Happy Bastille Day!

Le Chat is not so happy, she knows she is not getting any of our celebratory food! All of which is from Julia Child, Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One (1) (Fortieth - 40th - Anniversary Edition) (Vol 1)

The white plates are from Portugal. The red are Johnson Brothers that I found at TJMaxx. The blue are W. A. Adams blue willow.




The blue and red bowls were removed for the onion soup and entree service.



They were returned for the dessert of fresh berries, chambord, freshly whipped cream and a sprig of mint. I wish I could say that was the mint from my garden, although there is a lot of it, it isn't especially fragrant. I prefer my dessert implement, fork, spoon or both, at the top of the plate as Amy Vanderbilt. My mother is a Post girl, but I was always an Amy fan. The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette : 50th Anniversary Edition


Bon appétit!
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Between Naps On The Porch table scape Thursday!

Basement Metamorphosis in Progress!

The basement metamorphisis has begun!
We have lived with builder white in the house longer than I care to admit. I love space planning, but color can keep me up at nights! I tend to blame my "color hesitance" on my husband, he is far less adventurous than I am. When we were first married, he me talked out of a certain gorgeous Salmon I had in mind for our first house; based on his objections, the color went down a couple of tints, to what ended up an insipid pale peach color. I never really liked it. At least, that's my story and I am sticking to it.

Now, many of my painting adventures are accomplished when he is on a business trip.

The basement, which functions as home office, home theater and craft space, needed color. Frankly, it needs more than just paint, it also needs bamboo flooring, improved lighting, cable management and better furniture. But the first start was to paint. Why start with paint? Several reasons. For one, paint unifies the room, making a room feel more complete. Another reason to start with paint, rather than say, floors, is that you can drip on the worn carpet that is leaving the building without worry.

Of course, before an ounce of paint can go on the wall, a plan had to be developed. The plan includes changes to the floor, paint and furnishings. I searched for photos in the plan on rate my space on HGTV's site and other sites, to find a style similar to what was in my head. Then I combined paint chips and rug samples to complete the plan.

As mentioned earlier, the basement functions in part as a home theater, therefore a dark paint is needed to improve the picture. Of the five paint finishes, gloss, semi-gloss, satin, eggshell and flat, the last two are good choices for a home theater. If the room is painted in a higher gloss, the purpose of painting the room dark is defeated by the light reflection that the glossy paint provides. Home theater purists would argue that only matte is appropriate for a home theater, but I prefer the softness of the eggshell over matte.
We considered several shades of grey, all the way down to charcoal. Ultimately, we wanted the basement to be a little warmer, so we chose Library Mahogany by Ralph Lauren in an eggshell finish.





The other difficulty was what to do about the screen, or lack thereof. We have been using a blank white wall. We considered purchasing a home theater screen, about a $2000 option, painting the current wall with expensive specialty paint, about a $200 option, leaving it white, an ineffective option. Finally, I googled "home theater screen diy", one more time just to see if threre were any new ideas. Behr's SilverScreen, E770-E2. One quart, a fifteen dollar option, okay $20 with a brush. Here is the screen, with Mr. Smith goes to Washington and a Washington Nats game for comparison.





This "Nine News" is an image from before the SilverScreen paint, not bad, just not nearly as crisp as the after.




Woops! I forgot to add the image!

My Favorite Paint color

320 Sycamore is throwing a paint party. My daughters claim that I spend my time "contemplating beige". I beg to differ, sometimes I contemplate Hunting Coat Red, Algerian Red, Library Mahogany, Lamswool, Ceylon Ivory, woops! That one is beige. I have a added a few pics, life is complicated these days and taking pictures and then writing about them is really difficult. So this posting is a tad bit late and will be brief!




First, just to get the beige out of the way, is Ceylon Ivory. I started using this color after Charles Faudree used it in a one of his houses. Bless his heart, he is very forthcoming about his color choices. This picture shows much lighter than it actually is, a very rich buttery ivory color.

I used it here as a base for a yellow color wash. This color brightens the cherry cabinets in the kitchen and pairs perfectly with the pink on yellow toile panels I made for the door to the deck.


Back in the family room, as an accent wall with the fireplace, next to the Ceylon Ivory, is Fennel, another Pratt and Lambert Choice. This one is all mine. That is, I didn't rely on someone else's color sense to choose it. You see, I can visualize in three dimensions very well, but as for color, well I am hesitant. I don't know why, I loved the Benjamin Moore ET-69 I painted in our first house. Somewhere along the way I caught some fear. For this wall, I wanted something other than the Benjamin Moore Red I had used previously, I think it was 1428. Although the red is a great color, I was growing tired of red and already had it in two places in my house. So, Fennel it is. Yup, I know, complimentary of red. In fact, it sparkles at Christmas, being just the right green note with red candles.




Then there is Ashwood, a very light grey which brightens the living room. It lends just the right amount of neutrality to the space and place nicely off the blue and white ware in the room.


