Read, Purge, Post, Repeat

This weekend I attacked the kitchen after being inspired by The Nester and Pancakes & French Fries. The former posted about not waiting for "the next house" to do things and she is so right. I am guilty of this big time. When we moved out of the city we doubled the size of our house and have the most gorgeous piece of property. Of course, I hate the pool, but we have a pool! And I hate our eighties grotty bathrooms with the fibreglass built-ins but we have four and I don't have to share mine with the boys so at least there is one seat that I never have to check before I sit down. I hate the fact that when we have a party our kitchen really isn't big enough to hold everyone and they'll never move into the rest of the house but it's bigger than the last one. I joke that all I need is 4 more feet off the back of the house but really, why?

Jules at Pancakes & French Fries has been doing The 31 Days of William Morris Project, you know the one inspired from the quotation, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." I find that living up to that may be a little difficult living in a house of boys (although I think she has two boys herself) and I am definitely not up to 31 days of it but I did do some rearranging in the kitchen which will drive my OH nuts when he gets home next week, but it now makes so much more sense, to me. And then I tackled the pantry closet and purged a few things so that I can see what all is in there and I don't buy any more chicken broth. It was very satisfying and this morning when I made my toast and there was the bread, right next to the toaster. Wow, what a concept. Next up, I will bake something and not spill all the dry ingredients across the flour as I move from the flour container on one side of the room to the mixer on the other side. Only took me five and a half years to figure that one out. I know for those purists out there, my best friend included, I have way too much stuff on my counters but I do use it all, all the time and if we are having people over I just put it in grocery bins and stick it out in the garage. Et voilà, clean countertops. Of course, this is key as everyone is crammed in the kitchen and need places to put their drinks. 

Of course the purging had me scattering things all over the house in my typical method of operation. Rearranging the kitchen counters lead me to the pantry to move the most opened tins closer to the can opener (hello tuna and tomatoes), then to the laundry room where my cookbooks are and debating the merits of print in the age of iPads and Epicurious (sorry eighties Entertaining Martha) and then to the  dining room sideboard where I took out some serving pieces to put on the now-freed-up shelf space. I even went down to the basement to retrieve the crock pot (where I did avert my eyes in the Boy Cave as that is an area that requires my undivided attention some day in the future) so I now have no less of an excuse to not meal-plan.

As for the rest of the house, I also read Fieldstone Hill Design's post on Words of Reason where she talked about finding words to describe your home. Here's what I came up with:

Comfortable

Cozy

Interesting 

Calm

Natural

Classic

Textured

Timeless

Then I asked myself these questions:

1. How do I want my home to feel? Calm and natural. 
2. How do I want my home to look? Interesting, cozy but uncluttered. I don't want it to look overdone.
3. What purpose do I want my home to serve? To welcome everyone from my boys hanging out with their buddies to grown up dinner party guests or a big group of kids and adults together.

I'm drawn to texture like cable knit woolen throws, linen slipcovers and rough wooden surfaces. I love patina whether on wood or metal. I like clean lines, white kitchens but with the warmth of wood accents. I want things to be classic and timeless not trendy. I hate matchy-matchy (although my teenage-self dreamed of coordinated bedroom suits). You can see my Pinterest choices which are surprisingly consistent even though I keep thinking that I need some funky and eclectic Anthropologie-like pieces with lots of crazy colours, although I did let two of my sons choose the colours to paint their rooms. So finally, after five years of the boring beige I chose when we moved in, they now have wild and crazy colours on their walls.

Number Three chose bright yellow and flame, the colours of the Canadian Ski Team Downhill suits, of course and as horrified as I was initially I love how it looks. He has covered the walls in posters of his ski racing heroes (and a few of himself), an old Swiss flag that belonged to his Dad hangs over his bed. The whole thing works, it's happy and energetic, the things I hope my youngest son will always be.

Number Two chose lime green and bright blue, not for any particular reason and he says only after did he realize that the colours match the ancient IKEA duvet cover that is on his bed (duh?) But again, I have to admit, it looks great. He isn't as into decorating so he still has a few posters and frames waiting to be hung. But it is also energetic and vibrant like him.

I like things in my home to have a story, not one told by a decorator but a story that's our own like that both our pine corner cabinet and sideboard came from my Dad's advertising agency's boardroom, he collected early Canadian pine both at home and for his office and we have arranged each house around where that corner cabinet fits. The paintings on our walls were not chosen to go with a colour scheme but rather my OH and I have chosen each piece to represent a part of our lives from the sublime - a water colour of Maine and the collection of landscapes by his grandmother to the ridiculous - the "Doors of Hayhurst" poster my mother made by taking photos of all the doors our family has walked in and out of over the years (outhouse included). 

