At This Very Moment....

My husband is installing new cabinet pulls in the kitchen. I cannot tell you what a difference this small fix makes. Will have to post about it.

Yes, this is our Friday night. We are rockin' and rollin' people.

You Learn Something New....

I have already run into four thousand problems with my doorknob idea.

They are not the problems I assumed I would have.

I assumed that, because I was buying vintage doorknobs, I might have a problem fitting them onto my modern doors, which already have holes and whatnot cut out to support the existing doorknobs. So I measured once, then measured again, then chuckled to myself because I figured I was beating some system and as long as the math added up, I'd be fine.

Welp - totally forgot about the different doorknob types.

There are passage/dummy doorknobs, which exist only to pull or push open a door, and have no locking mechanism. There are privacy doorknobs, which do have a locking mechanism. There are more types, but these two are sufficient detail for the problem I've encountered with my beautiful vintage doorknob set. It arrived today.

'It's beautiful. It's vintage. It fits over the existing hole.

It does not have a locking mechanism, and I only have exactly what you see above. You see, that vintage doorknob is designed to be used with an actual key. See the keyhole? It's not decorative. It once worked.

Therefore, the interior fittings do not have the locking thingie that goes in the doorjamb. I have no single doors that are passage only and don't require a lock. Not a single one. I have two sets of french doors, one of which has passage doorknobs, but...the set above is not just passage. The knobs have that... stick thing... that needs to go into a hole in the door. And I'm not sure I'm up to the task of carving out a doorknob hole, plus it would leave raw metal sticking out one side if I tried to divide the set to use on both doors.

If this is not making any sense, it's because I need to go to bed. Bah, humbug.

Thomas Pheasant

I love him.

Well, I love his work, to be clear, having never met him and already being quite in love with someone else, my husband. But if both my husband and Thomas Pheasant were standing in my driveway, begging me to allow one of them to design my living room, I'm afraid I'd have to send my husband off on an errand.

In my defense, if they were both begging for a kiss, my husband would win.

I can't remember who or what introduced me to Thomas Pheasant, a DC based designer that I would love to just answer the phones for, because I know his offices must be splendid. I mean, look:

Yes, that's him, but it's the lamp I can't tear my eyes from. And I love that he found that horse, which is slightly ridiculous, and brought it into that space and poof! Now it's fabulous.

All his rooms just feel like spaces I could be in for a long time. So that's why I love him.

Er, love his work. :)

All images from Architectural Digest.

One of the things that stands out about his rooms, to me, is how he blends traditional leaning items with modern. This is my life's goal, as I am married to a man who loves modern items and, design wise, is in fact somewhat of a minimalist. Compare this to my traditional leanings, complete with braided trim and rooms stuffed with furniture, books and art. 

I believe that a harmonious relationship is reflected in your environment as well. I remember reading an interview with Jennifer Aniston, immediately post-Brad, in which she noted that at least now, she could buy a comfortable couch (apparently Brad likes hard, angular furniture, while she is more slip covered Shabby Chic. At least that's what I gleaned). Therefore, it wouldn't be fair for me to bury our house in antique, sculpted armoires atop Persian rugs, even if they are hand woven and unmatched in beauty by any other type rug in the world. Ahem. The least I can do is toss a clean lined armoire on top of the Persian rug. 

And that is something Thomas Pheasant would do. Albeit better.

Decision: Doorknobs

When I started this blog, I said I was going to focus on getting small projects completed, so I could then move on to large projects. So far, my posts have been a mishmash of both... certainly, replacing one lighting fixture is a small project, but replacing the lion's share in the house? That's a larger project.

So I guess I should redefine small, which in my mind are projects I can mostly do myself. Larger projects, like replacing our exterior siding, and while we're at it, the windows, building a porch, renovating the kitchen, renovating our master bathroom, repainting the entire interior, landscaping, installing drainage, replacing the garage doors (this list is starting to depress me, so I'll stop): those things are for some nice contractor to worry his pretty little head about, with my just picking out materials and colors.

So, in the small project vein, I'm happy to report that I've decided what I want to do about doorknobs. Actually, I'm returning to my original desire, which was to have different vintage doorknobs throughout the house.

