Spring Gardening

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Ros

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all well.

It’s been really wet here in the last few weeks and the garden is bursting and budding left, right and centre.

I have done absolutely nothing to it over the winter and despite all the new growth, it’s looking grubby and unloved.

On top of that I’m feeling increasingly fraudulent as I’ve had quite a few compliments about it from pictures that were taken in more energetic times.

If only you could see it now.

So urged on by those dark childhood feelings that at any moment I might be found out, I got down to a bit of Spring gardening over the weekend.

I started by sweeping up all the old leaves.  This turned out to make a huge difference immediately.  Good place to start.

Plus the shadows on the wall were so beautiful…

Then I re-potted some great bargain buys of lavender and hydrangea plants I found going cheap in Monterrey Market and Trader Joes.

I put the lavender in an old bucket that had a hole in, which worked really well as the silvery green of the leaves looked great with the old metal bucket.  And what with some smooth grey beach pebbles,  I had a bit of a silvery grey theme on the go…

And of course I filled buckets and buckets of weeds.

So tell me…what is it about that feeling when you pull a young green weed out of the soft wet earth…. roots and all?

Ten out of ten for job satisfaction in my books…something about tugging those complete roots slowly out of the ground…oh yes…

Something a bit primal going on there.

And while weeding I picked up all the odd bod terracotta pots lying around the garden, filled them with a bit of earth and peppered them with two or three different kinds of seeds.

I am a big sweet pea fan and love lots of different poppies for a splash of color in what is otherwise a garden of various shades of green.   Weeds apart.

While I was doing all of this, my six year old was happy as Larry seeking out salamanders, roly poly and worms.  He gave them all names and and generously made them new and elaborate ‘homes’…

Yes, I know – they were definitely the fall guys for my spell of uninterrupted gardening…gawd bless ’em…

While he was creating a whole new look for the worm family and I was lost in the satisfaction of weeding, our conversation went like this…

Him: Mumma…

Me: …yyyess…

Him: Justin Beaver is dead you know…

Me: Really?

Isn’t it Justin Bieber?

Him: Oh no, I meant Mozart…he is actually dead…

And so the afternoon wore on.

And you will be glad to know that despite howls of protest, all the small creatures were returned to their natural homes, if a little dazed and disorientated.

So all in all,  for not much work, the garden suddenly looked a whole lot better.  The earth ( in at least one bed anyway ) looked deliciously dark, damp and crumbly and ready to take on new life.

One thing is for sure, all the time I spent outside had benefited so much more than the garden.

That’s it for now.  Coming very soon are some roadside find makeovers – working on them right now – so watch this space…

See you all soon,

Ros

ps  And welcome to all you lovely people from Beach Cottage – thanks for stopping by.

Posted in California, Garden, Green Plum Design, Inspiration | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Getting Away

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Ros

Hello All,

Thank you for all your responses to my Aunt Peggy Pillow post – if you want to see the complete fruits of my guilt, take a look here.

So I have just come back from a couple of days away.

On my own.

That is…it was just me.

This never happens – ever.  Two days and two nights away from everything – nobody to worry about except myself.

Due to an ever present guilt that kicked in as the umbilical cord was cut at the birth of my eldest child,  I was forced to cling to the flimsy excuse that I was actually working by delivering an old screen to the very wonderful Mar Vista Cottages in Mendocino.

So actually I had to go…I really didn’t have any choice…

And did I mention it’s my favorite place ever?  Two whole days and two whole nights…by myself….in my favorite place ever…

Renata and Tom bought these 1930’s beach cottages ten years ago and have been doing them up and working on the land around them ever since.  Set on a gentle green slope over looking the sea, the whole place is a slice of heaven.

Each little cottage is perfection itself.

Everything you need…

And nothing more.


Simple…

and stylish.

And when I stepped out of the door on my first morning

There had been a heavy frost – the chickens took no notice…

The brussel sprouts were icy in their pick-your-own organic garden

And the ponds were sparkling.

Even the goats looked happy to be soaking up the sun after a very cold night.

And I haven’t even mentioned the beach yet…down the winding steps…

And onto the sand.  When the tide is out, you can walk…

…and walk.

But what I loved most of all was just sitting still in my little cottage number eight, staring out of the window, all quiet, not doing very much at all.

I don’t think I had been on my own for this long in years.  It took me a while to adjust – the first six hours I felt a nagging urgency to make the most of every last minute, reading, writing and frantically making lists … but then I blew it by falling asleep.

