Home Office & Garden

Garden Design begins inside your home.  Views looking out.  Especially your important views.  Your  office desk must have a good garden view.  Too bad cell phone/laptop/blogs didn't exist at the front end of my career.  Why do so many put their office in a basement, with views to horridity?  In a noticeable shift, many clients now put their home office in prime real estate, not the basement.
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Winston Churchill, below, at his Disraeli desk.
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Pic, above, here.
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I had a carpenter copy, below, Winston Churchill's Disraeli desk from this photo, above, about 2 decades ago.  He had no dimensions to copy from.
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Carpenter asked what type of wood.  A bit showy, immediately answered, tiger maple.
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My office has been repainted the past week, not quite complete, with unexpected plaster repair.  Color?  Best color ever, and I did not choose it, this room was already painted lightest pink by previous owner.  Never a pink person, walked into the room, LOVE, at first sight.  As the days pass, almost 3 years in our ca. 1900 home, I love this pink more.
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Pic, above, shot in my office yesterday morning.
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Tiger maple Disraeli desk, above, setting on a table awaiting Conservatory construction. 
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Pic, above, tiger maple Disraeli desk, shot in my office yesterday morning.
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Aside from making me happy, the pink walls have another super power, the pink changes drastically throughout the day, by the second.
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Found the exact pink for repainting, Benjamin Moore, Classic Colors, Key Pearl - 885.  If you've wanted a faint, magical pink, Key Pearl.
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Empty, my office echoes, have been doing many whip-poor-ill whistles, ridiculous, but oddly deeply, satisfying.  With furniture it's overstuffed, several pieces awaiting removal to that future Conservatory.
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As Matisse did with many works, my office and my garden have no threshold, they are one.  Vanishing Threshold.
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Wanting to give you a fabulous garden, wonderful, a home & garden without threshold, beyond wonderful.
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Now that you know, hope you already have this for yourself, if not, create it, own it, live deeply in it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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A few home office events, below.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Creating a Life of Roses

She sensed I was sinking.  I didn't know I was.

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With time, clarity.

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At the driveway between the Big House where she lived, and the Carriage House where I lived, backed by 50 acres of wood & pasture with horses & dogs & cats, and solitude, she slipped me a volume, 

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Flower and The Nettle: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936-1939.

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A life raft.

Written at Long Barn, above, the home she rented from, Vita Sackville-West, Morrow mentions a moment.  Coming into the room, a climbing rose tendril & bloom had fallen inside the open window.

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In that instant I was crying, heaving cannot breath tears.

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My life was horrible, and no where near having something as beautiful and sweet as a rose blossom falling into my house from the garden.

Jumping forward a decade+, I walked into my home office, upstairs, opened the window, and a climbing rose, dropped tendril & blossom softly onto my desk.
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This rose said, "You've been flying for quite awhile, you grew the wings you needed."   Until that moment, I had forgotten those heaving tears a decade earlier.  New tears, as unexpectedly, with the same heaving force, except I was catching breaths between laughter.
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Jumping forward 2 decades, I'm still in awe of these 2 roses, anchoring a decade, and the start of living.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from Yale library, here.  This is my Janus, January, story, what is yours?
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Of course I read all of Morrow's books after the 1st gift.  Have given them as gifts.  Paying it forward.  Giving it your all?  Not happy?  Buy the book, hit the link.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Hepcat

Finally, met a HEPCAT, below.
My right hand on his dropleaf table at Scott Antique Market this month, he anticipated my intent, before I finished my sentence, he had grabbed my right hand & lowered to his knees. Firmly guiding my hand (me clueless) to a screw. They were loose on purpose.
Bought the Hungarian chest & too cute watering can, above, before I met my HEPCAT.
HEPCAT knew loose screws would make it quicker to get the legs off the table.
HEPCAT wanted $175 for the table, (me- intense eye contact), then he said $145? I said, "You think about that price while I wander the booths & come back." "$100?" "Sold, will you keep the table while I wander?" He grabbed my hand, "Let's shake."

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There was something intensely USA-of-my-childhood, real, true, honest, earnest, delightful, a light behind his eyes, spiritual, joyful, peaceful, warm, intelligent, been thru the fire & came out a phoenix within HEPCAT.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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HEPCAT, George, was at the location inside the perimeter & selling his wares outside on the sidewalk at the end of the building. Poppets, you do realize what these acquisitions are for? My new conservatory!!!