It's a Madcap World...

I was so pleased to attend the grand re-opening of the local Calico (no longer Calico Corners) store, which featured two design friends: Jason Oliver Nixon and John Locke, the gents from Madcap Cottage! I had met the two of them several years ago in High Point, and in a major coincidence, Jason's sister and I live in the same neighbourhood in Baltimore!

Jason and John's trademark style is bright and exuberant.

This was immediately apparent by the blazers they were wearing - made from their own fabrics and piped with bright trim.

John & Jason gave a nice talk about how to layer fabrics so that they don't look like a mish-mash, but a comprehensive whole. 

I fell in love with one of their fabrics, which you can see on the left - the green one. It's called Mocambo and it comes in several lush colourways. All of the fabrics are designed and drawn by John & Jason, and invoke places they've been and things that they love. Many are named after country houses and gardens in England.

As part of the opening festivities, Calico hosted several drawings for pillows made from Madcap's fabrics, two custom designed pillows and a beautiful wing chair with several of the fabrics from their collection. 

I was thrilled to be the winner of two custom-designed pillows and had the fun experience of picking out which of their many fabrics I wanted. As I mentioned, I was drawn to this print called Mocambo. 

I really had a hard time deciding which colourway, and what to pair it with. But after a bit lot of thought, I decided on these two.

I loved the little ginkgo print called Howard's End, and loved how well it paired with the Mocambo both in colour and scale. I am so excited about this and can't wait to get them.

Thanks so much to Calico and Madcap Cottage for a fun evening!

Spring in the City

So sorry for the lack of recent posts. I am still having problems with the platform I use to post, and I absolutely hate posting through the blogger platform because it doesn't format correctly! Ugh.

Anyway... spring has finally arrived in Baltimore, better late than never. And it's simply glorious here. It's hard to see, but the hedge in front of the carriage house is all lilacs! 

Figue and I took a walk with our friends MacKenzie and Andrea through the gorgeous Sherwood Gardens, one of Baltimore's most beautiful public spaces. Andrea tried to bribe Figue to stop barking with a treat...

The tulips at Sherwood Gardens are at their peak this week, aided by 80* temperatures on Easter. 

And the gardens are surrounded by some of the most beautiful and elegant houses in Baltimore, so a walk through the area yields some great architectural treats.

In addition to seeing flowers in public spaces, I've been lucky enough to get some spring flowers for my house. My neighbours have two camellias and told me to help myself to some of them. I was sure I was being greedy taking four of them, but they assured me I wasn't!

And then the gal who helps me with my sewing told me to cut some of the lilacs in her front yard. So I did! These are the deepest purple, rather than the paler purple that you see more often. 

Last week, fellow blogger, The Devoted Classicist was in Baltimore to give a lecture at the esteemed Evergreen House. Last month's lecture took place a day after a snowstorm, but spring is in full effect now. 

One of the things I adore about this time of year is the soft light, and the soft evening air. I took this just before the lecture, and think this is emblematic of a spring evening in Baltimore. 

I am so glad spring is here and hope that it doesn't get too hot too quickly!

Mad About the House Blog

It’s really a small world, you know. Kate Watson-Smyth, the god-mother of the children of a friend of mine in London (follow that?) writes the most gorgeous blog called Mad About the House. She is based in the UK and sources most of her images and items from that side of the pond.

She writes several rotating features including 10 Beautiful Rooms, The Househunter: Room by Room, 10 Best and others. If you read British design magazines regularly, you will notice that the houses and rooms that they feature are not styled to within an inch of their lives like the rooms in American magazines. They have that lived-in look, with stacks of books on the floor, faded chintzes and a dog lazing on the sofa. I find this rather comforting.

Here are some of my recent favourites that Kate has featured.

Georgian details in the boot room.Perfection!

Beadboard walls, pinkish plaster, great stove… yep, I’ll take it!

Honestly, I am not wild about the furniture, but wow, those windows!!!!

Lightness, brightness and lots of cheer!

Simplicity

Holy cow! That wall is AMAZING!

That sofa is a killer!

I hope you’ll pop over and take a look at Mad About the House. I am mad about it!

Looking Up

One of the things my father always told me was to to look up. This is especially true in some of England's oldest churches, including Tewkesbury Abbey, the building of which began in 1102.

I  thought I would share some images of a few of the spectacular ceilings I saw.

I attended an antiques show at a stunning country house

  

This abbey is one of a few left fully intact.

This is a local parish church

I am heading home after lots of adventures, more than 600 iles on my car and visits with lots of friends and family!