I woke up to a strange and total quietness.  Quiet, quiet and just the prospect of more uninterrupted quiet to come…

Maybe it would drive me mad eventually or I’d be lonely after a while…

But right then, for those two days, it was doing the trick.

See you all soon,

Ros

p.s. Welcome to all those people from the lovely Beach Cottage – come back again soon.

Posted in Bathroom, Bedroom, California, Garden, Getting Away, Green Plum Design, Interior design, Mar Vista Cottages, Sitting Room | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Looking For Inspiration

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Ros

Hi Everyone,

It’s rainy, wet and windy here.   I’ve got the heating and my warmest socks on and a cup of tea on the go.

I have spent the morning searching for some inspiration.  It hasn’t gone well…

My mind was a blank and I was feeling gloomy.

I looked through my old sketch books and then got out piles of vintage linens that I have gathered over the years…

Such lovely textures and colors ought to ignite a spark…

And then I found what I had been looking for…tucked inside an old pillow case, this little booklet fluttered to the floor…

When my Great Aunt Peggy died, she left me this little treasure and I hadn’t laid eyes on it since we landed here in the U. S. of A. ten years ago.  I opened it and took a peak…

As I hadn’t done her any justice at all with the piano she also left me, I managed to unburden myself of a small percentage of the hefty amount of guilt I had been feeling by having a go..

The back-stitch looked the easiest by a mile so I plumped for that and drew my favorite seed head design onto a natural linen pillow and got out my biggest needle and went for it.  This is how it turned out.

I sat in a big armchair for a whole hour, stitching away, listening to the wind and the rain. I don’t think I had sat down in the daylight hours for that long in a good decade.  It was so relaxing.

My mind was able to wander off into all sorts of places.  I tortured myself for a while remembering why I had felt so guilty about my Great Aunt Peggy and the piano.

She was a piano teacher, she loved the piano and she loved music.

My mum asked her if she wanted to teach me and my sister – big mistake.  I have no doubt whatsoever that we were her worst pupils by a country mile.

We would smear the keys with marmalade before our lessons and push the little homework book behind the back of the piano and then blunt the pencil that she would use to write the homework.

Cunning delaying tactics that didn’t hide the fact that we had no natural talent or desire to learn.

And then, just as I was about to move to this new continent as a grown woman, my Great Aunt Peggy died quite suddenly.  She had just moved from the home she had spent her life into an old people’s home and three days later, just died.

And she left me her piano.  Me, the most unworthy recipient of all.

I kept on stitching.  This time with a different color.

I think I will be stitching for quite some time.  With every stab of the needle and pull of the thread, I feel a little less guilty and a little less gloomy.

See you all soon.

Ros

p.s.  And welcome to those of you who have hopped over from the very lovely Beach Cottage – I am a big fan.  Hope you stop by again.  Bye for now.

Posted in Green Plum Design, Inspiration, Interior design, Vintage Fabrics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Trickery

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Ros

Hello all,

Another beautiful and strangely warm February day here.

After so many years of living in England and enduring long, cold, grey winters, I’m genuinely still shocked to find myself in this warm and blossoming place in early February…

It’s just not right.  I feel so guilty…some puritanical streak in me demands that I need to go through the pain and hardship of winter before I reap the pleasures of Spring…

This is just cheating.

And talking of which,  I am going to wind back time to when my youngest was just a big round bump in my middle. At this point in my life I witnessed the most cunning piece of cheating I had seen in quite some years….and I had never been more grateful for it.

The four of us, soon to be five, were living in what was effectively a two bedroom bungalow.  It was a tight squeeze … promising to get ugly.

Enter, like a knight in shining armor, the Berkeley architect and spatial magician, Jason Kaldis.  He took one look at me, the small premises that made up our bungalow, the number of warm bodies that inhabited it and finally, the desperate look in my eye.   The only way was up.

The trouble was that there wasn’t that much ‘up’ to speak of.  Imagination was going to be required.

So here comes the cheating bit.  Perhaps I should call it cunning.

Jason managed to pull off the impossible and give us a whole wallop of extra space by adding a very significant six foot along the whole length of the house as a kind of over-hang – the architectural equivalent of a muffin top…this is how it looked from underneath.

Personally, I like to think that my five month pregnant profile provided the inspiration for this little work of genius.

