Fireplace Decorating Ideas

Over my fireplace mantel today.

What do you do with your worn out & broken tools?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Yes, screwed to the wall.  And each other.

MUSIC ROOM

Garden rooms must be named. I've known this for decades. Since January I've been working with Susanne Hudson, interior decorator. She created new rooms & named them. Music Room, above.
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How did the know-it-all inventor of Vanishing Threshold not know to name the rooms inside her home?
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Dulcimers, piano, autoharp, turn-table, antiquated stereo system, comfy seating, art, lamps, window with fabulous view.... Years of junking. Nothing had to be bought.
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Hardly used for 23 years, SS (since Susanne), this is my morning spot. Reading the paper & watching the sun rise behind contorted filbert, witchhazel, Southern Indica azaleas, pieris...
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Notice vase on the piano? A bouquet of antique tools.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Music Room wasn't finished when I took the pic so you're seeing only a sliver. Found the chair, broken, in the basement of our family house on Lake Rabun, a delight & worth your time, promise. It's an American windsor dated 1897 on the bottom. Red Beck, in Tucker, GA, now closed, fixed the chair & finished it with historically correct wax.

PRICING

Once, this house had the grandest view of Stone Mountain. Owning most of the land in the view too. Recently sold, its estate sale is on now. Multi-colored marble, below.

Iron security gating INSIDE the mansion, below.

Grand rooms, multiple bars, this house was built for entertaining. Now, carpets pulled up, tables

loaded with trinkets, the good stuff was leaving in several trucks as I arrived.

In the garden, above, a mailbox post completely grown thru a tree.

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Hunting old garden tools finding few. Bought 2 old swing blades. $3 each, a common price for the average old tool. Was hoping to get a better deal. Will be creating tool bouquets for my interior & exterior.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken Thursday.

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A clam rake I found in Hogansville, GA last summer set me back $12. But it's hardly average!

This IS Designed: FRISSON

Old tools, old shed, below, works every time. Totally designed, above. Ha, you thought it was an area 'not done'? Hardly.From the same garden, above.

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Create FRISSON in your landscape.

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Tension between formal/informal. Ying/Yang.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden.

NOT CRAFTY

A board, mirror, old tools. Each a rescue. What would you do? Susanne Hudson made this, above, mirror. Hung on an outside wall of her carriage house.
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I'm 'not crafty' in the least but a mirror I was given & old tools are in my garage (carriage house!)
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Continuing with the 'not crafty' fact, I see pine cones on the mirror frame too. Hmm, a glue gun needed. AND, in season I see fresh hydrangea blossoms tucked into the tools & pine cones around the mirror. And, in season camellias................roses...............tea olive................gardenia.................hosta/fern foliage................hellebores.............daffodils.
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Wouldn't that be interesting, collecting a year's pics of the garden mirror?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

RETOOLING FLORAL ARRANGEMENT

Shrubs, urns, tools are the new floral design. Design techniques are the same.

But the scale is larger than life. Look close, above, old tools drape the arbor.

Fresh, silly, classic, stately, sustainable, low-maintenance, above. So old it seems new. French toile patterns date back centuries using the old tool bouquet motif.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yes, I took these pics in Susanne Hudson's garden.

GARDEN VIEWS FROM THE MUDROOM

Every window should have a garden view. Penny, below, has several good views.

Susanne Hudson, standing at her washer/dryer, below, has this view.

Turning slightly, below, another laundry view. The tall jar holds a collection of glass frogs. And the dryer becomes an excuse to hold another lamp. You've got to love that in anyone.

More collections in glass jars: antique wheelbarrows, flexible wire frogs, iron frogs. And a view thru the arbor over her grill.

Can you imagine doing laundry surrounded by your garden & a few of your favorite things?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

GARDEN VIEW FROM THE KITCHEN

The tiniest area of this kitchen has 2 windows overlooking the garden. Thru plates on the windowsill, above, one of many tool bouquets, below, throughout Susanne Hudson's garden.

Carriage house view from the kitchen, below, and an arbor over the grill.

Gravel paths (granite gravel #89), above, connect house & carriage house.

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Garden & Be Well, XO T

GARDEN TOOLS**GARDEN ART

Nationally acclaimed landscape architect, Norman Kent Johnson's tool bouquet had me rethink mine. What to use, how to get it on the wall, and knowing it's floral design not landscape design. My late friend/mentor/client/artist/rancher Mary Kistner instilled her mantra well, It's what we do with what we have.

Junk, glorious garden junk. Can you believe I do get rid of things...occasionally?

Unexpectedly, delightfully, the garden bells clap in the wind. Do you think this looks like a pile of junk on the wall? That's fine. Each piece of junk has a backstory making me smile. One piece involves a police chopper, ooh-la-la. Another was found in England at Great Dixter.

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An odd thing about this assemblage? I read it like a story book of my gardening life.

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Creeping fig on the wall, above, Hydrangea 'Penny Mac' in top pic.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

BATHROOM INSPIRATION

I spent the night with PINK last week. Recently back from Russia she had stories & pics. They began with wine outside on her terrace by the pond. PINK served Greek salad and marinated, grilled chicken. Recipes she garnered in Greece. Then we lay in bed with her laptop and pictures. I may never get to Russia, I'm truly the strange person liking anothers travel pics. PINK's tiny redecorated bathroom inspired me the next morning. Why?

PINK's shower curtain fabric, found at Forsyth Fabrics. Oh my.

Can you believe these Tool Bouquets? Tools were already laying on my breakfast table, for days, playing with mental arrangements.

In PINK's bathroom, above. Great book title.

PINK's tiny bath lives big with a view of the terrace where we dined. Her boyfriend recently spent hours in her garden. Haven't met him yet but I know he cares for her greatly to have done such hard labor. Oh, and the sexy shoes he buys her. We didn't talk only of Russia. Boyfriend talk was delicious too. But another type of blog entirely.

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Today, after I walk around Stone Mountain, I'll start my Tool Bouquet, inspired by Norman Kent Johnson (landscape architect extraordinaire) & Pink's shower curtain. Then work in my garden. Life is good.

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Hope your Sunday is fabulous too.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

GARDEN WALKABOUT IN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

My hosts in Birmingham produced a proper custom garden walkabout. It began in the English Village area on Cahaba Road at Continental Bakery. Of course I had a scone, orange cranberry. We lolled about in conversation & laughter before heading out on foot in search of enticing gardens. Less than a mile away we found our quarry.

This little garden, literally, 2' wide, and about 45' long.

Crunchy gravel, lovely understated pots, lots of serene green, touches of chaos, touches of order. Big dose of tasty aged architecture. Can you believe this is Birmingham, ALABAMA and not Birmingham, ENGLAND?

THE Norman Kent Johnson, landscape architect, bought a falling down shed 2 decades ago and created this Norman delight. Notice thru the window, above, the house is 1 room deep. It has only 1 bedroom (upstairs).

Yesterday I forgot to mention, rub tools with boiled linseed oil if you want to copy Norman's idea. Don't worry it comes boiled. You don't need to do it.

To the left of the front door a most civilized welcome. Don't you want to go inside?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara