The Write of Spring

Dempsey & Carroll has just launched a new line of papers, and it’s just the thing for those of us suffering from too much winter! When I received the e-mail announcing this new line, I was transported from the chilly and windy, but sunny day in my office to a warm spring afternoon in a garden.

The line was commissioned by Mark Ingram, the owner of Mark Ingram Atelier, a high-end bridal shop in New York and Sara Singh did the artwork.These are little watercolour works of art, with wonderful soft spring shades, overlaid with gold accents. It is a testament to Dempsey & Carroll’s expertise to be able to print these cards with their layers of colour, and mixture of hand-engraving and flat-printing on white, 100% cotton paper. The detail extends to the hand-painted beveled edges and the hand-lined envelopes.

I think that opening an envelope with one of these cards inside would be your first clue that it’s going to be a fantastic event!

I’ll Take This: Flat in Bath

Bath in England is one of my favourite cities with its gorgeous old abbey, its Roman Spas, and its Regency architecture. When I saw this flat, situated right on the Pulteney Bridge and the weir, I just fell in love like.

The Pulteney Bridge was designed by Robert Adam in 1774 in the Palladian style. It’s one of only four bridges in the world to have shops spanning the inside of both sides. The bridge is 148 feet long and 58 feet wide. The Avon River passed beneath is and then forms a weir, which was used as a stand-in in the film version of Les Miz.

The flat is on the second/third floor and has an amazing view over the river towards the Bath Abbey and the town.The main living spaces are on the water side, while the kitchen and bath are on the street side.

It’s two bedrooms, with a possible third in the loft.

There is a lot of the building’s original detailing remaining, as you can see in this image.

It would make a great bolt-hole or pied a terre if you needed to get away!

It is a very reasonable £585,000 and it’s already under offer!

One Man’s Folly

There’s a book that I am waiting for with great anticipation – along with everyone else in the design and blog worlds, I think! It’s Julia Reed’s newest book, One Man’s Folly, The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood. The photography are by Paul Costello and Rodney Collins and Bunny Williams wrote the foreword and the afterword.

Rizzoli describes the book much better than I can (especially since I’ve not gotten my copy yet!):

When it comes to interiors style, antiques, and Southern vernacular architecture, Furlow Gatewood is a one-of-a-kind classic-this book presents his magical private enclave for the first time. Antiques expert Furlow Gatewood's highly personal property in bucolic Americus, Georgia, where he has meticulously restored his family's carriage house and added intimate dwellings and outbuildings-several rescued from demolition, has evolved over decades to become a sublime expression of stylish living. The structures exemplify various architectural traditions-from mid-nineteenth-century Gothic to Palladian. He has collaborated with local craftsmen to create these follies and takes delight in designing the picturesque grounds and plantings and in devising comfortable areas for his beloved dogs and peacocks. A gifted designer and longtime associate of antiques dealer John Rosselli, Gatewood has a talent for discovering singular pieces with a poetic patina, composing custom paint finishes and subtle palettes, and knowing how to incorporate distinctive architectural elements. To accompany the book's atmospheric images, close friend Bunny Williams writes about the lessons she has learned from this master of discernment. Gatewood's seductive and hospitable Arcadian oasis, with its exquisite and timeless design, will have an enduring impact on the design community.

I’ve been invited to the book launch party in a few weeks and can’t wait to study each and every page of the book!

All images from Veranda, except the first one, which I took!

Botanical Prints

As you might know, I work for an organization which is 215 years old. We have documents that I routinely handle that were written in the early 1800’s. Our collection of portraits dates back into the late 1700’s and I have a 50,000 volume library with tomes 300+ years old at my disposal. History means a lot to me, and books mean even more.

I pulled the trigger, so to speak, and cut the botanical prints out of the book. I think that knowing that the book would never be salvaged and that I was its last chance gave me the confidence to weld the Xacto knife and cut the pages.

Before

After

Here’s a final version I did of this print. I cleaned up the stains, sharpened the contrast, sharpened the image a little bit and made the background a little more even. I save each iteration in a different file, so that if I go too far, I have an earlier and an original copy.

I might even go one step more on this and remove the colour from the leaves. I don’t mind the shading around the edges, but I’d de-saturate the leaves so the yellows/browns didn’t show.

Here are a few more that I liked, but which I haven’t really edited.

This one says it’s a Venus’s Flytrap. Some have the names on them, but others don’t.

This one is a passion flower. I discovered these around the corner from me a few summers back and was amazed at them!

Several of the plates were wider than others and had been folded to fit into the book.

This is one of the more unusual ones.

Thanks for your advice on what to do about these. It made my decision a lot easier.

Weekend Update

Well, it’s snowing. Again. One would think that by March 16, the snow would be completely gone from any weather system here in the mid-Atlantic. I have the bunny snow-cam going again, and this image is from the start of the storm, at about 8:00 p.m. Sunday. Just a sparkly dusting.