Unfortunately my own extended cantilever was not beautifully and sturdily supported with strong wall either end and pillars sunk deep into concrete.

This is how it turned out…

What can I say?  It’s fantastic.  Brilliant.  But surely cheating?

Whatever you want to call it, this is the kind of trickery I’m right behind.   Now we can all fit…and best of all, this cunning extra shelf of an upstairs has allowed for a nice little shady spot for sweltering summer days..

When you just have to hide from the sun.

And the rest of the garden has to fend for itself with the odd umbrella.

Or just be sturdy enough to take the heat…

So back to those days of my very rotund profile…the baby was eventually born and now quite appropriately inhabits the architectural bulge that he inspired.  Both room and boy are small and perfectly formed.

You can just open the door without grazing the end of the bed…

And squeeze in a tall chest of drawers …

And a book shelf at the end of the bed for a toy or two and some favorite stories…

One thing I have now learnt about living across the Bay from San Francisco is that when it comes to space you have to be imaginative – there is only so much you can fit in between the sea and the top of the hill where the national parks begin.

In this neck of the woods, you just need to wander into any given open house on a Sunday and you will find that the perfectly ordinary house you thought you were looking around actually holds all sorts of cunning and imaginative construction to expand the most precious of all items…space.  Trickery is all around.  The weather is just catching on.

See you soon,

Ros

p.s.   And welcome to all you people from A Beach Cottage – come back again!

Posted in Adding more space, Architecture, Bedroom, California, Green Plum Design, Interior design, Re-Modelling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

How To Get Your Office Tidy…Fast

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Ros

Hi All,

Gorgeous weather here in San Francisco – I actually spent the day on the beach yesterday.  I do love you California.  You may be bankrupt but you are delivering with the sunshine.

So here we are today…quite far into today actually.

I had a completely free morning which I had planned to devote entirely to getting my taxes sorted out.  Nothing was going to get between me and my taxes.

I was going to blitz them in a head on sort of fashion and then be able to eat my lunch with a pleasing just-been-to-the-gym sort of smugness.

Now, one and a half hours later, I have come to the conclusion that if you want to get something done to the house, you should certainly plan on doing your taxes.

You see, as I was trying to find all the relevant bits of paper and receipts, I suddenly discovered that my office was a total mess and I needed to attend to it right away.  There wasn’t a moment to lose.

The desk needed clearing…

The family pictures needed straightening…

The shelves needed sprucing…

All the books color coded…

And the cushions plumped…

And admired…

Now if Amy Chua of ‘Tiger Moth’ fame had been my mum, such blatant prevarication would not have been tolerated.  I would instead have been entirely disciplined, dealt with the task at hand in a decisive and determined manner and then gone on a five mile run.

But imagine such a life…

I mean…no one could be that perfect.  It would be too exhausting.

The reality is that some of my best work is done when I really should be doing something else.  I think it’s because the work you do while evading a job is fueled with an underlying sense of guilt, denial and urgency – a sweet trio that can really add focus to a task.

So my own personal theory is that prevarication is really quite productive – just with a different job…usually a more appealing one…slightly lower down on the list.

And now, while my taxes are still waiting patiently to be done…

I do at least have a really tidy office.

More from me very soon, I’m off to clean the gutters.

See you then,

Ros

p.s. tell me I am not alone…

p.p.s.  Welcome to those from A Beach Cottage Good Life Wednesday

Posted in California, Cleaning up, De-cluttering, Green Plum Design, Interior design, office, Organizing, Prevaricating, Re-organizing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Feeling At Home

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Ros

Hello Everyone,

Big thank you for all your emails – they have quite cheered me despite the grey days of January.

But as I was sitting eating smoked herrings on toast for my lunch ( Trader Joe’s find) , the sun finally came out and caught the edge of my kitchen table in such a lovely way.

So…. as promised, I am returning to the roofless, tarp-filled world of ‘Before-Land.’   It is indeed another country and one which is so much more enjoyed in retrospect.   A bit like child-birth, you kind of forget the length of time it took to deliver and quite the extent of the pain.

Here we are back in our old bathroom.

There is nothing good to be said about our old bathroom…absolutely nothing at all …

It was so hideous that I couldn’t even bring myself to take a picture of it until it was totally gutted and open to the sky…

Where upon it improved quite a lot.

And then we cut it’s size by half to accommodate the stairs – so it is now the world’s tiniest shower room/loo/sink.

