Well, I can't seem to get a photo to attach, but who needs it when they can go look at HHH?

Hollister, what hath thou wrought? How groovy are your kitchen ideas? How hard is it not to want all this yummy stuff? Geez louise.

And I love it that Mrs. Blandings (see comment) and brilliant Porter Hovey are looking at the tile floors...and the bathroom fixtures. I've been know to do that once or twice (and the looks you get when you take just a few snapshots of floors and fixtures...my goodness!). Wondering if I should publish my infamous Red Bar bathroom ("I just want to remember the magnificent color you picked, Kirk") shot, or the one in the women's wc at the New York Public Library, where I was so taken by the marble sinks (as dear T.D. said, "You could have a bat mizvah in there"). 

Good design is everywhere, thank heavens. And Hollister and Mrs. Blandings and Porter have quite the knack for finding it.  

Btw, if you didn't see the Astor Resurrection: here it is. To die for. I have long lived for the Thursday New York Times, as it has both Style and Home. What more could you ask for?

Jane, I'm glad we did your kitchen in walnut and white, with scads of good marble and warm floors. So glad.

MY GOD IT'S FULL OF STARS

MY GOD IT'S FULL OF STARS, by Cyclops-Optic:

this work is simply amazing. A brilliant artist.

The San Francisco Flower Mart

Went the other day with good friend Gayle and these made me want to do a wedding, with flowers like this, and a brilliant and charming bride and groom...

There were seas of hydrangeas. Continents of color. It was heady and somewhat overwhelming and deliciously glorious. And it smelled good, too, like the old days when the florist opened his glass-fronted case and the cool sweet perfumed air rushed out and wrapped you up in it...

Above, the recipe for a perfect thanksgiving table. Just add turkey. And cranberries, on the side.

In green and white, Gayle's impeccable picks...she has wonderful taste...the orange flower stuck it's head in, but only for the picture.

I sort of wanted to just take everything home and start events-r-us.

Strawberry Blonde

This morning, found myself staring at the art of Carl Larsson and thinking that his rendering of linens, bedclothes, garments, and thus and such was magnificent, as well as timely and--that old chestnut--classic. (The above version doesn't do justice to the color. Will hunt for better.)

Wouldn't you love to have the stripey curtains tucked behind those Swedish beds, or draped in that domino-esque way on the ceiling? Those little red wool tufts hanging at perfect intervals above it all? Is this not magic?

And, below, there's a strawberry blonde on a sled that makes me miss my sister...but not those long northern nights that we knew in Germany.


Do you remember the smell of melted ice on wool, mittens with a slight crust of snow from the lunky snowman we tried to roll together in the yard? Pinecones worked pretty well for eyes, and there was always a sprig of cedar for a lame little arm or two. Carrots for noses were not so easy, so a rock often sufficed. And, since they were there again, more pinecones for the smile. By the time we got to putting him all together, it was sort of done already...wasn't there a cup of hot chocolate waiting for us, maybe? Shouldn't we just plop his head on, stick those pinecones well in, and go somewhere warm?

I love the pale sun working it's way through the frostridden sky. And I miss that strawberry blonde, and her parents.

Love to all in Virginia, New York, Germany and elsewhere.

Happy Day! Our Table is Featured in California Home+Design

a little snapshot from the table

created for

Holidays on a High Note

also featured on

California Home+Design

design: victoria thorne

& here or here

Russian Children, 1909 and The Color of Truth

It's so out-of-context to see- in shades that are true-

color photographs that are 100 years old.

We're used to the old black and white;

often gorgeous yet utterly drained of hue.

A bit of a shock to look at these and remember

that what we're accustomed to seeing

was just part of the story. The part without color.

And what might be more important than real color

for telling a true story?

Young Russian peasant women

near the small town of Kirillov.

Photographer to the Tsar:

The photographs of

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

(1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of

a lost world -- the Russian Empire

on the eve of World War I

and the coming Revolution.

Children sit near White Lake

in the north of European Russia.

"Born in Murom, Vladimir Province, Russia, in 1863 and educated as a chemist, Prokudin-Gorskii devoted his career to the advancement of photography. He studied with renowned scientists in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris. His own original research yielded patents for producing color film slides and for projecting color motion pictures. Around 1907 Prokudin-Gorskii envisioned and formulated a plan to use the emerging technological advancements that had been made in color photography to systematically document the Russian Empire. Through such an ambitious project, his ultimate goal was to educate the schoolchildren of Russia with his "optical color projections" of the vast and diverse history, culture, and modernization of the empire. Outfitted with a specially equipped railroad car darkroom provided by Tsar Nicholas II, and in possession of two permits that granted him access to restricted areas and cooperation from the empire's bureaucracy, Prokudin-Gorskii documented the Russian Empire around 1907 through 1915. He conducted many illustrated lectures of his work. Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, and eventually settled in Paris, where he died in 1944."

Photos and Quotes: Library of Congress

Thanks to Mena Trott's wonderful Dollar Short:

Turn of the Century Autochromes for inspiration.