At Home with Tone On Tone

As I’ve said many times before, one of the best parts about this blogging adventure is meeting new people. Loi Thai and his partner, Tom Troeschel, are some of those people. They have joined us for some fun parties here in Baltimore and have become wonderful friends over the past few years.

Loi and Tom also own the gorgeous store, Tone on Tone, in Bethesda, Maryland and writes the blog of the same name. He’s also got a beautiful instagram account with something like 31,000 followers (gawd, now I am depressed!).

And, if that’s not enough, their beautiful house is featured in the February issue of Martha Stewart!

His house is the epitome of cool, calm and collected, as is Loi himself. Spare, clean, white and bright are some other words I’d use to describe his design aesthetic.

Here’s Loi with Baltimore-based photographer, Helen Norman, who did the photography, and Lorna Aragon, editor for MS Magazine. I was actually up at Helen’s Star Bright Farm, just before Christmas.

This is all just a sneak peek, but you must go pick up the magazine and see how gorgeous it all is and then go visit his blog.

Tell Loi I sent you!

YUCK!

After years of writing my blog posts via a platform called Live Writer, it has been shut down, and the replacement program isn't up and running yet. 

The blogger native platform on Google is very cumbersome and doesn't have the same ease of use - the  WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) isn't functional at all. Inserting images is painful!

So until I figure out another platform, or the new open source Live Writer begins working, expect posting to be sparse. It's simply too frustrating for a non-computer literate person to figure out. And I just don't have the time to deal with it two weeks before the holidays.

Image above is from a huge post I wrote about Ladew Gardens' Christmas Tour over the weekend. 

En Peu de Tout

Lots of little bits and pieces to chat about today.
Over the weekend, I was invited to the most amazing Day of the Dead party by some friends, one of whom is a fabulous artist. They are so creative and clever. I knew the stakes would be high, so I invited my most creative and clever friend, Andrea, to come along with me. Good decision! It took more than two hours to get ready, with the layers of make up, the dresses, jewelry, etc.
Kudos to Andrea who made her feathered head-dress and her necklace! She was stunning. I took a vampire bride dress and added sugar skulls and a bunch of skulls I cut out of a Halloween ribbon.
It was such a fun party, and the best part was the look on some kid’s face as he pulled up next to us! Priceless!

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Another party this week was for the launch of Eddie Ross’s new book, Modern Mix, which I wrote about here. It was such fun to see Eddie and Jaithan, as well as a lot of my Washington, DC blogging friends! And, best of all, I finally met Jura Koncius, the Home & Garden editor for the Washington Post, with whom I’ve been communicating since I started the blog! What a huge treat!
The party was held at the beautiful Baker Furniture showroom, right in the heart of Georgetown.
Here I am with fellow bloggers, Michele Ginnerty from My Notting Hill, Michael Hampton from uh, Michael Hampton, Lauren Liess from Pure Style Home, Stefan Hurry from Architect Design and me!

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As you may have gathered, I am very interested in historic architecture, especially here in Baltimore. But there has been a very distressing development recently. One of the most beautiful spaces in Baltimore, the lobby of a bank building built in 1929, is being taken over by a “performance center” funded in part by local heavy-weight, Under Armour.
What you don’t see in this rendering is the beautiful chandeliers that they’ve photoshopped out, but reassured the Historic Preservation Commission will still be hanging. Or the stunningly beautiful marble mosaic floors that they’ve covered up with grey “area rugs”. These historically significant mosaics were created by Hildreth Meière, who also created the mosaics at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, as her first commercial commission.
The main concern is that the people who are using the space, will, like the people in the rendering above, not care for it and destroy irreplaceable stone, murals and mosaics. In the image above, the person is heaving a heavy medicine ball at the wall, which is an ancient limestone with thousands of fossils embedded in it.  Another concern is that the pounding of the machines and dropped weights will crush the mosaics and render them into dust.
Many people are very upset about this, but the building’s interior wasn’t landmarked – who would have every though that a “performance center” would be put into an elegant space like this? It is more suited for a restaurant or a club, not a sweaty gym. There are two great articles in one of the investigative journalism outlets, here and here.

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And now a wee bit of shameless promotion. I am fully stocked with lots of gorgeous mother-of-pearl silverware, just in time for Thanksgiving. It’s all available on my Etsy shop, and if you order now, you’ll have it in time for the big dinner. I have several sets of 12 place settings, including this one in French Ivory, which both Eddie Ross and I collect.
A bit more simple is this set of 24 in a presentation case.
This set features gorgeous engraved fish!
I just listed this fabulous STERLING SILVER Mappin & Webb Art Deco set of 12 knives and forks.
Let me know if there’s anything you’re looking for and I will see what I can do!