Absolutely teeny tiny.

With a record breaking tiny sink…

Which I found at Home Depot for very little.  As for the taps, they were the result of a good hours rummaging around in the very wonderful Sink Factory.

And what with the blue blue tiles in the shower and the blue blue birds and the blue blue mirror, I lined the cabinet with something a little brighter.

And let the light work its magic on three old green bottles which came from my lovely friend’s wedding back in Ireland.

And put up a beautiful linen print my sister found me in a craft fair in Sussex.

Our house is basically filled with things that remind me of where I came from – you could say that it is one big expression of home sickness – or, looking at it another way, the very strong desire to feel “at home”.

Now the idea of feeling ‘at home’ was just something that had never crossed my mind until we moved here.  Not once.   I was just in my world and had no concept of what it would feel to be out of it.

But let me tell you, once you leave and enter a new world, you inevitably feel both adrift and start the rather long, futile and endless enterprise of comparing one world to another.

It really is quite tedious……… you can so easily can become such a bore within either environment…. banging on about the other.

And while filling my house with familiar and special things from my previous life is a comfort, it isn’t what ultimately makes me feel at home.

Time…friendships… events and seasons that come around again and again until a little groove begins to etch itself into your life.  A groove that tells you where you are going and roots you to the ground.

So now when I go home, I love it without feeling mournful and I most especially love the countryside around my Mum and Dad…

Who live in the middle of nowhere…

Here is a small path carved entirely by my very lovely Dad on his early morning walk…

And a beautiful view from their garden.

And when it’s time to come back, I am usually ready.  Wanting to be in my own home.   Getting on with a new life that we have carved out for ourselves.

It’s made that much sweeter by living in an equally beautiful place…

Where the sky is so big.

And those ever green Live Oaks make the best fleeting shadows all year round.

I would really like to know your thoughts on what makes you feel “at home” in a place.   Writing this has got me thinking…leave a comment below and let me know…

See you,

Ros

ps  For those of you who have come here from Sarah’s wonderful A Beach Cottage Good Life Wednesdays ( www.abeachcottage.com ) – Welcome! – let me know what you think too…

Posted in Bathroom, California, England, Feeling At Home, Green Plum Design, Interior design, Re-Modelling, Re-organizing, Shower Room | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Clearing The Decks

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Ros

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!

Don’t know about you but I have just waved my beloved Christmas guests goodbye, got my children back in school and am now looking around an empty and disheveled house…to say the least..

Flowers…wilting to dead

Dust coverage…impressive

Pine needles on floor…four thousand and three

Christmas decorations…sagging

Yep…this house needs the once over…

It was only a moment a go that I eagerly put up the tree and happily hung up the christmas lights.    Now I am just itching to clear the decks and pack it all away and start afresh.  Fickle, eh?

But what with all those new years resolutions, you just want to get on…know what I mean?

So, first stop, the sitting room.

Off with all the Christmas cards…

Craftily wedged between my books..

Down with the fairly lights around the mantel piece…

And open up all the doors…

and windows and let in a little fresh air…

There is something so satisfying about clearing up and starting afresh.  Seeing things in a new way, changing rooms around a bit, slapping on a fresh coat of paint.  Some of my favorite jobs come in January when people, still clutching their new years resolutions list, ask me to help them give their house a new look.

And the beauty of it is that it very rarely involves buying anything new.  Usually the opposite … the biggest impact often comes with getting rid of those extraneous piles of ‘stuff’.

When I knew that we were moving from England to California, we had one container at our disposal to fill with the things the four of us needed/wanted to take on to our new life in the U. S. of A.  It was the best exercise in purging I have ever been through…

I highly recommend that you mentally place yourself in an imaginary world where a large movers truck will be arriving at your house in two weeks time and you can only load the things that you really need and like.

The truth is that there is so much left over.

In our case, the movers truck came and took everything four weeks before we actually left the country and in that month we lived in an entirely empty house with just a few borrowed mattresses, plates and pans…nothing else.

It was heaven.  I felt light as a feather.

So remember…only what you like and need.

Nothing else.

Start with one cupboard…one shelf…one tiny corner of your office…

Your kitchen…

Your child’s noticeboard…

And as you go, purge, chuck,  give away and donate.

Remember…light as a feather you will feel.

