I love being barefoot. I often padded around our Connecticut home shoeless or when it was cold, with a pair of warm socks. It’s amazing how much cleaner your rugs and floors stay! Living in California, I’m barefoot year round. I love the feel of our oak floors on my feet and the soft cotton rug in my bedroom. To further enhance the serene, comfortable, casual, organic vibe in our homes on both coasts, I keep pattern to a minimum and make…
I loved autumn when I lived in New England…the crisp air, colorful leaves swirling about, hot mulled cider, and the scent and sounds of a crackling fire in the hearth. What I never really enjoyed was fall decorating (or the winter months that followed). Even in Connecticut, I was not a fan of the reds, oranges, and russet tones that spelled out FALL. And don’t even get me started on Halloween decorations! I guess you could say I’m a bit…
I almost didn’t post this piece today. It seems that every time I turn on the news, another horrific attack has happened and everything else seems trivial in comparison. But I think in my own way, by creating beautiful, comfortable places to call home, it makes me feel safer. Our homes are our sanctuaries away from all the atrocities happening in the world. And isn’t it nice to have an oasis if even for a little while? So here is…
I was thrilled to be asked by the lovely ladies at Holl and Lane magazine to write an Interiors post for their online blog. Holl and Lane’s motto is: We are more than a magazine; we are a community of women that share our hearts with boldness. We believe in telling stories boldly and vulnerably, to cultivate honest community and authentically inspire home and add flavor to everyday life. They were looking for me to fulfill the authentically inspire home niche!…
I’m a bit of a pillow hoarder. There, I’ve admitted it. Does it mean I’m going to change my hoarding ways? Not anytime soon! I’ve had this problem for quite sometime and it became even worse once I discovered Etsy. I have pillows and their assorted covers in every closet in our smallish home. They make it so easy to change your decor in a snap! One day about a year ago I was scrolling through Instagram and I came…
In the tiny beachside town of Summerland, in a quaint 1920’s Victorian cottage, sits a home and garden boutique called botanik. This is another go-to destination for me and for all who know about this incredible place. What my favorite local shops have in common, are the wonderful, helpful, cheerful people who own and work at them. Botanik is no exception.…
When my hubby and I moved to Santa Barbara and bought a house six years ago, we knew we wanted to embrace the California outdoor lifestyle. This meant adding things like a hot tub, an outdoor shower, and a place to gather…a fire pit. While my husband has incredible faith in my ability to design gardens (as I did in Connecticut), I knew that with irrigation, electric, gas lines, and poured concrete hardscaping, I was in way over my head!…
For those of you who follow me, you know I moved to California from a traditional home in New England… a 1917 stone and stucco Connecticut cottage to be exact. I grew up in older homes with lots of character and even lived in a historic brownstone building in NYC when I was first married. “Modern” just wasn’t part of my vocabulary. When we decided to buy a house in Santa Barbara, I was at first drawn to the older Spanish homes that…