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I played around with the grapefruit vodka from last weekend. We had tried it in martinis the other night and it seemed a bit harsh to me. That could very well be because of the fact that I NEVER drink martinis and therefore would think that any martini was harsh, regardless of what I used. However, I took the rind out of the vodka immediately, thinking that it shouldn’t get any stronger. Then, over this weekend, I filtered the vodka.

The unfiltered vodka is on the right and the beginnings of the filtered vodka is on the left. I used two coffee filters to strain it.

This is the filtered batch.

And this is the filter. It’s mostly small bits and pieces and then the grapefruit oil, which the filter pulled out. Now I need to come up with some recipes for grapefruit vodka. Any suggestions are appreciated!

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I attended the garden lecture at Historic Hampton Mansion this weekend and it was fascinating. The lecturer, Gregory Weidman, presented the talk with just the right mix of academic and personal information. Thanks to everyone who came out on this dreary afternoon.

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When I was moving some things around over the weekend, I came across a book that I’d picked up at a yard sale last fall. I think I paid $.25 for it. I wanted to share the query I put on my FB page regarding the book, and then get your thoughts.

As you know, I am a serious book lover. The book I bought is a botany text book from the 1800s. However, it is barely intact and when I turn the pages, they crumble. The leather covers are turning to dust and falling off. But there are some great botanical engravings in the back of the book. I tried scanning them, but it was too hard because the spine of the book was so fragile. It’s a fascinating book, but it would be impossible to ever read and displaying it is pretty much out of the question, since you can’t even read the spine or cover and it’s deteriorating.

Here's my quandary: Can i cut the prints out of the book (that kind of horrifies me), or do I just pass the book along to someone else who will probably cut the prints out, if they don't just chuck the book. It's not a first edition, just a very old book. At what point does the book become unusable for anything but its parts?

Even the engravings aren’t in great shape, as you can see from this fold-out, which is creased and torn. The others are foxed and darkened along the edges, but they’re fascinating none-the-less. The book could possibly be repaired, but since I paid a quarter for it, and it’s probably not all that valuable, and it’s certainly not special to me, that’s not an option at all. And a repair would be very expensive, per a curator/conservator friend.

I see prints and engravings at antique dealers all of the time, and suspect that they have been pulled out of books. I am of two minds about this. There are cases where the whole book is worth much more than the sum of the prints in it, like an old catalogue or a bible.

So far, on my FB page, the comments are overwhelmingly positive for preserving what I can of the book by taking out the plates. Only one person said to throw it out, and I suspect she was joking… I’d love for you to weigh in with your thoughts on this.

Literary Quiz

There’s a quiz making the rounds that estimates that most people have only read six books out of the 100 listed. I took the quiz and was horrified to find that I’d only read 33 of the 100. But that put me in the top third of people taking the quiz, so I was somewhat mollified.

The list relies very heavily on British authors, featuring a lot of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters’ books, and nothing by Harper Lee.

There are some English books that I’d venture to say most Americans have never even heard of.

Some of the books were “must read” books, but are no longer as current or compelling.

Even if you can’t bear to take one more quiz, you should look at the great book covers they’ve selected for the books they’ve chosen.

The quiz is here.

Gardening Talk on Sunday

Today, when the temperatures have gone from almost 70*F to in the 20’s, my thoughts can’t help but turning to spring and summer gardens. Luckily, this weekend is supposed to be decent weather, just in time for a gardening lecture.

My friend, Gregory Weidman, curator extraordinaire at Hampton Mansion, will be giving the talk. Here’s what Hampton has to say about the talk:

Eliza Eichelberger Ridgely (1803-1867) and Helen West Stewart Ridgely (1853-1928) used their knowledge and vision to transform the landscape on the estate. Join curator, Gregory Weidman for an informative discussion about these progressive women. Eliza, a renowned horticulturist, was responsible for many of Hampton's garden improvements. Helen brought a priactical approach to maintaining the beauty of the grounds. Admission is free.

I recently found an etching of Hampton at a sale,

and it’s really one of the most extraordinary houses in the area. It’s now a national park after having been owned by the same family for about 200 years. The mansion itself is 24,000 square feet and was the largest private home in America for a long time.

The property, which originally covered thousands of acres, is now down to a dozen or so, but the beautiful gardens still remain.

It will be fascinating to hear Gregory, who knows so much about this amazing house, and all of its gardens.

For more information, please visit the event’s Facebook page, here.

Hope to see you there!

Spring Flowers

If you’re like me, you just can’t wait for spring to finally arrive. It’s so far behind around here that it’s going to be April before even the forsythia blooms. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see this newish pattern from Royal Copenhagen. It’s a riff on their wildly expensive Flora Danica pattern and it’s just called Flora.

At $420 for six plates, they are significantly less expensive than some of Royal Copenhagen’s other wares.

All of the pieces in the collection are hand-painted and the flowers range from poinsettias to iris and blue cornflowers. I thought this faded dandelion serving dish was rather attractive.

I loved that they used this variety of magnolia on the serving bowl.

To see the entire collection, click here.