Domestic bliss

I have always been a hunter for great decorating inspirations, love to come across the unexpected and beautiful, sometimes in unexpected places. But usually I find most of them in books, magazines, shops, nature and homes I see.



Well, it seems that my design interest moves again towards the bohemian, colorful, certainly not the minimalistic. Mixing patterns and texture, layering the fabrics and showing of splendid collections.





I want to warm the house up, prepare for fall, create the atmosphare of comfort. I have thought about essentials lately and find that it does not necessary mean an oxymoron.



I still want to reduce, try to find the essence, the distilled home so to speak, find myself grounding in color and enjoy the pleasures of a lovingly edited home. It's all about our senses. Smell and touch in particular, sounds and taste make me feel the seasons too. Candles, potpourries, wool and felt, apples in a bowl and corn and flowers. The harvest abundance and my feeling of thanksgiving.



I want to be flexible and curious, on the lookout for beautiful things and yet keep in mind a certain alertness.




Fall beckons me always to feather my nest, warm up with fabrics and a fire.





This new season invites fresh decorating and this year I will find things I already have, take nature as my inspiration and create with found objects. Autumn makes it so easy!
Once I am there I'll take you on a tour and let you know.



But for now I have been plundering some magazines and show you my ideas of fun, my color fascination and the style I always admire: a little bohemian, bright and exquisitely edited.



I absolutely love the nature inspired colors and the ethnic influence.



Just today I was thinking which colors make me happy now and it's all warm and glowing, mixed with some blues and amethyst.





I so wanted the summer to last, but with a little nudging I'll follow willingly into the next season. It's all about domestic bliss!

The pictures were pulled out from the latest H & H magazine, Elle Decor, Decor, flickr and my own.

Books

Over the last weeks I've had a chance to read more then usually, since reading is the thing I love to do and I happend to have the most wonderful reading summer, sitting at the beach in MA and at the pool here at home!

I will not get into details about the single books, but will give you my book list, of which I enjoyed all and some of them literally devoured...Call me book vampire!

It started out with our trip to Massachusetts and appropriately I had on my list

'The Glory Cloak', a novel of Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton by Patricia O'Brien, then followed by the same author's 'Harriet {and} Isabella', about the Beecher family.
My visit to the Orchard house in Concord,MA completed that section nicely and I was happy to find many more books there written by L.M.Alcott, other then 'Little Women'.
In a collection of short stories by American Women, edited by Candace Ward, I found 'Transcendental Wild Oats' by Louisa May Alcott.




I found many other books about her and her family.

After this it was my usual way of finding books, browsing the book stores, getting inspired by beautiful covers and hooked on sagas of all types.

'Elective Affinities' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

'The forgotten Garden' by Kate Morton, which puts her older book 'House at Riverton' on my to read list.

I absolutely loved 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova, a mix of historical facts and a fantasy about Dracula, just stunning.



I re-read 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows' by you know who, right after seeing the latest H.P.movie.(LOVED IT)

For the children I read 'The Penderwicks' by Jeanne Birdsall and 'The Penderwicks on Gardam Street'.


Now I just finished Lev Grossman's 'The Magicians' which I liked very much and will send it to my sons in Germany. I am pretty sure they will love it!


Next on my list are in no particular order:

'Octavian Nothing' by M.T.Anderson,


'Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen addict' by Laurie Viera Rigler,


'Little Dorit' by Charles Dickens.

And then some...




Tell me about your books, loved and hated. I love to hear your stories and always get inspirations to read.
I can't wait to hear from you all!

Happy reading!

XX
Victoria

Pictures online and some by V.Zlotkowski at the bookstores.

Lyndhurst in September

Today we visited Lyndhurst, near Tarrytown, NY. It was the most relaxing and late sun kissed afternoon we've had since our return from Massachusetts.





The children run and run and my husband and I just loved to walk in the beautiful park. Nobody else was around and I felt like in a Jane Austen novel!
Was it just me or did I detect the first turning of the leaves? A mellow green in the trees, dusty September sunlight, almost ripe apples in the orchard.






I love the fancy, so over the top Gothic revival architecture, it transports you to a different world and it made me a little bit sad to see such a gorgeous former home now deprived of regular inhabitants.





A house needs to live! It needs warmth in the winter, open doors in the summer, children's laughter and people...
Somehow it made me a little melancholic.
Maybe because this place has still livable dimensions and such very lovely setting in the beautiful park.
Maybe the visibly cared for herb garden along the kitchewall and the play house seemed just as somebody had left it and would return shortly.






And yet, I enjoyed to see it and strolled in the park and imagined me living there 150 years ago.
I peeked through the windows, gorgeous, but rather musty rooms with lovely furniture on the ground floor, few fake flowers and a splendid grand piano, what a setting!

Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand that such homes today are possibly very hard to maintain and the National Trust does everything possible to ensure it's survival, but well, I am a hopeless romantic.


The park is huge and so much land needs careful preservation and it's done with much attention to detail.



The staff was very kind and opened the doors almost at closing time for us to see the gift shop, a place our kids always like to inspect and usually find this or that to admire. Don't you like the gift shop charm?


We arrived at home, filled with nature and culture, nurtured by all the beauty!




All Pictures by V.Zlotkowski