And finally finally, thanks for you all your emails asking for more before and afters – I promise…next blog…not so much rambling on…

Meanwhile, happy new year to you all.  I’m off to clean the house.

Bye for now,

Ros

Posted in De-cluttering, Green Plum Design, Interior design, Re-organizing, Sitting Room | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Stolen Moments

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Ros

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all good and getting into that festive frame of mind.

My children are all out of school…multiple presents still to be bought, wrapped and….I suppose…eventually paid for…

They do say that in terms of stress, this little holiday is neatly sandwiched between moving house and watching England during a World Cup penalty shoot out.

But I do just love it.

For me, it’s not so much about the main event….carving an unnaturally large turkey or watching the flurry of present opening  – lovely as those moments can be  –

No, it’s those little unexpected odd moments that make Christmas really special.  It’s a bit like an office party, you look forward to it all year, but it’s not Mr Grimsdale’s speech to his gathered staff that you remember but the stolen kiss behind the photocopier with Jimmy from Sales.

Well, it’s like that for me and Christmas…

And I had just such a moment this afternoon…

Not that I’ve got a photocopier or kissed Jimmy from Sales.  It was better than that – I cracked open the Christmas cake with my dearest friend in a very quiet house.

We each munched our way through a large slab and shared a pot of tea.  What can I say?  It was lovely.

It was festive.

And it’s those sweet moments that I remember.

Before you know, they’re over.

I haven’t always felt this way about Christmas.  When we first moved here ten years ago, away from all of our family and friends, we were frankly a little lost. We’d never really done it on our own before.

I remember that first Christmas, it hit us with an icy blast….we were the grown ups now. Our two young children were looking to us to run a show we’d never really been in charge of before…

I remember hating calling home on Christmas day those first few years… I could hear my whole family three sheets to the wind and deep in festivity in the background.  We had to come up with our own traditions.

And so here we are, ten years later and I’d say we are just about there.  We all know the drill…Christmas Cake, mince pies, supper with our lovely neighbors on Christmas eve…

Cards up in the sitting room…

Stockings at the end of the bed…

Not sure if I feel like a full blown grown up as yet, but I am working on it…

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas with a few stolen moments for yourselves.  I will be back soon with more on the house…until then, merry, merry, jingle, jingle…

Ros

Posted in Christmas, Green Plum Design, Interior design | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Apartment Therapy Features Green Plum Design!

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Ros

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all good.  After days of rain here, a little shaft of blue has finally cracked open that big old Californian sky and let in one glorious ray of sunshine right onto my kitchen table.

It hit my lovely limey green hydrangeas so beautifully and it’s cheering me to my toes. And the good cheer doesn’t end there – I am feeling super honored this morning as our little home has just been featured in Apartment Therapy’s Top House Tours…

Thank you Apartment Therapy for including our house.  And thank you especially to the wonderful Celeste Sunderland Gottfried who took all the pictures…here is a little excerpt…

Ros and James’ English Countryside California Cottage
Green Tour

wyatt_img4.jpg

Name: Ros Wyatt (of Green Plum Design) and James Vernon
Location: Kensington, California
Size: 2,100 sq/ft
Years lived in: 9, Owned
Who else lives here: Jack, Mischa and Alfie

In classic English style, interior decorator Ros Wyatt’s San Francisco Bay home features a multitude of pretty prints. A plaid throw drapes over a wing chair, gingham rambles across a coverlet, mod poppies blossom beside a bed, and cabbage roses bloom in the medicine cabinet. A delightful mix of antique and handmade, the bright, breezy home seamlessly blends English country style with a sunny California feel.

ros_grid_flat.jpg
If you want to read the whole thing, just click on  ‘Green Tour” at the top of the article.

Now, where was I?   I think I was just showing you around the new upstairs of the house…bedrooms, stairs, Californian light and all.

Well just around the corner from our bedroom we have a wonderful bathroom with absolutely no windows whatsoever.    Zero…

OK… so when I say no windows, I really mean that in the vertical sense.

We did put in the biggest sky light we could squeeze and despite all of my worries that it wouldn’t shed enough light, it has worked out a treat.

Here it is quite far down the line… sheet rock up, paint slapped on and wainscoting in place….

And quite a few trips to The Sink Factory later…

…we installed this little baby which winged its way from Canada to give us baths the like of which we had never experienced before.

