interiors seem to resonate with us. Perhaps it's because the home captures the mood of the time, or maybe it's that the homeowner or designer hit the nail on the head when it came to using various popular decorative trends. No matter the reason, these homes usually end up being featured in numerous shelter magazines, and now, blogs, too.

One such home that was the hit of design magazines in the early 1970s was the Manhattan apartment of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Moore III.  I first saw the home, one notable for creating a country home effect in a New York apartment building, in a 1970 issue of House & Garden.  While the home was evocative of that era- layer upon layer of prints and patterns, wicker furniture, needlepoint, and Italian ceramics- I do think that it was a rather interesting idea to imbue the space with such quaint, country effects.  Design editors must have thought so, too, because just a few months later, in 1971, House Beautiful also featured the Moore's apartment.  But this version was a little different.  I'm fairly certain it was the same apartment, but the fireplace mantel seems to have changed as well as some of the fabrics.  And strangely enough, the painted piano from 1970 seems to have been repainted with a different design just a short time later.

There are other differences, but I stopped looking at the photos as it was giving me a headache.  Suffice it to say, the Moore's residence was an "it" residence of the early 1970s, one that captured the spirit of that time.

Image at top:  The Moores' Dining-Sitting Room as it appeared in 1970.  The white piano bore painted miniature fruits and vegetables.
  

In 1971, the dining room has a change in fabric, and paneling seems to have been added. Here, the piano was painted with exuberant flowers.

Jumping back to 1970, Marni Moore was photographed sitting on her charming sofa with blue and white floral pillows.

Another 1970 photo which shows a wider view of the living room.

A detail 1970 photo of Mrs. Moore's cocktail table with a top made of blue, white, and red tile. The same table was a holdover for the 1971 photo shoot.

The Living Room circa 1971.

And here, in 1970, was a black and white shot of the living room with the dining room beyond.

The colorful Library made it into the 1971 House Beautiful article, but not that of the 1970 House & Garden issue.

The Moores' bedroom, which I do think is rather pretty, from 1970.