Not sure how to really finish up this post, it's one of the longest I've written in a while and I did try to document all my hard work but you wouldn't really see any difference in the Before and After pics, still just a lot of shelves with a lot of stuff placed on them with no rhyme or reason. So I am hoping that that my OH makes it home safely from Florida (he is planning to leave tomorrow afternoon and has to drive straight through all Hurricane Sandy affected in-land areas and they are forecasting two feet of snow in the mountains) and unlike his sons he better will notice, admire and appreciate all my hard work.

What Makes a House a Home

I've finally changed the banner photo on this page since the snow is long gone and when we rode yesterday I noticed that the apple trees that were in the old picture are about to bloom. Time marches on whether we are ready or not. The photo I chose for the banner is one I scanned on the weekend when I spent the day at my Mum's house looking through old albums. We are putting together a Memory Book for her 70th birthday later this month and I was in charge of discreetly making copies of her pictures. I gave up on the discreet and finally told her I needed to dig out all the albums. We sat together as I scanned and laughed and talked about the pictures. She and her parents were avid photographers although, truth be told, they took fantastic nature shots but crappy shapshots. Many of them were original 3x3 prints and not great quality but my brother who is putting together the book assures me he can "antique" them or something so they look cool, not out of focus.

It was a bittersweet day, my parents divorced 15 years ago after 32 years of marriage and no one ever really understood why. It was hard going through all the old family photos especially the ones of them together. They were so young, my Mum was only 24 when I was born and I realized as I looked through the years that she only a year older than I am now when I got married.

The photo is of the farmhouse where I grew up in one of its earliest incarnations. It was added on to many times, the front porch was redone in a style more befitting its Georgian roots and the gardens became more and more elaborate. I love the photo because it shows how simple things were when my parents first moved us out of the city to what most people then considered the sticks (it's now hemmed in by subdivisions). Mum stayed there after my Dad moved out for a few more years before she sold it and built a new house. The farm was the most incredible place, the centre of our world no matter how far we travelled (see previous post). My Other Half and I moved back in several times in between houses and my Mum made sure we always had a room. She actually left our childhood rooms much as they were when we were growing up. My had the same striped wallpaper and floral trim along the ceiling, the only change was she put in a queen sized bed for us.

Last night I asked my kids for their memories of the farm where they spent weekends and holidays with their grandmother. It's strange to think that they don't associate it with my Dad even though he was one the one who physically created it while Mum gave it soul. He was the engine and she was the heart. He built the riding ring, taught me to drive standard in the back field while she threw wonderful parties and welcomed all our friends. We used to joke about the "broken wings" Dad would find and bring home for Mum to look after. People having a tough time in life who would come to the farm and stay for as long as they needed to. Dad would travel, climb mountains, write books about it then return home to sit by the fire and talk with us or be at the head of the table expounding on his views while she was close by in the kitchen with friends putting together wonderful meals or making sure there were fresh flowers in the bedrooms.

Now that I am a wife, mother and have my own house I appreciate all the more what my Mum created at the farm. As a high school friend of mine said when I asked a few of them for their memories of Mum,

"We always knew that everyone was welcome at the farm, you never knew who would be there as it was a place people passed through, stayed to heal or came to feel the energy of the fun nights. That spirit of acceptance that Swebbs embodied permeated the farm and meant that, by extension, we all somehow felt that you could be yourself."

I worry that our house and, by extension, me are not that welcoming and accepting place for my kids and their friends which I know is so important as we go into the turbulent teenage years. My OH and I say that we want the boys to always be able to call home for a ride or help and we wouldn't question them. My parents created a safe haven for so many people but most importantly for my brother, sister and I and it's so important that we do the same for our children. And I know it's not the physical place that is important, it wasn't the farm because it had lots of bedrooms for people to crash or an indoor swimming pool or a barn full of toys. It was the feeling that my parents created whicheveryone experienced when they visited whether for an afternoon, overnight or a month. I've used the phrase "A Sense of Place" as a label for some posts but it was more than just the place, a farm is just a farm, a cottage just a cottage and an house isn't a home unless someone makes it one.