Lastly, at least for now, is the Van Deusen Blue. I have paired this with orange micro fiber suede seat covers on the Chippendale chairs.

Spring!

Rhoda, of Southern Hospitality has challenged us all to get going on spring updates.I am accepting the challenge! It's a work in progress, but I am giving the buffet a spring transformation.

Setting the Scene

There is a reason that this blog is named Mise en scène, "Setting the Scene". Staging a home is just that, setting a scene so that a potential buyer sees themselves in it and so that it is the home that the buyer remembers, favorably. Many say that a staged home isn't about interior design, because interior design is a personalized plan and staging is depersonalizing. My philosophy is that staging a home is visualizing who the potential buyer is and tailoring, or personalizing if you will, to this buyer. Sometimes the buyer and the home owner are demographically similar, sometimes they are not. Sometimes the owner is a builder, so no demographic information can be drawn upon from the owner.

Who's buying this house?

When I start to stage a home, I visualize who will be living in the home. For example, in this Builder Parade home that I staged, a few years ago, there was no actual historical demographics to rely on as it was a new part of the addition. The developer anticipated that this house would appeal to a slightly younger buyer than had historically purchased in the other areas of the addition, but only slightly younger than retirement age. As it was a builder house, it was a ground up staging. The task was to furnish a four bedroom house with furniture from a local furniture store, in two days, less if the construction ran over schedule. My first tasks was to create a client for the house. I created a buyer based on the layout and location of the house. I saw it as a house for a young families. I visualized a family with two girls under the age of 10, still in the "sweet phase" but older than toddler age. I visualized the parents as sophisticated couple, who enjoyed art and time with their children, as well as time to enjoy chess, backgammon or scrabble after the children were in bed. On the floor is a floorcloth painted by Tulsa artist Marjorie Atwood.

The great room, being long and the only living space in the house, was staged to accommodate a variety of family activities, reading, games and a television, housed in the armoire. Placed to the right of the fire place are two chairs and a game table.

The Dining Room was papered with an Historic Natchez paper from Schumacher. This gave it a formal but not stiff appearance. Another of Marjorie Atwood's beautiful floorcloths centers the table.

The girls' bedroom featured twin beds and Laura Ashley decor. Not over the top with fantasy finishes or paintings, Just fresh and memorable and feminine.

Now, the question is, who bought the house? Who do you think bought the house? Was it the young family or the older empty nester couple?

OCD design on steroids

Maison 21 has a new OCD design challenge, combining industrial and antiques. Well, OCD is right up my alley! Did you know I had cat hoarders in my family? I myself have only had as many as six and that was a kitten incident, though that might be how cat hoarding gets its start!

His challenge is to design a loft space, but with few rules. Okay, I don't have a client with a loft, neither do I have a loft. But I do have a living room needing some change and a desire to do something completely different.

So with those parameters in mind, I give you the new living room, even if it is only virtual.

First, I plan to change the flooring from white carpet to cherry wood. The white carpet is beautiful, but gets bombed by cat barf altogether too often! Although I adore the deep color of the Walnut on the right, I am concerned about it being too dark in a small space. However, it is very Hollywood 'Regency-esque', so I might decide to head that direction, after all. The walls are painted Benjamin Moore's Ashwood and the trim is either Alpine or Atelier White to coordinate with the Dover White Wood Blinds.

I adore antiques, but, budget limitations permit a new rather than antique Chesterfield. This one, from Ballard design, is well priced and, at 74 inches, should just fit in the space, 142"-74" leaves enough space for two tables. I plan to live dangerously and upholster it in white again. This time, I'll use sticky paws to keep it from becoming a cat scratching post. And to keep my black and white cat, Patches,

and my black cat, Niko,

from covering it with a more cat inspired upholstery.

I plan to drag the old Sears pressed paper trunk in from the Garage, paint it black, then silver leaf it to give the impression of this antiques stainless trunk.

As a nod to Maison 21's beige, I contemplate beige, daily, I am adding antique leather luggage stacked to make a table and top it with an acrylic lamp from Target.

From the Cologne Design Festival 2009, comes the Chandelier, which goes at the opposite side of the Chesterifeld sofa, over this lamp, though I may decide to switch the lamps once in the space. The table is from Homelements. The Chairs, are a take on a classic antique.

Finally, the image on the wall is from the Cologne Design Festival, 2009. I'd like something of this sort as an oversized art on the wall behind the sofa. I may get this photo I took a long, long time ago, blown up very large. Or, even better, I can reward my frugality with a piece of art from ugallery. See the Lana Williams piece, below.

Wear RED!

Today is Go Red for Women's Heart Health and February is Heart Health month. This perfectly awful picture of a delightful pin is one of the red items I am wearing. Perhaps, I should purchase a new camera, one with "anti-blur".
But, seriously, Heart Health is an important issue and it has personally touched my family, multiple times, my father, my Grandmother, my mother-in-law and my grandmother-in-law have all had one form or another of heart disease. We go to the gym, attend my sorority's red dress gala events and try to eat right, most of the time, and today, wear and blog red!