One of my very good
friends just moved to New Zealand last weekend.
I could not be more excited for her new adventure.
Thankfully I was able to convince her to blog
about it {
here} so that I (and anyone else who wants to) can follow along.
:)
A couple of weeks ago
we hosted a bunch of friends at my house for her send-off party. There were a few I’d
never met before. It was such a great
night. My sides hurt from laughing so hard.
I was excited to host
a party – everyone always brings wine and there’s always a few bottles
left unopened to help fill my wine rack.
Apparently, this is not the case when you invite a bunch a girls over who
grew up in Sonoma County!
A lot of them hadn’t
been to my house before or hadn’t seen it since I’d
bought furniture and was able to do a bit of decorating.
Everyone had such
wonderful things to say and it was so nice to hear. As usual though, my first response when
someone complemented my home was “Oh, there’s
so much I still need to do.”
Because whenever I look around I see my list of to-do’s
and all the things that I haven’t gotten to yet.
One of the girls, who
I had just met that night, said something that’s kind of stuck with
me. She responded to my usual comment
and said, “oh no, everything looks really nice you just need to add
some personal things.”
I thought it was
funny, because I had just been thinking maybe I needed a few more “designer-type”
things, like what you see in interior décor magazines, to make it look a bit
more finished. When I look around my
living room everything I see is personal.
My mantel holds one
of my favorite photos of a bridge over the River Seine in Paris that I took
while I when I lived there. It was taken
with a camera that used film.
Along side it are two
gifts from my brother. One is a framed photo of the Brooklyn bridge, the other, limited edition artwork showing part of the exterior of the Guggenhiem museum. Every year
when my brother asked me what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas I said the
same thing: photos of New York (where he lives) from the street vendors or
farmers markets there. It took a few years
before he gave me these and when he did he said these were the first ones he’d
seen that he liked for me.
One side of the
mantel holds a sake carafe from the restaurant where Dan and I had one of our
first dates. {I plead the fifth on how it got on my mantel.} I use it as a vase to hold lavender from my
mom’s garden. It sits
next to a birthday card given to me by my best friend around the time that I
bought the house. She wrote the nicest
things in it and I can’t read it without getting
teary-eyed {or type about it apparently}.
The other side has
the crowns I made for Pacino’s first birthday {DIY
found here}, the votive holders I made from Glitter Guide’s
post {here} and the LOVE print I made with poster board and glitter wrapping
paper and I had left from a Christmas project.
It also has my
favorite photo from Thailand. It was
taken after an all night beach party on Koh Phangan, a small island off Koh
Samuii. It was before 7 am and my friend
and I had walked around the island to the other side of the beach and watched
the sun rise. Her camera had gotten sand
in it and wasn’t working well, so she borrowed
mine and I have no idea who took the picture.
There were small empty boats scattered around the water and I’ve
never seen so many beautiful pastel colors in one sky. It’s in a frame I bought at
Zara Home on Regent Street when I lived in London.
On the wall hangs a
sconce that my best friend in high school gave me as a Christmas
present one year. When I opened it, she complained
that I’m the hardest person to shop for. It’s hung in every home I’ve
lived in since then.
Another wall hangs a
frame with two photos from a road trip I took with my friend who just moved to
New Zealand. In September 2010, we drove
to Utah and spent 10 days camping and hiking the national parks. The photos were taken at The Arches and
Canyonlands and I love that you can’t see our faces in them;
it’s just vast beauty spread out in front
of us.
There’s
a large colorful cachepot on the floor.
It used to sit in my grandmother’s entryway. My aunt bought it for
her from Gumps, the historic San Francisco department store where she used to
work. She used to bring me there with
her on “take your daughter to work day". {Do those still exist?}
On the table there’s
a small silver dish that’s engraved ‘Welcome
Home’. My parents gave it to me when I closed on the
house. I set my keys there every day.
There’s
a framed photograph of my cousins from their engagement session. They’re on Baker Beach in San
Francisco with the Golden Gate bridge and the fog in the background. My cousin was my best friend growing up and
he lives across the country now. It
makes me happy every time I see.
For Christmas, my
aunt found a frame similar to the others that I have around the living room and
framed an old photo she had of me and her. I’m about 2 years old in a ruffled
and polka dot one-piece swimsuit {I guess it's true, styles do
always come back around!}.
There’s
an etched glass bowl from my grandmothers house. It used to sit on her bar cart next to her
sliding glass door. I wasn’t
allowed to roll her bar cart even though it had wheels and a handle.
There’s
a candle holder that my dad made from a wine barrel stave. He used the same stain as the console table
he made of rme. He bought the wine barrel from a Sonoma
County wine maker (my hometown).
One of the first “décor”
things I put up in my home was my gallery wall.
I went through all my travel photos and ordered prints online. Once they arrived, it took me all night
deciding which photos and which sizes to use and how to arrange them on the
wall. I took every one of the photos myself,
aside from one which I bought it from a
street vendor in Prague. It’s
of the Charles bridge at night and it’s almost perfectly
reflected in the water lit by the city lights.
The photographer signed the mat for me.
On the gallery wall,
there’s a photo taken of the view from my bedroom window in my
flat in Paris. There’s
one of the water running through the lush green rainforest when we were on a
hike in Costa Rica. We were looking for
a waterfall we never thought we’d find. We went swimming in the pool under the
waterfall a little while later.
In Croatia, we went
kayaking in the sea off Hvar. The next
morning when we woke we stopped first thing to get coffee. One of the guys who worked at the kayaking
places saw us and asked to sit and have coffee with us. I am ashamed to say that when I saw him, my
first thought was oh no, I have to make small talk. (I am not always at ease with people I don’t
know well.)
While we were having
coffee with him, he pointed to a small island just off Hvar. He said it had a private beach and a small
bar that only locals really knew about.
He was going out there that day. We
walked to the dock and saw a woman and her young daughter on the boat headed to
the island as well, so we got on the boat.
When we got there,
his friend owned the bar and gave us each a beer and brought out a small tray
with meats and cheeses and fresh fruit.
When it came time to pay the bill, the guy who brought us said it was
covered as well as our fee for the boat ride over.
We walked around the
teeny island and found hammocks. I laid
in the hammock and looked up at the sun shining through the tree branches and
was so grateful and humbled that I was having this moment in my life. I laid my camera on my lap and took a photo
straight up into the trees. That photo
is framed on my gallery wall.
It’s
all personal. I look around the room and
every item feels personal.
On the bookshelf
there’s a box covered in stamps from all the countries I
visited on my first trip to Europe. My
aunt made it for me. There’s
a framed photo of my Dad hugging me super tight at my going away party when I
moved to London. And one of my grandmother,
unposed and smiling, who passed away 7 years ago.
It’s
all personal.
And it’s
funny what someone else sees, what an outsider sees, when they look around.
And it reminds me
that I don’t need the “designer-type”
items to place around my home to make it look like the interiors in the décor
magazines or blogs.
Sometimes I am unsure
if I want something or if I’ve just seen it so often on a “must
have” or “currently conveting”
wish list, that I think it’s something that I want. I’m glad that I’ve
been slow to buy those things. Because I’ve
found that when I stop seeing them as often, I sort of want them a bit less
too.
And I’m
happy that when I look around my home, even though it’s
still very much a work in progress for me, it’s all still personal to
me, even if not everyone can see it.
LMF