Wabi Sabi

In yet another case of I'm still thinking while someone else is actually doing, I had been pondering a post about the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi Sabi which means to find perfection in imperfection which has been my mantra ever since a friend who lived in Japan for four years gave me a book about it. Of course just as I was mulling over whether to take my own photos to illustrate the post or just go on line and find someone else's I came across this Design Sponge post which explains and has the perfect (no pun intended) photos of what Wabi Sabi means. I found another post explaining Wabi Sabi more as a philosophy of living rather than just one of decorating. I love the idea that, "Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It's a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It's a richly mellow beauty that's striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time - Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe." I always wanted to be Katherine Hepburn, elegant in trousers and a simple white man's shirt while my next door neighbour styled herself after Marilyn Monroe.

In my life I have evolved from a teenage girl who wanted nothing more than a room that "matched" to become someone who embraces the bits and pieces my Other Half and I have collected over the 22 years we have been creating home together. But I certainly didn't appreciate this growing up in a 150 year old farmhouse decorated with antique pine furniture and my mother's own unique style. In short - nothing matched. When I was 13 I went to school in the city and met a girl who became a life long friend and spent most of my time at her house which, of course, matched. Her mother had a wonderful style, formal yet comfortable. She used bright colours and had fabrics on the couches which had names like chintz and toile. Their kitchen was white and in my eyes, modern. Ours was dark and country. While my parents collected unknown (at the time) Inuit sculpture and native art, my friend's mother adorned her walls with up-and-coming and even famous artists.

In hindsight, of course, I can now appreciate what my parents created at our farm - a warm and inviting place with wonderful pieces of furniture scarred and battered with use by my brother, sister and I as well as many families before us. I have many of those pieces in my house now and they all have a story to tell. My own decorating philosophy, such as it is, begins with, " Is something useful and does it belong?" Meaning, not that it matches but because it looks at home. Of course all of this lofty discussion takes place in my head and isn't always easily translated to my home because of either time or money and I certainly have made some mistakes since I "decorated" our first apartment 22 years ago. We have gone from city to country, apartment to semi-detached house to bungalow to building a timber frame house in the country back to city and now Cape Cod-style in a small town. The first couch we bought was a high backed, over-stuffed, chintz-covered monster that hasn't fit anywhere after we sold the timber frame house. It will finally be liberated from our storage locker and moved to the office of our new workshop which has knotty pine walls and appropriately enough used to be the home of a timber frame builder.

We are currently in the process of transforming the basement playroom into a "Boy Cave" for our sons, namely the eldest who when asked why he wasn't inviting his friends over much replied, "because downstairs is a dump." At first I wanted to scream, "Well then why don't you guys clean up more often?" but then I saw his point. When we moved from the city the boys were 5, 7 and 9 and it was full of toys that now lie forgotten for the most part and the room centres around the TV and video games. So we bit the bullet and bought a giant sectional couch, fake leather that is easily wiped off and the cushions which are permanently attached so that mac & cheese can't be hidden under them. Now all five of us can sit comfortably and watch a movie together and the boys can have friends over and not be embarrassed. We have also moved their rooms around and I have given them free rein in their decor. So has any of my own personal aesthetic rubbed off on them? I'll let you decide.

Number One Son's Room (still under renovation)

Number Three Son's Room

Number Two Son's Room

P.S. I have no idea why the typeface decided to change, I guess maybe that's just another example of Wabi Sabi.

More Scenes from the Island

We'll be heading up north again this weekend to help my Mum with her Dock & Boathouse sale and then packing up what she is taking home. It is going to be bittersweet with lots of old friends dropping by but I know it is for the best. She will be able to concentrate her energy on creating yet another warm and welcoming home at her new house without worrying about whether the cabin made it through the winter or if the boat will start.

Here are a few more photos of this very special place.

The End of an Era

On the weekend we went up to open the cottage and to help my mother move out of hers. We are very lucky to have had two places up north that have been in the family for over 60 years. My mother's family runs two summer camps and she inherited her parent's cabin on one of the islands owned by the camps which she moved into after she and my father split up 12 years ago. My father kept his family place on the next lake where I grew up and where my children have spent all of their summers. We would visit back and forth and the boys would go for sleepovers with their grandmother giving me a break to enjoy the peace and quiet which Algonquin Park is famous for but which we don't get much of when the brothers are in residence.