Yes, we actually bought something new…


And it didn’t stop there…we even bought a new pedestal sink…

Yes, two new things in one room…but wait…counting the super green, minimal-waste-of-water-per-flush-loo, that actually makes three.

But a leopard can’t change it’s spots and I returned to my scavenging ways when it came to the taps…I sniffed out these little beauties as they were just too irresistible…


And nestled beside my taps is of course, my royal engagement commemorative mug for Charles and Lady Di…I mean…where else do you put your tooth brushes?

I have actually turned it round the other way as I love that little gold crown with the feathers…
And still…a few good years since the bathroom was finished, we have nothing on the walls…just big smooth walls covered in Kelley Moore’s Antique White…

One day, I will find the perfect thing to put up there but really I don’t mind staring at all that blankness when I’m lying in the bath.  What with all the hurly burly of life,  it’s actually quite peaceful…

Must go… I have to check on a big pot of chili I’ve got going for tonight’s supper…hordes of teenage boys are soon to be descending upon my home and a good smattering of teenage girls too.

The rain has stared up again and it’s getting pretty nippy… I might just even light the fire…

Bye for now,
Ros



Posted in Apartment Therapy, Bathroom, Bedroom, California, Garden, Green Plum Design, Interior design, Stairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Back for more…

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Ros

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back to Green Plum Design’s blog.

Thank you so much for all your comments and thoughts and glad you like the pictures because if there is one thing I am not short on, that’s pictures.  Before and afters galore.

Let’s face it they are just so satisfying…that immediate gratification of jumping from the miserable drearily lit “before” shot of some moulding piece of junk to the “after” transformation you can only long for.  And absolutely nothing in between.   Because who wants to see you in your fat-painting-jeans covered in sawdust and masking tape?  I so prefer that little leap of magic.

And talking of that leap,  here is a corner of our little bungalow, roofless and bare with the beginnings of the stairs…

and hey presto…

And here’s another of those lovely stair bones…

and abracadabra!  Not a word or a hint of blow away tarps on rainy nights…

And if you’d made your way up those stairs back in that cold wet winter you would have found the open air space that was eventually to become our bedroom – the roof was actually delayed a few weeks as it didn’t fit…

but eventually it founds its rightful place on top of our house…

And here we are now…

We have had this lovely old wooden bed for so many years.  My husband bought it when he was a student back in the old country.

And the bedside table is a family hand-me-down filled with books and diaries that I don’t want cluttering up the side…

I got the other bedside table from a yard sale…now a quick word about yard sales, I know that those of you who actually live in the U. S. of A.  get the picture about them but to a Brit fresh off the boat like me, they were an entirely new concept.

The idea that a person can  just spread out all the stuff they don’t want any more across their front garden on any given fine Saturday morning was a joyous ruse to me.

And that’s before I’ve even mentioned the Estate Sale…

A whole new ballgame…

For scavengers like myself, these babies look like the jackpot… everything is for sale and furthermore, it’s all in situ so you get to indulge all of your curiosity and walk around every inch of a total stranger’s house.

But they are a bittersweet affair as more often than not an estate sale lets you know that that total stranger has finally given up the ghost.  My joy is almost completely sapped by a growing grubby feeling of picking over someone’s personal possessions…and the deep and dark fear that maybe, one day, hundreds of strangers will be rifling through a dark corner of my house looking for a find…

Yes,  I know, back to the pictures… as I said, I picked up this bedside table from the safety of a yard sale overseen by its happy-and-in-the-mood-to-off-load living owners…and a quick lick of paint later…it’s as good as new.  I got that lovely cherub lampshade from the amazing Alameda Fair – as you can see, I do love the combination of glass and silver…

And then there’s the light.

Oh my goodness, the most beautiful Californian light pours into our house at no charge to us whatsoever and never more beautifully than towards the end of the day.

I remember reading about San Francisco before I moved here and hearing a description of the enormous skies…now how could that be, sky is sky surely?  But somehow, when the sky above you features no clouds whatsoever, it just seems a whole lot bigger and the sun manages to radiate light that seeps into every nook and cranny and most beautifully of all when it puts its head down for the night…

It has such a warmth to it…

and combines with the shadows in such a lovely way…

Definitely my favorite time of the day.

So I hope I have given you enough immediate gratification in the before and after department and know that there is quite a lot more coming…

Please keep commenting, it is so lovely to hear your thoughts and go ahead and subscribe and you won’t miss a thing!

Bye for now,

Ros

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