I do love me some vintage doorknobs:

Image: Lovetoknow.com

Images: http://atincupchalice.com

It would probably be less time consuming and slightly less expensive to find reproduction doorknobs, but I don't want reproductions. I want the nicked, tarnished, flaking paint patina of a doorknob that actually lived in an old house once. This will require some extensive eBay hunting, patience, and yes - learning how to test paint for lead. I might have to have paint removed from some of them.

I'm therefore quite happy to report I won my first vintage doorknob on eBay this morning.

I'm pretty sure this is the new handle for the coat closet downstairs. It's the closest door to the front door, and I've (pretty much) decided to just go one door at a time, working my way through the house.

I should be done in five or six years. :P

Can't wait for my doorknob to arrive!

Mid-Century Modern, the Chorus

It's fitting that a day after the season premier of Mad Men I should run into this mid-century decorated doctor's waiting room(I don't know whether I want to work for Don Draper or make an honest man out of him. I'd decline the latter based on my being married, but it seems, unfortunately, that that would make me exactly his type. But I digress).

I love the chairs.

Image from the Bucks blog.

I also like the coffee table, the artwork, the planter (I could see that on my deck) and the rug. The colors also work nicely. This is from an article detailing how you can punish doctors who keep you waiting, but this would rank fairly high on my list of waiting rooms.

Well, technically, it would rank number two, behind one I saw recently in Owings Mills, Maryland, that made great use of mod fabric (sorry, no photos). Otherwise, I'd have to admit I haven't run across many design noteworthy physician waiting rooms, but one can always hope.

Be well. :)

Photo Theft

I had to do it.

I love everything about the room below, so it was physically impossible for me to not right click on it, snatch it from the wonderful blog House of Turquoise (if you love blue and do not read House of Turquoise everyday, you are leading an unfulfilled life) and hurl it with amazing speed onto my own blog. I want it to rest here so I can easily find it again and show it off. I need it to rest here.

H

I love the symmetry.
I love the bold use of the very ornate sideboard and hutch (will that much going on, are they still just a sideboard and hutch?).
I love the playful, bold fabric on the chairs, which marries the traditional styled chair with a contemporary feel.
I love the doors - I want to propose to the doors and bear their children... sixteen of them, in fact, which is the number of interior doors in my own house.
I love the window treatments.
I always thought I disliked the fake candlestick chandeliers, until I saw it here. Love.
Love the gilt edged mirror. Life without a little gilt is boring.
Love the cream walls.
Love the painted ceiling. The ceiling alone makes me want to run out and buy paint, and subject my family to all sorts of fumes TONIGHT. We are having a heatwave in the Mid-Atlantic; opening windows is out of the question.

I love this dining room. Would that mine become even a shadow. Thank you to House of Turquoise (and designer Caldwell Flake, I believe) for sharing.

Mid-Century Modern

I pay a lot of attention to set design when I'm watching a movie or television show. Often, I'm paying more attention to the decor than I am the plot - I've been known to rewind a movie to catch the dialogue because when Starlet whispered to Leading Man, I was too busy admiring her sofa to hear what she said.

For the record, I love furniture and I love design: almost all of it. Wanting to live with it all the time and being able to admire it are, for me, two distinctly separate things. I don't want to live in a cottage/country home, but I can walk into one styled that way and swoon with the best of them. Likewise, the gilt-rich furnishings of the White House's historical rooms would be too much for me to encounter every day, but that doesn't stop me from lingering on every photo of every side table and settee, thinking about the craftsmanship and wondering about the hand of the fabric. There are few design styles I dislike altogether.

Which brings me to mid-century modern. More and more, I've come to realize that when I'm watching an episode of Mad Men, or a movie set in the fifties and sixties, I love the furniture. Sure, some of the plaids are screaming for Marsha and Jan Brady and occasionally, the stain of the wood seems dated, but overall, the crisp, clean lines of mid-century modern always look classic to me, like they could be dropped into a 2010 house and play the role of a newly purchased piece just fine.

So, some eye candy:

The character Don Draper's office, in AMC's Mad Men (image found on halcyon.com):

An Elle living room, image sourced from Apartment Therapy:

From Metropolitan Home:

From blog.vastudc:

I'll probably always prefer to live in rooms that are a mix of traditional and modern - this girl needs a little bit of gilt - but if I had to choose a very close, second runner up: it would be mid century modern, purely.

From Lookliloos.com:

It is entirely possible my admiration for mid century design stems from the chairs, since I have a bad, bad thing for chairs - more on that later.