The little island was a magical place when I was younger. We would go over to visit our Geeya and Bompa and have cookouts on the point, catch fish off the dock and watch for the moose across the bay at dusk. My boys have enjoyed the same things with their Geeya There were never any fancy toys or boats but lots of imagination, make believe games and stories told. My grandparents enjoyed the luxury of having the workmen at the camps help them haul their groceries over to the island, they even had their laundry done at the camp but my mother has done this all on her own for the past 12 years. And finally at age 68 she has had enough. She recently built a new house and wants to spend more time there, working on the garden and making it home.

So the time has come to cull through 60 years of memories and memorabilia. Not to mention all the junk. My grandparents grew up in the Depression and they lived a very frugal life. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle wasn't a slogan it was the way they lived. They reused every plastic bag and the waxed paper from cereal boxes. Anything that didn't leak was a planter, their clothes weren't vintage, they were original. My mother lives very much in the same way so cleaning out the cabin is a huge task. There are mildewy books on everything from mushrooms to the painter Tom Thomson who drowned on the lake. Gorgeous black and white photographs of campers from the 1940's through to colour prints from the 70's. In the boathouse we found a dozen wooden paddles made from maple and cherry as well as a gorgeous cedar strip canoe that hadn't been in the water in a decade. The weathered logs which form the cabin walls are covered with paintings, birch bark birthday cards and macrame hangings, my boys each chose something to take home.

There wasn't any one thing I particularly wanted, the island wasn't about things, as I told my middle son the night before as he lay crying and asking why Geeya was leaving it. It was about the people - our family, the generations who were there before us. A friend once wrote in our cottage guest book, "You are so lucky here. You have such a sense of place." That is what the island gave us, a sense of place in the world no matter how far we travel. And while my mother is leaving it physically, she and her parents and her grandparents will always be there. I don't know if we will go and visit the cousins who are taking it over, the families are not that close but it would be interesting to see what they do with it. I can't imagine they will keep the separate bath house or the tiny kitchen with only a hot plate and 30 year old microwave to cook on. I can't imagine they will knock it down but no matter what they decide in my memory it will always be a little lopsided, in need of a coat of paint with tiny pine trees growing out of the cracks in the rocks, hummingbirds flitting from daylily to daisy and the sound of children laughing with their grandparents.

The last days of summer

It is September 5th, Saturday of the last long weekend of the summer of '09 and while it is nice that we are still at the cottage during the first week of September, especially when I know that many kids went back to school last Monday here in Ontario and most American schools started a few weeks ago, it is still hard to say goodbye to summer even when you are 43 years old.

This summer has been an odd one for our family with a lot less time at the cottage. The boys were at camp in July and my Other Half and I were busy at work so we rented out the place to help cover our costs. We are lucky to have a family who takes it for three weeks every July and loves and understands it's 60 year old quirks and eccentricities. And where we live on the shores of Georgian Bay is cottage country to many people who travel up from the city to go to the beach or hike or bike. It's a tough life at home but there is something about being in the place you grew up.

The cottage is the one constant in my life and I hope it will be in my children's too. It is where I learned to swim and drive a boat (oh, the freedom of a tin boat with a 9.9hp motor on the back), it is where I smoked my first cigarette which my friend and I pilfered from my grandfather's ever present open pack. It is thanks to those Rothman's Extra Long + Extra Strong that I never smoked again. It is where I brought my first serious boyfriend and where my Mum told us to stay out of the sleeping cabins, "If there is anything you want to do you can do it in a canoe." I will definately use that line on my boys when the girlfriends start appearing. And it is where I brought my someday-to-be husband to pass the test of fishing with my Dad, playing cards with my grandmother and falling in love with the place that means so much to me.

The summers of a young mother spending nine weeks straight on the lake are gone, filled up with soccer tournaments and work. The long days of toddlers and babies splashing in a tiny wading pool on the dock and then graduating to jumping off in flourescent orange life jackets are over. Those long , hot afternoons of reading while children napped and then putting them to bed before the sun set so the adults could talk over many glasses of wine have been replaced by non stop lifeguarding as the boys paddle and swim across the lake to friends' cottages and serious fishing trips to catch the monster bass that has illuded four generations on this lake. We are ready to go to bed before the kids and can barely stay up to watch a meteor shower from the dock these days.

But the feeling is the same as I cross the lake for the first time each year. It is of peace descending like a gentle mist enveloping me no matter how frazzled I feel after packing the car, driving three hours, unpacking the car and then loading the boat. It is the memories that come from the water, the trees and the air here that have made me who I am and are helping to shape the men my boys will become. A shared conciousness with their great great grandparents that has been passed down through five generations. A sense of place, of where they come from and who they are.

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